Great big balls but no sense…

By: Mike Rudon Jr.

The Prime Minister of Belize has for all intents and purposes buried his big bald head completely in the sand. This, to his mind, must be an excellent short term strategy for several reasons. For one thing, he is completely blind to the incompetence, corruption and stupidity of his fellow ministers. For another, he does not have to open his mouth to explain anything to anybody and even better than that, with his ears clogged with sand, he doesn’t have to listen to the cries of the people when he gives them the Barrow bukut. With his head deep down in the sand, his ‘royal arse’ is sticking way up in the air, but that’s just not good enough. Hell, I love getting my weekly kicks in on the ‘royal arse,’ but to make it satisfying I would need to see the grimace on Barrow’s face when he takes it on the butt. See my frustration…

Now to get the image of Barrow’s pockmarked posterior out of my mind, let me say that for months now this country has been going steadily down the drain. It’s so bad that it’s become kind of like that old horror movie refrain – just when you thought it was safe to go outside – BAM! Not one week goes by without some political scandal or the other, some kind of right in your face evidence of incompetence and stupidity. I was telling somebody the other day that the political creature in me is glorying in all this UDP mess which just keeps piling up. But the reality is that the Belizean in me is reeling in shock at how far backwards we have gone in so short a time. And we’re going further back every single day.

I was watching the news last night and there’s this truly horrifying story of an elderly tourist who claims he was brutalized by Police for absolutely no reason. He had the bruises to prove it. Not only that, but the man says he was robbed of his money by the Police. And to add insult to injury, he was charged by Police for assault. I watched that man on the news state that he could have pled guilty just to ensure that he would be able to board his plane back to the States, but right is right. He preferred to stay in Belize and fight for what he believes is right. I felt angry at the Police who subjected the tourist to these indignities. The worst part is, there was not a moment of doubt in my mind that the man was telling the truth. Hell, members of the Police Department have allegedly done much worse than that recently. This is what we have come to in Belize.

The Prime Minister won’t say anything about this incident. He didn’t say anything when Teddy Murillo was murdered. He didn’t say anything when Chris Galvez was murdered. He hasn’t had much to say about anything serious lately.

And then there’s the incident with the Minister of Local Government from up north. It was reported that both he and his driver were drunk in the ministerial ride when they were stopped at a Police checkpoint by Escuela Mexico. Apparently both the Minister and his driver were disorderly and eventually the driver was charged with assault. But the Prime Minister will say nothing about his minister being drunk in a ride which we taxpayers bought for him (without our direct consent, of course). What would it have taken for the Prime Minister to speak? Would he have said anything if the ministerial ride had plowed down some innocent children playing by the roadside?

And there are so many other cases of serious wrongdoing while the Prime Minister keeps his head buried in the sand. He hasn’t said anything about the fact that his Minister of Agriculture’s son is a director in a company that was given a lucrative government contract (right after that contract was yanked from another investor for no good reason). That stinks to high heavens, but Barrow can’t get a whiff because his head is buried in the sand.

A co-worker of mine says she was at mass this past weekend and the priest was stating that it is past time that the Church stand up firmly against all the wrongs that are taking place in our small country. That seems only right, since the Church is the most powerful organization in the world with a hell of a lot of authority. With authority comes responsibility – everybody knows that. But it’s not only about standing up against crime. It’s about standing up against corruption. It’s about standing up against dictatorship. It’s about standing up for transparency and accountability and good governance. The Church has been remarkably and very obviously silent as so many things happen to undermine our social fabric. With all due respect, it would be refreshing if that moral body would take a little more interest in what’s really happening out here, as opposed to pontificating for a scheduled hour or so daily.

The reality is that we can’t expect too much from the Prime Minister. I tease him about his lack of balls all the time, but in all seriousness and in a rare moment, I’ll admit I was wrong. Mr. Barrow does have balls – great, big brass ones. He has shown that he can make decisions. What Mr. Barrow lacks is the sense, the competence, the vision and the compassion to make good decisions. That makes all the difference, Mr. PM – all the difference between a true leader and a penny-ante dictator/despot.

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