by Colin Hyde

Yes, I apologize to Brother Hugo Patt for not giving him his due on the Taiwan score in my Tuesday column. For those of you with forgiving hearts, here’s the anatomy of the crime, why I said he abstained when he said aye.

I usually do the first draft of my Tuesday column on Saturday, revise it on Sunday, and give it a final look when I wake up on Monday before sending it to the desks of the editors around 7:00 Monday morning. I wrote that piece on Sunday. I had a most manly Independence Day on Saturday. In the morning I went to the field and dug some plantain bits. I had a bath when I came home, and then I listened to the speeches and the cultural presentations. In the afternoon and evening, I played patriotic songs and drank rum, green ting, and beer. On Sunday morning, I did my draft. On Sunday afternoon, I had it right, with Hugo’s little redemption. Ah, that article had four parts, and on Sunday evening, while tweaking it, I couldn’t get over how many times Hugo, under the direction of his lawyer, Dean Barrow, abstained from answering questions from the Senate Select Committee.

When I got to the final part of the article, my little mind said, wait, you have it wrong: Hugo abstained. I actually congratulated myself for picking up on the “error” as I went about making my, ehm, corrections. On Tuesday evening I got a communication from the great Marisol, telling me I had pulled a Light Brigade. My apologies, Hugo. Que viva nuestra amistad con Taiwan!

Raining on the defense lawyers’ grand parade

The story about is that the defense lawyers had a big powwow and at the end of the festivities they formed an association and elected an executive. I guess the next step is that a yard-long list of the names of the Perry Masons and Ben Matlocks will be published.

Now, you know that criticism is to die for. It keeps you on your toes, makes you better. The defense lawyers have been providing this invaluable service to the Police Department for decades. Well, without any thank you, and receiving and expecting no appreciation, this corner has been hibbing words at these defense lawyers, for the purpose of making them look within themselves, an absolute necessity if one wants to improve and do right.

The police, they’ve been that way, incompetent, for over two decades. That’s what the defense lawyers and lawyers who are friendly with defense lawyers tell us. Talking prior to the introduction of murder cases by judge, these defense lawyers ignored the fact that jurors think differently nowadays, that jurors of today are seriously scared, and that witnesses don’t come forward anymore, for fear of being murdered, as some have been. All the blame for our failure to bring people who committed this crime to court, and our failure to get convictions in court, they put on the police.

The records show that between 2002 and 2021 there were a terrifying 2,226 murders in our country. Who is going to research to find out in how many of those cases people were charged, and how many of those who were charged were found guilty? Who’s going to do the research to find out how many individuals who were acquitted were later murdered, and who’s going to do the research to tell us in how many cases police fingered somebody but couldn’t get enough evidence to go to court, and how many of those individuals who were fingered ended up murdered, or fingered again for another murder?

This monster, street justice, is our creation. If the police were inadequate for the situation, the defense lawyers shouldn’t have just criticized them, they should also have used their vast knowledge banks to help them. When people say the British would never have allowed such a terrible slide for a country that sings that it is a tranquil haven, they call them Anglophiles. Talk, we know lawyers can talk. They have their brilliance.

Glen said we (Kriols) “were shortsighted!”

In the second of his two pieces in the Friday Amandala, Glen, like the Apostle Paul who had an epiphany, said he had changed views he had held for a long time about the place of the Kriol and the number of Kriols in our country. We know that at the time of self-government, the Kriols were the majority tribe in Belize, but today they are only 25% of the population.

Before getting into the arrows slung from Glen’s bow, I must remind us that the Kriols, though then the majority, at no time had any real power here. We are the product of enslaved Africans mixing, some of them not freely, with the other people who lived in the Bay. This mixing has never stopped.

Looking at the power realities, I have often wondered how it came to be that there were two black men on our first flag. I got that information, about the two black men on the flag, from research done by Brother Ismail Omar Shabazz. I say, it is important history, not ever to be removed from our records, that originally they were two black men, slaving in the forest. There is more to talk about our flag, but I will confine myself to the two men, because there has been some contention over one of them being whitened, like our African and Mayan ancestors were because of the coming of Columbus.

Our country has evolved. I’ve read enough to know that we are the greatest, most beautiful melting pot in da world. Personally, I would rotate the identities/colors of these men. I think Brother Spoonaz and Bill Lindo should have their day on the flag. On Indigenous Day, two brown men. On Settlement Day, two black men. Heck, even, ehm, women should have their day on our flag. Quarterly we should change our flag at the United Nations and at the National Assembly building.

Glen suggests that our other tribes might have been more patriotic than we, the Kriol, were. He said we took our homeland for granted. He said we thought we could leave, and everything would be the same when we came back. He said “we screwed up, changed Peter for Paul, and here we are! Watching from the sidelines as the Jewel goes on without us. So we look for someone, or something, to blame!”

The things Glen said, it’s a book condensed into a column. He was provocative, and it is to be hoped in our land of IGNORE that his words spark a conversation. Yes, I have a couple questions for him. There are things there to talk about, all for the greater glory of the Jewel.

Haiti and the UN

I don’t have a say in who leads Haiti, but from where I am, I say that any Haitian leader who attacks the UN is a little narrow in their thinking. Many dozens of countries around the world exist because of the UN. The UN stands as best it can between these big countries that have the bomb, and those of us that don’t. Those of us who know our category know that the UN is our greatest ally.

In 2010 there was a massive earthquake in Haiti which killed over 200,000 people, and the UN rushed to the aid of the country. There was a foul up, a couple people in the UN aid mission were carrying cholera, and in the desperate state Haiti was in, it led to a massive outbreak. Understandably, if one of your family members or friends was among the 10,000 who tragically died in the cholera outbreak or the over 800,000 who were sickened (those numbers from CDC), you will have some anger toward the UN. But if you will lead, you must put that aside, because leaders are for all, not for one. On no account should they attack the UN.

Haiti doesn’t have the bomb. After the Haitians routed French forces that occupied the island (Haiti got its independence in 1804), France demanded payment which Haiti agreed to, to stop further French military aggression. The US fought and won its independence in 1776, because it didn’t want to pay taxes to the British. It is for sure that the rest of the world’s powers were supportive of the Americans, and actually were key to their independence victory. But the world powers, all white – the British, Americans, Spanish – weren’t supportive of the Haitian victory over France. Thus, despite Haiti being independent of France, Haiti had/has to pay a massive tax that absolutely stopped their progress.

I close, for now, with this piece, “U.S. Invasion and Occupation of Haiti, 1915–34”, from the Office of the Historian. “Following the assassination of the Haitian President in July of 1915, President Woodrow Wilson sent the United States Marines into Haiti to restore order and maintain political and economic stability in the Caribbean. This occupation continued until 1934.

“The United States Government’s interests in Haiti existed for decades prior to its occupation. As a potential naval base for the United States, Haiti’s stability concerned U.S. diplomatic and defense officials who feared Haitian instability might result in foreign rule of Haiti. In 1868, President Andrew Johnson suggested the annexation of the island of Hispaniola, consisting of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, to secure a U.S. defensive and economic stake in the West Indies. From 1889 to 1891, Secretary of State James Blaine unsuccessfully sought a lease of Mole-Saint Nicolas, a city on Haiti’s northern coast strategically located for a naval base. In 1910, President William Howard Taft granted Haiti a large loan in hopes that Haiti could pay off its international debt, thus lessening foreign influence. The attempt failed due to the enormity of the debt and the internal instability of the country.”