Belize's founder
BELIZE CITY - Belize's founding father and first prime minister, George Price, died early today, just short of three decades since he led the small Central American nation to independence. He was 92.
BELIZE CITY
- Belize's founding father and first prime minister, George Price, died early today, just short of three decades since he led the small Central American nation to independence. He was 92.
Price died at the Belize Healthcare Partners Hospital, in Belize City, said a grand nephew, Henry Charles Usher. He was hospitalized Wednesday after a fall at his Belize City home and put in a medically induced coma following surgery to remove a blood clot.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow declared a week of mourning.
Price was Belize's first leader when it became independent from Britain on Sept. 21, 1981. As head of the centrist People's United Party, he served two terms as prime minister, in 1981-84 and 1989-1993, and is considered the father of the Caribbean country of about 300,000 people that borders Mexico and Guatemala.
Belize is on the Central American mainland but maintains closer cultural ties with other English-speaking former British colonies in the Caribbean than with its Spanish-speaking neighbors.
In a message broadcast to the nation, the current prime minister called Price "a giant of a man, the greatest architect of Belizean nationalism and Belizean sovereignty."