PEACE CORPS FOLLIES
Donziger, Steven
PEACE In Belize, volunteers find CORPS the easiest job they'll ever hate FOLLIES BY STEVEN DONZIGER Service is said to be excellent in the newest luxury hotel in Belize, located in the capital...
...role in such Third World countries as Belize...
...But the Lovingoods' legacy has left a bitter taste...
...Several Peace Corps volunteers in Belize said the agency was falling miserably short of its own standards and was being used more than ever as a high-profile tool to promote the American way of doing business...
...Prime Minister Manuel Esquivel and the ruling United Democratic Party are pushing a militant free-market agenda...
...They told us there were jobs and there were none...
...The development role is different in the 1980s than it was in the 1960s," says Perrin, the Peace Corps official in Washington...
...As a result, the Peace Corps seems to be attracting some older and more conservative volunteers—the type more accustomed to marble bathtubs than outhouses...
...It also accepts U.S...
...Britain stations only six diplomats in Belize—despite the presence there of 1,800 British troops and the country's status as a member of the Commonwealth...
...In the back office, which has wall-to-wall carpeting and an air conditioner to ward off the tropical heat, is the desk of Peter Tonti...
...He says the department never requested the new volunteers, as is required by Peace Corps procedures...
...But one employee of the hotel says the government is using the Peace Corps to avoid paying a full salary to a Belizean...
...One was teaching Belizean history in a local high school, and one was assigned as a carpenter for the Peace Corps office...
...The Peace Corps says it costs an average of $4,200 to train each volunteer for a two-year assignment...
...A sixth-grade history text devotes a full page to warning students that foreign cultural domination can undermine national sovereignty...
...Already there are too many Peace Corps volunteers in proportion to our needs...
...We came to win friends and be the friends we came to be, so we do not have to worry about the forces trying to make problems for the free peoples of the world...
...It was "one of the biggest disappointments of my life," he says...
...Our bodies are in Belize, but our minds are in Wrigley Field...
...This former British colony of 160,000, tucked on the Caribbean coast between Mexico and Guatemala, faces a bizarre U.S...
...One of the most surprised men in Belize last year was Stuart Krohn, who was production manager for The Mosquito Coast...
...The fact that we have a hotel manager who is assisting in developing the only hotel in the capital city may appear different, but it is in keeping with the development needs of that country...
...Cammisa took a job working with a group of Mayan Indians in southern Belize but backed off after complaints from another Peace Corps volunteer, who was working on a cacao project of the Hershey company...
...but if they won't take the medicine, maybe you have to give them a shot in the ass while they are sleeping...
...military aid for its 700-mem-ber army: In 1983, Belize received $ 100,000 in U.S...
...Now several entrepreneurs are in the business...
...I couldn't believe it," says Krohn, who was born in the United States and is now a citizen of Belize...
...Cammisa ended up tutoring English for an hour a day to refugees before returning home in disgust...
...Lewis says that instead of respecting the decision of the village council, the Lovingoods backed the volunteer and threatened to withdraw the Peace Corps permanently from Hopkins unless the council reversed its vote...
...Walk into the lobby of the Hotel Belmopan and employees will tell you Queen Elizabeth had lunch there during her royal visit last year...
...Their attitude is that Belizeans are country bumpkins and the Americans know better...
...An admirer of H. Ross Perot and Ronald Reagan, Sallaway doesn't shy away from expressing his political beliefs...
...Head for the dining room and you can peruse a menu that includes European wines and fine Creole dishes...
...Then a wealthy man named Arthur Hoare got tired of flying to Miami for the weekend to watch television...
...Alfred Cammisa, who has a master's degree in archaeology from Columbia University, was a Peace Corps volunteer in Belize...
...Of course I think our way of life is right, but the question here is how you put the medicine down the child's throat," Sallaway says...
...Krohn says he fired the volunteer, but that did not prevent a local Peace Corps official from asking that the agency be mentioned in the credits...
...Frazier says the union filed a complaint with the Belizean government last year over a volunteer who was teaching Belizean history...
...All these stories turned out to be true...
...A former vice president of Exxon was an early adviser in the Ministry of Economic Development...
...They say the influx of American tourists is bad, that the Peace Corps is bad...
