Must Watch in order to understand Belize #1 death Squad

Published on Dec 7, 2012 By anturn on youtube

When Samantha submitted her first post, she insisted on choosing her own photo.  She choose one with heavy makeup and multiple adornments, which for Sam’s culture would be required for a formal presentation of oneself.  A large number of both male and female readers were unkind in their comments and a few were rude to the point of uncalled for profanity.

I finally convinced Sam that some foreigners had never had the oportunity to step outside their yards and see that all cultures judge dress and adornment differently.  So …. I went through her vast photo collection and chose one of my own – shown above.  This is how I see Sam.  I seldom go to church or other formal affairs so I have not had the opportunity to see her as her first post portrayed her.

I hope it helps those of you prone to quick judgments.

Below is another photo, taken today.  I believe that education, in any form and in any subject, cannot be a bad thing.   Sam was taking English lessons before we left suddenly, and I have no access to books or tutors where we are, so I have been teaching her what few useful things that I can while on the run.  She took an interest in my multiple disguises so I began teaching her the basics of disguise – that it is not about costumes, it is about attitude and misdirection.  I have told her that I long for one of those dog leashes and collar that, when you held it properly, made it look like you were walking an invisible dog.  I’m sure many of you remember the things.  Anyway, If I had one, I know for a fact I could walk into any poice station holding one,without any other disguise, ask for directions, and walk out without being recognized.  Anyway, I told her to meditate on it for a while and then disguise herself with a simple pair of glasses and some “attitude”

Here’s what she came up with (I blanked out the background for obvious reasons):

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Three of my friends are still being held in prison on trumped up charges.  They are:

Eddie Ancona

Cassian  Chavarria

William Mulligan

They were charged and have been imprisoned because three legally licensed firearms were found in the incorrect rooms on my property (stretching the law to the extreme).  I would ask you to please email the following and demand their release:

Sam and I began our ungerground oddessey, not on the day after Mr. Faul’s death, but on Monday, the 15th of October, early in the morning.

I am leaving gaps between the earlier post – “The Letter”, and this post, because, in the end, I believe it weaves a better story.  Forgive me for not including photographs with this post but my access to that specific library at this point is limited, due to my current situation.  I hope you will understand.  Within a few days, I will post the photos and, hopefully, flesh out the story some more.

Anyway, on Sunday, the 14th of October, at 1:20 P.M., I received reliable information that a number of ex-police officers and ex-BDF personnel were going to attempt a raid on my San Pedro property.  They would be dressed in uniforms and pass themselves off as police.  This is a common practice among Belizean criminals.  People generally open their doors to the police, so the criminals don’t have to force their way in.  As an aside, I had six full time security guards on duty.  I was told the raid would be the early the following morning, October 15th, between the hours of 1:00 A.M. and 5:00 A.M.

I thought long and hard about what to do.  At 4:00 in the afternoon I called a close friend and taxi driver, named Herman Wade, and asked him to drive the torturous road north to my house.  Travel to the North Island is generally by boat, since the road is most of the year impassable.  I then called Samantha’s father, Nestor Vanegas, whom I trusted, if for no other reason than Samantha is his daughter and I felt sure he had his daughter’s safety at heart.  I had a meeting, Herman, Nestor and Samantha, and explained the situation.

I told Nestor and Herman to drive together to a point about two miles south of my property, where the road curves dramatically to the beach, and to back the van into the bushes.  I instructed them to call Sam or myself if a large number of people dressed as police headed north.  To help the reader understand the issues here, police seldom, if ever patrol the far end of the North Island, even during the day, and less often during the night.  When it does happen, there are never more than two officers involved, and they are always on foot.

Sam and I went to bed and slept.  At 4:40 in the morning Nestor called.  I was up instantly.  “Two golf carts with eight men carrying automatic rifles just passed”.

“Did they see you?” I asked.

“No” he said.

“Give to the phone to Wade” I instructed.

Wade confirmed the account.

“Were the guns automatics?” I asked

“I don’t know.  They looked like rifles.  They held them on their laps” He replied.

“Stay where you are”  I said, and hung up.

