Comment
Vietnam Casualties Undercounted Dr. Charles Clements, the Vietnam veteran who worked in guerrilla-con- trolled territory in El Salvador, re- cently did some fund-raising for NACLA. He shared this...
...I congratulate you for doing so much more about it than most of us...
...The Editors...
...Unemployment and consequent hardship have increased but most Belizeans are better off than their parents were, and there is little of the extreme poverty, or inequality, that is characteristic of other Caribbean and Central American countries...
...Belizean pol- itics are not racially defined and there is a 30-year tradition that may be envied elsewhere...
...Whether through direct U.S...
...If the industry continues to lose money, as Tate and Lyle anticipates, Belize will not have a bargain, but with over 60,000 acres of the northern districts committed to sugar cane and 4,000 cane farmers and Continued on page 15 Continued from page 2 thousands of factory and field workers dependent on the industry, there is no alternative, at least in the short run...
...militarization, through further economic penetration of an open and vulnerable economy or through the extraordinary cultural invasion that is now taking place via the mass media, Belize could certainly become a dependency of this country, as Jamail implies...
...We have be- come used to statistics and large numbers...
...The only way out of this trap is by speaking the truth, which sometimes seems as futile as the splashing of a wave against a rock...
...pressure in the region, a pressure that could result effectively in a recolonization of Belize...
...and with the recent improvement of relations with Honduras, Belize is isolating Guatemala diplomatically...
...Another achievement is that Belizeans just celebrated the third anniversary of their independence...
...The future of Belize, Jamail would probably agree, is exceptionally hard to predict because its situation, in terms of internal factors and external contingencies, is so fluid...
...These facts, along with specu- lation about the extent of the U.S...
...Numbers and statistics mean nothing...
...It is more useful to focus the instinctive suspicion that develops from that into the embarrassing questions: Why did we lose in Vietnam...
...It is truth which stands the test of time...
...The People's United Party, which has dominated Belizean politics since its formation in 1950, is in danger of fis- sion...
...To save the factory, the government recently agreed to acquire 75% of the shares in the Belizean subsidiary, leaving Tate and Lyle with the remainder...
...By the time the struggle for the hearts and minds has been abstracted down to the video game of fire control radar, the connection is completely unreal...
...While such problems are pressing, even threatening, Jamail has perhaps paid insufficient attention to some of the more positive aspects of Belize and the achievements of its government...
...There have been 40,000 death squad victims in El Salvador...
...You skillfully articulate my own feelings about not only the Vietnam experience but this country's present Central America policy as well...
...What is really happening in Central America...
...Each year of Belizean sovereignty makes the Guatemalan territorial claim more ob- viously unjust and unrealistic...
...About that, I am sure, Professor Jamail and I are in agreement...
...To this horrendous list of problems, I must add that the sugar industry, which has been the chief contributor to the economy since 1959 (accounting for between 20% and 25% of the GDP and about 60% of domestic exports by value) is facing a crisis...
...The [quasi-governmental newspaper] Stars and Stripes would headline big victories in the north, while little paragraphs on the back pages would reveal that the enemy still occupied half of Saigon weeks after the Tet offensive began...
...Belize's government took a chance in 1981 when it opted for independence without prior settlement of the Guatemalan dispute, but, with each new agreement with Mexico or Costa Rica...
...O. Nigel Bolland Professor of Sociology, Colgate University Hamilton, NY Nigel Bolland is the author of The Formation of Colonial Society-Belize, from Conquest to Crown Colony and of Belize: The New Nation in Central America, forthcoming on Westview Press...
...I subscribe to NACLA because in the spring of 1968 the losses from my own squadron alone were in excess of the casualty figures reported for the entire war from the Chinese border to Ca Mau...
...Prime Minister George Price's cabinet shuffle last January only papered over the growing cracks, just long enough for the next general election which will probably be held at the end of this year...
...Between 1960 and 1975 the United States carried out 70,000 assassinations in Vietnam...
...Clements, I am writing to add my voice to those of your brother Vietnam veterans from whom you must have already heard...
...He shared this response with us...
...Financially, Belize appears to be in better shape than most of these countries and has not yet been forced to renegotiate its debts or deal with the IMF...
...Indirect fire and air strikes sanitize the phenomenon, but the troops who have to do it must and do become alienated and brutalized...
...With catastrophic falls in sugar prices since 1980, Tate and Lyle, the transnational corporation that monopolizes sugar production in Belize, has threatened to close one of its two factories...
...Thank you for performing so well a job that needs doing...
...Of coure, the problem of providing for Belize's defense persists, but that should not obscure the fact that Belize is consolidating her position and thereby making it harder for Guatemala to gain any support...
...I thank you for giving such pow- erful expression through your book Witness to War to an intensely held point of view shared by numerous ordinarily quiet people...
...Jim May Carbondale, IL Belizean Achievements Ignored Milton Jamail's two articles on Belize (May/June and July/August) provide an admirable short account of many of the problems facing this recently independent Central American nation...
...What every friend of Belize hopes for, however, is that Belizeans should remain free to make their own choices and to determine their own future...
...Salient to what you write about is a theme central to both questions: the stark injustice of conducting a type of warfare in which the main victim is the civilian population...
...Dear Dr...
...The new indepen- dence constitution requires that each district have between two and three thousand voters and, as' a result, the membership of the House of Repre- sentatives, currently 18, will increase--but no one yet knows by how many...
...all it takes is to see an atrocity with your own eyes just one time to be overwhelmed with revulsion...
...But I am sure that I do not need to educate you about the distortions of the reporting...
...But we seem to learn nothing from the past...
...The absence of communal violence is an important feature of Belize's social history, and suggests, perhaps, that the obsession with racial divisions and ethnic heterogeneity that characterizes most accounts of Belize is misplaced...
...Consequently, Be- lizeans have not experienced the kind of belt-tightening and resultant social unrest that is evident, for example, in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic...
...Belize remains the most peaceful and stable democratic nation in Cen- tral America...
...role in the first national election since independence, make the result especially unpredictable...
...When, along with these facts, we consider the high lit- eracy rate and the expanding health services, it is apparent that there are clear achievements, as well as problems, in Belize...
...He justifiably draws attention to the continuing Guatemalan threat to Belize, the impact of thousands of refugees and the growing problem of U.S...
...After all, despite the absence of growth in many sectors of the economy, Belize has weathered the recession more successfully than many other countries in the region...
Vol. 18 • November 1984 • No. 6