...There are twice as many Peace Corps volunteers in Belize as there are physicians...
...We were all upset," Cammisa says...
...George Frazier, the secretary of the 2,400-member National Teachers Union, says "at least half and maybe all" of the seventeen Peace Corps teachers are in positions that could be filled by Belizeans...
...There is a piece missing here...
...After accusing Derek Aik-man, then the minister of education, of A Suburb of Chicago American television in recent years has been able to parachute virtually untouched from space-based satellites into the Belizean consciousness...
...That is because one local channel broadcasts WGN, the Chicago superstation, twenty-four hours a day...
...Another reportedly hired a Guatemalan refugee as a live-in maid...
...One volunteer is said to have worked with the crew of the motion picture The Mosquito Coast...
...Asked if he thought the Peace Corps enhances the American image in Belize, Lovingood said, "Yes, absolutely...
...It makes it difficult for business...
...Nor is it true that they are displacing anyone because they are not here to fill vacancies...
...It is the Peace Corps, however, that seems to be the most peculiar commodity Washington is exporting to Belize...
...Cammisa is home looking for work in North Babylon, New York...
...Different countries need different levels of technical assistance depending on where they stand in the developing world," he says...
...We did not trade 200 years of colonialism for a new colonial dependency," says Stuart Krohn, a local television producer...
...He says he was thrilled when the Peace Corps offered him a job in his field, with the Belize government's department of archaeology...
...Communism is a bloody real threat everywhere...
...Instead of fighting the Peace Corps, President Reagan appointed as director Loret Miller Ruppe, co-chair of the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign in Michigan and daughter of the founder of the Miller Brewing Company...
...We have problems, of course, but none that have gotten out of control," said Lovingood...
...What Sallaway does is direct a campaign to boost local businesses...
...But here you find not all are out there in the bush catching fish for dinner, and that is a disappointment for volunteers who expected to make a major contribution...
...I think the Peace Corps has had a positive impact in Belize...
...Belizean government officials are adamant about wanting to steer clear of regional turmoil, and they are sensitive about outside interference...
...The society has become inundated with American pop culture: About 50 per cent of the households in Belize City have a television set—an extraordinarily high number for a Third World country...
...S.D...
...It was the first time I realized the Peace Corps was an employment agency...
...Many Belizeans applied for that job...
...During the Carter years Belize rated only four diplomats, and some felt even that was too many, considering that the whole country has about as many people as Chattanooga, Tennessee...
...He has a formidable power base at his disposal: He administers about $20,000 in loan funds provided to the Peace Corps by the U.S...
...Relative to its population, Belize has more American diplomats (twenty-five) and more Peace Corps volunteers (130) than any country in the world...
...It boasts a parliamentary form of government with an unarmed police force...
...Thompson charges critics of the Peace Corps with being politically motivated...
...Under the Reagan Administration, the Peace Corps has reinterpreted its mission to emphasize promoting business instead of just helping the poor...
...It was false advertising...
...Then there's the hotel manager...
...According to Cammisa, Hershey was offering incentives to farmers to grow cacao for the company...
...One problem Lovingood cited was the unrealistic expectations of some volunteers...
...We are a suburb of Chicago," says Stuart Krohn, the television producer...
...Tonti," says Bryan Card, director of the government agency that financed the hotel...
...Marijuana accounts for about $100 million a year in earnings, more than all other exports combined...
...I realized I had just packed up my life for two years for nothing...
...But Belize happens to be located in Central America, which allows American national-security analysts to mutter "Belize" in the same breath as "Nicaragua...
...I like my job," says Tonti, forty-two, whose family is in the hotel and restaurant business in New Jersey...
...The former director of the St...
...Belize's 130 Peace Corps volunteers represent roughly one volunteer for every 1,200 people...
...be named...
...military aid...
...Sallaway's ideology fits snugly into the Peace Corps' reorientation...
...It is not true there are too many Peace Corps [volunteers] in Belize," says Curl Thompson, the deputy prime minister...
...Government officials dismiss the accusation...
...Petersburg, Florida, chamber of commerce is helping businesses spur exports...
...There is a feeling here, and I share it myself, that there are too many Peace Corps people...
