into the Fort Lauderdale area from off the coast of Belize on the boat 'Achy Heart.' The smuggling ring has been operating for more than 10 years, FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency investigators say.

RITZ-CARLTON ON AMBERGRIS?
Is this a joke? A Ritz-Carlton luxury hotel similar to the one in Cancun, a golf course, a new town, an international airport, and a container port were among the options recommended for development of the 30,000-acre North Ambergris property formerly called the Pinkerton Estate, in a proposal made by a North American consulting and development firm. However, the plan, from the Broadhead Group, was rejected by the North Ambergris Caye Development Corporation, an Ambergris-based group chaired by Fidel Ancona. A NACDC report from its own planning consultants called for small-scale, ecologically sustainable and incremental development of the prime property north of San Pedro, with active participation by Belizeans. The matter is currently under review by the Belize government.

NEW U.S. AMBASSADOR
The new U.S. Ambassador to Belize, George Bruno, was sworn in Aug. 16. Bruno, 52, an attorney and resident of New Hampshire, is a political appointee, rather than a career diplomat.

RETIRE IN HONDURAS
A U.S. company is in the process of acquiring up to 500 acres near La Ceiba to develop a retirement community called New California.

KILLER SNAKES
Of the 54 species of snakes in Belize, 28 are poisonous, but only 9 have venom strong enough to kill humans. The deadliest Belize serpent is the yellow-jawed tommygoff.

BEEPERS IN BELIZE
Belize Telecommunications Ltd. now offers beeper service in Belize City and areas within 15 miles of the city.

CHAMBER LOSES LOTTERY
The Belize government has yanked the authority of the Belize Chamber of Commerce to operate the National Lotto. The troubled Chamber reportedly remains deeply in debt, despite infusions of money from the U.S. government, staff layoffs and other personnel changes.

COSTA RICA JACKS TOURISTS
Costa Rica has raised the admission fees to its national parks by 1200%. Entrance fees, even to the smallest Tico parks, are now US$15 per person for non-resident foreigners. Residents will continue to pay only about US$1.25. Costa Rica also has raised the sales tax on hotel rooms and restaurants meals by 50%, from 10% to 15%.

SAN PEDRO FREEWAYS?
What next? San Pedro now has one-way streets, street signs and 23 stop signs. As of Nov. 1, cars and trucks on Ambergris are regulated in the same way as vehicles in the rest of Belize. Barrier Reef Drive (Front Street) is one-way south to north. Pescador Drive is one-way north to south.

NEW VALUE ADDED TAX
The UDP government has announced a new value added tax will replace the unpopular gross receipts tax and stamp taxes in April 1996.

BELIZE TURNS DOWN $50 MILLION
Belize in September reportedly turned down a US$50 million offer from the U.S. government if Belize would take up to 10,000 Cuban and Haitian refugees. The U.S. opened refugee camps in Panama and Surinam.

POWERFUL WOMEN
Belize ranks 13th in the world in the number of women serving in parliaments, with more than one- fifth of the legislature female. Norway, Finland, St. Lucia, Sweden and Denmark have the most women in parliament, while eight countries including Kuwait and Papua New Guinea have none.

BAD BELIZE BUCKS
Keep a wary eye out for fake $100 Belize banknotes. The blue bills have been cleverly forged using a high-quality color copier.

AIDS
It's a fact of life in Belize as in many other countries. By some estimates, more than 3,000 Belizeans are HIV-positive or have full-fledged AIDS. Almost 100 Belizeans have died from AIDS. Honduras, however, has more AIDS cases than the rest of Central America combined. About 60% of C.A. AIDS infections are in Honduras. Private estimates are that as many as 70,000 Hondurans are HIV- positive, and that 3,000 already have died of AIDS. Government figures are lower. San Pedro Sula is considered the No. 1 city in Central America in incidence of AIDS/HIV.

NEW TOUR GUIDES LICENSING
All guides in Belize are supposed to have a license which must be carried and prominently displayed, according to new regulations approved by the Ministry of Tourism and the Environment. Guides must be at least 18 years old, fluent in English, be Belize citizens, have no criminal convictions in the past five years and must have completed a course of study on ecotourism, first aid and CPR, Belize's history, geography, art and folklore and be a member of a recognized local tour guide association. The new regulations went into effect Nov. 1, 1994.

BELIZE HOLDINGS EXPANDS
Belize Holdings, the Belize holding company listed on the U.S. NASDAQ exchange which owns interests in Belize Telecom, Belize Bank, Radisson Fort George Hotel and other companies, in October bought 75% of the issued capital of Panama Holdings, Inc., for US$13.5 million. This is part of a strategy of diversification in Central America, according to Belize Holdings.