Sam was already up and dressed.  I threw on a pair of shorts and, shirtless and shoeless, climbed down the stairs to the beach and headed north, with Sam in tow.  Two miles in a golf cart under the current road  conditions meant we had ten minutes or so.

The first thing I noticed was that, of the three guards who were supposed to be at the front, one was standing on the dock – Chele Perdomo – and one was walking away to the back of the house.  The guard walking away later said he was going for a drink of water.  4:40 A.M. at the Ocean’s edge is not usually a thirsty time of day.

I said nothing to Chelle, but continued walking hurriedly north, with Samantha in tow.  When we got about 200 yards north, where the beach was dark, we hid in some thick brush and waited.  I noted that Chele did not attempt to follow us and he did not see where we exited the beach.  From our vantage point we could see about a quarter of a mile to the north, and way past my property to the south.  In less than ten minutes, two golf carts pulled onto the beach just south of Playa Blanca (about 600 yards north), with lights still on.  We were clearly not dealing with professionals.  The cart lights went out and a number of flashlights were turned on.  You could see the jiggling of the lights as the men walked south toward my house.  I signalled Sam Sam to stay quiet and motionless.  As the men approached to within 100 yards of us we could year distinct voices but could not make out the words.  A cell phone rang.  Everyone stopped.  There was an animated conversation, then all went quiet and still for a moment.  Then there were more voices, which continued for a couple of minutes.  More stillness, then we saw the men retreating back to their carts.

Sam and I stayed in hiding until 8:15.  I then called Amy (I had my cell phone and my pistol in my shorts).  Amy, even though she is with Keith now, still sleeps often in her room in my home.  I told Amy to go to my room, put on one of my shirts over hers and walk north on the beach, talk to no-one and ask no questions.  Amy has known me for over two years and detected the seriousness of my voice.  She did as I asked.  She was pissed though when I quietly hailed her.  She is used to sleeping well past noon and early mornings are not her cup of tea.

To make a much longer story short – I put on the shirt, called Wade and Nestor, told them to come pick us up, and Sam and I began our oddessey which is still continuing.  We have been basically on edge, moving from house to house, condo to condo, hotel to hotel, never staying more than two nights in any one place. I fired my entire security staff a few days after the abortive raid.

The events that have unforlded since this abortive raid will seem incredible to most – beyond belief.  If you can suspend your disbelief until the final chapter, however, I promise that you will be as satisfied as watching the ending of Pride and Prejudice.

I will fill in the gaping holes eventually.  You must bear with me.   The best stories are revealed not chronologically, but by stepping from one level of intensity to the next.

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Three of my friends are still being held in prison on trumped up charges.  They are:

Eddie Ancona

Cassian  Chavarria

William Mulligan

They were charged and have been imprisoned because three legally licensed firearms were found in the incorrect rooms on my property (stretching the law to the extreme).  I would ask you to please email the following and demand their release:

During my drug dealing days I became adept at those talents required of a successful drug dealer: clandestine travel through the Third World countries that produce and transport the goods; dealing with corrupt officials; dealing with drug lords and druck traffickers; successfully passing checkpoints; bribery, and in emergencies, the methods of escape.

I am a firm believer that all experience can be a valid teacher if a person listens to experience with unclogged ears.  Since it is a Saturday and I’ve had a tiring week, I will take a break from the task at hand and use what little I have learned to assist travelers that might appreciate the rewards of travelling off the beaten path in third world countries. It should also assist anyone engaging in questionable activities.  If a person does not directly harm another, then I try not to judge.  You might call this McAfee’s Travel Guide:

In order to make the most of your travels, you need to first understand that, throughout much of the Third World, there is a smoothly functioning “system” in place that has evolved over centuries. From the First World perspective it is a “corrupt” system, and indeed, at the higher levels there is no other word for it, and this blog’s purpose is to remove the brutality and horror of such high level corruption.  At the lower levels, however, the system contains an element of grace and humanity, and this lower lever is all that most people will ever encounter.  You might still call this lower level “corruption”, but that’s not a helpful word if you want to acquire the most effective attitude for dancing with it. I prefer “negotiable”. It focuses the mind on the true task at hand when dealing with officialdom and removes any unpleasant subconscious connotations. So if you can view the following tools and tips as negotiation guidelines it will help bring the necessary smile to your face when the situation requires one.

