Marked for death … Belize in 2009

by glenntillett@yahoo.com

In November 2009 Belize has become a place of rampant insecurity for many, and a downright terrifying place for some others. Our economy is in meltdown and none can predict when and where the downward spiral will stop.

Death stalks the land. Death from violence, death from famine, death from pestilence, death stalks the land. I grew up in a land where people literally slept and dreamt undisturbed, their doors and windows open to admit the cool night air. My parents and I slumbered on often in a silence so intense it was in and of itself a sound. How could it be that we were all so innocent, and time has so re-written each every line?

In my days of innocence murder was rare. It happened and some were sensational, but they were nearly all crimes of passion and we all knew who did it. These days death by misadventure comes in nearly every form imaginable and on a scale that we have trouble wrapping our minds around. The violence has numbed us, paralyzed us with its scope and scale. And above and through it all is the fear.

It is not that we are not scared why we don’t want to talk about – it is more like we’ve been scared silent. We all know that Murder Inc. is alive and thriving in Belize and no one is safe. And those who can’t afford guns and get a license to carry, those who can’t build the high fences and feed the big dogs, pay BEL for the lights and install the security cameras, much less pay security personnel wages, are the most vulnerable of all.

I don’t know about you but I am terrified by the growing number of contract killings, hits if you will; the slaying of people who, by all appearances there really is no reason that you know of or can think of, deserved to be slain. Who did they piss off?

Some years ago, on October 12, 2000 to be exact, Therese Blake was shot and killed after being kidnapped near her home on Newtown Barracks. The slaying had all the earmarks of a hit. Since then there have been several incidences if you will, and they reflect a growing pattern.

Belize is a dangerous place. We may never know who killed Jason Coombs last Thursday, and if things hold true to form, we will never know why either. If it wasn’t for sheer coincidence we may never have known who killed Hui Lin Chen in Orange Walk in March of this year either or why.

A wizened cop once told me that people who are the victims of contract killings are targets for reasons of love, money or mistaken identity. If that is true then we are all targets.

It is dismaying when you’re forced to conclude that our law enforcement is ill-equipped to deal with these crimes. There is little to deter Murder Inc. from becoming bolder and bolder, and from expanding its business.

From my little corner, because of my other job as the host of a morning talk show I am regularly threatened by people who are pissed off about something I or one of my guests may have said. I don’t ignore these threats but I tend not to react because usually with the passage of a few days the person would cool off.

Every now and again though, I get threats from persons, all male, whom I have to take seriously. I don’t usually publicize them because it could provoke some who you don’t know to act, thinking you’re focused elsewhere, or it could turn into what they call in the streets “a beef,” and somebody starting feeling that having talked the talk they have to walk the walk.

In rare cases I have to seek the assistance of the police, as well as take other measures that for, security reasons, I can’t talk about. The past few weeks have been one of those rare cases. I am being threatened by someone who has been accused and arrested for killing someone. He has made it a point to tell several people he intends to do me harm.

A few years ago I would have been a lot less concerned and alert than I am now. The fact is that with Murder Inc. operating so boldly in Belize, you never know when you’ve been marked for death.

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