Our editorial criticisms in last week’s edition of our newspaper were directed at the institution of the Governor-Generalship, not at Sir Colville himself. As our readers know, he is a very talented Belizean, a good guy, and a fine gentleman.
In fact, we have a special respect for those Belizeans who risked themselves to challenge the People’s United Party (PUP) juggernaut in the 1960s. Sir Colville was one of these.
The 1960s were a time of uncertainty and fear amongst a large element of the majority Creole population, especially in what we now know as the Southside of Belize City, which is from where Sir Colville comes. Much of the uncertainty and fear had to do with the Guatemalan claim to Belize, and the ambivalent, almost cavalier, attitude towards it on the part of the George-Price led PUP governments of the time.
There was a class division amongst the Creoles being exposed publicly at the time. What was Belize’s version of a middle class, primarily comprised of civil servants, were thinking in one way, but the Creole working classes were thinking quite differently. Middle class Creoles supported Philip Goldson’s National Independence Party (NIP), while working class Creoles were solidly behind Mr. Price’s PUP.
Civil servants were the administrative arm of British colonialism, and they were a relatively privileged class in British Honduras. They were passionately opposed to any change in Belize’s British status and seriously alarmed at the Guatemalan claim. The working classes had come to detest the British. They appeared willing to consider a relationship with Guatemala, because they felt that anything was better than British colonialism.
Colville Young, an early graduate of the University of the West Indies, was a candidate for the NIP and then the NIPDM in the 1965 and 1969 general elections, respectively. He lost both times in the Mesopotamia division to the PUP’s C.L.B. “Lindy” Rogers. These were bitter and painful elections for Mr. Young. The PUP, as we have repeatedly pointed out to you in these pages, was at the absolute height of its popularity and strength in the 1960s, and Lindy Rogers, who had resigned from the NIP to join the PUP, was a truly formidable contender.
Incidentally, now is as good a time as any to let you know that we consider ourselves indirectly responsible for Sir Colville’s becoming Governor-General. Following Belize’s independence in 1981, the Governor-General would name a personal Senator to the Senate following general elections. It seems that it had become the practice for the newly elected government to instruct the GG, who was Dame Minita Gordon, another Belizean of versatility, excellence, talent, and the highest academic qualifications, on her appointment.
When, following the June 1993 general elections, Dame Minita independently named the publisher of Amandala as the Governor-General’s appointee to the Senate, the UDP, which had won a narrow victory in the elections, were truly up in arms. Not only had the Amandala publisher endorsed UDP Leader Manuel Esquivel’s opponent in Caribbean Shores, but the UDP had resumed the demonization of Evan X Hyde they had first initiated twenty years before, in 1973. The UDP were so outraged by her appointment that they had Dame Minita removed as Governor-General and replaced with Sir Colville.
That is our analysis of the events surrounding Evan X Hyde’s appointment to the Senate. We really regret having been the cause of Dame Minita’s removal. If it is not as we have traced, let the UDP leaders say otherwise.