Johnny Zabaneh was a most unusual man - and he is fondly remembered in this newsroom - where ehe never shied away from controversy - no matter if it was a kingpin designation, a child labour controversy or a citrus industry in terminal decline. With all of those issues - he took all our hardest questions, and never sought to be shielded by an attorney or coddled by the press. He was outspoken because he was a man who lived by his own conviction - that's what gave him the courage to sit down face to face with Jules Vasquez many times over 12 years. Tonight Jules reflects on the man who was never scared:
In 1985, John Zabaneh was convicted for trafficking marijuana into the United States and sentenced to 25 years.
Johnny Zabaneh, Deceased
"People grow up hearing that John Zabaneh was in jail in the US and all that and it never gets out of the mind - it's a small community and I guess I will live and die with that, but where are the facts, where are the facts?"
Apparently the facts couldn't keep him in jail. And Zabaneh got his conviction overturned on appeal in 1988.
But in 2012, the US designated him a kingpin, the Belizean counterpart of Chapo Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel - a designation which he flatly denied.
Dramatically, the always bold Zabaneh declared his innocence in an open field in front of the US Embassy.
Johnny Zabaneh, Deceased
"Chapo Guzman was captured last week as we all saw in the media. He is labeled as the most notorious drug lord ever and I am supposed to be his associate in Belize. I have no idea how this come about and this is definitely uncorroborated fictitious and false allegations."
Imagine, the audacity to say this all right in front of the US embassy! But that's what John Zabaneh was. And that same audacity got him to force to US to life that Kingpin designation:
posted (February 7, 2024)
Jules Vasquez
"When the Office of Foreign Assets Control in the United States names you a kingpin, it's for life. How did you have them remove that designation, John?"
John Zabaneh, Citrus Farmer
"Yes, I came off that kingpin. It was a landmark case."
Jules Vasquez
"So you got an immigration attorney who took up your case and proved that you were wrongfully designated."
John Zabaneh, Citrus Farmer
"No, not an immigration attorney, a top-notch attorney."
But no attorney could save Zabaneh from the loss of his sprawling farms at Maya King, and the hundreds of workers he had to cut off after Fyffes, the European banana giant, cut all ties with farms he had any association with. It was also a massive loss in production for Belize - and the banana industry really was never the same again.
Zabaneh retreated to focus on his still substantial citrus acreages - but that had been in steady decline and in February of this year he lamented their loss:
Belize's Biggest Citrus Farmer Begs For GOB Bail Out
posted (February 7, 2024)
John Zabaneh, Citrus Farmer
"I have to make a hardline decision."
Jules Vasquez
"And if that doesn't happen?"
John Zabaneh, Citrus Farmer
"Gone, gone! gone, gone!"
John Zabaneh looked on wistfully at his malnourished citrus trees as he today drove me around his sprawling Maya King citrus farm.
It's still got two thousand acres of trees on it that stretch - it seems- to the horizon. And it's probably the largest privately owned citrus farm in the country - even though the difficult times in the industry has forced him to scale back from six thousand acres.
And even that he would likely have to give up on. Four days ago when I texted him about the government's plan to give citrus farmers one million dollars in assistance for fertilizers, he wearily said, quote, "It's a good gesture but that cannot save the industry. It would take a hell of a lots more than that…"
I had no idea at the time that Zabaneh was ill. But the farmer never stops worrying about his farm and what I remember most about John Zabaneh is what a committed and total farmer he was:
Johnny Zabaneh, Farmer
"My total passion has always been agriculture."
His nephew remembers his scientific mind:
Dr Louis Zabaneh, Nephew of Deceased
"He was always seeking out efficiencies in his farms, so for example how many plants per acre, you know, how close the trees were together, how to align them so that they get sunshine, are you going to trim the trees at a certain age - all these things. So his success was not by accident, it was in fact because he had an analytical mind and he sought knowledge and applied that knowledge."
Jules Vasquez
"You know we know he's a legend, we know that he is he's a giant of the south, but what at heart will he be remembered for?"
Dr Louis Zabaneh, Nephew of Deceased
"I think you know for the common person that he was a kind humanitarian easy going neighbor, a member of the community, anybody would approach him and he would say it as it is."
Yes his passion for farming - but more than that his open-ness, his willingness to face all allegations straight up - his conscience and his country boy common sense his only counsel - that's courage:
John Zabaneh, Citrus Farmer
"I'm here for the naked truth. And I hope that at the end of the day my truthfulness is evaluated by the member of this press."
He surely passed in my books - Johnny Zabs was one of a kind.
John Zabaneh, dead at 69, he would have been 70 in October.