Press Credentials

The most powerful tool a traveler can possess is a Press card. It will allow you to completely bypass the “documentation” process if you have limited time or limited funds and don’t want to deal with it. I have dozens stashed in all my vehicles, in my wallet, in my pockets, in my boats.  You might ask, since I claim to be an upstanding citizen, why I would need such deception.  It is because I am one of the few white men who chose to live part time in the interior of the country.  I was one of only three white guys living in the district of Orange Walk, for example. I have cars and enjoy driving and I travel frequently.  Not a day went by without having go through a “checkpoint” of some kind.

I am paranoid about being caught without one when I need one. They have magical properties if the correct incantations are spoken while producing them. A sample incantation at a police checkpoint (this will work in any Central American country):

(Spoken before the officer has a chance to say anything) – “Hi, I’m really glad to see you.” (produce the press card at this point). I’m doing a story on Police corruption in (fill in country name) and I would love to get a statement from an honest police officer for the story. It’s for a newspaper in the U.S. Would you be willing to go on record for the piece?” You can add or subtract magic words according to the situation. Don’t worry about having to actually interview the officer. No sane police person would talk to a reporter about perceived corruption while at the task of being perceived to be corrupt. He will politely decline and quickly wave you through. If you do find the rare idiot officer who wants to talk, ask a few pointed questions about his superiors and it will quickly awaken his sensibilities. He will send you on your way.

The press card is powerful, but has risks and limitations. Do not attempt this magic, for example, at a Federale checkpoint in Mexico on a desolate road late at night. You will merely create additional, and unpleasant work for the person assigned to dig the hole where they intend to place you.

Documentation

Documentation is the polite word for “cash”.

The real art of producing documentation is the subtle play of how much to produce. In some countries, a policeman makes less than a dollar an hour. At a checkpoint, a policeman will usually share his proceeds with the other officers lounging by the side of the road and with the police Chief. The Chief will get about 25% in countries like Colombia and Panama, so if there are three officers total, then a ten-dollar contribution will end up with about $2.50 in each person’s pocket – a good take for someone making about a dollar an hour in legitimate salary.

Nothing irks locals more than someone who produces documentation in excess of what is expected. It ruins the system for the rest of the population. The Police begin to expect more from everyone, and the populace is then burdened beyond any sense of reasonableness. I might mention that checkpoints for any given location in most countries are set up no more than once a week, and frequent travelers reach accommodations with the authorities so that they are not unnecessarily burdened to the point that they are single-handedly putting the policeman’s children through school. The police are, by and large, honest people with hearts, and few truly abuse the system.

So to give more than is reasonable is a crime against humanity. The following are some hard and fast formulas that I have learned from trial and error over the years:

Documentation is inversely proportional to traffic density – the higher the traffic, the less you pay, the lower the traffic the more you pay. This is simple economics: The police must make their personal quota from whatever traffic there is.

If you stop at a checkpoint and there are four or five cars in line, you can be assured that less than a couple of dollars will be expected from a Gringo. Smart folks carry a half dozen cold cokes and beers in a cooler in the backseat and simply reach around, grab one or the other and hand it out the window with a smile. In the late afternoon on a hot day, this will be received with far more appreciation than a few small coins. If you hand a cold drink to all of the officers, you could easily talk them into giving you a protective escort to the next town.

In low traffic areas, in addition to having to pay more, you will also entail more risk. It’s never good to travel lonely roads in Central America, unless you are very experienced or closely wired in to the authorities. However, if you’ve come down to do a dope score or are determined to visit sweet Crucita in some remote village and have no other choice, then strictly adhere to the following:

Do not get out of the car, even if ordered to do so. Your car is your only avenue of escape. It’s a ton or more of steel capable of doing serious harm to anyone foolish enough to stand in front of it, and once underway is difficult to stop. The checkpoint police in Central America never chase anyone down, in spite of years of watching U.S. Television and action movies. It’s too much work, plus they could have an accident. It’s not worth it for an unknown quantity. And they won’t shoot, unless you’ve run over one of them while driving off. It makes noise and wastes a round that they must account for when they return to the station – creating potential problems with the higher-ups. Not that I recommend running. It’s just that outside of the car you have lost the only advantage you have.

