No Watch Me…Watch the UDP…

By: Mike Rudon Jr.

By this time my friends at the National Perspective will no doubt be squealing like stuck pigs over what they will perceive as an attack on them in last week’s paper. That’s fine. As far as I’m concerned, those two or three people who dedicate each week’s column to airing their petty, personal gripes will get no apologies from this side, nor will they get any quarter. I’m frustrated and angry enough to feel compelled to respond from time to time, but I’m rational enough to realize that our Party Leader and the Party is much bigger than those few. I’m also intelligent enough to realize that apart from a small jab from time to time, these motley few don’t really warrant much more attention than that.

Moving on…the United Democratic Party continues on its path to self-destruction. Whenever that party comes into discussion, quite a few people will become vocal and insulting. Others will sign and shake their heads in disappointment. Still others have become so numb that news of more shenanigans elicits very little reaction. Nobody will launch into a spirited, sincere praise-fest of either Mr. Barrow or his administration – not even those who waved red flags in a frenzy of support and pasted red and white stickers on their vehicles! People just don’t get that warm, gooey feeling anymore. Things are just too rough and there is no indication that they will get better anytime soon.

A young lady on the news the other day stated quite plainly that she would never trust the Police. Ever! She was on the scene of a shooting which by all accounts was not justified, to put it nicely. It’s a little scary to hear a citizen say that she does not trust the men and women in uniform who swear an oath to protect and serve us. It’s even scarier to realize that she is echoing the sentiments of a great many Belizeans at this point in time. Things have never been this bad as far as the Police Department is concerned. In fact, the distinct impression is that things are going to blow up very soon – look at the recent standoff between Police and BDF in Benque. How much longer can this continue?

You can say what you will, but the truth is that the fault lies squarely with the government of Belize – with Mr. Barrow and with Mr. Perdomo. Things should never have been allowed to get this far. Mr. Perdomo cannot do the job – that is crystal clear. So why hasn’t Mr. Barrow removed him and replaced him with somebody more qualified. Maybe Mr. Barrow can take the job. We don’t care. We just know that something needs to happen before something happens, if you get my meaning. That thing with the Police and BDF with weapons cocked and locked is out of this world crazy. Really!

And it’s not only within the Police Department that things are completely out of control. It is all over the place. There are so many things wrong in so many departments that it plain boggles the mind. And it’s much, much worse because there appears to have been a wholesale distribution of blinders to our UDP politicos in power, from Mr. Barrow down. Apparently this crowd does not even acknowledge that there is anything wrong, so I guess it would be too much to ask that they do anything about anything.

This Krooman Lagoon thing where the Chief Justice is basically saying that the Minister of Lands Gaspar Vega made a stupid and unnecessary mistake is a big thing. We Belizean taxpayers may have to pay as much as $7million dollars for Mr. Vega’s mistake. But it doesn’t seem like too big a deal to those in power. Mr. Barrow hasn’t said anything about it. Mr. Vega hasn’t explained why he lied to Belizeans when he told them that a title hadn’t been issued to Mr. Jack Charles and no title would ever be issued.

Hell, the Police held a conference where they insisted that only one shot was fired even when the eyewitnesses are saying it was two shots and the bullet-holes in the windshield confirm what the witnesses are saying. How messed up is that?

See what I’m saying? We can jump from topic to topic and department to department and it’s all going to be bad news. Pick a department, any department! We can go from health to agriculture to housing to works. It’s all the same. And that’s because we don’t even have enough space on this page to touch our lady mayor and the City Council.

We need to get our act together because the other side isn’t getting it done and our people need us. This nation needs us. We’ve got a Party Leader who prefers diplomacy to daggers, but even that well of goodness seems to be in danger of suffering from a dry spell. Those few people over at that other paper who continue their attempts to distract are just doing a job, plain and simple – getting paid by paragraph with a little extra thrown in for pettiness. It’s not about them, really. It’s about the man paying the piper and calling the tunes. We need to get it together for the people, because there’re thousands of PUP supporters out there and their needs are bigger than me and bigger than the bubby-bandits over at the Perspective. It’s fast getting to a point where we mind very much, and those playing games soon won’t matter!

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