Freedom in the World 1999 - Belize

1999 Scores

Status: Free
Freedom Rating: 1.0
Civil Liberties: 1
Political Rights: 1

Overview

In 1999 Prime Minister Said Musa's government focused on promoting citrus and shrimp farming, two of Belize's main exports, while seeking to expand its already large off-shore business community. The role of a British-Belizean billionaire who owns the country's largest bank and who enjoys close ties to Musa's government received scrutiny as a result of concern about the country's loose financial regulations and ineffective money laundering legislation. The government also failed to live up to its commitment to resolve the indigenous rights disputes – particularly the big dispute about Maya land and resource rights, and about forest and oil concessions.

Belize is a member of the Commonwealth, and the British monarchy is represented by a governor-general. Formerly British Honduras, the name was changed to Belize in 1973. Independence was granted in 1981.

Belize is a parliamentary democracy with a bicameral national assembly. The 29-seat house of representatives is elected for a five-year term. Members of the senate are appointed: 5 by the governor-general on the advice of the prime minister; 2 by the leader of the parliamentary opposition; and 1 by the Belize Advisory Council.

The government has changed hands three times since independence between the center-right United Democratic Party (UDP) and the center-left People's United Party (PUP). In the 1993 elections, the UDP and National Alliance for Belizean Rights (NABR) formed a coalition, winning 16 of the 29 seats in the house of representatives.

The August 1998 elections proved to be a referendum on Prime Minister Manuel Esquivel's largely unfulfilled pledge that his UDP would create jobs. Esquivel was successful in resisting a regional trend toward currency devaluation. Tired of a long-stagnant economy, voters carried opposition leader and former Attorney General Musa to the premiership, giving his PUP 26 out of 29 seats in parliament. Musa, who ran on an antitax, pro-jobs platform, pledged to make Belize a party to international treaties on indigenous and women's rights. Among Musa's early initiatives were the creation of a national health service and a pruning back of the power of cabinet ministers. In 1999, efforts by Indian groups to assure their land rights before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights were effectively blocked by the Musa government.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Citizens can change their government democratically in peaceful, fair, and open elections. Since independence from Great Britain, each election in racially diverse Belize has resulted in the incumbent party's being ousted. In the 1998 elections there was a 78 percent turnout of a population that has swelled in recent years because of immigration from other Central American countries. The incumbent UDP party was also heavily outspent in the campaign. There are no restrictions on the right to organize political parties. Civil society is well established, with a large number of nongovernmental organizations working in social, economic, and environmental areas.

In general, the judiciary is independent and nondiscriminatory, and the rule of law is respected. However, judges and the director of public prosecutions must negotiate the renewal of their employment contracts, rendering them vulnerable to political influence. In addition, narcotics cases often go on for years while defendants are free on bail. Prison conditions do not meet minimum standards. The government opened a new facility in 1993 to alleviate overcrowding. However, this new prison, which houses death row inmates, provides in some cases one bed for six inmates, nonworking toilets, and inadequate protection from the weather.

Belizeans have suffered from an increase in violent crime, much of it related to drug trafficking and gang conflict. In February 1996 the U.S. government added Belize to its list of major drug-transit countries despite the anticrime measures undertaken in 1995, including the adoption of a quick trial plan, and the country remained on the list in 1997. A stolen-car treaty signed in 1996 was ratified by Belize in 1997, but has not entered into effect because of U.S. congressional inaction.

The Belize Human Rights Commission is independent and effective. Human rights concerns include the plight of migrant workers and refugees from neighboring Central American countries and charges of labor abuses by Belizean employers. Most of the estimated 40,000 Spanish-speakers who have immigrated to the largely English-speaking country since the 1980s do not have legal status. Some have registered under an amnesty program implemented in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Reports continue of mistreatment of migrant workers, however.

There are six privately owned newspapers, three of which are subsidized by major political parties. The mostly English-language press is free to publish a variety of political viewpoints, including those critical of the government, and there are Spanish-language media. Belize has a literacy rate of more than 90 percent. Radio and television are saturated with political advertising during elections. Fourteen private television stations operate, including four cable systems. There is an independent board to oversee operations of the government-owned outlets.

There is freedom of religion, and the government actively discourages racial and ethnic discrimination. The Esquivel government, however, did not recognize aboriginal land rights (Maya people are treated under Belize law as virtual squatters in their own homeland) and took action that threatened the survival of the Maya Indian communities. More than half of the 21,000 Belizean Maya live in the Toledo district, where they form nearly two-thirds of the population. Despite their claim to be the original inhabitants of Belize, they have no secure title to their ancestral lands, which have been targeted by foreign, mostly Malaysian, investors. This land, for thousands of years, has provided Maya Indians with food, medicinal plants, building materials, and hunting grounds. In 1996 the Maya organized demonstrations and took legal steps to block government-negotiated logging contracts. They also opposed the paving of a major road that would afford businesses access to the area. Land claims continue to be fought out in the courts. The Musa government's official position, based on promises from the 1998 campaign, is that it is interested in resolving the Maya rights issues, but in fact it has followed an age-old policy of top-down control by the elites, who have significant economic and political interests in the Maya region. Compounding the Maya's problems with logging concessions and oil concessions (there are reports that a lot of oil may be under Maya lands) is a recently revealed government plan, developed in secret, to build an international highway through Maya country to Guatemala. The Musa government has also announced plans to establish a Southern Regional Development Corporation to take over most of the economic and political decisionmaking in southern Belize. Critics say that such a group would be a top-down institution with power over traditional lands.

Labor unions are independent and well organized and have the right to strike, but the percentage of the workforce that is organized has declined to 11 percent. Unionized workers earn two to three times as much as their neighbors. Disputes are adjudicated by official boards of inquiry, and businesses are penalized for failing to abide by the labor code.