Smile and, if possible, joke. Say something like: “I’d like to stay and chat but I’m in a hurry to meet a girl. Her husband will be back soon.” This will go a long way toward creating a shared communion with the officers and will elicit a shared-experience type of sympathy.

Don’t wait for them to talk. Take the initiative. Have your documentation ready as you pull up and simply present it to the nice policeman while beginning your patter similar to the above, or whatever patter is comfortable for you. Never hand cash directly. Slip it in inside your insurance papers, or some other paperwork relating to your car or your journey, with about an inch of the banknote discretely sticking out. I use a Cannon Ixus 530 setup manual with the front and back cover removed. It’s small, light, and looks like it could be important paperwork for almost anything.

Remember: 50% of the police who stop you in some countries can’t read. This is a powerful piece of information for the wise.

Once the officer has removed the banknote, which will be immediate, reach out and retrieve your laptop manual (or whatever you choose to use), smile, wave and drive off immediately without asking permission, but slowly, without looking back. Doing the job and leaving quickly without appearing to hurry off is the key here. Don’t give them enough time to assess you.

The above is a failsafe formula for back roads of Central America if adhered to explicitly. Expect to part with at least 20 bucks. If, on approaching the checkpoint, you judge the police body language to be insolent or agitated, change the twenty for a fifty.

If something goes awry and the above, for some reason, has not worked, then pretend stupidity. Ask them to repeat everything they say and act bewildered. If ordered to get out of the car, smile broadly and simply drive off. Again – slowly.

If drugs or other contraband are planted in your vehicle by one of the police while another has your attention (a very common occurrence), understand, above all, that there is a zero probability that you will be arrested, unless you add to the “offense” by pissing someone off or otherwise acting unwisely. The intent is to scare. Under no circumstances deny that it is yours. Say something like “Damn, I thought I left that at home”, or “That’s the second time I’ve been caught this week.” This will show them that you are a good natured player and will probably negotiate. Denying ownership of the contraband will be seen as confrontational – an attitude that brings high risk when dealing with Third World authorities. The “documentation”, however, need not be much. They have chosen an approach to making a living that is universally considered by the locals as “not fair play”, and they should not be unjustly rewarded for it. Sure, they did go to the effort of distracting you, and someone had to go to the trouble to plant the dope, so they deserve something, but $5 is the maximum you need to pay. If they ask for more, then you can safely become indignant. They will shut up. The locals won’t tolerate police that take too much unfair advantage of the system, and your obvious awareness of the correct protocols will alert them to potential trouble if they push things.

If you actually are carrying contraband, of any kind – drugs, guns, Taiwanese sex slaves – whatever, and are caught, then the actions that you take within the first few seconds of discovery will have a profound impact on the rest of your life. The reality is: You have been caught. The officers have options:

1. Arrest you and charge you, where you are likely to confess to other people about exactly what you were carrying and how much – thereby limiting the policemen’s ability to make off with much of the cache. Or:
2. Come to some arrangement with you that is mutually beneficial and that does not include your demise, or create any undue risks to the officers’ jobs or safety.

Option 2 is obviously preferable. To anyone not fond of prisons, that is.

Your first order of business is to assess your situation. If you are in a town or even near one with reasonable traffic driving by, then the chances of your demise, or incurring harm to yourself, are virtually nil if you keep your wits about you. If you are on a lonely country road, and there is only one officer, or even two, your risks could be high, so you will be handicapped in your negotiations.

On your side, you have the option to go to jail and tell your story to lots of people, which generally restricts the officers’ abilities to make money on the encounter. The higher-ups will take it. On their side, they have the guns, and threats. Ignore the threats. You are fully cognizant of the fact that their sincere hope is that some accommodation can be reached that enriches their pockets and allows you to leave the area without compromising them.

