The Westerhaven honey pot

The desperate cravenness that is so characteristic of this Dean Barrow administration was on full public view this week in the Supreme Court of Belize in the US$18,000,000 claim by the Government of Belize against the owners of the unfortunate Westerhaven cargo ship.

The ship ran aground on Belize’s reef in January of this year, and almost immediately the claims for damages skyrocketed into the multi-millions. The context, of course, is that while this was probably the umpteenth incident of a vessel mistakenly docking on our natural treasure, Belize has only just woken up to the fact that there may be money to be had from those unwary enough to lose focus and trust our long outdated maps, lack of electronic or other modern navigational aids and spotty marine information.

History abounds with entire coastal and island communities that made a living from wrecks, and heck, Belize’s history is similarly replete with those ghoulish stories.

It was a shipwreck, in fact, that gave rise to the Bermuda culture we know today. English settlement took off there only after the 1609 wreck of the Virginia-bound Sea Venture. In the centuries that followed, shipwrecks played a major role in the economy of the fledgling colony, and even today many of those wrecks continue to support the Bermudian economy since they are quite accessible to recreational divers who spend money to visit them.

There are many stories that detail the secret history of shipwrecks in our former colonial motherland and the predatory scavengers who lived off the spoils. According to some even today, Britain’s coastline remains a dangerous place. An island soaked by four separate seas, with shifting sand banks to the east, veiled reefs to the west, powerful currents above, and the world’s busiest shipping channel below, the country’s offshore waters are strewn with shipwrecks.

For villagers scratching out an existence along Britain’s shores, those wrecks have been more than simply an act of God; in many cases, they have been the difference between living well and just getting by. Some plunderers were held to be so skilled that they could strip a ship from stem to stern before the Coast Guard had even left port, some were rumored to lure ships onto the rocks with false lights, and some simply waited for winter gales to do their work.

All over Britain stories abound of ships and shipwreck victims, from shoreline orgies so Dionysian that few participants survived the morning to humble homes fitted with silver candelabra, to coastlines rigged like stage sets to villages where everyone owns identical tennis shoes.

But I digress. Our fathers the Baymen were pirates, privateers, marauders and sinkers and scavengers of ships. Surely the owners of the Westerhaven must wonder whose den they have so unwarily ventured into.

The claim before Chief Justice Dr. Abdulai Conteh being presented by the mother and daughter attorney team of Lois Young Barrow and Deanne Barrow is a black-eye for Belize. It is historic yes, but a black eye nevertheless. It smacks of greed and one of its consequential economic effects will be to drive up the cost of shipping, making life much harder for ordinary Belizeans.

If they are successful, they will both emerge far, far richer for it but Belize and Belizeans will all be much, much poorer.

A more responsible and caring administration would have chosen the path of forceful but quiet negotiations rather than parade so hypocritically for all the world to see, so large and naked a claim for compensatory damages when the respondents had already accepted liability.

The truth is that the reef the Westerhaven encountered is an unmarked protrusion into the shipping lanes, and is no stellar example of nature’s finest. Shippers must now be asking themselves (a) wasn’t this an accident and (b) doesn’t the Government of Belize bear some responsibility?

Why risk my ships sailing there when the Government of Belize refuses to negotiate in a manner that is conducive to protecting our mutual interests but instead seems hell-bent on extracting the maximum coin even to the detriment of all involved?

Is it because malice is so inculcated in the Barrow administration that they do not understand that there are accidents and coincidences?

Wasn’t it only a few short months ago that Belize’s Barrier Reef lost its acclaimed “World Heritage Site” status for uncaring stewardship of a supposedly precious resource? Wasn’t it just a few short months ago that a foreign government owned oil exploration company was given carte blanche to drill at will anywhere on our reef?

Why haven’t we even bothered to fine the offenders whose dredging must have caused injury to the reef that far exceeds that from the luckless Westerhaven grounding?

It is likely that with this very naked and public display of avarice all must hesitate before sailing to Belize. Sure the reef attracts all manner and species of animals, and its fang-tooth corals have been death of many a fine ship. But yes it seems that pirates still lurk here, behind false maps and tricky currents, waiting to pounce on the unwary and unlucky.

We the benighted are being afflicted by a few besotted with their love of money. Open your eyes Belize …  how much money does Lois Young Barrow need to satisfy her greed?

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