by Colin Hyde

There are charges that the present government wasn’t that supportive of the Stake Bank cruise tourism project, that some leaders of the present government preferred throwing their support behind Port Magical, which remains a concept, and Port Waterloo, which was denied. I don’t have a grasp of any of the innards there, but enough is out in the open about government’s decision to acquire a parcel of privately owned land at Stake Bank for a public purpose, so I can weigh in on that.

I have to gulp when I agree with these daam PUP, but I have to support their decision which allows the project to proceed while it’s before the court. Some on the nay side question the legality of the acquisition. But government isn’t about influencing the court; all it’s saying with this acquisition is that we must respect the money that has already been invested. Some on the nay side say the government showed preference to a foreign investor. You know there are certain international ramifications that must be considered here.

While the government must protect every investor, it must be especially careful when dealing with non-Belizeans. The foreigner, a company from Honduras, has invested $270 million, or a great portion thereof, in our country. Countries break off relations if money from their country isn’t treated with the proper respect. I believe Xiomara Castro, the president of Honduras, would think very unkindly of our government if they washed their hands here.

No, no, no, don’t enter Mr. Ashcroft in this discussion. That man’s business story here is very different. And anyway, he is no British, he’s Offshoran.

The people here in 1797/98 weren’t British

For the record, it isn’t right to call the people here who voted in 1797, British. Some were privateer descendants who had spent time in Cuba, in jail; as Hart Tillett pointed out in his historical novels, some were exiles from the US south; and we know some were exiles from the Miskito Coast and the Bay Islands; and there were British here who had a clear path back to England if they desired. In the rigid American south, not all of those who voted kud a mi pass fu white.

The British in Central America and the years before the 1859 treaty

I have here a few excerpts from a story by Robert A. Naylor that is titled, “The British role in Central America prior to the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850.” The report I make here is not as up to par as I had hoped, and that’s because I have had difficulty picking up the book online a second time; but I think there’s enough here to better our understanding of the times. Of course, this period leads up to the 1859 treaty, and we know that and self-determination and occupation are big in our defense of the Jewel at the ICJ.

Okay. Naylor reports that from the time of Central American (CA) independence in 1823 to the 1850 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, “Great Britain (GB) exercised a preponderant influence among foreign powers in the development of the CA states; [and] GB was able, until 1849, to follow a unilateral policy in CA affairs, despite the fact that she had neither recognized the independence of those states nor established diplomatic relations with any of them.” Naylor said GB played a dominant role in the formative years of the CA republics, but historians have inadequately analyzed its role, partly because of a “complete disregard of economic considerations in their attempts to explain the objectives and motivation behind British policy.”

Rolling with some more snippets: “For the first 30 years of CA independence GB replaced Spain as the predominant power in the foreign trade of CA…GB was the obvious successor to Spain in the external trade of CA…GB took no action when it learned in 1848 that Guatemala and Costa Rica would consider becoming British protectorates, even though they were the only states on the Isthmus of commercial importance to GB.”

“It is doubtful whether the controversy over Belize would have assumed such proportions if the settlement had not played such a predominant role in the foreign trade of CA.”

The Wikipedia says Frederick Chatfield “arrived in British Honduras in May 1834. From then until 1852, with a brief break in 1840–1842, he represented the British government and the interests of British industry in Central America…In 1842 Chatfield was promoted to Consul-General in the Republic of Central America although the Federal Republic had in fact disintegrated the year before. Of the five republics in the former federation, Guatemala and Costa Rica were in the sphere of influence of the United Kingdom while Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua were in the sphere of influence of the United States.”

Naylor said Chatfield was accused by Liberal leaders in CA, and the US, of plotting with the Guatemalan Serviles (Conservatives) to break up the Federation (of CA), but in fact the British actively favored the Federation; that Chatfield saw British commercial interests best served by “the continuance of a unified CA as the best means of insuring the peace and prosperity he considered essential to the flow of British trade.” But, Naylor said, Chatfield later became disillusioned “with what he termed the impracticality and self-seeking of the Liberal leaders, and came to regard the Serviles as perhaps not being as detrimental to British commercial penetration…” Finally on this book, for now, Chatfield was alarmed in 1847 when the US declared its Manifest Destiny.

Of the man who pushed the 1859 treaty, Guatemala’s president, Rafael Carerra, Britannica says he was Mestizo, a Conservative who “took Guatemala out of the United Provinces of Central America, proclaiming it an independent republic”, that “under Carrera adventurers from Nicaragua led by William Walker were repulsed, two attempts by Mexico to annex Guatemala were thwarted, and the territorial expansion of British Honduras was limited”; and “Guatemala also attained a measure of ethnic equality under Carrera’s leadership, which included appointing Indians and mestizos to political and military positions.”

Where I was in 1981

Because I had rejected higher education (I read a lot but have a little allergy to being cooped up with “authority” within walls), I felt the thinking for my country on the political front was best left to the classroom bookworms. Time and many things would make me change my course, but in 1981 I was as far from the frontlines as you could get. The following about where I was in 1981 is excerpted from an unpublished piece:

In 1981, we became an independent country and the lead up to that had been tumultuous. In March 1981 our leaders went away to London and returned with the Heads of Agreement, a proposed solution to the Guatemalan claim on our country, which had been blocking our path to independence. The majority of Belizeans thought our government was giving away too much, and when the government dug its heels in, there were confrontations that spilled over into riots.

There was insurrection countrywide, particularly in Belize City and Corozal Town, and in April the governor declared a state of emergency from the Hondo to the Sarstoon. The government side was saying full speed ahead, and the main opposition party was saying, not so fast, let us pressure the British to get this Guatemalan claim off our back first. I was relatively well informed about what was going on because I read the Amandala and the other newspapers, and listened to the news on the government’s radio, Radio Belize, but I was very much divorced from the chaos. Many young people were involved in resisting the Heads of Agreement, but at the time I was worrying about pests that were attacking my crops, and the marketing of my produce.

There was much activity in Belmopan on the approach of Independence Day, which was set for September 21, 1981, and some evenings after I’d washed the earth off me I went out to the rallies to hear what those for and against the bold step were saying. I felt I didn’t have enough information to be pro or con, but I was leaning with the main opposition party’s position, because that was the party I supported. I remember one night one of my mentors, Carlos Santos, asked me what I felt about independence, and how disappointed he was when I expressed reservations about the 1981 move. There was no stopping the train to independence, however, and I took a day off from the farm to attend the ceremonies at the foot of Independence Hill.

Happy Independence Day, Belize!