So — first things first. Smile. There is no circumstance under which a smile will handicap you when dealing with authorities.

Be friendly in your speech and immediately and fully acknowledge your situation, and theirs. This puts them at ease and sets the framework for negotiation. Be polite but firm. Let them know that they will not be able to walk off with your entire stash, and do this early on. It creates more reasonable expectations in their minds. If your contraband is drugs, offer them a small hit while talking. It re-enforces, subconsciously, the idea that the dope is your possession and that they are partaking due entirely to your good will. If you are transporting sex slaves, then I must say first that I cannot possibly condone your chosen occupation, but -offering each one of the policemen a taste of the goods may well seal the deal without any additional cash thrown in.

It’s important to be firm without any semblance of hostility. If the policemen tell you, for example, that they are going to confiscate all of the goods, then, with an apologetic manner that implies an unfortunate certainty, say “I’m sorry, but that won’t be possible”. Shake your head sadly as if you had divulged: “My mom just died”. And this is the point to present them with an absurdly low offer. If you are carrying 20 keys of cocaine or a half ton of marijuana, then offer them $50. Alternatively, you could offer them a one ounce bag of the weed or a gram or so of the coke. If it’s sex slaves, tell them they can look at the bare breasts of one of the least attractive women (in parts of Southern Mexico, this might actually be sufficient).

They will be taken aback at your offer, but it will place any unreasonable expectations they may have in stark perspective. As a rule of thumb, if you are near a populated place, you will ultimately settle by parting with an amount of cash equal to about 10% of the wholesale value of the goods. On a road with infrequent and unpredictable traffic, maybe 20%. If you are on a desolate road, especially if the body language is not comforting, you may have to bite the bullet, give them the entire wad, plus your car, and ask for a ride to the bus station. Don’t expect the police to accept the drugs or contraband as payment if you are near a populated area. They would obviously be seen transferring the goods to their vehicles. If you are not carrying sufficient cash, then you are unprepared, and shouldn’t be doing shady deals in Central America.

Never display fear or hostility. Smile throughout, and crack what jokes you can.

Name Dropping

Knowing the name of the country’s Police Commissioner and Armed Forces Chief, and the Chief of Police for each county or town you will be driving through can be very helpful. Knowing all the mayor’s names will not hurt any either. Name-dropping is a powerful tool in the Third World, especially for gringos, if used appropriately. Telling a cop in America that you are friends with the mayor or the police chief will seldom help you avoid a traffic ticket, and may even increase the charges. In Belize, offending the Police Commissioner will immediately get a policeman fired, with no repercussions to the Commissioner, and, depending on the offense, may even get the officer “erased”. So it gives an officer serious pause when you say: “The drugs belong to Commissioner (insert name). I am delivering them to a friend for him”. If spoken with authority and condescension, they can have a dramatic effect. No policeman in his right mind would try to validate the story. Resident Gringos, for odd reasons, are prized as friends by wealthy and prominent locals, so it would not be out of the question to be close with the Country’s Police Commissioner. If the cop asks any specifics, like, how you know the Commissioner, pull out your cell phone and say: “I have the commissioner’s number, why don’t we call him and you can ask him yourself.” You need to have solid self-assurance, or at least some large cojones, to pull this off, but in a tough situation this can work miracles.

A small amount of research is necessary before using this approach. You need to know, for example, whether the police commissioner is really dealing drugs (almost all are). Every local inhabitant in the country will know this information (there are no secrets in the Third World). The policeman will certainly know.

You don’t have to be doing something illegal in order to use the name-dropping approach. When a friend of mine first moved to Belize, two policemen stopped him late in the evening while he was driving a golf cart across the bridge to San Pedro’s North Island. Before he could provide the proper “documentation” for a bridge checkpoint, one officer harshly demanded his drivers license, which he provided and then shut up. The officer’s attitude was not in harmony with a normal checkpoint situation. While he stared at my friend’s license, the other dropped a bag of weed on the back floor of the cart. (he didn’t smoke weed by the way.) When the first officer “discovered” the bag my friend said: “I hope you won’t tell the Commissioner about this. He’s a very close friend of mine and I wouldn’t want him to think anything bad about me.” The first officer divulged that they were only joking by planting the weed. He apologized and waved my friend through.

