A report to Amandala of a threat of death to a resident of Maya Mopan, a village just outside the City of Belmopan has turned into a classic case of “he say, she say,” in that the accused has visited Amandala herself to lay charges against her accuser, alleging a double case of “lust unfilled,” which was the original cause, she said, of the quarrel and violence that have come to characterize the relationship between these two neighbors.
On Tuesday, Ionie Reid, a former resident of Belize City who now lives in Maya Mopan among a mostly Hispanic village population, visited Amandala to complain that she has “evidence” that a Hispanic woman, her neighbor, was plotting to have her killed, and offered as an excuse that the woman didn’t like her because she, Reid, was black.
Elsa Claranza hated her, Reid said, and has been trying to get her out of the village, and failing that, was trying to pay a man to kill her.
On Tuesday, Amandala travelled to Maya Mopan, a village of reportedly about 7,000 residents, to try to get an understanding from Claranza as to the truth behind the allegation that she wanted Reid dead.
What we uncovered after talking to Claranza, her common-law husband and friends/neighbors was as strange a story as we’ve ever encountered, especially when on Wednesday afternoon, Claranza, her husband, and three of her friends travelled from the village to come to Amandala to offer a fuller version to their side of the story that was told to us when we visited Maya Mopan on Tuesday.
In a nutshell, according to Claranza, one “Don Julio” of the village, who had a wife, lusted after her, and Reid wanted her husband, and when neither could get what they wanted, they apparently joined forces against her, Claranza, telling lies to the police that repeatedly landed her in court, with the police harassing her at every turn on the basis of trumped-up allegations from Reid and “Don Julio.”
We begin with Ionie Reid’s version of events as told to us on Tuesday. According to Reid, Claranza doesn’t like black people, and is trying her best to drive her out of the Maya Mopan Area. Claranza, she said, has been gathering the Maya residents against her, making false police complaints, and she has gone as far as to hire a two “thugs” to do her harm.
She said that it all started years ago, when she was the first person to live in the Maya Mopan Area, when it was only bush. Reid said that she lived in the area peacefully, and she even made friends with all the people who eventually started to populate Maya Mopan.
According to Reid, four years ago things started to “go south” when Claranza moved into the area. She said that Claranza is a racist who doesn’t want her living there, she being the only black woman.
According to Reid, Claranza started quarreling with her for no reason; she would “throw phrase” and insults at her whenever she passed by.
According to Reid, Claranza then started to cause trouble with her on the street. She said that Claranza often threatened her, cursed her out, and tried to make her life miserable.
Reid said that when Claranza saw that she would not leave, she started to poison the minds of residents of Maya Mopan against her, saying bad things behind her back.
Reid said that she has ignored all of this, but things really started to go bad when Claranza started to make false reports against her to the police.
According to Reid, Claranza often told the police that she, Reid, assaulted her with weapons, and used threatening words. Police would then come and arrest her, press the charges, and when they went to court, nothing would come of the charges, because there was no evidence.
“She has often paid people to testify falsely against me, but the courts let the charges drop,” said Reid.
She and another resident, by the name of Julio Jimenez, known as “Don Julio,” started to record video footage using cameras from Jimenez, which they say show “conclusive evidence,” Reid says, that Claranza has paid them to kill her. According to Reid, the men have spoken to her, and they have confirmed to her that Claranza has paid them $1,000 to kill her.
Julio Jimenez, when we spoke to him in Maya Mopan on Tuesday, showed us a video that shows Claranza and the two men on Reid’s property. Though the footage is pixilated and very unclear, we viewed something that vaguely resembled a weapon in a plastic bag belonging to one of the men.
Don Julio lives directly next door to the Claranza family. He told us that he just moved there about 6 months ago with his family and in the time that he has been there, he has observed the way Elsa Claranza instigates trouble, and watches the “drama” unfold as she has steered it.
He got the video cameras to monitor the movements around his house, because he is a businessman, and he also wants to protect his family. He said that the “thugs” that Elsa has been associating with, will bring trouble in the Maya Mopan area.
According to Don Julio, the strife now in the village is the major reason for him to want to move his family out of Maya Mopan, even though he has invested thousands of dollars to get his home built, and that it’s in its finishing stages.
Reid said that she has brought all this to the media because, if she should be murdered, she doesn’t want the police, whom she says has not taken her reports or her evidence seriously, to sum up her death as nothing more than “old beef” between herself and Claranza.
Reid has even gone to great lengths to have residents sign a petition along with a Justice of the Peace to have Claranza removed from Maya Mopan, because, according to her and other residents, Claranza has been making problems for them by making false police reports.
Claranza, on the other hand, when she came to Amandala on Wednesday, has told us an entirely different story, and she was backed up by her husband, and three other residents of the area, two of whom are husband and wife. According to them, she is the innocent one, and Reid has been trying to make bad for her.
Claranza says that she and her husband, Jaime, and not Reid, was the first to live in the Maya Mopan area. Reid, she says, met them in the area about seven years ago.
Jaime said that Reid was trying to get her house built, and hired him, Jaime, who is a mason/contractor, to build her house. Reid, said Jaime, could not fully pay for his services, so she offered him a “country pay” and $100 every two weeks.
Jaime said that when he refused because of his wife, Elsa, Reid began acting like a woman scorned, and she made a false report against him.
Jaime said that Reid called the police and reported that he had a gun and pointed it at her common-law husband. Police reportedly arrested Jaime and pressed charges, but they couldn’t find any evidence, so they let him go after he was on lock-down.
Jaime said that because Reid couldn’t get him arrested, she turned on his wife.
Elsa told us that Reid has made numerous reports against her. She said that Reid often told the police that she (Elsa) assaulted her, that she has marijuana, cocaine, firearms, and all manner of illegal items. Elsa said that Reid even tried to get her deported back to her country of origin, Guatemala, but she (Elsa) is now a naturalized Belizean.
Elsa Claranza said that Reid has been gathering the residents in the Maya Mopan area, and has been paying them money to provide witness testimony against her when she is arrested. She said that when the police investigated the reports, they found that they were false.
Elsa said that when “Don Julio” Jimenez failed in his attempts to “get her”, he was determined to embarrass her, and have her arrested. Claranza said that she has been to court more than forty times because of Reid and Don Julio, and in fact, she is due to return to court on July 11, 2011 on one of the charges.
According to Elsa, Jimenez and Reid have joined forces against her and have tried to get video footage admitted in court as evidence that she has hired “thugs” to kill Reid.
She said that the police dismissed this “evidence” as nothing more than trespassing on Reid’s property. She also categorically denied having hired anyone to kill Reid. She said that what Jimenez caught on camera was that her husband told her to pay twenty dollars to one of the men for having done some yard work for him, and Jimenez, determined to defame her, filmed it and took it to the police, telling them that it was money being paid to the men to kill Reid.
We have contacted the police in Belmopan and the Police Press Officer who have told us that they’ve investigated all the reports made by Reid against Elsa Claranza, and they’ve found that the reports are false. Police have told us that they’ve cautioned Reid that if she continues to make “false reports” against Claranza, they will bring criminal charges against her.
Whatever the truth about these strange goings-on in the hitherto peaceful village of Maya Mopan, one thing is clear: the police had better get to the bottom of it all, before serious violence breaks out between these people.
It doesn’t have to be premeditated; all it takes is one drink too many, or a few moments of uncontrolled anger.