The Casualties of WAR!

“The child, the young girl who I believe is 7 years old, is the stepdaughter of my driver and so it certainly produced for me a very painful sense of having to deal in a fairly immediate way with this terrible depressing reality.” – Hon. Dean Barrow

The Prime Minister of Belize Dean Oliver Barrow was interviewed this week by Keith Swift from Channel 7. This is the first time in recent memory that the PM has deigned to speak on critical issues like crime and oil. It was not a good interview for the leader of this nation. He came across like a cold fish,
uncaring and unfeeling. He seems to have lost sight of the real issues plaguing his people. He came across as a man with little regard for the intelligence of the Belizean people and utterly comfortable in the belief that any and all of his utterances will be received as the gospel truth.

As a seven year old child, the innocent casualty of yet another shooting in the city, faces the prospect of paralysis for life, Dean Barrow in his interview could not even mention her by name. It appears that to this robotic PM, young Janay Moguel is just a statistic, and an unimportant one at that. His
quote reproduced above is ghoulish, insensitive and absurd. According to Barrow, it is only now that he is a little more familiar with the victim through his driver, that he realizes a little more the ‘depressing reality.’ He said that he has now been made aware that he will have to deal ‘in a fairly immediate way’ with the issue of crime. His words appeared meaningless and lacking in any discernible emotion. What will surely stick in the mind of Belizeans, though, is that it is just now, as we enter year two of unchecked and unprecedented violence and bloodshed in the city, that our Prime
Minister claims he now realizes that he has to do something.

The comments of the Prime Minister were an insult to all those families left grieving for their loved ones, victims of the violence which has overtaken the nation. Last year the Economist named Belize the #1 murder hotspot in the world. Residents are paralyzed by fear, afraid to walk streets which have become dangerous and afraid to stay in their homes because even there it is not safe. There have been thirteen shootings in the past week, with four victims dead. And that’s just in the city. Gang warfare has erupted on our streets, with the new weapon of choice a grenade. Urban terrorism has become a Belizean buzzword for the very first time. Just two days ago a mother stared down at her son’s bleeding body on the street after he was shot by what appears to be a fourteen year old boy. A family cried as they pulled the plug on their son, another victim of the recent shooting spree. There are many stories. Many rivers of tears have been shed and much blood has been spilled. And the Prime Minister can stand in front of the nation and say that only now, since he knows somebody who is related to the victim; only now has he become aware of the ‘depressing reality’ in Belize today.

And the Prime Minister went even further in his interview. When questioned about the Police, he says that he is satisfied with their performance and they have done all they can. So, according to the PM no blame for the inability to address the crime wave rests on their shoulders. When the Prime Minister was questioned about his Minister of National Security, who many people believe is a total waste of time he expressed his support for and confidence in Perdomo. So, according to the PM, no blame for the inability to address the crime situation rests on Perdomo’s shoulder either. Belizeans are now asking who the Prime Minister holds responsible for the crime situation.

Throughout this early 2010 crime spree, Minister of National Security Carlos Perdomo has remained mute.

The Belize Times expresses its condolences to the families of those who have lost their lives in this bloody era on Belize’s streets.

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