Waiting for Ridley
Richard West
Belize City The roving reporter, Noel Barber, once wrote from here that 'British Honduras is al colony which nobody in Britain has heard ofl except the exporters of gin'. Now that British Honduras is getting its independence. and has therefore changed its name to Belize, even fewer people in Britain know the whereabouts of this small and delightful colony — our only one left in America, or almost anywhere else for that matter.
British soldiers know of Belize, which is where they go when they are not in Belfast: Here, as in Northern Ireland, the army has to repress civil disturbances, which, like those in Northern Ireland, date to events in the 17th century. Here, as in Northern Ireland, the majority of people fear being foreibly joined with their large, Roman Catholic neighbour.
The British first came here to fell the pine timber — and then the mahogany, when this was made fashionable by Chippendale and the undertakers. The earliest settlers were buccaneers like Peter Wallace or Willis, whose name may have been Spanified as Belize. The buccaneers mixed with the Amerindians, with African blacks and with the Mosquito People, an Afro-Indian tribe whose kings used to be crowned in the brick cathedral here.
The loggers had a daunting life, working up to their knees in swamp, eaten by insects and often attacked by the Spanish from What are now the countries of Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. The British Honduran colony vexed English-Spanish relations throughout the 17th century. It helped to provoke the War of Jenkins' Ear, and as late as 1784, according to Narda Dobson's A History of Belize, 'the British Minister in Madrid reported that any mention of the Bay of Honduras or the mosquito shore put the Spanish Foreign Minister into a passion'.
The passion was passed to the Republic of Guatemala when it gained independence from Spain and wrote a claim on British Honduras into its Constitution, as the Republic of Ireland did with respect to the six northern counties. In 1842, Guatemala renounced its claim to British Honduras which Britain then gave Crown Colony status; but Guatemala later reneged on its former renunciation.
When President Kennedy 20 years ago set up his Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, using Guatemala as base, he promised President Fuentes British Honduras as a reward. Or so I was told in Belize: 'That Kennedy man, he should have been shot a long time before. He wanted to give us to Fuentes. He deserved to be shot for that'. In March this year, the governments of Great Britain, Guatemala and Belize, which is semi-autonomous under its Premier, George Price, signed the 'Heads of Agreement' by which Guatemala acknowledged Belize's independence this year, conditional on an access road to the Caribbean. The Heads of Agreement were eyed with suspicion by some in Belize, particu;lady in Belize City, whose 40,000 inhabitants make up a third of the population.
The opposition United Democratic Party, some of the merchant classes, the civil servants' trade union, the extreme Left and a crowd of drunks joined to protest and to burn down the offices of George Price's ruling People's United Party, the local Times newspaper, the CID and the Department of Income Tax. the 'ructions', as they are called here, were put down by the British army in a fairly gentle manner. There is not in Belize the malice of Belfast. When I asked what had caused the 'ructions', I was told: 'It was a protest against the Heads of Agreement'.
Distrust of Guatemala and of the other 'republics' is general in Belize. For one thing, most people in the colony are of African descent, and Guatemala excludes black people except holders of United States passports. Always you hear complaint4 about the repOlies: 'We are English people. We like to do things slow but peaceful. We do not like the violence they have in those republics'. 'We have more literacy here in Belize than in all Honduras. That is because we had the English compulsory education'. 'We are worried we may be los ing the Queen. We don't want to be a republic'. You see more Union Jacks here than anywhere outside Northern Ireland.
It would not be true to say that Belize is against independence, since George Price is for it and he wins every election. But most people are anxious. The main fear is a Guatemalan invasion which was threatened in the Sixties. The Wilson government sent a gunboat here, discovering when it was on its way that the armament of the vessel consisted solely of nuclear missiles. Nobody trusts Great Britain to send a nuclear gunboat to help independent Belize.
There are other worries about independence. Will the country be overrun by 'big-shot' businessmen from the United States, buying up politicians? Will the wooden, balconied houses give way to skyscrapers? How will a country this size find the staff for its embassies and United Nations delegations? Who will replace the grants from Britain?
Such problems engage public opinion, as sounded by my research at the Old Louisville Democratic Bar — an establish ment founded a hundred years ago after Louisville (pronounced 'Lewisville') in up-country Belize, notiKentucky.The physi cal bar and the wardrobe behind are made of Belize pine; the rum is made by the land lord whose wife, the barmaid, is the Hondu ran Vice-Consul. Most of the clientele at the Old Louisville Democratic Bar fear that 'ructions' may re-occur. Much importance is given to a forthcoming visit by Nicholas Ridley, a Minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Although the visit has had to be postponed because of snow in the Cotswolds, I constantly heard that 'Ridley is coming', and I had to disguise the fact that although a British subject, I had not until then known who Ridley was, and what sort of job he had. And knowing now that he works for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I doubt that his visit, if it ever takes place, augurs well for Belize.
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