FIRE PERDOMO!

The government’s response to the latest surge of street violence has been as expected – absolutely nothing from the Police Minister Carlos Perdomo and meaningless words of cold comfort from his boss, Prime Minister Dean Barrow. Residents of Belize City have nowhere to turn, as the Prime Minister refuses to heed calls for the removal of Perdomo, and claims that he, Perdomo and the Police Department can do nothing more to provide any sense of security or safety to fearful citizens.

The recent spate of violence, mayhem and murder reads like a low-budget shoot ‘em up movie and the casualties of this war on the streets keep piling up. On Monday night, at around 6:30 guns blazed out death and terror along Central American Boulevard. When it was over, a youth lay critically injured in the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. Dorrell Williams, 19, has since passed away, after his family made the difficult decision to pull the plug from the life support machine that was helping him alive up to yesterday.

But Williams was not the only victim in Monday night’s carnage on Central American Boulevard. A 7-year-old girl, Janay Moguel, suffered a gunshot wound to her shoulder and is still hospitalized. Late word is that the innocent victim may never walk again. Her grandfather, Steven Rhamdas, 64 was also a victim of the gunmen’s indiscriminate shooting.

But that was not it for Monday night. At around 10:30pm Ralton “Shabba” Usher was on Central American Boulevard near the junction of Neal’s Pen Road in front of 88 Shopping Center, when according to a police report, a van pulled up and one of its occupants opened fire. Ralton “Shabba” Usher would die about one hour later in the operating theater at the KHMH.

At sunrise the following morning, Glenstine Martinez, 33, was washing his van that he uses in his tour guide business. A young man rode up to him on a bicycle and said a few words then rode off. According to Glenstine’s mother she saw the young man come back, but what she did not see was that he was packing a handgun. The young man fired two shots at close range hitting Martinez in his face. He fell down dead in front of his mother. A fifteen-year-old minor has since been charged for Martinez’s murder.

Life in Belize has become much more dangerous under the UDP. Citizens are afraid to walk our streets and because of a new phenomenon called home invasions, they are afraid to stay in their homes. The Minister of National Security has done absolutely nothing to reassure residents that safe days are anywhere in the future. Instead of presenting any plan to address the situation, or even demonstrating the will to deal strongly and decisively with the problem, the crime minister and the prime minister claim that they are doing all they can, so we’ll just have to live with it.

Belizeans will tolerate no more games from the Prime Minister, no more double-speak, no more evasion of the issues. How many more Belizeans must die? Carlos Perdomo must be Fired Now.

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