Inescapable History, Inescapable Fates

Oops

Let's play a fun game where I try to patch the gaping plot holes I wrote into this story two years ago and find an actual resolution.

In 2019, Open Democracy interviewed Assad Shomen about the British's involvement in the Guatemalan genocide through the British occupation of Belize.* Assad Shoman is a Belizean historian, diplomat, and attorney. He currently serves as the head of the Belizean Delegation to the ICJ. Basically, he's a cool dude, trust me. If Henry had done his own research on the connection between Britain, Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico, this is probably the interview he would have read. Everything Assad Shoman attests to has now been confirmed via declassified British documents and/or interviews with British military personnel.

That paper shows they were cooperating with the Guatemalan military dictators to help suppress the Guatemalan guerrilla movement who they thought had contacts in Belize [...] They included my name, but suggested that I was more than just a sympathizer – that I was a collaborator with the guerrillas, which of course in a sense I was. [...] The guerrilla movement, the FAR, came out publicly supporting Belize's independence. So if they had won the war there, I think the whole problem would have been resolved. So of course one had sympathy with them and would do anything to help, within the law of course." [The interviewer pushes for more details] "No I can't talk about that! I mean it was no big thing. Nothing illegal, no guns or nothing."

There was a genocide, and now we know the British were cooperating with them. They were complicit in the genocide of the Guatemalan people – the British military and the intelligence services, and so were our Special Branch, sad to say, but they were." I asked what may have happened if the rebels had been helped. Could they have stopped the genocide? "Of course," he responded. "Of course.

*The British government has never been charged with war crimes or genocide in connection to the Guatemalan genocide and admits no fault in the matter.

Henry:

Henry couldn't call Leo back. Not even with his new information. Leo wouldn't tell Henry anything that would put Alex at risk. Who else was there? Who was he forgetting? A missing thread, to the case and to his life.

"Mum!" Henry shouted when he got home.

"Henry?" His mom called from an upper room. She spent most of her time in bed, dazed since Arthur Fox died. "You are visiting so often lately."

"Mum, I have some questions about Dad," Henry said, peeking into her room. She beckoned him. "Why were we in Belize?"

His mom turned her head, "That's what's been bothering you? Darling, that was so long ago. I can't believe you remember." There were tears in Henry's eyes, he didn't know why. Maybe he did know why. He had the sense that the conversation would destroy his father- the image Henry had of him. Arthur Fox, the courageous patriot. Who was his father really? A young soldier who got involved in a Latin American genocide on behalf of his government. A family man, who tried to destroy evidence of war crimes in Mexico and then he came home and taught Henry piano, took him wandering through grand museums, and taught him to shoot.

"It was for M15, the trip." Henry said, "So why were we there?"

"I don't know much, your father didn't tell me much." She paused, thinking. Henry sat on his mom's bed, next to her. "We had to go because it was a secret mission, we pretended to be on vacation. Posted photos on Facebook on the beach. They intended to take out a target who was very dangerous because she had stolen classified information -"

"-You knew about the evidence?"

"Evidence? - it was classified information, it was going to put soldiers at risk."