7 News Belize

Goodbye To A Great Leader
posted (September 28, 2011)
On Monday morning, the nation said farewell to George Price. We'd venture to say that the official state funeral for National Hero George Price was one of the most watched television events in recent history.

It was the culmination of a weekend of mourning and remembrance. Tonight, we have a short recap:

Jules Vasquez Reporting

From the morgue, to the Bliss, past the Price family home on Pickstock Street, into the church where Price went to mass every day for almost his whole life for a final march through the city streets - seen here from above, once more across the swing bridge, the crowds lined up by the thousands at the Bliss center, the Price Center in Belmopan.

And unto Independence Plaza on Monday, the stately procession was never more appropriate along the walkway in the city that price built - walkways he often walked…now his casket made that final somber procession, the crowds filling the aisles, almost all 1800 seats under the tent full, crowds from all over, some taking a seat in the grass, sitting all over the place, no formal funeral outfits required, just their flags

Prime Minister Dean Barrow - Prime Minister Of Belize
"I look out at this great crowd of mourners today. I think of all those that have filed past the casket, signed the tribute books, lined the streets, and thronged the Cathedral on Saturday. And I know this is exactly the way it should be. Thousands of grateful Belizeans saying goodbye to the avatar of the nation. It is destiny fulfilled. What Mr. Price strove for all his life, he has been able to produce in his death. We are now a country totally united in homage to our National Hero, and his creed of one Belize."

Price's unifying idea, and here, the solitary casket of this our most public figure - a grand funeral for this most humble servant:

Elizabeth Zabaneh, Price's Niece
"I believe it was in Saint Matthew's Gospel that says, 'In life, he is humble. In death, he must be exalted.'"

And exalted he was by the Prime Minister who grew up as an NIP child:

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"My closest encounter with George Price was when we were together on a bi-partisan delegation. We had travelled to Roatan to meet with Guatemala as part of the effort to negotiate an end to the territorial claim, and I remember being struck by two things. First, the trouble he took to engage the staff at the hotel we were staying. He would greet all the front desk people each morning, shake hands with the bell captains and waiters, and actually enquire after their families. Now he was running for no office in Honduras, and these people could mean nothing to him politically. That's when I realized that George Price was, above all, the most compassionate of men, interested in people for their own sake, invested in humanity everywhere."

And on this day there was humanity everywhere all over independence Plaza, a tapestry of Belizean-ness, and Barrow milked the patriotic prayerful crowd for its biggest applause of the day on this line

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"The PUP will never have another leader like George Price. But then, the country will never have another Prime Minister like George Price."

And as the body left Belmopan for the last time, the BDF held their heads low, and fell in behind Mr. Price. A huge procession followed, and on the western highway by cotton tree an enthusiastic PUP crowd was waiting.

In Hattieville, small crowds gathered. Closer to the city, the crowds got bigger at the lord's ridge cemetery a canopy of coloured umbrellas covered the sidewalks, and in the distance approaching, an advance guard of flags, and in the cemetery crowds spilling in.

The casket was brought in, the soldiers hanging their heads low for the last time, the casket released into the crypt for its final enclosure.

John Waight - Price's Nephew
"Mr. Price said he would be in favor of his epitaph reading 'a good Belizean, who went through life on a pilgrimage, and who left the world a better place than he found it'. We would all agree that Mr. Price did just that."

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