Generally, the tactic of planting drugs on people is only practiced in heavily trafficked tourist areas. The police in tourist areas are handicapped because tourists generally don’t “pay their due” to the police, or to any other functionary. Tourists consider it”corrupt” to have to pay policeman to do their jobs, or to pay them in order to have the freedom to drive down the street on checkpoint day. The police therefore are forced to resort to unethical means in order to make a living in these places. I understand this well, yet some character flaw in myself won’t allow me to reward someone who plants drugs on me. My friend feels the same.

Gifts

Gifts occupy a different strata in the system of negotiation. They are used when some future consideration is required, or after an official favor has been provided. Gifts can be small or large, depending on the circumstances and the wise person will have an ample supply ready for any event. I operate seven small businesses in Belize.  When I first opened them I refused to acquiesce to my business manager’s advice about gifts. I naiively assumed I could skate by without them.  I was wrong, I finally allowed the guy to stock up on resources so that he could do the job I was paying him to do:

Now… to be fair to the authorities ….. I have no way of knowing whether these “gifts” were actually given to the authorities.  For all I know the business manager that I hired started his own retail outlet somewhere and is still living off of the proceeds. It’s difficult under certain circumstances to get at the facts.

Favors, likewise, are part of the system. They have no negative connotation, and they require gifts whose magnitude reflects the magnitude of the favor.

One common “favor” that is considered questionable is to gift an officer in the armed forces to provide armed support for a drug deal, a revenge raid, an armored car heist, or any similar function. It’s a very common occurrence but it’s deemed to be morally sketchy by most of the populace. The reason for this, I believe, is the sense of unease created by the image of highly organized, insolent, largely illiterate men with fully automatic weapons catering to the whims of anyone with spare change. The general consensus is that the system of “negotiation” should stop at the gates of the military. The military should uphold the system, not practice it, as my friend and philosopher Paz once said. This is no more illogical than policemen as “officers of the peace”. The fact that SWAT teams exist and every policeman carries a gun and is trained in violent tactics, should alert us to the fact that practicing peace is not the means of choice for maintaining peace.

“When it comes to the case of McAfee, the latest information from San Pedro Police Station is that he’s still at large and he is still  wanted for questioning. Once again, we appeal to the general public and  his friends to come forward and encourage him to come in so that we  could put this case to rest or answer some questions regarding the  murder of Mr. Faull.  We believe that he is a person of interest based  on the proximity of where he lives and who he associated with, that he  can help in the solving of this crime.  The dogs were exhumed and the  slugs were taken out indeed and basically it’s just to match the slug  that was found in Mr. Faull to ascertain—we have not gotten back that  information as yet. It’s being done through our forensic people and I’m  not really sure exactly how long it will take regarding that but I hope  it will be really soon at least we have something tangible to go buy.   We have this operation going and this operation will be running for at  least two months. We are not on a nationwide manhunt, but of course we  have informed all the subunits throughout the country to be on the  lookout for him and if he is seen, he will be detained for questioning.  Coming back to whether or not he is on his compound, as was rightfully  mentioned earlier, he has actually allegedly reportedly said a lot of  things. We’re not really sure exactly how to take them, but police  actually visited his compounds just to find a whole media circus  waiting. I’m not really sure what his motive is, but we went there, we  visited, we checked as soon as we get the tips but there’s only so much  we can do when it comes to him reporting where he is. So we’re not sure  exactly what to take as truth and what to take as fictitious.”

I’m not sure from this statement, but it appears that the Police are waiting for me to report where I am.  And I am not sure whether I “actually, allegedly reportedly”, in his words, didn’t actually tell them.

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Three of my friends are still being held in prison on trumped up charges.  They are:

Eddie Ancona

Cassian  Chavarria

William Mulligan

 They were charged and have been imprisoned because three legally licensed firearms were found in the incorrect rooms on my property (stretching the law to the extreme).  I would ask you to please email the following and demand their release:

I have three freinds in prison here in Belize at the moment.  In the word’s imagination, prison is a place with beds, showers and food.   You may imagine it to be clean.  You may imagine that blankets and possibly pillows are provided.  You may imagine that there are toilets.