...When the Republicans swept to power in 1981, some conservatives talked of eliminating the Peace Corps as a budget-cutting measure—until a popular outcry arose, led in part by some of the 120,000 Peace Corps alumni...
...Considered an able and tenacious administrator, Ruppe began to apply the Reagan philosophy to the Peace Corps...
...Since the advent of this government [in 1984], the opposition has been propagandizing against America," he asserts...
...Of the 130 Peace Corps volunteers in Belize, only one is black...
...Leaders of the opposition People's United Party (PUP) say they intend to bring up the dispute in the next election...
...But they cannot correlate abstract thoughts...
...The common view is that they are political appointees who are very pushy about the American way of life," says Anne O'Keefe, a volunteer who has since left for personal reasons...
...They are here as a substitute to train a local to take over a job...
...Because there were no local stations, most were used as adornments reflecting social standing and the expectation that Belize would someday be able to view the outer world through the tube...
...It has reached the stage where the man on the street is beginning to believe it...
...That's one reason people are nice to Jack," says a downtown pub owner...
...Some said they went "unemployed" for weeks at a time...
...And what has Sallaway learned about Belizeans...
...There is nothing that helps poor people more than getting a business off the ground," says Ed Hughes, the Peace Corps director in Belize...
...During filming one day, Krohn noticed that a volunteer was translating for a group of Panamanian Indians who had been hired as extras...
...Some of the material seemed fit for a comedy show...
...We are being overrun by Americans," says Said Musa, a former minister of justice...
...Many movie houses and bars have shut down, teachers complain of unfinished homework and students who skip class to watch soap operas, and academics say it is contributing to a massive brain drain that undermines development...
...PEACE In Belize, volunteers find CORPS the easiest job they'll ever hate FOLLIES BY STEVEN DONZIGER Service is said to be excellent in the newest luxury hotel in Belize, located in the capital city of Belmopan and run by an American Peace Corps volunteer...
...this year, it is receiving $600,000...
...it feared the Mayans might succeed in obtaining reservation status from the Belizean government, which would limit Hershey's operations in the country...
...Everywhere you turn, you see them...
...I'm a right-winger," he says...
...The effect of television is enormous...
...Some still have a 1962 picture of the Peace Corps, where you parachute into the jungle and save people," he said...
...Our volunteers are on the front line of the diplomatic effort in Central America...
...The volunteer, who is described as a good friend of the Lovingoods, was reassigned to another town...
...Last year a local newspaper with allegiances to PUP ran an editorial titled Belize, U.S.A...
...Capitalism is the only way all the people can benefit...
...We are not against the Peace Corps, but it really has gotten a little out of hand," says Frazier...
...The UDP has sold several state-run enterprises and told Belizeans that prosperity is synonymous with the rapid arrival of foreign capital...
...I'm embarrassed to say this," he says in a hushed tone...
...The Peace Corps lied to me, the Belizean government lied to me...
...Until recently, there was only one traffic light in the country, and the tallest building is a Mayan pyramid that has yet to be fully excavated...
...A Peace Corps volunteer managing a hotel says a lot about what is happening in Belize these days...
...The only former British colony in Central America, Belize won independence in 1981...
...But the government wants U.S...
...Villagers in the all-black coastal settlement of Hopkins got a taste of the Lovingoods last March, after the village council voted unanimously to expel a volunteer accused of making racist remarks and interfering in a village election...
...Like any hotel manager, Tonti helps determine everything from the day's menu to who is hired and fired...
...Of the sixty loans Sallaway administered, two went to Americans—one to a local artisan, the other to a cabinet maker...
...When he arrived, Cammisa found three other Peace Corps archaeologists in his group slated to work with the same government agency, which already had a Peace Corps archaeologist and only two Belizean employees...
...The Kissinger Commission on Central America included the country in its recommendations, and a massive infusion of money and Peace Corps volunteers came shortly thereafter...
...I find it shocking they would show absolutely no regard for the town leadership," Lewis says...
...Calypso music is popular, and smoking dope is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment...
...You turn here, you see them...
...His Peace Corps wage is $300 a month, but he lives in a three-bedroom house in the upscale Orchard Park subdivision and the government provides him with a chauffeur-driven Toyota Land Cruiser...
...Conrad Lewis, the chairman of the village council, said the volunteer repeatedly characterized town residents as "filthy barbarians who do not wash, have no morals, and do not know who their fathers are...
...Valid or not, Thompson's comments indicate the Peace Corps—which has a strict policy of avoiding politics—has become a domestic political issue in Belize...
...Already the government of Belize has allowed the Voice of America to construct a relay station in southern Belize...
...In 1979, only a handful of Belizeans had television sets...
...Research support for this article was provided by the Fund for Investigative Journalism...
...For any business willing to pay $3.50, he would preempt the regular commercial and run a thirty-second announcement...
...I'm in the business end of it," he says...
...The Pentagon has two military advisers in the country, and there is talk of a U.S.-Belize security agreement should the British withdraw...
...The country is an archaeologist's dream: The population of Belize topped out at 400,000 in the Tenth Century during the peak of Mayan civilization...
...Interviewed in Belize last summer, Joe Lovingood defended the volunteer as "very capable" but otherwise declined to discuss the situation in Hopkins...
...No one in Belize knows the sophisticated tastes and palate of the upper-class tourist like Mr...
...William Pen-in, a Peace Corps official in Washington, defends Tonti's assignment...
...When the Cubs play, shops close and streets clear...
...Agency for International Development for disbursement in Belize...
...In Belize, there are still agricultural technicians, health workers, and teachers—but there are also investment analysts and business executives who work in the national chamber of commerce or government offices...
...These small countries need help...
...I don't feel I need roaches crawling across my bed to be able to do what I should do...
...Since the advent of the Reagan Administration, Americans—especially Peace Corps volunteers—have poured into the country...
...Prominent Florida Republicans appointed to the post by President Reagan, the Lovingoods had no experience working overseas...
...I got here and found the ultimate challenge was finding something to do...
...By contrast, Guatemala has about 200 volunteers for a population of eight million, or one for every 40,000 people...
...You turn there, you see them...
...I thought the Peace Corps would be the ultimate challenge," says Joan Vigil, a twenty-five-year-old native of Los Angeles...
...We do not like the idea an American is the manager," the clerk says, asking not to Steven Donziger is a free-lance writer in Managua...
...In interviews with twelve volunteers, all but one made negative comments about the way the couple administered the program...
...Twice Esquivel has been received in the White House since coming to power in 1984...
...We are not out to help the poorest of the poor____We are no longer talking about sending out volunteers to live in shacks and dig latrines," he adds...
...intending to use Peace Corps teachers as scabs in a labor squabble, the editorial warned: "Peace Corps administrators had better refuse to get embroiled in troubles that are just beginning...
...Their replacement, Ed Hughes, who worked as a reporter in Atlanta during the civil-rights struggles of the 1960s, appears to have lifted morale...
...So he put up a satellite dish and began pirating American programming and rebroad-casting it to subscribers...
...occupation force...
...A town of 4,000 allegedly has twenty-five volunteers...
...Many volunteers arrived in Belize to find they had no jobs...
...Half the population is of African descent, and cultural ties are much stronger with the eastern Caribbean than with Spanish-speaking Central America...
...Some observers even attribute the 1984 election of conservative Prime Minister Manuel Esquivel to the constant appearance of Ronald Reagan on Belizean television...
...Others simply went home early—thirty-eight of the seventy who arrived in September 1985 had left by the following May, according to volunteers...
...It receives more American economic assistance, per capita, than any country but Israel...
...In rural areas, people watch Dynasty, Dallas, and the Chicago Cubs by hooking their television set to a car battery...
...Haiti, the poorest nation in the hemisphere, has one volunteer for every 150,000 people...
...Esquivel turned down an invitation to the inauguration of Costa Rica President Oscar Arias last May, in part to follow through with a state visit to the office of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington while on a tour of the United States...
...Even Manolo Romero, chief information officer for a conservative government that admires the Reagan Administration, has noted the influx...
...Meet Jack Sallaway, fifty-four, a broker from Los Angeles, who's with the Peace Corps in San Ignacio, population 6,000...
...Many volunteers trace resentment of the Peace Corps to Joe and Joan Lovingood, co-directors who finished their tour last fall...
...With almost missionary zeal, he explains how he perceives the U.S...
Vol. 51 • March 1987 • No. 3
