Once again, students and union members in Belize City took to the streets beginning on April 20 to protest corruption in the ruling People’s United Party. When the PUP took office in late 1998, by an overwhelming majority, the vote was more a condemnation of the then incumbent United Democratic Party (UDP) than a mandate for the PUP. But, as in the U.S., the PUP chose to see it as a mandate to do whatever they wanted.

The PUP’s minister of investment and home affairs – previously called the minister of finance – and the prime minister, the major power brokers of the party, decided the country should function like a corporation and pushed through an amendment to the Belize Constitution to change the names of the permanent ministerial secretaries to chief executive officers (CEOs). The writing was on the wall.

When last in office over five years earlier, the PUP had privatized the electric and telecommunications authorities. Since taking office this time, they have privatized the water authority, the port authority, the government printing office and the airport and contracted out the management of the prison. Part of their platform, coming into office, was a pledge of transparency; nevertheless, all these privatization deals have been made in secret with no disclosure. No one seems quite sure where all the money went, if in fact there was much actual money changing hands. The deals have been fraught with cronyism and nepotism.

We do know that foreign companies now own our utilities – electricity by Canadians, water by British and South Africans. And many government ministers, their relatives and friends appear to be doing quite well. Though premium gas costs around US$5, they are running around in brand new SUVs. In late January, when there seemed to be little left to sell and loans were coming due, the PUP passed a bill to hike taxes. They cut subsidies to schools and further delayed wage increases for public employees and teachers that had
already been negotiated.

The people, with an alliance of unions and the chamber of commerce, went out on strike, closing schools and carrying on “slowdown” actions for over a week. Had the government collected the money from some of their “sacred cows,” the deficits would have been much decreased. But that didn’t happen.

Though the strike ended and “business as usual” resumed, Belize had turned a corner in its history. The latest protests came about after Belize Telecommunications Limited’s
15-year monopoly expired and the government of Belize claimed to open telephone and internet service to competition. The former major shareholder in BTL, Lord Michael Aschroft, a billionaire British conservative, wanted to have it all for another 15 years.

But the government made a backroom deal with Jeffrey Prosser and his Innovative Communications Company. ICC is the owner of the telecommunications system in the U.S. Virgin Islands that is said to have made a fortune in questionable ways. Prosser promised to purchase BTL if the government would pass a few laws giving him a virtual monopoly.

Prosser failed to pay the money, and the government was left holding a note, accumulating interest daily. So Prosser’s ICC was ousted from the BTL board, theadministration charging that because he didn’t pay up, he did not own the
shares.

But Prosser did not go quietly. He went to federal court in Miami to get back his seats on the board of BTL. When the judge levied a contempt citation on the government of Belize in the amount of US$50,000 per day – “to get the prime minister’s attention” – news of all the backroom deals came to light. BTL workers wanted an accounting.

On April 15, official reports charged that the fiberoptic cable to Belmopan was cut in a deliberate act of sabotage, and the BTL switch failed. BTL staffers refused to repair it until critical BTL ownership matters are straightened out. The government reported that an expert was brought in to take care of the problem. Nortel engineers flown in from Mexico had the system almost fully restored when, due to another act of sabotage, it went down again.

The government claimed Belizeans could purchase BTL shares, and the BTL workers came forward with a proposal to do just that. So did others, including Lord Ashcroft – with his Carlisle Group and E-com. Ashcroft came up with funds to buy 25 percent of BTL shares. The government, while holding the money for the shares in one hand, “forgave” the $12-$15 million in back taxes that Ashcroft holdings owed. And Ashcroft promised to suspend proceedings in a London court over other BTL disputes.

The government claimed it had set aside 37 percent of the shares for the BTL workers. But with Prosser contesting 51 percent, Ashcroft owning 25 percent and the workers being promised 37 percent, the math did not work out. On Friday, after several meetings, BTL employees made a list of five demands. They called for 1) the government to transfer 37 percent of BTL shares to the employees for a nominal sum; 2) a BTL employee on the board of directors; 3) full disclosure of all documents and contracts relating to BTL, including the agreement with E-com and the buyback agreement with Carlisle Holdings, Lord Ashcroft’s groups, and the agreement with Prosser’s Innovative Communications
Company; 4) BTL to continue to operate without interference from Ashcroft or Carlisle personnel but under the direction of the current chief executive officer; and 5) an audit inspection to be ordered by the chief justice.

By April 20, despite intermittent phone service, the teachers announced their support for the BTL workers, who had supported them a couple of months earlier. That show of solidarity mushroomed as students from St. John’s College and Junior College and from the University of Belize came out of their classrooms to rally alongside the BTL workers, saying “It’s necessary because authorities aren’t listening and they need to know that all Belizean citizens including the youths believe that all Belizeans should own BTL.” As they passed other schools, they shouted for the students to leave the classrooms and join them.

As the day progressed, demonstrators marched from the major BTL compound to the prime minister’s house, hollering for elections and the P.M.’s resignation. From there, they moved to block the Belcan Bridge at 4:45 p.m., stopping traffic and asking motorists to blow their horns in support. At one point, when it looked like the police were going to remove the demonstrators, they dug in, many sitting down, and started singing Belize’s national anthem. Christine Perriot, speaking for other BTL employees, explained, “As we have been saying, this is not only employees, this has become a national thing. This
is for the country of Belize.”

As darkness fell, a crowd moved to the downtown area, where around 25 to 30 stores and businesses, including many known to be benefiting from the present government policies, were broken into and looted. Local observers say most of the looting was not by the day’s demonstrators, but by those out for their own benefit.

No deaths were reported, but more than two dozen people were taken to hospital with injuries. About 100 protestors and looters were arrested. Responding as he usually does, Prime Minister Said Musa spoke to the nation on April 22, essentially blaming the riots on his political opposition. Dean Barrow, the UDP opposition leader, replied by blaming the country’s ills on the PUP and claiming that Musa “disrespected” the demonstrators.

On the same day, Moses Sulph, U.B. student body president, was arraigned on charges of organizing and taking part in a procession without a permit, trespassing on the compounds of Pallotti and Saint John’s College and damaging a police vehicle. After entering a plea of not guilty, he met bail and left the courtroom as a crowd of supporters chanted, “Free Moses! Free Moses!”

Meanwhile, members of the Public Service Union took up positions outside of the BTL compound in Belize City. National PSU President Dylan Reneau said that while the union had been absent from the forefront in recent days, they have been very much a part of the resistance movement. He said the PUP is “a political party of slander and misinformation. We are not as adept as them in countering what they have been putting out, but they will not break us. We have resolve and we are strong, we are united and we will achieve our end.”

And in a public show of protest, Zenoida Moya, PSU councilor, symbolically presented an award to the prime minister and his government – a “Certificate of Corruption.” She said, “This certificate is awarded to the prime minister and the government in recognition – it should have said ‘in recognition of outstanding participation in the mismanagement of Belize’s economy between August twenty-seventh, 1998 to present.’ …

“(T)he public officers are very serious about this. We are also, as much as we are employees of the government, we are taxpayers, and therefore our taxes are paying for their salaries. So it’s a circular flow, and we will not continue to allow those people that are called our employers to tell us how to think, what to do, because as you may very well know, there has been a lot of intimidation, so much intimidation that some of our public officers are afraid.” George Gonzalez is from the Mission District of San Francisco, where he worked with Los Siete de La Raza and the United Prisoners’ Union in the 1970s.

Candy Gonzalez worked with the Student Non–Violent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s and with the Drug Research Project in San Francisco in the early 1970s.

They are now citizens of Belize. E-mail them at geocanbz@netscape.net.