HOW HIGH IS UNEMPLOYMENT IN BELIZE?
The government says it is about 20%. However, only about 60,000 of Belize's 118,000-person labor force between the ages of 14 and 60 are actually employed, government stats show, suggesting that even taking into account those who are students, wish only to work part-time or who otherwise are inactive members of the work force, unemployment likely is higher than 20%.

TOURISM LOGO
A jaguar sitting on top of the word Belize is the new Belize tourism logo.

SHRIMP CAPITAL OF THE CARIBBEAN
Belize could become the shrimp capital of the Caribbean Basin, thanks to a new hatchery opened at Mile 5 of the Western Highway. When fully operational, the hatchery could produce 10 million baby shrimp a month. The government of Taiwan has contributed funds and expertise for the project.

MANHATTAN PUNTA
Caribbean-format WNWK Radio in New York, 105.9 FM, plays an hour of Belizean music on Sunday afternoons. Former Radio Belize DJ Steve Perriot hosts the program.

SEPTEMBER RAINS END DRAUGHT
Belize got relief from a dry year as up to 15 inches of rain caused flooding in Belize City and in Cayo, Toledo and Stann Creek districts. The new coastal highway from Democracia had as much as five feet of water. In November, Tropical Storm Gordon also dumped rain on parts of Belize.

ELECTRIC AVENUES
While Honduras struggles with electricity rationing due to an on-going draught, Belize's new, privately owned Macal/Mollejon hydroelectric station is actively hiring Belizeans for management, maintenance and operations jobs. Belize boasts among the best electrical, telephone and postal systems in all of Central America.

BIG MAC IN BELIZE? Fast-feeder McDonald's is expanding its locations in Central America and the Caribbean Basin, with new units set to open in Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica in 1995. Is Belize City next? McDonald's already has more than 14,500 restaurants in 75 countries.

GOVERNMENT MOVES TO FIGHT CRIME WAVE IS IT TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE?

By LAN SLUDER

Reacting at last to demands from outraged tourism operators, business people and ordinary Belizeans, the Belize government announced in late October it is pledging new money to fight the rising tide of crime in Belize. The United Democratic Party government said it would spend US$1.6 million to restructure the Belize Police Force, add cops and outfit them with better equipment.

The question remains: Is it too little, too late? In a world where a single cocaine shipment seized in Florida on a boat from Belize was valued at US$220 million, the government's offer of a thin stream of cash, following several notable failures at controlling crime, may be woefully inadequate.

Indeed, can anything at all be done to stop the surge of murders, robberies and attacks? Crime, observers say, is fed from several springs: a poor economy and high unemployment; the ready availability of crack and other dangerous drugs; the demographics of a society where almost two-thirds of the population is in the high-crime under-21 age group; the scourge of ill-trained, underpaid and sometimes corrupt police; and the influence of the worst side of U.S. popular culture as carried to Belize on satellite television.

If there is a good side to the situation, it is that in Belize, unlike in some other countries in the region where police are viewed as paramilitary exploiters, here the constabulary and the authorities are still widely considered the 'good guys' and there is real public outcry against lawlessness.

Belize, a country whose population of 240,000 (including illegal immigrants) is hardly larger than a single small city in the United States, produces a grisly resume of crimes, week after week.

Here's a partial list of serious crimes in recent weeks:

- In a bungled robbery attempt, a 19-year-old youth allegedly shot a Belize City policeman in the stomach.
- In Belize City a 64-year-old man was accused of killing another man after an argument over a bicycle.
- The home of the Belize Minister of Housing reportedly was burglarized.
- Five people were charged with firing shots at a van in Belize City.
- A Wackenhut security guard in Belize City was attacked by two intruders who took his 12-gauge shotgun and shot him with his own weapon.
- A mother of three in Belize City was raped and then murdered. She was found dead by her 15-year-old son.
- The home of a Belize City accountant was burglarized; almost US$150,000 in gold and jewelry was stolen.
- Over a single recent mid-week holiday, five people were wounded in shootings in Belize City.

Previous attempts to cut crime, especially in Belize City, have been failures. A money-for-guns program earlier in the year produced 260 guns but few other results. And when a group of new special constables was hired, it was determined that several of them had criminal records or were otherwise unfit for duty.

While most victims are Belizeans, and the vast majority of visitors never experience any crime, there is an unsettling new trend of attacks affecting tourists.

One of these took place at about 9:40 p.m. on Aug. 3. Three masked men walked into the Belize Guest House on Hutson Street at Marine Parade, owned by John (Sean) Hauck, a U.S. citizen who had lived in Belize for nearly two decades. Hauck, 42, and his wife, who had purchased the popular guest house a few months earlier, were relaxing at the bar/restaurant on the first floor, with three foreign guests.

