by Colin Hyde

There’s a story about a knot that no one could unravel until one Alexander the Great came by and took out his sword and sliced through it. They called that tangle of henequen a Gordian knot. Britannica explains that “Gordian knot” is a “proverbial term for a problem solvable only by bold action.”

Forget the past for a moment; present-day Haiti has a Gordian knot. We know the harsh truth about survival. Because of extreme poverty, and the lucrative drug trade, the country has spawned gangs, some sources say dozens of them, and they presently control many towns and villages. For some they are Robin Hoods, and for others they are robbing, murdering hoods.

Keeping our eyes on the present only, what we have in the mix here are foreigners with their considerable investments and interests, hopeful people who want to see their country on a path to peace and prosperity, and an explosion of gangs. Foreign investors will protect their pound of flesh; they have the wherewithal to do so. People who want peace and prosperity are like sheep; they only want some breakfast and a safe place for their children. It’s pretty clear to me, and I think the world, that for Haiti to have a chance, the knot that must be unraveled is the gangs.

The gangs didn’t endear themselves to us when they harassed our national football team in 2021. The story was all over, and I mean even in international media, as far as Russia. A report in RT said, “The Belize national football squad have been left ‘shaken’ after having their team bus stopped by an armed gang of motorbike riders in Haiti. The incident occurred when the squad were being taken to their hotel ahead of Belize’s World Cup qualifier.” The story included a statement from our FFB which said: “Despite the four-man police escort, the team bus was stopped by an uproar of insurgents with assault rifles on motorcycles and police escorts were forced to negotiate with them for the team bus to continue its journey to the hotel.”

Last week Jacqueline Charles, in a Miami Herald story titled, “‘The population is fed up’: Haiti archbishop warns leaders amid latest gang massacre”, shared that the Roman Catholic archbishop, Monsignor Max Leroy Mésidor, wants the authorities “to rein in the gangs, end their reign of terror”. Charles said the Catholic Church used to have a powerful voice in Haiti, but of recent they had stepped back after being targeted by gangs. However, after the latest bloody rampage, the massacre of 70 people in a village, the church can’t hold its tongue anymore.

Speaking to Haiti’s holdover government, Charles said the archbishop said, “What is it that you are waiting on to give the public the possibility to live in peace at home? How many communities are we going to allow to fall to show that we have sensitivity for the people?”

It’s a Gordian knot indeed that they have there, a tangled web. Those who think these gangs deserve more respect, I don’t know how they know who are genuine freedom fighters and who are just cartel.

The cartels are a product of the Americans’ war on cocaine, a drug that a segment of US society craves. I expect the best resourced gangs in Haiti are cartels.

I am sure there are sincere people with leadership potential in the gangs. They will have to put down their guns if they want to be a part of the solution. The difficulty there is that the people in charge might not want to give them amnesty. This is a tough one. This is what happens when we fail to nip problems in the bud stage.

Now, looking at the recent past, the US has some blame for encouraging enemies of former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide because he wasn’t averse to some socialism to save his country. Look, I’m with the archbishop. I’m with the Caribbean Community and Kenya to stand up for Haiti, help it unravel this Gordian knot. And I’m with the Caribbean Community and Kenya staying with Haiti to help our brothers and sisters realize a better life.

I believe most Belizeans believe Muslims have souls too

This statement by Brother Neri in the Reporter a couple weeks ago, “I support the Israeli state not because of anything biblical or religious, but because I know who their enemies are and what they represent”—he unfortunately is not alone in that view. Those of that view must be told that they might be living outside of the preamble of our Constitution.

The brother said he is not a religious zealot. We know about religious zealots this side of the world. They are people who believe that only Jews and Christians can gain heaven. People who call themselves Judeo-Christians wholesale believe that. People who call themselves Christians don’t. It’s incredible that there are people who believe that Muslims (you can add Bahá’ís, Hindus, all non-Christians) can’t gain heaven. You have to think your enemy is less than human to bomb their hospitals and schools, to murder and maim their children and babies.

My, I know who their enemies are. It could be that statement is confined to Muslim leaders in Palestine. If it is for Muslim leaders only, do we accept obliterating Gaza with all its innocents to get at them? The Pope doesn’t support that. Christians don’t support that. I say, there are many Jews, full blood members of the family of God’s chosen people, who don’t support that.

Our Evangelicals, wow, I’m hearing that they are planning another powwow to show their support of Netanyahu’s massacre. Please say it isn’t so.

Here are some important facts related to Israel AFTER it was carved out of Palestine in 1947. Palestinians were uprooted from their homes. If you were uprooted from your home, would you be very, very angry? I bet you would. There was a discussion, maybe a single discussion, about carving out a space in Belize for the Jews. Really, if you had been told to get off land your ancestors had lived on and developed for generations to make space for another people, would you have been happy? Would you have said, these people are Jews, God’s chosen people, give them what they want?

The Palestinians formed some alliances, and they fought Israel in 1967. Israel, which doesn’t have enough paddle to propel its canoe, fended off its enemies with the massive weaponry it had bought or built with funds it got from the US and some European powers. Of great help to Israel in the 1967 war was the division among its enemies.

Israel captured chunks of land from its enemies, and refuses to give up control in these areas. Israel should give that land back. If Israel was a Christian nation, it would have done so, because it would have had the understanding, the empathy to know that its enemies felt justified in their hearts to attack them.

The hostility in the region is increased because of Israel’s expansionism. Israel’s population is growing, and to satisfy that and achieve its other ends, it violates its neighbors’ territories. The world has called for the right of Palestinians to return to the lands where they used to live. I understand why in some areas there is some difficulty there. But I have zero understanding of this present Israel and its genocide.

It wasn’t good enough for Israel to come into being by uprooting people, they also allow Israel to empty its arsenal on its neighbor. If the US tells Israel to paddle its own canoe, it ceases to exist. We won’t go into why the US behaves the way it does. We are in the US orbit, there’s no question there, but sometimes they disappoint us terribly. Belizeans who buy into the madness really need to check themselves.