Vietnam Casualties Undercounted Dr. Charles Clements, the Vietnam veteran who worked in guerrilla-con- trolled territory in El Salvador, re- cently did some fund-raising for NACLA. He shared this response with us. The Editors. Dear Dr. Clements, I am writing to add my voice to those of your brother Vietnam vet- erans from whom you must have al- ready heard. You skillfully articulate my own feelings about not only the Vietnam experience but this country's present Central America policy as well. I thank you for giving such pow- erful expression through your book Witness to War to an intensely held point of view shared by numerous or- dinarily quiet people. I congratulate you for doing so much more about it than most of us. I subscribe to NACLA because in the spring of 1968 the losses from my own squadron alone were in excess of the casualty figures reported for the entire war from the Chinese border to Ca Mau. The [quasi-governmental newspaper] Stars and Stripes would headline big victories in the north, while little paragraphs on the back pages would reveal that the enemy still occupied half of Saigon weeks after the Tet offensive began. But I am sure that I do not need to educate you about the distortions of the report- ing. It is more useful to focus the in- stinctive suspicion that develops from that into the embarrassing questions: Why did we lose in Vietnam? What is really happening in Central America? Salient to what you write about is a theme central to both questions: the stark injustice of conducting a type of warfare in which the main victim is the civilian population. We have be- come used to statistics and large num- bers. Between 1960 and 1975 the United States carried out 70,000 as- sassinations in Vietnam. There have been 40,000 death squad victims in El Salvador. Indirect fire and air strikes sanitize the phenomenon, but the troops who have to do it must and do become alienated and brutalized. By the time the struggle for the hearts and minds has been abstracted down to the video game of fire control radar, the connection is completely unreal. Numbers and statistics mean nothing; all it takes is to see an atrocity with your own eyes just one time to be overwhelmed with revulsion. But we seem to learn nothing from the past. The only way out of this trap is by speaking the truth, which sometimes seems as futile as the splashing of a wave against a rock. It is truth which stands the test of time. Thank you for performing so well a job that needs doing. Jim May Carbondale, IL Belizean Achievements Ignored Milton Jamail's two articles on Be- lize (May/June and July/August) pro- vide an admirable short account of many of the problems facing this re- cently independent Central American nation. He justifiably draws attention to the continuing Guatemalan threat to Belize, the impact of thousands of refugees and the growing problem of U.S. pressure in the region, a pressure that could result effectively in a recol- onization of Belize. Whether through direct U.S. militarization, through further economic penetration of an open and vulnerable economy or through the extraordinary cultural in- vasion that is now taking place via the mass media, Belize could certainly become a dependency of this country, as Jamail implies. To this horrendous list of problems, I must add that the sugar industry, which has been the chief contributor to the economy since 1959 (account- ing for between 20% and 25% of the GDP and about 60% of domestic ex- ports by value) is facing a crisis. With catastrophic falls in sugar prices since 1980, Tate and Lyle, the transnational corporation that monopolizes sugar production in Belize, has threatened to close one of its two factories. To save the factory, the government re- cently agreed to acquire 75% of the shares in the Belizean subsidiary, leaving Tate and Lyle with the re- mainder. If the industry continues to lose money, as Tate and Lyle antici- pates, Belize will not have a bargain, but with over 60,000 acres of the northern districts committed to sugar cane and 4,000 cane farmers and Continued on page 15 Continued from page 2 thousands of factory and field workers dependent on the industry, there is no alternative, at least in the short run. While such problems are pressing, even threatening, Jamail has perhaps paid insufficient attention to some of the more positive aspects of Belize and the achievements of its govern- ment. After all, despite the absence of growth in many sectors of the economy, Belize has weathered the recession more successfully than many other countries in the region. Unemployment and consequent hard- ship have increased but most Belize- ans are better off than their parents were, and there is little of the extreme poverty, or inequality, that is charac- teristic of other Caribbean and Central American countries. Financially, Be- lize appears to be in better shape than most of these countries and has not yet been forced to renegotiate its debts or deal with the IMF. Consequently, Be- lizeans have not experienced the kind of belt-tightening and resultant social unrest that is evident, for example, in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. Another achievement is that Beli- zeans just celebrated the third anniver- sary of their independence. Each year of Belizean sovereignty makes the Guatemalan territorial claim more ob- viously unjust and unrealistic. Be- lize's government took a chance in 1981 when it opted for independence without prior settlement of the Guatemalan dispute, but, with each new agreement with Mexico or Costa Rica; and with the recent improve- ment of relations with Honduras, Be- lize is isolating Guatemala diplomati- cally. Of coure, the problem of pro- viding for Belize's defense persists, but that should not obscure the fact that Belize is consolidating her posi- tion and thereby making it harder for Guatemala to gain any support. Belize remains the most peaceful and stable democratic nation in Cen- tral America. The absence of com- munal violence is an important feature of Belize's social history, and sug- gests, perhaps, that the obsession with racial divisions and ethnic heterogen- eity that characterizes most accounts of Belize is misplaced. Belizean pol- itics are not racially defined and there is a 30-year tradition that may be envied elsewhere. When, along with these facts, we consider the high lit- eracy rate and the expanding health services, it is apparent that there are clear achievements, as well as prob- lems, in Belize. The future of Belize, Jamail would probably agree, is exceptionally hard to predict because its situation, in terms of internal factors and external contingencies, is so fluid. The People's United Party, which has dominated Belizean politics since its formation in 1950, is in danger of fis- sion. Prime Minister George Price's cabinet shuffle last January only pa- pered over the growing cracks, just long enough for the next general elec- tion which will probably be held at the end of this year. The new indepen- dence constitution requires that each district have between two and three thousand voters and, as' a result, the membership of the House of Repre- sentatives, currently 18, will in- crease--but no one yet knows by how many. These facts, along with specu- lation about the extent of the U.S. role in the first national election since in- dependence, make the result espe- cially unpredictable. What every friend of Belize hopes for, however, is that Belizeans should remain free to make their own choices and to deter- mine their own future. About that, I am sure, Professor Jamail and I are in agreement. O. Nigel Bolland Professor of Sociology, Colgate University Hamilton, NY Nigel Bolland is the author of The Formation of Colonial Society-Be- lize, from Conquest to Crown Colony and of Belize: The New Nation in Central America, forthcoming on Westview Press.
