Every year the United Nations
Development Programme issues its
Human Development Report, an
attempt to quantify the development
of the world's nations by measuring
life expectancy, education, and
standard of living. Belize has
traditionally ranked near the top of a
middle range of countries and this year is no exception. Out
of one hundred and seventy-three nations, Belize comes in
at number sixty-seven. This puts us well behind such regional
neighbours as Barbados (number twenty-eight), Costa Rica
(forty-two), Bahamas (forty-nine), St. Kitts (fifty-one),
Cuba (fifty-two), Trinidad (fifty-four), Mexico (fifty-five) and
Antigua (fifty-six), but ahead of Dominica (sixty-eight), St.
Lucia (seventy-one), Jamaica (seventy-eight), St. Vincent
(eighty), Guyana (ninety-two), El Salvador (one hundred and
five), Honduras (one hundred and fifteen), Guatemala (one
hundred and nineteen) and Nicaragua (one hundred and
twenty-one). The authors of the study point to thirty-one
countries in which progress toward the U.N.'s millennium
development goals has either stalled or actually reversed.
Belize is not among those nations, although our ranking has
dropped slightly since last year's report, in which we ranked
number fifty-eight. By 2015 all United Nations members
have pledged to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty,
achieve universal primary education, promote gender
equality, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health,
combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases, ensure environmental
sustainability and develop a global system that promotes
development.

We slipped a bit from last years ratings, but all and all, I think we're doing a good a job ensuring the health and well being of the country, considering the resources we have to work with. We are quite fortunate to have an abundance of clean water and food and do not suffer the health problems endemic to this region or in third world countries. I consider Belize a second world country, certainly compared to the countries listed below us and the poverty they suffer under. Whatever remarks one may want to levy against our govtment and politicians, keep in mind, it's all pretty tame when you compare them to many other countries-first, second of third world. Keep in mind, Rios Mont just got the okay to run for president again in guatemala. Now that's scary.

Rios Mont...that name rings a bell. Can anyone tell me why?

Maybe because he's a war criminal of epic proportions, a murderous killer, rapist and narcotics trafficker who also happened to be on the CIA payroll for many years. Killed hundreds of thousands of Mayans, by shooting, starving, burning and torturing them to death.
And now, he's trying to get his old job (President of Guatemala) back.

www.thirdworldtraveller.com

New Internationalist magazine, September 2001

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about General Efrain Rios Montt is his brother. In May 1998 Bishop Mario Rios Montt succeeded the assassinated Bishop Juan Gerardi as head of the Catholic Church's human-rights office in Guatemala. His task is to continue Gerardi's work, uncovering the truth behind the massacre or disappearance of upwards of 200,000 people during the prolonged and continuing 'civil war'- more accurately described as attempted genocide - against the indigenous Mayan majority of the Guatemalan population. The person who, in the early 1980's, presided over the most vicious single episode in this genocide was none other than the Bishop's brother, the General. Efrain is also an ordained minister of the authoritarian, right-wing Gospel Outreach/Verbo evangelical church, based in California and one of several such churches that have been expanding fast
in the region, at the expense of the Catholic Church.

.... So when Rios Montt grew to maturity and duly seized power in 1982 he set out to show what a good student he had been. He launched a 'Guns and Beans' offensive against Guatemala's persistent insurgents. A subsequent report commissioned by the UN found that at least 448 mostly Indian villages had been simply wiped off the map. The targeting of the Mayan peoples forced hundreds of thousands to flee to the mountains or to neighboring Mexico. Many of those who remained were corralled into 'hamlets' to produce cash crops for export.

PBS this month aired the story of a Mayan Girl from Guat. who was one of the few survivors of the Rio Negro village killings.
Very sad to see her struggle to find her way torn between two vastly different cultures.
Interesting glimpse into the Mayan culture and the continued attempts by others to trample over them and their culture.

Guatemala general blocked again
Guatemala's Supreme Court
has suspended the
presidential candidacy of
former military leader Jose
Efrain Rios Montt.

The court made the decision
after an opposition candidate
appealed against the former
strongman's candidacy.

The suspension means that Mr
Rios Montt will be unable to run
as the candidate of the ruling
Republican Front unless he, in turn, succeeds in an appeal.

Earlier on Sunday, thousands of people marched through
Guatemala City to protest against the retired general - who
governed for 18 months following a coup in 1982.

Human rights groups accuse him of having ordered thousands
of killings and kidnappings during his rule.

Mr Rios Montt, 77, was barred from running in 1990 and 1995
because Guatemala's 1985 constitution bars former coup
leaders from running for the presidency.

This year the electoral tribunal and the supreme court also
ruled that he could not contest November's election.

However Mr Rios Montt's lawyers have argued that the 1985
constitution cannot be applied retroactively.

Last week they succeeded in getting the ban overturned by
the constitutional court - Guatemala's highest jurisdiction.