If you've listened to LOVE FM anytime in the last, say….10 years or so, then you definitely know Don Hector Silva. He's an authority on….just about everything…and isn't afraid to weigh in on any range of subjects.
But, what about when he's the one being weighed in on? That's what's happened in the authorized biography Of George Price, called a Life Revealed.
Written by Godfrey Smith, it details an intriguing event in 1961 when three assemblymen, Hector Silva, Santiago Perdomo and Allan Arthurs were reported to have been taken aboard a Guatemalan military aircraft to hold discussions with hardline president Ydigoras Fuentes.
As the book says, quote, "Belize City was once again rife with wild rumours about an imminent handover to Guatemala."
The most important part is Maximum Leader George Price warned them not to go!
So why did they do it? Yesterday Hector Silva told us and the Independent Newspaper, they didn't - well, not really:..
Jules Vasquez
"In 1968 you went to meet with.....?"
Hector Silva
"I will tell you the truth. We want this scholarship for our young people, England would not give us, so now there came this offer through connections in Benque that President Ydigoras Fuentes is coming to Melchor to declare this a city and he is going to make offers and amongst the offers there would be scholarships, cotton license for the chicleros to go bleed and they will not shoot them and land who wants it."
"The only person who was there was me the Mayor, so a group of boys came and say let's go and see what is happening. I went there and the counsel was a fellow that knew someone from Benque. So he call me and says that they will offer scholarships, he say would you go and receive and I say of course I will. So when they put the platform they invited the chief of protocol if there were any recipients from Cayo who would come and offer. Santiago Perdomo and I went up and say that we want scholarship."
Jules Vasquez
"You all ask for Mr. Price's permission."
Hector Silva
"We didn't have to ask him."
Jules Vasquez
"But you went on a Guatemalan military....."
Hector Silva
"No, right there was Melchor and we stand up there and the person said 'my roving executive have decided that scholarships would be offered to any Belizean, is there anybody,' and I said yes presidente we are here and we are prepared to accept because our students have nowhere to go."
"So now the colonial secretary wanted to ram-jam this thing that we were recipients, so when they came to ask me I said listen, let's do something, lets reject those scholarships and give us 200 scholarships from the West Indies."
Jules Vasquez
"Was that not an act of betrayal meeting with the chauvinist president of an aggressive state having claim upon Belize. Is that not tantamount to a betrayal of the national interest and undermining of your leader?"
Hector Silva
"No, we are not receiving with an exchange, we offered nothing."
Jules Vasquez
"But you went to him for patronage. It shows that we are a subordinate state to him."
Hector Silva
"Absolutely not, I went there as a receptor of these students. Anybody could have gone."
Jules Vasquez
"If America was accepting scholarships from Russia, for example a state functionary of America was accepting scholarship from Russia during the cold war. That would have been tantamount to treason."
Hector Silva
"I don't think so because America was negotiating with Russia, with the Soviet Union while they were saying outside that there was a cold war."
Jules Vasquez
"Things happen unofficially, but at the official functionaries of the state should not appear on a stage receiving patronage from the head of government in an enemy state."
Hector Silva
"First of all it was a simple mayor of a town just at the request of the people I went to say that we want the scholarships. No big thing, now nothing was given in return."
Jules Vasquez
"But Mr. Price cautioned you all not to go. McCoy listen to him, he didn't went."
Hector Silva
"Not true, we went there to stop Norman from dealing in Guatemala in our name. That is what we went to do, to stop him with that green jeep."
Glenn Tillett
"But you all did sign a statement of apology and loyalty?"
Hector Silva
"No."
Glenn Tillett
"Because according to this you all had to sign a statement of apology and loyalty or face expulsion."
Hector Silva
"That's craziness."
Jules Vasquez
"You realize this is Mr. Price's recollection."
Hector Silva
"That's not true. Mr. Price did not read this and I want to see a letter like my letter that I have from Mr. Price that he authorizes me to write the George Price legacy. That gives you the life story about George Price. These people don't know what happened. This is what they tell them and the family I am sure is not in favor of this."
Tune in tomorrow when Silva defends himself against another allegation, that he co-signed a defiant letter of protest to Price.
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