I spent 7 hours in a Belize cell after the April GSU raid on my property, and I can assure that your imaginings are far from the truth.

There are no beds.  I slept on a concrete floor.  There are no showers (Hattieville is an exception).  Food consists of two sandwiches per day – two dry slices of bread and one thin slice of rancid cheese per sandwich.  There are no toilets – a plastic milk carton cut in half is used instead.  There are no blankets, no pillows, no cooling fans.  Nothing is ever cleaned.  Clothes are not issued.  Drinking water is from the tap, and the water processing facilities in Belize are non-existent.  Cells are crowded to the point that not everyone can lie down to sleep at the same time.   The stench is indescribable.  People die in these cells at an alarming rate – from being beaten to death by fellow inmates, to death from starvation and disease.

These are the conditions under which my freinds are being held. They are being held on trumped up charges only because they are my friends.
You may be tired of me asking you this, but please email
info@tourism.gov.bz

and

james.scott@radisson.com

demand the release of my freinds.

What are the charges?  The four legally licensed firearms on my property were not kept in the correct rooms of my property.  Under the draconian laws of Belize, any law can be stretched to nab anyone for anything.  This is not a joke or an exageration.  Three of the guns were identical, single shot shotguns.  Only the serial numbers can distinguish them.  The wrong serial numbers were in the wrong rooms.

Why do I have guns?  If you have read the two Anthony Rhaburn transcripts and the post “The Letter” you might see that even a rational pacifist might keep guns.  I may be paranoid, that’s not for me to judge, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not after me.

Something I did learn in jail:

When I was processed into the jail, my belt, among other items was taken.  I had not realized before how difficult it is to keep your pants up without a belt.  I noticed many fellow inmates walking around with one hand holding up their pants, and the other doing whatever hands normally do.  A fellow cellmate, who had been in prison 27 times, took out an old plastic shopping bag from his pocket, rolled it into a thin, short rope-like thing, looped it through two of my belt loops, cinched it and tied it.  Voila – my left hand was freed and my pants stayed up.  Even in jail there is much one can learn.

P.S.  There have been some comments pointing to my mispellings,bad  grammar, etc. as being an indicator of my unhinged state.  I am 67.  I left in a hurry and do not have my glasses (When I am near my property I am unable to enter the front buildings of my property, which is where my own room is.).  I have no spell checker on this tiny device which is not a computer.  I am on the run and sleep less than three hours per night.  I have no money and, some days, no food.  I would beg that my detractors cut me a tiny bit of slack.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Three of my friends are still being held in prison on trumped up charges.  They are:

Eddie Ancona

Cassian  Chavarria

William Mulligan

 They were charged and have been imprisoned because three legally licensed firearms were found in the incorrect rooms on my property (stretching the law to the extreme).  I would ask you to please email the following and demand their release:

The above comment is typical of about a dozen readers of this blog.  Between them they have poster over 400 of the 2,000 plus comments we have received.  Of the 2,000 plus comments, we have posted over 1,000.  It is a lot of work to read each comment and moderate.

I will be accused of more paranoia, I am sure, because of this post I am writing, but truly, people, can a casual reader be so incensed over a blog that has not personally slighted the reader in some great fashion?  Ask yourselves.  Where is this anger coming from?  Is it the GSU, bored from unsuccessfully looking for me?  Is it some arm of the government that feels threatened by exposure?  Is it the Belize Tourism Association that fears a reduction in Tourism?  It must be something.  Please, everyone, this level of animosity does not come from uninvolved parties.   There is clearly a nerve being exposed somewhere.

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Three of my friends are still being held in prison on trumped up charges.  They are:

Eddie Ancona

Cassian  Chavarria

William Mulligan

 They were charged and have been imprisoned because three legally licensed firearms were found in the incorrect rooms on my property (stretching the law to the extreme).  I would ask you to please email the following and demand their release: