Belize’s flag flew at half-mast most of this week as the nation mourned the passing of Sir Manuel Esquivel, our second prime minister. The tributes were many, especially from members of the United Democratic Party (UDP), which he led to victory at the polls twice, first in 1984, and again in 1993.

The UDP has claimed that both Esquivel governments (1984-1989, 1993-1998) saved Belize’s economy, after the People’s United Party (PUP) had run it into the ground. By way of explaining why both his governments ended after one term, they say under his leadership the UDP didn’t “spend the money”. The UDP faithful so believe not “spending the money” cost them at the polls that when they next came to power, in 2008, under different leadership, they declared that it was “their turn”, and they spent the money, to put it mildly.

Belizeans believe that Sir Manuel Esquivel was an honest man. No political leader can get a one- hundred-percent-clean report, but it is the consensus that Sir Manuel was not a crook, and that he did not allow any of his ministers to claim the people’s properties as their own.
Most say Sir Manuel was miscast as a politician, and many say that greatness was thrust upon him. He was a career teacher, taught Physics at St. John’s College, and when he entered the political arena in the early 1970s it was with the tiny Liberal Party, which was formed by a group of businessmen. In 1973 Philip Goldson’s National Independence Party, Dean Lindo’s People’s Development Movement, and the Liberal Party came together to form the UDP. In 1983 Sir Manuel took over the leadership of the UDP, and one year later, in 1984, the party defeated the PUP in the general elections and he became prime minister.

Sir Manuel’s UDP took over a country that was assets-rich, but financially broke. Shortly after Belize gained its independence, on September 21, 1981, the world was beset by a recession; in 1982 the bottom fell out of the price of sugar, and by 1983 Belize’s financial reserves were way down, and we were forced into a standby arrangement with the International Monetary Fund.

This is the country that Manuel Esquivel took over when his party came to power in 1984. His answer to our woes was to ditch the PUP’s “mixed economy” for a more capitalist-type model. Belize has always been on good terms with the US, and he moved us into a closer embrace.

Millions of dollars poured into the country from the United States during the first Esquivel government. The website countrystudies.us, under the heading “Belize – Relations with the United States – Country Studies,” says that the “Esquivel government was eager to implement free-market policies to attract United States investment”, that “Belize was a beneficiary of the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI)”, and in 1985 alone we received US$25.7 million in assistance.

To curry favor with the US, Esquivel’s first government unleashed paraquat, from the air, on everything that looked like a marijuana field in the south and the north. No serious research has been done to find out the full impact of spraying paraquat aerially, but bee farmers blamed it for a massive fall in the production of honey that would last for years, and some observers said the resulting shortage of local marijuana led users of the herb to turn to the far more potent and addictive crack cocaine.

Manuel Esquivel’s first government oversaw the gobbling up of small banana growers by the big ones in the industry. No research has been done to find out if this decision was necessary, but it is a fact that from then, the banana industry, under the ownership of the big growers, has grown exponentially, to the point where its owners have emerged as one of the most powerful business groups in the country.

Manuel Esquivel’s first UDP government was the first to introduce sales of passports to rich folk in the Orient. Rich Chinese citizens were supposed to come to Belize with their talent and finances, to establish factories that produced radios, televisions and other electronic devices. Some of the funds derived from passport sales were used to build sports facilities in different parts of the country, but the factories never materialized. Instead, the new Belizeans from the Orient invested in the construction of large warehouse-type buildings and took control of commerce in the country.

The standout decision of Esquivel’s first government was the privatization of Belize Telecommunications Authority. In 1987 Esquivel’s government formed Belize Telecommunications Ltd., sold 25% of the shares to British Telecom and reserved 24% of the shares for Belizeans who wished to participate in the new company. It was the intention of Manuel Esquivel’s government that the Belizean people remain the majority shareholder in the company, forever.

Among other initiatives, the first Esquivel government increased emphasis on the tourism industry, invested to expand electricity supply and water services in rural areas, and opened the Coastal Road.

This newspaper fully expected that it would get a license to operate a radio station if the UDP won in 1984, but the UDP took over the PUP’s propaganda organ, Radio Belize, and cynically declared that any attempt by the Amandala to operate a radio station, would be met with force. The UDP has never come close to endorsing the teaching of African and Mayan history in our schools.

While in opposition, between 1989 and 1993, Sir Manuel Esquivel and his deputy, Dean Barrow, supported the Maritime Areas Bill, which caused a split in the party in 1992, but the factions reunited when the PUP called a snap general election in 1993, 15 months early. An unprepared UDP, under the leadership of Sir Manuel, rode a wild campaign promise of “free education, free land” to victory. The party doesn’t have much to show for its second term. Their response to a failing economy was to increase austerity, and when the tough measures they took failed, they retrenched around 800 public officers just before Christmas Day in 1997. In the 1998 general elections, the UDP suffered a massive defeat.

Manuel Esquivel wasn’t colorful, and at least once he was painfully cold with his management of our economy, but there isn’t anything in his legacy that says he exposed us to greedy foreigners or allowed ministers of government to raid our assets. Sir Manuel had his flaws, but he had a number of strong points, and for those we are grateful. It’s no easy job to be prime minister.

At the time of his passing, Sir Manuel Esquivel was 81 years old. Rest in peace and rise in glory, Sir Manuel. Amandala sends heartfelt condolences to his family, his party, and the people of this country.