As a young man, I had more ambitious ideas about what my career as a writer would have been, and so, I lived my life seeking experiences which would make me more compelling and credible as a creative writer. It turned out that I did almost no creative writing after 1977, and that was because I could not make a living in Belize as a creative writer. Hence, murders, robberies, rapes …
With that first paragraph, I’m introducing to you the account of an incident from those tense, frightening days in Belize City following the announcement of the signing of the Heads of Agreement around mid-March of 1981. (Such an incident would perhaps have become a part of some creative effort, had things worked out differently.) Between that Heads of Agreement announcement on Radio Belize and the declaration of a national state of emergency in Belize on Thursday afternoon, April 2, by the British Governor, the socio-political polarization of the country quickly reached the point where Belizeans were threatening Belizeans, and Belizeans who were feeling threatened began to say and do things of a deterrent nature, so to speak.
On Partridge Street, I personally was lying low, and almost never went downtown. The whole of Belize knew I was passionately anti-Heads. Once the violence in the streets began with the closing of schools and businesses by ad hoc force, and the various demonstrations and confrontations, I did not see downtown Belize City until the aforementioned Thursday afternoon, April 2, after the state of emergency was declared. In those few days, around the Treasury Building downtown had become like a war zone, with sand bags, gun placements, and armed military. Incredible.
I can’t say for sure whether the incident I will tell you about took place before or after the Governor’s state of emergency declaration. If I had to guess, I would say before. Here’s how it happened.
At the time in 1981, Bill Lindo was still in the printing business, and sold various kinds of printing supplies from his Belprint place on North Front Street near its corner with Mapp Street. One morning I needed some kind of material for printing purposes, so I got into my car, an old Camaro, without thinking and without accompanying security. I drove across Belcan to North Front Street.
The way Bill’s place was structured at the time, when you walked in the front door, the rest of the place was sealed off. So, all you would see was the secretary, Geraldine Swift, behind a glass partition. If you wanted to get into the rest of the building, where all the equipment, supplies, and the remainder of the working personnel were located, you took a door on the left (to the right of the secretary) which opened up everything.
I entered, greeted Geraldine, and opened the said door on my left, whereupon I saw Ray Lightburn (deceased), who was my compadre; Bill Lindo, who is my cousin on both my parents’ sides; and Danny Meighan, the “shorter Danny Meighan,” who was a Belize City Councillor in 1981. Those days, Danny owned a business on Barrack Road near Queen Street, and he was one of the ruling PUP personalities in the old capital who were openly talking very macho as the political temperature was rising. I think he had a shotgun displayed in his business during the Heads. (Belize being as small as it is, Danny was married at the time to one of my distant cousins.)
In an instant, only partly playfully, I put up both my hands, began backing through the door I had entered, and said, “Gentlemen, I’m unarmed.” This caution was mostly because of Danny, I guess. I stepped back far enough into the entrance corridor to catch a glimpse of Geraldine behind the glass partition, and I saw her eyes open wide in fear. She was looking behind me. When I spun around to my right, a PUP senior citizen (now deceased and whose name I will not call) coming through the main door had his right hand on his back pants pocket as if about to draw his gun. He had a snarl on his face, and was obviously in a state of serious anger. This was an individual who had behaved with great hostility to me some time before, and the moment was therefore scary.
Party politics being what it was, and you should remember that in 1981 the PUP had never been defeated in big elections, I don’t believe anything would have come of it if I had been shot. I am skeptical that way. This is how these things work out historically, as far as I know. I’m not trying to exaggerate the danger of the moment, because I did not see the man draw a gun. I know that the secretary Geraldine was quite frightened, and the moment was brief, but very unpleasant.
Geraldine migrated to the United States some years ago. She is visiting home, and we happened to meet briefly this week. She was in the company of some people who had come to my home on a business matter. We did not discuss the 1981 incident at Bill Lindo’s place. In fact, we never have.