Yesterday, Tuesday, I saw a cable television report which stated that the British are increasing their military budget. This would be in response to the new American president, Donald J. Trump, who is talking as if he is more interested in being friends with Russia than in maintaining America’s traditional defence arrangements with Europe.

This morning, Wednesday, it sounded to me as if the lady Sandra Coye was saying on Mose’s morning show that the British would be cutting their spending on defense arrangements with people like us Belizeans in the Third World. That’s at the same time that they would be increasing their overall military budget.

I think the British Prime Minister may be visiting Trump in Washington this week, just a few days after the French president, Mr. Macron, held talks in Washington with Trump. Macron said at one point that Russia is only 1500 miles away from France, hence his nation’s concern about Russian muscle, intentions, and alliances.

Anyway, just a few days ago I was reading some of the 1975 issues of Amandala, looking for the beginning of a weekly series that I had been writing about a young Belizean couple called Rosalind (Ros’lin) and Dorian. 

Now, in the Friday, April 4, 1975 issue of Amandala, a page 5 article datelined LONDON, March 19 (1975) said: “The British Government announced today that it would go ahead with controversial proposals to cut defense spending to $11 billion over the next ten years. The plans include the withdrawing of two frigates stationed in the West Indies … Some of the moves would save relatively little money, but they demonstrate Britain’s determination to give up global commitments far from her own shore and from Europe.” It also stated that “Roy Mason, British Secretary of Defense, said at a news conference that because of economic difficulties Britain had to recognize ‘that our international policing days are over. We can no longer afford to patrol the world’s sea lanes.'”

Interestingly enough, the Duke of Edinburgh had visited Belize in late February/early March of 1975 at the same time that his wife, Elizabeth II, then reigning Queen of England, was being “welcomed and feted meanwhile in Merida, Mexico, a few hundred miles to the north of us.” For us Belizeans, this was a strange and troubling saga at the time. Why Duke and no Queen? Here is what Amandala wrote in our Friday, February 7, 1975 headline story:  “Conjecture as to the reason for the Queen’s ‘slide’ is widespread, but this much is certain. The people of Belize are definitely now more uncertain about our future, for Britain is now acting like an evasive, unmarried father-to-be who has intentions of disowning the child.”

Two months after the Duke left Belize, the Guatemalan government seized two tugs of the Belizean fleet and imprisoned captain Herbert Eiley and the crew of the Partridge. This is what this newspaper wrote in its headline story of Friday, April 18, 1975. “The sequence of events, as we were informed is as follows. Jimmy Lindo’s Partridge was hired some two weeks ago by Shell Belize Ltd. to take a barge of 100,000 gallons of fuel to Puerto Cortes in Honduras and to Puerto Barrios in Guatemala. On its return trip, the barge was loaded with 98,000 gallons of fuel necessary for factory operations.

“Under strange circumstances the barge sank in the Gulf of Honduras, outside of Belizean waters. The Partridge returned to Belize City and informed Shell Belize of the incident. After two days on dock undergoing repairs, the Partridge again sailed for Barrios with another shipment of fuel. Upon reaching Barrios, the crew under Captain Eiley were seized and locked down by Guat officials. The boat was also seized. Shell Belize was then informed that the salvaged barge would be released, provided that another tug of Belizean registration was sent to bring it into Belize City. So Shell Belize this time hired the Nigger Gal, owned by Louis Reyes, inheritor of Lester “Chico” Reyes’ fleet of tugs. On reaching Barrios, the Nigger Gal, its captain Donald Pollard, and crew members Anthony Ferguson, Errol Morey, and George Cayetano were also seized by the Guatemalan authorities. 

“Nigger Gal had left Commerce Bight about 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 8, and Shell Guatemala informed Louis she had arrived in Barrios. Saturday April 12 came and the boat had not returned to Belize City. So owner Reyes became concerned. He spoke to the pilot station in Puerto Cortes, who in turn relayed the message to Barrios Shell Guatemala, and was informed that the boat had been delayed and was waiting for her ‘clearance papers.’ Monday April 14, still Nigger Gal had not arrived in Belize City, so Louis wired to Shell Honduras for some information. Shell Honduras spoke to a Shell depot somewhere in Guatemala who said that it was too late on Saturday to get the clearance papers, but that the Nigger Gal was on her way. Tuesday April 15 and the Nigger Gal had not arrived. So Reyes went to the Shell Belize offices about 9 a.m. only to be informed that the Nigger Gal had been ’embargoed.’ No reason was given.”

Months went by, and Herbert Eiley and his crew remained imprisoned in Guatemala. The issue energized the Opposition UDP to the point where it began to inflame them. Remember, they had won six seats in the then eighteen-seat House of Representatives (coming only 17 votes short of three more seats). The UDP then went on to win the Belize City Council in December of that year, by a 6-3 margin. The ruling PUP had never lost the Belize City Council before.

As the UDP base became more and more angry over the Herbert Eiley matter, it appears that a certain amount of apprehension began to affect the PUP leadership. Except for a UBAD uprising in mid-1972, the PUP had always ruled Belize City where street muscle was concerned. In late July, Eiley was still imprisoned, the UDP was becoming increasingly aggressive, and the PUP responded with an incredible, unprecedented outburst of gun violence at a public meeting at Courthouse Wharf on Tuesday, July 29, 1975.

A PUP gunman pulled out an automatic .22 pistol while the PUP meeting continued. He went into a crouched battlefield position and fired at a group of pro-UDP hecklers who were across Regent Street inside Central Park. Four of the hecklers were hit, but fortunately there were no fatalities. 

In late October of 1975 there were Guatemalan troop movements which this newspaper began to report on. I was threatened with imprisonment by the then Director of Public Prosecutions, one Isa Peera, the same week that Eiley was sentenced to two years and eight months by a Puerto Barrios magistrate in Guatemala.

It was in this kind of climate that the Governor of Belize, Richard Posnett, famously told Belizeans on Radio Belize to “rest easy, sleep well,” as the British flew Harrier jump jets into Belize to send a message to Guatemala City.

1975 is fifty years ago. There are Belizean generations which have grown up since then who know nothing of that year’s events. In Guatemala, their children have been taught for more than 75 years that Belize rightly belongs to them. In Belize, the history of this issue and the dangers thereof have not been taught to our children.

One supposes that the issue, at the end of the day here, is petroleum and other minerals in the sea where the territorial waters of Belize, Guatemala and Honduras overlap. That is the confusion of the Maritime Areas Act of 1991. But then, what about the Sarstoon? What is the real issue there?    The bottom line is there are more and bigger guns west and south of us than we possess. In 1975, the British had to intervene to protect us, as a self-governing colony of theirs. Today, we are independent and we have no defense pact with anyone. To those who say the ICJ will be a “slam dunk,” we say that the world has changed right before our eyes. Britain is thinking about defending itself, hence the increase in their military budget. Belize is not as safe as we were in 1975. Straight up.