Here, from an interview with an eyewitness, is what happened next:

"Three young men came in the door. Only one had a gun. It appeared to be a small caliber automatic. The man with the gun was in the front. He fired off a shot to get our attention, announced that this was a hold-up, and at that point Sean (which is how we knew him) charged them. There were two more shots in rapid succession and the guys ran off. No money was taken. My girlfriend ran from the room. I dove for cover. The other two people froze.

"Sean was on the ground dying. We called for an ambulance and they put us on hold, so we picked him up and put him in a pick-up truck and he was taken to the hospital, where he was DOA."

The eyewitness, a California resident who asked not to be identified in this story, said he and his girlfriend went to the police station and filled out statements. "The police were polite," he said, "if not a little disinterested." It took an hour and a half for statements to be taken.

"I can only judge the actions of the police based on what I am used to at home," he said. "If someone had been killed in that fashion here, the neighborhood would have been swarming with police for hours. That didn't happen. The crime scene was gone over, but not for more than the time it took us to give statements and return.

"When we returned, the American Consul was there, and he was helpful and provided Embassy guards for the remainder of the night. The next day, the State Department tracked us down at our new hotel, and we were questioned again. The following day we left for Chan Chich."

The eyewitness, who was on his first trip to Belize, says he will go back to Belize but will probably avoid Belize City if at all possible.

"I live in a big dirty city where people get killed everyday. I do not need to travel to to find the same elsewhere."

To date, the police have not apprehended anyone for the crime. "They may never do so" said one prominent Belize City resident. "We can only grit our teeth and bear the terrible decline in our society."

Another resident and observer of Belize tourism said, "Belize's reputation as a destination will shortly begin to suffer if many more attacks like the one at the Belize Guest House occur. "

There also have been several incidents of armed hold-ups of visitors at Xunantunich ruins near San Ignacio, so many that some local hotels now recommend that visitors go only in groups or on a tour. Recently, bandits have been reported on the new coastal highway going south to Dangriga.

Muggings and robberies of tourists in Belize City remain so common that many are not reported in local newspapers.

Criminals who prey on visitors are particularly difficult to punish, since tourists may need to leave Belize before police finish investigating the crime. They also may not be able to return at the time of the trial, so many cases collapse in court. This encourages offenders to commit more crimes against tourists. In November, the Attorney General's Ministry announced new measures to speed up the recording of evidence from visitors and to look into establishing 'quick trial courts' to deal with cases involving theft and other common crimes against visitors and Belizeans.

On the popular tourist center of Ambergris Caye, the double murder in February of U.S. citizen and prominent author, Ann Reilly Dines, and her British husband, both San Pedro residents, shocked the expat community in Belize. (See related story in Vol. II, No. 1 of BELIZE FIRST.) Following the murder of the Dineses, a suspect, Herman Mejia, was quickly apprehended. In November Mejia was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death by hanging.

Steps have been taken to beef up security and improve police protection on the island, although efforts to improve lighting on the dark beachfront where the murders occurred have stalled.

Hotel owners and other tourism operators find themselves in an ambiguous situation. On the one hand, they want strong action by the government to reduce crime, especially any that may impact the growing hospitality industry in Belize. On the other hand, publicly they maintain that crime, if at all a problem in Belize, is limited mostly to some areas of Belize City, and they try to hush up or play down any crimes that do occur, thinking that reports in the press will cut into travel to Belize.

"Crime is a fact of life all over the world," said one San Pedro hotel operator earlier this year, at the time of the Dines murders. "People understand that." That may be, replied a travel writer, but visitors do not expect to have murders in paradise.

^^^ Lan Sluder is editor and publisher of BELIZE FIRST.

BELIZE'S CARIBBEAN ISLANDS

Belize is the Caribbean. The Caribbean Coast.

Almost 200 islands are waiting for you to explore in the Caribbean Sea off the Belize mainland. Ambergris is the best-known and the most-popular -- look for an Ambergris update in an upcoming issue of BELIZE FIRST. But for laid-back and affordable, go Caye Caulker, or Tobacco Caye, Long Caye or Middle Long Caye. Dive the reef, hit the fish, or head farther out to South Pacific style lagoons and atolls. Here, the water is ridiculously green, blue and purple, and the diving is unbelievably great. Or hide away with a stack of novels in rustic, remote luxury.

This special section of BELIZE FIRST focuses on Caye Caulker. Tom Brosnahan, author of an entire shelf of guidebooks for Lonely Planet and other publishers, updates paradise on a budget, Caye Caulker.

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