Hi Chiclero! written by: Howard A. Frankson

11/26/201911/26/2019 / Twocanview LLC / 4 Comments

Reprinted with the permission of Howard A. Frankson

Editor’s note:

Howard Frankson provides a well written historical journey of the Chicle industry in colonial British Honduras (Belize); he introduces us to the people, the cultures, the lifestyles and how artificial gum extinguished the trade and the ethnology. He interconnects global warming, droughts and today’s refugee crisis at the US border and maybe a deeper prognostication for Belize.

Howard A. Frankson

My grandfather was not a fully-fledged Chiclero, but as a well-rounded farmer, hunter and bush ranger, he was immersed in their world and often represented them in their transactions with city folk and corporations. He would go with them to their camps in the forest, carrying ‘provision’ to maintain them through the season. In all this he was a quiet man, calm and unassuming, known to the world as “Boss Jim”. His wife, my grandmother, was the real power behind the scene, strong and assertive, she was the well-known matriarch “Miss Night”, and bore with combative composure, the weight of her large family on her small frame. At his farm in St. Paul’s Bank on the Belize Old River, or at his home on Cleghorn Street in downtown Belize City, where I lived as a child, while my father was completing his house in the suburbs, blocks of chicle stacked to the joists and attracted neighborhood kids by the dozen. The all-powerful company behind the industry is Wrigley, and their tasty products were called “Chiclets”. Chicle is the sap of the Sapodilla tree that was exported for the manufacture of chewing gum before the advent of artificial gum. Which supplanted tree sap gum and denied Belize a lucrative source of income. Processed in the forest, the sap was dehydrated by boiling, and formed into blocks of about forty pounds in weight. Appearing very much like the blocks of rock-salt that ranchers put out for their cattle, though more oblong or rectangular. Almost tasteless, we kids enjoyed slicing off chunks of chicle and chewing it for hours. My grandmother used to add sweetened condensed milk to the treat to make it more palatable. The sapodilla trees are long-lived giants of the forest, and to this day can be recognized by the patterns of crisscross scars carved into their trunks from repeated bleeding. The tree is a prime hardwood, which takes many years to mature, and so cultivating it was not an option. So the chicleros went into the forest, hunting out their locations and marking them for repeated visitation. Though the wood was of high value, their sap was worth much more, and the trees were never removed from the forest. The chiclero was a special breed of man who lived his life in the forest. Visiting towns and villages only as needed to refresh his stores, his ‘provision’, and collect his hard-earned pittance. As can be imagined, on such occasions groups chicleros gathered round tubs of rum to celebrate renewed acquaintance and exchange feats of daring, and exploits in the forest.

These men were not often large in stature, but wiry and strong, displaying scars of past misadventure in the forested interior of colonial British Honduras. They never dreamed, nor imagined the political intrigue that would one day transform their homeland into Belize from colonial British Honduras. And in the process, outgrow their wild and free nature. In the forest they would encounter jaguar, cayman, and snakes so large that they resembled the trunks of fallen trees in the undergrowth. They hunted tapir, known as mountain cow, deer, peccary, and wild birds beyond number. Beautiful creatures that today face extinction caused by excessive human intervention and increasing dislocation as their forest homes are cleared to make way for civilization. These men lived off the land and required little from the communities they avoided. A little sugar and salt, boots for their feet, working men’s clothes, a machete and scabbard. Shells for their shotguns, and rope to tie their bundles. They required a huge metal pot for concentrating their chicle, and wooden frames in which to mold it. All else they acquired from nature, and never took more than they needed. Strong men of honor, they lived by their wits and self-rule, and respected the law of the jungle, And woe be unto any man who would enter their forest and claim prizes for the sake of a trophy. The spoils of the forest were intended for man’s consumption, but only in as much as he needed.

The chiclero’s range was unlimited, he roamed wherever the sapodilla tree led him. Sleeping wherever night found him. Content in his role, a cog in a wheel he could never have recognized if it hit him. His produce traveled thousands of miles to satisfy the whims of a pampered metropolitan agglomeration. Which would eventually formulate its own rendition of the gum they chewed in distant contemplation of the little man who strove in fetid conditions, to make a life for his wife and his children. The chiclero was never anointed or remembered, but in his way, along with many other tradesmen around the world, built the foundation of an empire that spanned the globe. The British Empire was grounded in the sweat of small men who aspired only to fill the needs of each new day. To see their children grow and prosper, was all the incentive they needed to venture into the unforgiving jungle over and over, until the forest became so familiar, it represented home, and all they cared for. The chicleros were primarily descendants of the ancient Mayan Empire that occupied southern Mexico and northern Central America up to the year nine hundred AD when a great drought it is believed, subdued them. A people who mapped the stars and studied the solar system. Who created the long-count and three-hundred-and-sixty day calendars that foretold the passing of time with such impressive accuracy that they did not require a leap year to maintain their precision. The chiclero’s ancestry also included the descendants of African slaves who cohabited with the Maya in the seamless symmetry of life in the interior. In northern areas of the sub-continent, the assimilation has been so complete that not a visible trace remains of the Africans who once labored, side by side with the Maya, in service to European overlords.

In the years before the introduction of artificial gum, chicle was a primary commodity, and one of Belize’s chief exports. Belize, British Honduras, was an insignificant colonial outpost of the British Empire. The only English-speaking enclave in Central America, for years administered by Jamaica. Which was the most advanced of all the empire’s territories in the New World. Jamaica, and the city of Port Royal in particular, foreshadowed the development of North America, and was the launch site for expeditions to the various outposts of empire. While Belize, with a population under a hundred thousand, and in square miles more than twice the size of Jamaica, was an empty land whose great attraction was the incomparable figured mahogany extracted from her forests. Along with the mahogany came other hardwoods like pine, redwood, and zericote. It is believed that the indigenous Indians, while indentured to the service of the invaders, used to chew the sap of the sapodilla, and their oppressors appropriated the habit for their own distraction. Thereby introducing chewing gum to a receptive market, eager for dalliance in puny occupation. The Wrigley Corporation was once a big player in the administration of Belize. Along with the Belize Estate & Produce Company, BEC, they dominated the colony. BEC played a dominant role in every aspect of the colony’s daily ritual. The company exported the colony’s output and imported its consumer necessities. It held vast swaths of its territory through appropriation or lease and determined the course of its economic diversity. British colonial rule gave Belize security, and British Common Law ensured stability. In comparison, its Spanish colonial, republican neighbors live constantly in the throes of destabilizing revolution, and prided themselves in punitive machismo. Strutting bantams in a disheveled farmyard, dominated by an insecure plutocracy, from which its indigenous peasantry fled at the first opportunity.

In the years before artificial gum, when chicle had great value, the chicleros lived in or near the forest, and their lives were simple, rustic and ordered. Their children earned little education and so usually followed in the career steps of their elders. Their wives were the daughters of other chicleros, and their ambition, and that of their children, seldom excluded life the forest. When they were not bleeding sap from the sapodilla trees, they cultivated small plots or ‘milpa’. The ‘milpa’ were of corn, the staple crop of the Maya in the region, and they kept a few chickens and ducks. They had several dogs which accompanied them when hunting or visiting the sapodilla trees for bleeding chicle. A proficient chiclero usually had about a dozen trees in his region and complemented his production by venturing farther afield on occasion. These occasional ventures lasted several weeks, even months, and required much forethought and preparation. The heavy boiling pots were strategically positioned in convenient locations throughout the forest. Though a chiclero may have kept a small milpa, he was not a milpero by definition. A milpero’s corn fields were more extensive, he was domesticated in comparison to the chiclero, and slept with at least a thatched roof over his head, though adventures into the jungle were not uncommon. The milpero’s kids had educational opportunities, and many migrated to the cities. With the introduction of artificial gum, the chiclero’s lifestyle was extinguished, and with increasing commercialization of farming, the milpero’s too would soon follow.

Across the border in Guatemala, the milpas of yesteryear are today being consumed by a severe drought brought about by global warming. And as a consequence of excessive deforestation, which reduces the evaporation necessary for cloud formation. A predictable cycle of declination in the most impoverished communities lacking the technology to adjust to the changing climatic dynamics that foretell devastation. As the milpas burn, the milperos and their families flee, largely north through Mexico to America. Where tradition holds that the wealthiest nation on earth will afford them succor. But that was before a new administration that considering them less than equal confined them to cages on the border. Even though they may have had relatives in the country willing to support them. These relatives were not informed of their plight, or of their arrival. Nor of where they were being kept like animals. Families were divided, with the children kept separately. Children as young as six months old, deprived of their mothers, and kept in cages in filthy conditions with poor sanitation. Deprived of a proper diet or health care facilities. A fat-cat republican congressman observed in all his opulent obesity, that they were lucky to be where they were, as where they had come from was even worse. Yet, a girl-child refugee apprehended at the border when asked why she fled said simply, “food doesn’t grow there anymore”. She had had no choice but to flee the burning milpas, only to be caught in a cage along with thousands of others. Desperate human beings denied their dignity and forced to grovel for scraps at the tables of the rich. All in a place that once beckoned them with false hope and promise: “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free……” To whom did those words refer? And now, a picture of a father and his daughter drowned in the Rio Grande has gone viral for all to see the desperation that drives these people to flee the climatic conditions in Central America that those in Washington fail to accept as pertinent reality.

In my early years in British Honduras, in the years of the chiclero and the milpero, Belize was a smaller place, warmer and more intimate. Everyone knew his neighbor, and every neighborhood was a community. Where children frolicked freely, and the adults gathered frequently to exchange pleasantries, favors and gossip. The complicity of independence was a distant ambition visited most frequently by politicians. in the interim, they argued for internal self-governance and the right to determine our own future. And even after independence, the simplicity of existence was interrupted only by the certainty of hurricanes, which hit the country frequently, and Belize City every thirty years without fail. After the ‘sixty-one hurricane, Hattie, the administrative capital was moved inland to Belmopan. While the commercial capital remained in Belize City with the seaport and harbor. While still in Belize City, my father was the most senior civil servant in government, and after he retired, and became Director of US Peace Corps, we acquired a large parcel of land in the country with the intention of propagating citrus. To assist in its early development, we hired neighboring residents and complimented their income by encouraging them to cultivate their milpas on our land not designated for citrus. These milperos proved industrious, strong men of great integrity, and it was easy to imagine their predecessors hunting for sapodilla trees in the forest and bleeding them of their gum. Gathering round a fire, just as we did on the farm, and spinning wild tales of misadventure.

One tale in particular, is of a wily chiclero who had done exceedingly well and bought himself a bicycle which he took into the forest. He propped it up on what he took to be a fallen tree on the forest floor and went in search of sapodilla trees to bleed for their chicle. But the log on which he propped his bike turned out to be a snake, locally known as ‘wowla’. A boa constrictor of great length and girth, the largest snake in Central America, and one of the heaviest in the world. Constrictors are slow and not venomous, but their mere size makes them intimidating. Chicleros are used to encountering such creatures in the wild, but what good would a tale be if it did not provide drama and suspense? And death by slow constriction must be raw, painful and horrifying; so the chiclero in the tale ran screaming from the forest, and lost his hard earned bicycle in a place where it served no purpose. The moral of the tale being that one should never take such modern devices into the primitive jungle. Such tales, repeated often, gain an air of truth in the retelling. But no one could realistically imagine a chiclero being scared in the forest. He was born into its dark places and knew every one of its creatures and their habits. Hi chiclero, your time has passed, but your glory days will remain in folklore, fact and fiction. Small men of great stature, who knew no fear and paid no tribute to lord or master. Bra Ananci, were he not a spider, could well have been a chiclero, riding Bra Tiger’s back into the jungle, where his feats, though implausible, are recounted as for historic remembrance.

Howard A. Frankson — Belize

Hey America! by: Howard Frankson

11/25/201911/25/2019 / Twocanview LLC

Re-shared with the permission of Howard Frankson.

An urgent message regarding global warming and rising temperatures.

My grandfather was a gentle-man, whom everyone called “Boss Jim”, a successful farmer, rancher, and chiclero, who never spent his time procrastinating about the supernatural, or wondering about things beyond his control. Yet one night while he lay dreaming, something or someone came a-calling, and prompted him to start muttering in his sleep, saying “ghost? ghost?” and then shouting: “Oh hell, ghost!” Startled from his sleep he awoke my grandmother, who was a practical woman, brooked no-nonsense, and was called “Miss Night” for her jet-black tresses that flowed down her shoulders, reminding everyone of the phrase “Black-as-midnight”. She was no gentle-woman though and brooked no nonsense from her husband or any of her five surviving children. It was not uncommon for women in rural Belize, then known as British Honduras, to have many children, and lose one or two in or around childbirth. And a primary ambition of youth growing into adulthood in colonial British Honduras was the urge to migrate to the United States of America, then simply called “America”. America and Great Britain were, and still are, inseparable friends, and neither us or them, could have imagined a Donald Trump ever assuming the presidency of that northern country, with his policy of “America first”, which in effect translates as “America alone”; misrepresenting the words of the Statue-of-Liberty which say: “give me your tired, your poor, your hungry, yearning to be free.” Donald Trump cares not a whit for the fortunes of others. And even though no American bank will advance him credit, in his son’s own words: “they receive all they need from Eastern European sources”; namely Russia. Through Deutsche Bank. The assets of Russian oligarchs support his questionable endeavors and give them access to American markets, in which to launder their dirty money. “It is no wonder”, the press says, “that he never questions, or objects to, (Russian President) Vladimir Putin’s adventures on the global stage”.

Speaking recently, someone said pointedly that “Trump seems to suck all the oxygen from any room he enters into”, in which statement I agree wholeheartedly, and wish we could shift our deliberations to other subjects, which are crying out for attention. Such as “Global Warming”, which is not a new topic, but it generally does not receive the attention it deserves. In February, twenty-twelve, Valeria Espinoza posted a blog on Belize hosting a workshop for scientists from the region who were studying the effects of climate change on small island states. Though Belize is not considered a “Small Island State”, we do have many small islands that are affected equally with our mainland by global warming. The purpose of that workshop was for scientists to share their findings on the effects of the global phenomenon, and how it was impacting small economies like Belize’s. While Belize, in nineteen ninety-two, became a signatory to the United Nations convention on climate change, and as a party to that convention, the country reports on steps taken to implement necessary controls of greenhouse gas emissions. However, the country has stated that it does not want to follow in the unsustainable footsteps of the developed countries in their use of fossil fuels, and in the way they utilize their land resources. So, we are saying, “Hey America, yes, we want to aspire to your ultimate goals, but we’ll do it with a much greater understanding of what is required”. And, “it is generally accepted that the major industrialized nations like yourself, are the culprits of the phenomenon — this global phenomenon called climate change.” In fact, Belize is contributing less than one-thousandth of a percentage point to global emissions of greenhouse gases, and is in fact, absorbing more than we emit. “So we are one of the good guys in the convention; but unfortunately, we are one of those countries that are suffering the most from climate change. Being a low-lying state, we face problems of erosion and sea-level rise. Climate change is warming our seas, and affecting our coral reefs. It has caused pine bark infestation that is decimated our pine ridge forests. And it is producing outbreaks of dengue in the country, so in fact, we are facing the worst part of climate change, though we are not doing anything to contribute to it. So, we might say, the international community has a moral obligation to assist Belize in overcoming climate change.” The United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change was entered into force on March twenty-first, nineteen ninety-four.

Here is a simple definition of global warming: And yes Mr, Trump, it is really happening. Over the past fifty years, the average global temperature has increased at the fastest rate in recorded history. And experts say the trend is accelerating: All but one of the hottest years in NASA’s a hundred and thirty-four-year record have occurred since the year two thousand. Climate change deniers, like Donald Trump and his scientific cronies, have argued that there was been a pause or a slowdown. in rising global temperatures, but several studies, including a twenty-fifteen paper published in the journal “Science”, have disproved this claim, and scientists say that unless we curb global warming emissions, average US temperatures could rise by up to ten degrees Fahrenheit over the next century. In the United States, the burning of fossil fuels to produce electricity is the largest single source of heat-trapping air-pollutants, producing about two billion tons of CO2 every year. Coal-burning power plants are by far the biggest polluters and the second-largest source of carbon pollution is the transportation sector, generating between one and two-thirds billion tons of CO2 emissions each year. Curbing dangerous climate change requires deep cuts in emissions, as well as applying alternatives to fossil fuel in industries worldwide. Hey, America, the good news is that thanks in part to new energy-efficient technology, and the use of cleaner fuels, we have started a turnaround in CO2 emissions in the United States, actually decreasing from twenty-0-five to twenty-fourteen. And scientists continue to develop new ways to modernize power plants, generate cleaner electricity, and burn less gasoline while we are driving. The challenge, to be sure, is to put these innovations to good use and have them adopted universally.

Scientists agree that the Earth’s rising temperatures are fueling longer, more intensive, heat waves, droughts; heavier, unscheduled rainfall; and more destructive hurricanes. In twenty-fifteen for example, scientists said that an ongoing drought in California — the worst water shortage in that state in twelve hundred years — had been intensified by over twenty percent by global warming. They say that the odds of similar droughts occurring in the future had doubled over the past century. And in twenty-sixteen, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, announced that it is now possible to state confidently that certain weather events, like soaring heat waves, can be attributed directly to climate change. Ocean temperatures on the Earth are also getting warmer. This means that tropical storms, like those that frequent Belize, can accumulate more energy. So global warming could turn a category three storm into a more dangerous category four. In fact, scientists have found that the frequency of North Atlantic hurricanes has been increasing since the early eighties. As is the number of storms that reach categories four and five. In twenty-O-five, hurricane Katrina, the costliest hurricane in American history, hit New Orleans, and the second most expensive, Hurricane Sandy, hit the East Coast in twenty-twelve. The impact of global warming is being felt across the globe. Extreme heatwaves have caused tens of thousands of deaths around the world in recent years, and at our current pace, some experts say, will cause sea-levels to rise several meters over the coming fifty to a hundred years. Each year, scientists learn more about the consequences of global warming, and many agree that environmental, economic, and health concerns are likely to increase if current trends continue.

Melting glaciers, early snow melt, and severe drought will cause more dramatic water shortages and increase the risk of wildfires in Western America. Rising sea levels will lead to coastal flooding on the Eastern Seaboard, especially in Florida, Belize, and in other low-lying areas such as the Gulf-Of-Mexico, and some Caribbean Islands, including Bermuda and The Bahamas. Forests, farms, and agricultural projects will face troubling new challenges, heat waves, heavy downpours, and increased flooding: All catastrophic factors that will damage, destroy, or displace agricultural projects, fisheries, and industry. Destruction of habitats, such as coral reefs and Alpine meadows, could drive many plant and animal species to extinction. Allergies, asthma, and infectious disease outbreaks could become more frequent due to increased growth of pollen-producing plants, higher levels of air pollution, and the spread of contagions, and conditions favorable to pathogens and disease-carrying mosquitoes. In recent years, China has taken the lead in global warming pollution, by producing about twenty-eight percent of CO2 emissions. And Donald Trump’s United States comes in second. Despite only having just four percent of the Earth’s population, it produces an astonishing sixteen percent of all global emissions, as much as the European Union and India combined. The United States has taken tentative steps to reduce global warming. But in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change, it needs to do a lot more — together with other countries — to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, and to start using cleaner energy alternatives.

In twenty-fifteen, the US Environmental Protection Agency pledged to reduce by nearly a third, CO2 emissions from power plants, by twenty-thirty through its ‘Clean Power Plan’ initiative. But under the Trump administration, the EPA proposed repealing this plan to curb climate change. And similarly, while under the Obama administration, the US Department Of Transportation, DOT, proposed CO2 pollution and fuel economy standards intended to cut emissions into the twenty-twenties, but under the Trump administration, the DOT is working to roll back those clean vehicle safeguards that protect the climate and our health. Fortunately, state and industry leaders recognize that clean transportation must remain a priority if we are to address climate change and protect public health. Regional efforts are helping to boost the electric car market, which saw a substantial increase in sales between twenty-sixteen and seventeen, and Wind Power employment grew by thirty-two percent, while solar-power jobs increased by twenty-five percent. Globally, at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris, a hundred and ninety-five countries, including the United States, at the time, agreed on pollution emission reduction provisions, with a goal of preventing the average global temperature from rising more than one-and-a-half degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial age average. As scientists believe we must remain below a two-degree increase to avoid catastrophic climate change impacts.

And while in twenty-seventeen, President Trump announced that his country was withdrawing from the Paris climate change agreement to eliminate “harmful and unnecessary policies, such as the Climate Action Plan”, the American people are forging ahead without him. Through initiatives like the US Climate Alliance and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, America is still participating. And Climate Mayors, state, business, and local political leaders have pledged to honor and uphold the goals of the Paris Agreement. More than twenty-five cities in seventeen states, with populations totaling more than five million, have adopted resolutions that will enable them to produce a hundred percent of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar power. Additionally, a new initiative from former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has registered in Alabama to run for the presidency in upcoming elections, gives the urban sector of this movement a boost. He is asking mayors from the most populous cities in the country to share their plans for making their buildings and transportation systems run more cleanly and efficiently. The twenty cities that show the greatest potential for curbing dangerous CO2 pollution that’s driving climate change will share in a technical assistance fund provided by his philanthropies and partners. Individual efforts at curbing climate change can be achieved by making conserving energy a part of the daily routine. When shopping for refrigerators, washers, and dryers in America, or throughout the English-speaking Caribbean, choosing products with the US government’s “Energy Star” label that meet a higher standard for energy efficiency than the minimum federal requirements, can make an appreciable difference if a sufficient number of residents undertake to look for cars with the highest gas mileage and lowest emissions.

Howard A. Frankson — Belize

Dangers to ICJ by: Dr. Theodore Aranda

03/11/201903/11/2019 / Twocanview LLC / 3 Comments

Dr. Theodore Aranda

March 6, 2019

First and foremost, before Belize takes the very serious step of going into this dangerously risky ICJ/Guatemala/Belize case, Belize needed to have undertaken some very in-depth studies, analyses, research and investigations into all the possible flaws, weaknesses and vulnerabilities Guatemala could exploit and use to justify its claim to Belize. It is a must for Belize to definitively survey, locate and demarcate its borders and territory. Belize must secure and fortify its intelligence and defense to repel aggression. Belize should also have undertaken similar investigations into the 1859 and all other Treaties, discussion, agreements and/or understandings with the other nations concerned in the case.

Powerful and geo-political nations, such as the US, Britain, Spain (that was the colonizer Nation of all Central America in the early 1800’s), NATO Members, Africa, India, Mexico, Canada, SICA, OAS, UN and CARICOM all make public and international statements to put themselves in favourable international light while for other reasons and confidential objectives of their own they support and even financed quite different positions.

In January, 1962, Francisco Sagastume Ortiz and some armed supporters – – Guatemalan Flag and Constitution in hand – – crossed into southern Belize. The British were still around and repelled the intrusion, captured and imprisoned Sagastume and Gustavo Rosado. But by December of the same year, Britain, under international pressure released them. The question is what international influence(s) forced Britain to release invaders into a colony that by customary international standards it was obliged to protect.

For some years now the Adjacency Zone Issue has presented challenges to Belize, Guatemala and International Peace-making bodies. Guatemala has not only defied the solutions attempted, but it has further advanced into additional violations at the Sarstoon, providing for itself a position of swapping Belize’s western border for southern Sarstoon. We have had the 17 and 13 Proposals and the Heads of Agreement – all supposedly proposed as solution to the Guatemalan Claim. But under close inspection, they were all paths to cede Belize to Guatemala.

Now, Belize is faced with and is contemplating going to the ICJ with Guatemala. Guatemala – – Constitution in hand, its Military behind and deadlier in purpose – – is coming at Belize, with an unreliable and unpredictable ICJ to adjudicate. The Government Leaders of Belize, without the British to the rescue, are frustrated and confused about what to do, but yet are resolute and ready to lead the Nation into accepting to plunge into this extremely dangerous half-baked ICJ fiasco. It is a gross misjudgment and irresponsible analysis of the facts, be they direct or indirect legal or circumstantial.

What vulnerabilities and flaws in the Adjacency Zone Discussions have not only hindered progress in those negotiations but have only more enabled Guatemala to advance into the Sarstoon? One defiant and provocative incursion into Belize by Guatemalan officials may be considered a mere provocation. But more progressively bolder challenges demonstrate Guatemala’s greater confidence in the validity and the rightness of its claim.

The defense and security of Belize is intended to be uncompromising, inviolable, protected by domestic and foreign policies, competent and efficient intelligence backed by experience for delicate judgement to inform of and ward off incursions, legislative and legal practices to defend against abuse of power by national leaders. This held for Belize when it was a colony. It still holds for Belize now as an Independent Nation, which should unite as an Independent People with the resolve to secure our national future and welfare. Belize needs to declare emphatically and to aggressively internationalize that it is Belize’s basic and indisputable right and duty to maintain, nurture and cherish all its fundamentals and characteristics, its Sovereignty, Territory and Security. Belize gives no foreign entity any authority, jurisdiction or power to interfere with, alter or modify any of its fundamentals in any way whatsoever.

Belize went into Independence with some unresolved British flaws and vulnerabilities which now threatens Belize’s very existence, national security, sovereignty, boundaries and territory. It sounds so very easy that Guatemala will not recognize our flaws to take to ICJ. Just the frightening opposite is the most probable.

Way forward

Every single one eligible to vote to:

To save Yourself, Family and Belize

How to vote:

No to ICJ

To save Yourself, Family and Belize from Guatemala

Negotiate to strengthen the borders of Belize

So we are no more a Colonial Football

What next:

Work along with Competent Leaders

To develop Belize, You & Family

Remembering Julian Cho (April 6, 1962 – Dec. 1, 1998) by Jerry A. Enriquez

01/14/2014 / Twocanview LLC / 2 Comments

Jerry Enriquez

It was not the type of news that I was prepared to receive on December 1, 1998. But then, who can ever predict what will happen each day or any moment in life? The only permanence in life is its impermanence. We know not the day or the hour.

“Hilá numada” (My friend is dead) was all I could say when the Garifuna helper at my home wondered why tears were quietly streaming down my face as I reclined silently in my living room sofa with eyes closed trying to fathom the news of passing of my friend Julian Cho. She quietly handed me a glass of water and a handkerchief. After that hour of mournful reflection I emerged with a resolve to continue supporting friend’s work. It’s why I became a Board member of the Julian Cho Society and supported the struggle through the courts.

Julian’s life was cut short at 36 years old, during the prime of his leadership in the Toledo Maya Cultural Council (TMCC). His unanimous election as Chairman of that organization in December 1995 had turned the tide of the history of his people’s struggles.

For the first time in their history, the Mayas had found from among themselves, a highly educated, astute, and determined leader dedicated to social justice and human rights. His wasn’t the type of education that makes some academics live in their heads with apathy, egotistic detachment, fear and complacency. His formation fired him to a life of service. Hardly anyone realized the weight of his position. As a family man and with the full time high school teaching job that Julian had, the extra demands of voluntary work as Maya leader could stretch one beyond limits. The land rights struggle was local but its context global, stemming from centuries of a deeply entrenched system.

In his own unassuming but shrewd manner, Julian pursued a mission that was rooted in his history. He was born in the Maya village of San Jose in the Toledo District on April 6, 1962. As the sixth child of his family he was determined to overcome the cycle of poverty through education. We first met at St. Peter Claver College, a Jesuit high school in Punta Gorda. He was in first form when I was in fourth. (My other friend the late Andy Palacio, was in third form then.) Julian went on to further studies at SJC Junior College. As he contemplated the Jesuit priesthood, he pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy at St. Louis University, in the US. After a few years in the seminary, his path changed. He returned home, taught at St. John’s College, Sacred Heart College and Toledo Community College (TCC), and in 1992 became married to Magdalena Coc, Cristina’s eldest sister. They had two children. The height he reached was rare for any Maya of Toledo.

As a Maya leader, Julian had a remarkable ability to mobilize his people to voice their concerns over disregard for their rights to land. Callously and without consultations, the Government of Belize, in 1993, granted long term logging concessions to a foreign company Atlantic Industries, to exploit timber in lands near and around Maya villages. There were great concerns that massive deforestation would threaten the resources that the Mayas traditionally depended on to sustain their way of life. While the people were (and are) consistently denied their rights to communal land rights and opportunities to benefit from the bountiful natural resources within their area, secret agreements were very often made to benefit foreign corporate interests. (Ironically, amidst these injustices, Maya archaeology, history and culture have become hallmarks in the promotion of Belize’s tourism industry.)

Julian was also able to mobilize alliances and draw international attention and support to challenge the government in court. Under international pressure, government’s agreement with the Malaysian logging company was finally terminated. One of Julian’s crowning achievements was the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on November 25, 1998, with the Prime Minister of Belize to negotiate a solution to the Maya land rights struggle. One week later he met his untimely death.

Julian’s struggle for his people went far beyond the discriminatory ways in which successive UDP and PUP government administrations have treated the Mayas. It represents the historical global struggle of indigenous peoples against the injustices that are deeply rooted in Western capitalism – a system designed to fulfill a certain class dominance while exercising subjugation and dominion over indigenous and Afro descendant peoples.

At the core of this system are racism, greed and blatant disregard for the well-being of people and nature. Its legacies are deeply entrenched throughout the Americas, Africa and wherever there are people of color. The massacre of Native Americans for the expansion of North America, the centuries of brutal transatlantic trading of enslaved Africans, the invasion and banishment of the Garinagu from St. Vincent, the brutal oppression and genocide of indigenous peoples in Guatemala, the alienation, marginalization and mass poverty of indigenous peoples all over the Americas, are all manifestations of that system.

There are still “leaders” in Belize who bear the mental shackles of this system. Under their leadership, our independent state is not meant to produce a new system or to radically improve the current one. Rather, it was designed to reproduce the same structure that perpetuates these inequalities. That’s the hypocrisy of our democracy. Therein lies the essence of the struggle that Julian took on his shoulders on behalf of his people.

Through Julian’s friendship, I understood in a personal way what leaders experience when they seek to break the oppressive grip of a system that tramples the dignity and rights of people for the profit of a greedy and oppressive few. Quite often, he received death threats. While the circumstantial details of his passing remain interred in his bones, we know that leaders such as Garvey and Mandela were jailed, others such as Ghandi, Archbishop Romero, Martin Luther King, Che Guevarra and many others assassinated as they fought against exploitative and oppressive conditions and for the rights of their people. Bob Marley echoed it best when he asked, “How long shall they kill our prophets, while we stand aside and look?”

My friendship with Julian intertwined in many ways – professionally, historically and socially. Only three days before his passing, he and I had one of our usual lighthearted but insightful conversation that makes one least suspect that life is not forever. He was advising one of my U.S. university students for a research assignment on the Maya land rights. In the early 1980s, we were both served as teachers at Toledo Community College. We were part of the SEARCH youth group around the same time. In 1993, when I served as a consultant for the US-based Center for Native Lands to map out the extent and boundaries of Garifuna and Maya land use in Belize, Julian provided key insights. From 1995 to the time of his passing, he had served as a lecturer of Maya History and Culture in the School for International Training program, in which I was serving as the Academic Director.

As one becomes more aware of life’s synchronicity there is a realization, as Paulo Coelho notes, that “important encounters are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other.” My in-depth understanding of Maya life and culture came through my own family roots. In 1907, my grandfather Andres P. Enriquez opened the school in the village of San Antonio and served as school Principal there for 28 of his 45-year teaching career. He was highly respected and revered among the Mayas. My grandmother whose first five children were stillborn due to inhospitable living conditions in that village, later became a renowned midwife and traditional healer. My father and his five siblings grew up in San Antonio and were well known in the Maya communities. Like other families of Garifuna teachers, they were also steeped in Maya cultural traditions. In the 1970s & early 80s, my father served as interpreter of Maya at the Supreme Court. Our home in PG always welcomed visits by Maya villagers. When I was a boy, my parents shared our home for about eight years with a homeless elderly Maya man, Mr. Telesforo Paquiul, the son of one of the founders of San Antonio Village. Mr. Paquiul became our adopted grandfather; his evening stories from his hammock enhanced the rich diversity of my childhood experiences.

The friendship I shared with Julian emerged within these encounters and grew during early adulthood when we attended regular Jesuit vocation retreats as we both discerned whether the priesthood was our calling. He entered the seminary for a few years; I didn’t. My path weaved its own form but we maintained contact. While I was studying at Minnesota State University (1986-88) Julian and Lawrence Mangar (another Belizean Jesuit seminarian at the time) visited from their seminary base in Omaha, Nebraska. Our discussions at the Jesuit residence in Mankato, MN where they stayed during their visit, had sometimes left me tempted to return to that path.

Julian’s leadership was groomed by his Jesuit formation. His life demonstrated that once imbued with the Jesuit spiritual tradition, one becomes more critically aware of individual and social evils and of the need for discernment and responsible action. It is a spirituality that empowers people to become leaders in service towards building a just and humane world. Contrary to the pervading individualistic, materialistic culture of our society, the spirituality brings out a profound set of human values, attitudes and insights that empowers one “to give and not count the cost, to fight and not heed the wounds, to labor and not ask for reward” – for the greater good. The struggle continues through emergence of new leadership including his sister-in-law Cristina Coc, Pablo Mis, Greg Choc, and other emerging Maya leaders who were inspired by him.

Too often, as stated in the wisdom of indigenous Cree: “When the last tree is cut down, the last river is poisoned, the last fish is caught, then only will they discover that they cannot eat money.” We ought not to wait until then. A transformed consciousness and a paradigm shift is what we all desperately need for a better Belize.

Julian Cho’s service to his people is a stellar example of dedication to rid unjust systems and practices that are still deeply embedded in our nation’s institutions and among our leaders. The bigger struggle continues. For the sake of our children’s future, we must continue. Through our homes, our schools, our work, our churches, communities, and political party affiliations, we must work assiduously to transform this nation. Indeed we must. Yes we can.

Julian Cho
Mayan Leader

(Channel 5 News 6/22/1999 Channel 5 News Archives 22825 ) In December Belizeans were shocked to hear that a young and vocal activist for Maya rights had died suddenly at his home in the Toledo District. Although it appeared as if Julian Cho had fallen from the roof of his home by accident, his family, in particular his wife Maggie, believed he had been the victim of foul play. But this week the case of Julian Cho appears to have been finally laid to rest as a coroner’s inquest in Punta Gorda on Monday ruled his death an accident and that no one is criminally responsible. Cho’s body was found on December 1st, 1998. Reports at the time indicated that Cho had been drinking over the weekend and failed to report for work at Toledo Community College that Monday. Maggie Cho and his close friends, however, insisted he was not a heavy drinker and wanted the matter investigated further since they claimed he had received death threats from workers displaced by the suspension of the Malaysian Logging Concession, an operation Cho had opposed. Maggie Cho’s efforts led the Ministry of National Security to exhume the body and bring in an independent pathologist who performed a second autopsy in February. His findings concurred with those of Dr. Mario Estradabran who ruled the death an accident. Apparently Punta Gorda Magistrate Clive Lino, who presided over Monday’s inquest, also agreed with the medical authority and police findings.

Belize’s schools must nurture the foundation values for a healthy nation! by Jerry Enriquez

12/17/201312/17/2013 / Twocanview LLC / 5 Comments

Jerry Enriquez

“The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable…His task is to “fill” the students with the contents of his narration — contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance.” Paulo Freiri in Pedagogy of the Oppressed

With the increasing breakdown of Belizean families, there seem little other choice but for our population to depend more and more on schools to nurture such values as character strength, personal initiative and responsibility, care of body, mind, emotions and spirit, respect for others, creativity and civic pride that are vital for the well-being and future functions of our society.

Indeed the aditional subjects are necessary but these are not enough. More and more it has become evident that our children are simply not being adequately prepared for the realities of Belize’s development. Hence it is critical for schools to forge beyond the ineffective, alienating and failing system of imparting learning as though the students are mere empty receptacles to be filled. When schools fail to nurture essential core values, the consequences to individuals, families, community and the future of a nation are retrogressive and even devastating for each generation.

Several aspects of Belize’s education system have shown a gross disconnect between what our children are taught and the values that are necessary for their well- being as well as for the future needs of society. Schools have tended to disconnect students from their inner strengths, from nature, their culture and that of others, and disembodied them to become mere receptacles for regurgitating information, devoid of critical thinking and balanced emotions for holistic development and effective participation. Even basic but very important foundations such as awareness about healthy diet and lifestyle, creating and maintaining harmonious relationships, spiritual development, and respect for people and nature are vastly missing. We see such lack of those foundations in such behavior as unhealthy eating habits, lack of exercise and care for the body, inability to resolve conflicts and increase in abuse and violence, and lack of parenting skills. Even many of the most “educated” can be disconnected, tend to live in their heads, lack the awareness about healthy living as well equanimity to peacefully resolve conflicts. They tend to be compliant to the status quo.

In a previous article, I discussed as one example, the persistent failure of high schools to enable their non-Hispanic students to be conversant or literate in Spanish despite the fact that mandatory Spanish classes are taught through each of four years. Such lack of preparation has stifled many students from effective participation in scholarship opportunities offered by our Latin American neighbors and region.

Belize’s education system at all levels – primary, secondary and tertiary – does not seem to be designed to develop and unleash vital human capacities. It is a system thus described by a frustrated elderly Belizean employer: “Dem gat lat a edication, but no learnment.” The practical application of character strength and core values is the “learnment” that he referred to as vastly absent.

Another glaring example is the naïve collusion of school Principals with merchants to establish schools as a captive market for soft drinks to our children. The strategy is that by conditioning their taste to these unhealthy drinks at an early age, a habit pattern will be formed. By the time these children grow older and become parents this habit would become so ingrained that they mindlessly pass it on to their children and future generations. Bingo for the company.

Given the high and increasing incidence of diabetes all over Belize, school administrations ought to be more aware and proactive to prevent such disgraceful alliance with the companies. It reflects that the school administration is either naive or least concerned about effects of high-sugar content drinks on the health of the students and the values they are passing on for the future well-being of our nation.

It is no wonder that Belize was featured in a Guinness Book of Records as the country that stands out as the world’s leading consumer of sugar with its per capita consumption of 62.6 kg (138 lbs.) per annum. Gulping each soft drink is like ingesting the equivalent of 8-12 teaspoons of sugar. Not to mention the other secret ingredients that companies promote to give “happiness”. Happy ignorance! Soft drinks are devoid of healthful nutrients. Too many students (like many adults) are hooked to the pleasure and daily desire for soft drinks with their (usually processed) meals. Many prefer soft drinks to healthy alternatives, including water. Consequently, Belize is increasingly becoming an abdominally obese and diabetic nation.

Numerous scientific studies, such as one conducted at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2010, have consistently shown strong evidence that drinking soda on a regular basis can lead to weight gain – especially in the stomach or abdominal area – and increase one’s risk for health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, hypertension and stroke.

In a Nurse Health Study that followed over 90,000 women for over two decades, results show that women who consumed one or more servings of soft drink per day were twice as likely as those who consumed less than one serving per month to develop diabetes over the course of the study. Yale University researchers also found that people tend to eat more calories on days when they drink a lot of sugar-sweetened drinks, and that soda drinkers tend to grow heavier than people who don’t drink soft drinks. The evidence has led several countries to ban the sale of soft drinks in schools. In Belize, however, school leaders appear ignorant to these facts and expose our future generation to these risks.

The recent World Health Organization’s ranking of the top 10 leading causes of death shows that globally diabetes ranks as the 9th leading cause of death over the past decade. However, for Belize that report shows diabetes ranks as the 1^st leading cause of death: – more than death by violence, which ranks as Belize’s 9th leading cause of death, prostate cancer deaths (rank 10th), or breast cancer (ranking 16^th leading cause).

Based on all the evidence, the sale of soft drinks at schools in Belize is just another example of further naïve disconnect between the educational practices and the values that are critically needed for the future health of our nation. Can’t school administrators see that promoting healthy drinks such as coconut water, natural citrus juice, and local fruits could greatly enhance the health of the students, instill proper values and build new opportunities in the domestic economy? Wouldn’t the demand from schools for these healthy alternatives encourage increase production among small farmers?

Belize’s annual observance of World Diabetes Day and activities to promote public awareness has to go much deeper. The root of the problem also has to be addressed not only in an academic way, but through the very practices and values that schools impart. School administrators each have to be more strategic, more visionary and deliberate towards merging principles and practice for a better society. There should be no excuses to place the corporate interests over the well-being of our children. Belize depends on our schools not to be static and detached from reality, but rather dynamic and engaged to critically examine our current realities, to envision the future we wish to create, and to instill proper values and examples of healthy living and other vital foundations for the benefit of our nation’s future.

Lessons from the experiences of our Garifuna ancestors by Jerry A. Enriquez

11/18/2013 / Twocanview LLC / 7 Comments

printed in Amandala, November 17, 2013 and reprinted with the permission of Jerry A. Enriquez

This piece offers a compelling story of the journey of the Garinagu people. In my opinion It also reflects a common history of the Creoles and Garinagu of Belize. The realities are that parents, brothers, sisters and cousins were likely on different ships, all enslaved in Africa and taken across the Atlantic Ocean in an arduous voyage, however a shipwreck sets a different path for the Garinagus. Jeremy offers an uncensored view of the realities of slavery and oppression in the Caribbean. AL

The annual Garifuna Settlement Day celebration, which was founded in 1942 by visionary Garifuna leader Thomas Vincent Ramos, is the foremost event to remind Garinagu about their genesis, exodus, and survival against historical odds that were meant to exterminate their existence and identity as a people. The celebration also occurs in the Garifuna diaspora and on different dates at Garifuna communities in Honduras (April 12), Guatemala (Nov. 26) and Nicaragua. This year’s celebration theme is: – “Awanse wamá lidan aban lau lareini bungiu luma habayarahan áhari. (Let us progress in unity with God’s goodness and the protection of our ancestors.”

Arguably, without the pause for reflection that this day brings, the people’s collective memory of significant events in their experience would have long been destroyed by colonial forces. Hence the importance of all to be cognizant of the old West African proverb, “Until the lion and lioness learn to keep their history, the history of the hunting will always glorify the hunter.” One’s history must not only expand the awareness of the prevailing impact of past values and conditions on life today. Its lessons must be used to guide present and future realities. The experiences of our ancestors have a lot to teach us.

The popular history about the genesis of the Garinagu is that in 1635, two Spanish ships loaded with captured Africans (men and women) from the Bight of Benin in West Africa and destined for enslavement on plantations in the Caribbean, were wrecked by a storm off the island of Bequia in the Grenadines. Most of these Africans survived the wreck and crossed over from Bequia to St Vincent where they found a home and intermingled among the Island Caribs who had helped in their rescue.

That history, however, is simplistic and distorts a much more complex reality. Ivan Van Sertima’s thesis argues the presence, in the Americas, of Africans from the Mali Empire during the 13^th century. This was long before the encounter by “Chris-teef-us Come-bus us”. Be that as it may, the most significant series of events that has had the most profound impact on the character, history and contemporary Caribbean began with the flood of Europeans, starting with Columbus, who for over four centuries exploited every resource while cruelly subjugating enslaved Africans and indigenous people to fulfill their desire for material enrichment.

There were reports, such as in Nancie Gonzalez’s Sojourners of the Caribbean, of contact between island Caribs of Dominica and enslaved Africans occurring in the late 1500s and that such contact was also likely to have also occurred with St. Vincent Caribs several generations before the shipwreck.

Slavery was brutal. It included severe whippings by European masters, severing of body parts, hanging, or throwing slaves in boiling cauldrons of cane syrup. Many escaped. Over time there was a constant increase in the number pure-bred Africans who fled enslavement in Barbados and other islands to nearby St Vincent where the indigenous Caribs provided a sanctuary. The flow of ocean currents, wind, and short distance made it relatively easy for escapees to reach St. Vincent in small crafts. By the end of the 1700s the Black Carib (Garinagu) population on St. Vincent had grown considerably.

These two groups of people – the Africans and the indigenous bronze-colored Caribs – came to share a culture of resistance that was necessitated by the realities of the times in which they were living. The Garinagu were forced to defend their territory, their freedom and their existence from marauding Europeans greedy for expansion of their colonial possessions and determined to acquire these at any cost and by any means necessary.

As early as 1772, the Garinagu vowed that they would never submit or give up their lands and preferred to die first. After several failed attempts at cajolery and intimidation to remove them from their land, the British engaged full force. In 1796, the Garinagu fought fiercely but were no match for the superior military might of the British.

When they refused to surrender, they were hunted down, their houses and canoes were burned, and their crops and food were destroyed. Between July 1796 and February 1797, about 4,338 Garifuna (mostly women and children) were captured and transported to the barren rock island of Baliceaux. There, about 2,100 died from typhus or yellow fever, which was aggravated by malnutrition.

On March 11, 1797, the 2,238 Garifuna survivors embarked in a convoy of ships to be banished forever on the island of Roatan hundreds of miles away. (Those who remained in St. Vincent were strictly forbidden from any expression of their culture.) Over two hundred died on that perilous one month voyage. On April 12, 1797, 2,026 Garinagu (664 men and 1,362 women and children) were landed on Roatan and left to the mercy of the elements. These stalwart ancestors formed the root stock of the estimated 400,000 Garifuna people and their richly unique culture that we have today.

From their first settlement at Roatan these survivors spread to mainland Honduras where, gradually through baptism of their offspring to Roman Catholicism their family names such as Huayba, Palangure, Babiar, Sambula, Chatuye, among others, were changed, as the church required, to their Spanish compadre’s surnames such as Arzu, Castillo, Palacio, Cayetano, Enriquez, Ramos and others that they now have today.

On August 1802, five years after the war and their expulsion from St Vincent, a group of 150 Garifuna were imported to the settlement of Belize to cut mahogany for the British forestocracy. This importation was necessitated by the shortage of labor due to the escape of enslaved Africans from the settlement to nearby Petén and Mexico. Technically, the Garinagu were not allowed in Belize. They were considered dangerous and there was fear that they would foment slave rebellion. Hence it was mandated that all Garinagu must remain completely outside the settlement, south of its Sibun River boundary.

The first Garifuna settlement was Dangriga. From there they spread further south through the vast expanse of uninhabited forest and coastline all the way to the Sarstoon River extracting mahogany. (Interestingly, both Afro-descendant groups whose labor enriched the empire remain marginalized.) ON November 19, 1823, there was the mass influx of Garinagu to Belize with others continuing to join family members over the years. They became well known for their resilience, self-reliance, courage, diverse productive skills, natural intelligence, strong work ethic and superb maritime skills.

Since their arrival, the Garinagu have continued to make outstanding contributions to the development of Belize though various fields most notably agriculture, education and culture. This remarkable story of Garifuna survival and progress while defending and maintaining their distinct ancestral culture and language through all odds speaks to the strong determination, resilience and unity of purpose of the ancestors.

Today the Garifuna people are faced with a new set of complex challenges that will define whether or not they have the determination, commitment, strength and visionary leadership that enabled the survival of their ancestors.

The subtle downplay of our African ancestry by some leaders, while highlighting mainly that of the indigenous Caribs, (historically done with apparent intention to distinguish a difference between former enslaved and free Afro-descendants) distorts and undervalues the equally rich contributions of our African legacy. Such denial stifles the critical need for concerted approaches by both Belizean Afro-descendant groups to confront common adversities that continue to marginalize both groups. Divisive political party loyalties over the greater interests of our people have polarized families and communities while compromising the call for unifying and transformative leadership so desperately needed among our people. Issues of discrimination, historically exploitative socio-economic opportunities, poverty, lack of self-reliant productivity, alcoholism, poor dietary habits and diabetes, apathy, disengagement of the diaspora, competing cultural interests, all continue to affect our people. In a profound way, the threats that we face starts from conditions within our individual and collective consciousness and values.

Perhaps what is being increasingly lost is the deep spirituality that was central to Garifuna survival and progress, and the passing on of timeless values from the ancestors through each generation. In the days of our ancestors, the leaders served as healers, counselor, custodian of the people’s cultural values, and spiritual warriors to protect the people from danger. They realized that the desire for the greater good of their people is drawn from spiritual sustenance. The leaders had unwavering integrity to resist cajolery and bribery by the British against their people. They were shrewd, reflective and insightful, united, and looked out for each other and the greater good of all. Through these timeless values, they realized (as in the spirit of Ubuntu) that the well-being of each is inextricably linked to that of the other. If these values become increasingly absent among our young men and women, our people’s future well-being will continue to be threatened.

To maintain the values that have preserved and strengthened a people amidst most challenging times, the long journey that we now have to take now is not across the perilous ocean. Neither can it be taken by looking up at the skies with eyes closed. That long journey must be taken deep within ourselves. Therein lies the goodness of God and the whispers of our ancestors that this year’s celebration theme requests and which we all need to follow.

HELP 50 Kids GO Back to School in 2013! UPDATE 8/24/2013

07/31/201308/24/2013 / Twocanview LLC / 2 Comments

U P D A T E :

THE BACK TO SCHOOL DRIVE IS NOW CLOSED! WE EMBARKED UPON A VERY SUCCESSFUL DRIVE AND WANT TO THANK ALL THE GENEROUS CONTRIBUTORS WHO MADE THIS DRIVE A RESOUNDING SUCCESS!!!!!! 8/24/2013

The Belize Association of Central Florida and Twocanview are embarking on a Back-to-School Drive to benefit vulnerable and disadvantaged kids.

Who will Benefit?

The Department of Human Services Child Protection and Family Support in Belize specifically their OVC program. The bags will be distributed among children who are orphaned and vulnerable as a result of HIV AIDS

Goal

Our goal is to send 50 school bags with supplies back to Belize. Each donated backpack with supplies will bear the donor’s name.

What to to Donate?

Please donate:

1 Backpack plus:

8 compositions books

1 pack of pencils

1 pack of pens

1 ruler

1 pack of color pencils

1 pack of erasers

1 dictionary

1 thesaurus

approximately ( $25.00USD per backpack with school supplies)

or donate $25.00 and supplies will be purchased on your behalf

Goal is for 50 backpacks with school supplies

How to donate:

Please email twocanview@gmail.com or email: belizeacf@yahoo.com to arrange a donation or send via PayPal @ arialightfoot@gmail.com

Call 813-486-8220 to arrange pick-up in Tampa/Wesley Chapel/St. Petersburg Florida

Or mail a donation to:

Belize Association of Central Florida

c/o Aria Lightfoot

1334 Maximillian Drive

Wesley Chapel Florida

33543

Important Deadline

Please donate by: August 24, 2013

Shipping expenses to Belize will be donated by the Belize Association of Central Florida.

Should the Belizean Diaspora participate in elections and elected office?

05/31/2013 / Twocanview LLC / 5 Comments

The Belizean Diaspora contributes an estimated 200 million USD to families and organizations in Belize. Amendment 7 is a legislation which clarifies the rights of Belizeans who hold dual citizenship. This is a very important legislation for the future of Belize’s survival. Nuri Akbar delves deeper into this legislation and its implications for Belize. Please read, share and discuss.
The resurrection of the 7th amendment and Belize survivability in the 21st

28 May 2013 — by Nuri Akbar

On June 19th 2009, the Prime Minister of Belize, the Hon. Dean Barrow, while addressing the proposed 7th amendment to the Belize constitution in the National Assembly uttered the following words:

“Because our laws recognize dual citizenship how then will you turn around, recognizing dual citizenship, providing for dual citizenship but impose a limitation on a dual citizen. It makes no sense at all and if a little bit of history and background are necessary, we didn’t always recognize dual citizenship. The recognition of dual citizenship came about as a consequence of the advance in legislation that was promoted by national hero Phillip Goldson. But we turn around and we leave intact in the constitution for all these years this impairment on the rights of the Belizean who have acquired a second nationality. I say therefore, Mr. Speaker, that it is utterly and completely contradictory. I also say it is inconsistent, and let me tell you why it is inconsistent, if you are a Belizean who has acquired second nationality you are disqualified from sitting in the National Assembly, but the Governor General, whose office is from a protocol point of view the highest office in the land, there is no such disqualification. The Governor General can be a Belizean who has acquired a second nationality. He is not barred from being Governor General and that is the highest office in the land. “

Recently a prominent Diaspora Belizean, Mrs. Muriel Laing-Arthurs, asked me to comment on the 7th amendment to the constitution proposed in 2009 that would have given full citizenship rights to Belizean-born natives who happen to possess dual nationality. Since I am not a card carrying member of any political party, my trajectory on this issue is not skewed by the inordinate local partisan rhetoric that has taken on a life of its own in Belize, but rather influenced by the realities we are facing as a people and nation and the fact that we have thus far failed to strategically maximize our human capital among our Belizean brothers and sisters in the Diaspora.

Therefore, on this particular issue I am in agreement with the Prime Minister and endorse the concept and spirit of the 7th amendment. However the contradictions and hypocrisy in our actual behavior/thinking surrounding the re-embracement of the Belizean Diaspora must fundamentally change if this initiative is to be successful.

Belize national hero, the Honorable Phillip Goldson, lost his physical eyesight in the later years of his life, but arguably he possessed one of the most clairvoyant visions we have ever produced in an indigenous leader. From the inception he saw the critical role Belizeans in the Diaspora can and should play in the overall national development of Belize, and understood that national allegiance and patriotism were not limited by one’s geographical location. Hence, his efforts over the many decades to engage, reconnect, claim and maximize the Belizean human capital of the Diaspora toward Belize national development have been one of the most remarkable progressive legacies of Phillip Goldson.

The issue of migration has been with the earliest human creatures as they began the trek out of Africa and eventually crossed the Bering Strait millennia ago into the Americas. These migrations were often times prompted by the need of share survival and in search of water, food and shelter. Other times by war, oppression, natural disasters and protection against the unrepentant natural elements.

As empires rose and fell over the millennia, human beings were captured and used as slaves to build these empires. In modern times much of Europe as we have known it was obliterated by two world wars that killed millions and displaced entire populations. During the revolutions that engulfed the Central American isthmus in the 70’s and 80’s, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced, forced to flee, and many became refugees.

In Belize’s case large migration can be traced back to the building of the Panama Canal and World War II. After the 1931 and 1961 hurricanes that devastated the country and killed many people, Belizeans, via a designed policy, were granted refugee status and were allowed to migrate into the United States. Over the ensuing decades this migration pattern continued officially and unofficially, eventually creating a brain drain that has had an adverse impact on the nation’s long term development. Today thousands of these same Belizeans and their offspring have acquired various life-affirming skills and experience that have benefitted the host countries.

This perennial movement /exodus of masses of people has been a part of human nature as a result of curiosity, mobility, circumstance, oppression and conflict. To this end, the life and times we are now living in 2013 have therefore imposed upon us the necessity to reclaim this reservoir of natural resource.

A brilliant Diaspora Belizean sociologist who is an expert on migration, Dr. Jerome Straughan, raised the issue of the transforming definition of the modern nation state and its increasing mobility of people and how governments will have to implement policies that take these new dynamics into account. Accepting the reality that half of Belize’s population reside abroad, creating the bridge/mechanism to harness this human capital toward the development of the mother nation is not only logical, but is in keeping with the transforming definition of modern nation states and globalization. Given Belize’s geographic location, population size and history, isolationism has no place in the 21st century. There is no question that the nation’s future direction, national development and very survivability hinge on its ability to reclaim its Belizean Diaspora and incorporate the human capital into a long term strategy for maximum benefit.

The vulnerability of small, developing and peripheral economies like Belize’s is the burden of external debt. When a small country becomes totally consumed by debt, her natural resources then become collateral and held hostage to the creditor nations and institutions. Local governments are pressured into compromising the national patrimony, which includes putting the country’s vital industries, raw materials, and even the scandalous selling of passports, on the chopping block in a desperate bid to raise revenue. This global trend will not change anytime soon, but given the continued contraction of the metropolitan economies, Belize’s natural resources will remain a premium for exploitation.

In Belize there have been many noble causes taken up by various local and foreign finance advocacy groups and organizations relating to the physical environment, wildlife, social and cultural issues, but not a single organization dedicated to reconnecting and reclaiming the Belizean human capital from abroad. Over the years, Belize’s leading newspaper, the Amandala, has editorially supported the Hon. Phillip Goldson’a vision of proactively engaging the Belizean Diaspora and encouraging the cross-pollination of Belizeans at home and abroad, but this vision is yet to reverberate across all sectors of the society.

The most valuable natural resource our nation will ever produce is our people. Hence, any attempt at reclaiming this natural resource should be paramount on any platform for national reconstruction and development. It is now estimated that the number of Belizeans (first and second generation) residing abroad in North America, Europe and elsewhere is equal to half the three hundred thousand plus residents in the entire nation of Belize.

The arguments presented in 2009 for abolishing the discriminatory and apartheid era law dividing our people, and for providing the legal instrument allowing Belizeans who hold dual nationality access to full citizenship rights, participation and inclusion in elected public office, were and are a visionary, progressive policy option.

There is no excuse for not initiating and quantifying the various experiences in creating a skill bank of Belizean citizens abroad toward national inclusion. This should be relatively easy since globally the platforms already exist using tools such as Linkedln, Facebook, etc., where thousands of Belizeans are actively interacting and networking with each other. TheFortune 500 corporations and many countries already use these various platforms for global recruitment of talents, skills and experience. Since the rapid growth of the Internet, the competition for human creativity, talent and experience has indeed gone global.

The continued dragging of the feet and denial of thousands of Diaspora Belizean-born citizens from total participation in the development of their homeland is now viewed as conspiratorial, and even racist, by many. If a Belizean-born citizen is disqualified from full “citizenship rights” and his or her allegiance is questioned on the basis that they hold dual nationality, this is not only myopic but hypocritical, primitive thinking. The intense passion and interest which many Diaspora Belizeans have demonstrated regarding the ongoing Guatemalan claim and the proposed ICJ option is a clear reflection of the love and fraternal relationship they hold toward Belize. If the nation of Belize were to be militarily invaded/attacked, there is no question a vast segment of the able-bodied Belizeans with military and actual combat experience living abroad would volunteer to fight for their homeland.

What greater betrayal and damage has been done to the nation state of Belize over the past quarter century than by those who swear to defend and uphold the national patrimony and sovereignty of the state but hold more allegiance to a political entity effectively subordinating the state? Indeed, the actions, behavior and policies that have seen most of the nation’s arable land sold to foreign interests, vital industries usurped, selling of Belizean citizenship (passports), oil drilling concessions with ties to cronies and family members, and outright pillaging of the national treasury for personal gain – who is the real enemy of the Belizean state?

As I sat with one of Belize’s sages and historians recently, Imam Ismael Shabazz, and asked for his insight on the 7th amendment, Shabazz in his wisdom reminded me that the real substance of the 7th amendment should not only include the right to hold public office, but indeed “voting rights” of Belizean citizens in the Diaspora. This idea is not new. However, it has been resisted by the political elite, including many of the so-called progressive thinkers among us. The arguments made were that Belizeans living abroad would not be familiar with the issues on the ground and therefore they were uninformed and out of touch. This argument was made in the early 1970’s and perhaps had some validity forty years ago. However, the world has drastically changed over the past quarter century and the speed, access and advancement of technology and cyberspace have essentially obliterated this argument. Belizeans regularly interact with each other via social media, participate in call-in radio/TV talk shows, and have access to the various media outlets online.

Over 100 nations, large and small, allow their Diaspora the right to vote in local elections. These include Mexico, El Salvador, Venezuela, Britain, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and France. Given the share size of the Belizean population living abroad and the decades-old impact of remittances to families back home, the vast majority of Diaspora Belizeans have maintained a solid relationship with their homeland. According to the World Bank remittance report, the remittances to Central America, which included Belize, in 2007 had reach a colossal US$ 12.1 billion. The report also stated that in some of these countries the remittances are equal to some 10% of the entire GDP. In the case of Belize, the report shows, for example, that Belizeans in the Diaspora in 2004/05 had made remittances estimated to be over US$ 160 million.

Whether the current administration (or future ones) will move swiftly and strategically to reclaim its citizens living abroad as an integral component of its national developmental platform, remains to be seen. But whether the political elite act or not, the Belizean people, along with progressive grassroots movements should take the lead. Belizeans abroad have been actively engaged in supporting grassroots organizations like the Belize Territorial Volunteers and BGYEA, among many other charitable efforts on the ground. This kind of fraternal collaboration and operational unity must be supported and encouraged between Belizeans at home and aboard for the sake of our self-preservation and survival.

It is my opinion that much of the resistance to the 7th amendment was essentially the result of the way in which it was crafted and presented. The original (amendment) was presented to the Belizean public in 2009, and tragically, in keeping with the typical ad hoc/ top down fashion in which policies are formulated in Belize, provided the ideal climate for speculation and misinformation. No real engagement with the community, from the inception of the idea stage to formulation and proper public education so the people could understand the purpose and benefit of the proposed change, was carried out.

Secondly, at no stage of this proposed 7th amendment fiasco was the constituency most affected, the (Diaspora Belizeans) themselves, invited to participate in the process. They were essentially left out of the actual discussion. Not only would it have made perfect sense to have included the Belizean Diaspora in the formulation of the policy proposal, but most importantly in the public and educational dialogue with their brothers and sisters in Belize.

As a consequence of the flawed approach, propaganda and partisan rhetoric took over and subsequently the merits and demerits of the actual amendment became completely lost in the process. The vitriol that ensued was reflective of the deep-seated residual effect of colonialism that still permeates our worldview. Talking points filtered via partisan bickering became the norm, instead of dialogue and constructive debate. So yet again, because of the choke hold of petty party politics on our perceptual apparatus, a shameful law that discriminates against thousands of Belizeans and relegates them to second class citizenship status in the place of their birth, remains intact and activated to this day.

Assumption and presupposition regarding Belize future by: Nuri Akbar

04/02/2013 / Twocanview LLC / 6 Comments

The final major attempt at settling Guatemala’s unfounded claim to Belize came in the form of a document called the “Heads of Agreement” in 1981. This culminated in nation wide paralyzing strikes and national convulsion. From time immemorial a claim/threat by a militaristic and aggressive garrison state upon the territorial integrity of another nation, regardless of how small or large, would naturally serve as a unifying force among the people of the target threat. However, this was not the synergy that reverberated across the nation of Belize leading up to its independence on September 21st 1981, and it has not currently manifested itself as we are confronted in the latest ICJ plot. The British colonial rulers not only divided the people of Belize geographically, but racially, culturally, religiously and politically. This model of course, was perfected by the British and they carried out this strategy for more than five hundred years across the globe as they wage war, rape, pillage, enslaved and committed genocide upon the darker people of the earth. Belize was no exception to this rule.

The current ICJ scheme has been packaged and marketed as a “legal issue” for mass consumption. Yet at the foundation of this land claim is geopolitics and natural resource that has become more urgent for trans national corporations (TNC’s) who are the extended tentacles of an unbridled, consuming, neoliberal economic system that has become globally unsustainable. As Belizeans we make the assumption that the men and women who are selected to represent us in political office are informed and knowledgeable of certain vital issues that ares critical to our nation very survival. But this is an assumption we make at our own peril. We are arguing that historically in Belize from the inception of our nationalist movements, these independence movements evolve as dependent nationalism. While the term may appear contradictory, it is a reflection of the extent and degree political developments in peripheral countries like Belize are constrained by economic and political forces of the center. Thus as a consequence our local political directorate’s indoctrination and orientation is to look outward for assistance in their struggle with the metropole without first and foremost build internally those resource necessary to confront the center. Hence, despite a century old claim upon the country of Belize by a proven genocidal aggressor, various local regimes initiated zero sustained process of educating the people about the issues and forces that confront them and the near and present dangers. The circumference of our thinking has permeated around the idea that salvation will come from outside rather than from the development of political bases from within the nation state.

This dependent and decrepit view of our existence has essentially shaped our entire national development and foreign relations, or lack thereof. Various prominent political representatives regurgitated the age old claim that in order for the nation to achieve development it has to attract capital from abroad, coupled with the never ending barrowing which lead to a permanent state of servitude/slavery to the lending institutions. The inability to recognized the human capital and potential from among the very people they lead and the extended natural resource the country possessed as a foundation for national development, has perpetuated a state of perennial poverty and underdevelopment. This type of paradigm shift will not come out of the two main political entities in Belize that has become inseparable from the crippled system of governance. In many respect they have a vested interest in maintaining things as they are, and thus cannot be expected to become true and authentic agents for political, social and economic transformation. This will have to be the outgrowth of a people’s centered mass movement cemented in a clairvoyant vision of allegiance to the nation state.

The debt burden of our country has been shifted to future generations of Belizean, and our unjust land distribution system remain unchanged since the days of British colonialism. The type of radical transformation that is required to begin a process of changing the top down model of governance must be rooted in the communities and principalities of the people. As mentioned earlier our people were never empowered with the knowledge of self and benefitted from popular education that ties them to the land and agriculture, which is the engine of civilization. While all our people to one degree or another have been deeply affected by colonial education, black Belizeans are currently living out the most graphic effects via fratricide and gentrification. We remain essentially a fragmented people with each group nibbling around the edges but lacking the ability to create a national movement with clear goals and objectives. These challenges are not unique to Belize but are common place everywhere the British had meddled.

When war and revolution was engulfing the isthmus, Belize used to pride itself as the only haven of peace and tranquility. We knew little or nothing as to why our brothers and sisters were waging violent struggles in their respective countries. Yet these revolutions were born out of decades of exploitation, injustice, corrupted regimes, brutality and genocides. Those of you who believe that Belize is fine as it is and there is no need for a fundamental structural shift, should take heed of the warning signs. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible shall make violent revolution inevitable.

Big Up Our First Lady!!!!!! Sneak Preview of Upcoming Issue 10-02-12

09/18/201209/18/2012 / Twocanview LLC / 1 Comment

First Lady of Belize, Mrs. Kim Simplis Barrow

The First Lady of Belize will be featured in the upcoming October issue of Ms. Magazine! She is being hailed as “The Michelle Obama of Belize”. If you enlarge the picture below, you can actually read the article 🙂 Twocanview is so proud of our First Lady and extend our heartfelt congratulations!

CLICK:

https://twitter.com/karendesuyo/status/247419253039456256/photo/1/large

Twocanview LLC

Issues Affecting Belize

Guest Contributors

Hi Chiclero! written by: Howard A. Frankson

Reprinted with the permission of Howard A. Frankson

Editor’s note:

Hey America! by: Howard Frankson

Dangers to ICJ by: Dr. Theodore Aranda

Remembering Julian Cho (April 6, 1962 – Dec. 1, 1998) by Jerry A. Enriquez

Belize’s schools must nurture the foundation values for a healthy nation! by Jerry Enriquez

Lessons from the experiences of our Garifuna ancestors by Jerry A. Enriquez

HELP 50 Kids GO Back to School in 2013! UPDATE 8/24/2013

Should the Belizean Diaspora participate in elections and elected office?

Assumption and presupposition regarding Belize future by: Nuri Akbar

Big Up Our First Lady!!!!!! Sneak Preview of Upcoming Issue 10-02-12

Reprinted with the permission of Howard A. Frankson

Editor’s note:

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