UDP Politics as Usual

Hot zones…

I can’t be the only one who feels a little duped by the Police Department at their latest press conference. I mean wow, the Police have finally identified the hot zone, a so-called triangle from which most of the ‘lead’ is originating. Seriously, they only had to ask just about anybody on the street and they would have known. This is no news to anybody and the fact that it is only now that the Police Department has identified one of the trouble areas in the city is certainly no reason for the community to feel a renewed surge of confidence. Hey, we know that the job isn’t easy, but you guys need to stop taking us all for fools. I think I speak for most Belizeans when I say that we’d prefer that you guys get out there and get the work done rather than throwing out a little glamour shot/photo op press conference anytime the natives are getting restless, so to speak. Hell, do you need to know the location of all the houses where dope is sold? You need the names of the major players in the drug trade? Just stop somebody on the street and ask. We could tell you that too. There’s this little thing called intelligence which should be a major part of the work of any Police Department…I’ve got to say we haven’t seen too much evidence of it here.

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Political policing…

Apparently Mr. Barrow is a little thickheaded when it comes to understanding that politics and policing just do not mix. One would have thought that after the prolonged disaster with Carlos Perdomo he would have learned. Because of politics he left Perdomo in charge far longer than he should have and Belizeans are now paying the price for that decision. Then there was the man whose only claim to fame was dancing in Carnival Doug Singh, another political decision which has resulted in just what everybody knew it would – nothing. Now comes the announcement that the son of former UDP Minister Elodio Aragon has been pushed up to the top spot at the Eastern Division Branch in the city. As far back as when the UDP were still celebrating in the streets in 2008, we knew that a political promise had been made that Elodio Aragon Jr. would become the Commissioner of Police. Since then every move that has been made by Mr. Barrow, including the ‘temporary’ appointment of Crispin Jeffries as Commissioner, has been done to facilitate Aragon Jr. Even in the best of times, political wrangling and manipulation will have a detrimental effect on the Police Department of any country. Now that we are experiencing the worst of times, we cannot afford to have Mr. Barrow playing games with the security of our citizens who live in a constant state of terror.

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Youths with guns…

At the same Police press conference set up to tell that nation what we already knew, Senior Superintendent Russell Blackett, who is now the Deputy OC of the Eastern Division, mentioned that youths between the ages of 10 – 14 are the core of the problems on the streets. He mentioned that youths dropping out of school are making an already bad situation much worse. We knew that, buddy. We might not have known the exact percentage of youths dropping out of school, which anthropologist Dr. Herbert Gayle claims is over 30%, but we knew it was a problem and we knew it was getting worse. That’s why we have a problem when the Prime Minister keeps patting the Minister of Education on the back for doing such an exemplary job. That’s why we get upset when the Prime Minister tells the nation that he is perfectly satisfied with Minister Faber’s performance as the head of education in this country and that he could not be doing a better job. We all know that’s bogus. That’s just the Prime Minister playing politics with education just as he has done with the Police. The truth is that Minister Faber has dedicated much of his time to firing single mother and the elderly and school wardens who supported the PUP. He admits it openly. In fact he boasted about it in the House of Representatives. But did he even stop just a second to think that these people have children who will now have to drop out of school because he fired their caregivers? If we don’t get real about what’s happening in our nation, nothing will ever change.

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An unreal situation…

The situation in PG seems completely unreal and out of control. We know that two young children have been missing for a little over a week. We know that about a hundred villagers from their home of San Marcos accused an American living in PG and operating a crocodile sanctuary of having something to do with their disappearance. We know that they approached the Police with their suspicions and they claim they were ignored. We know that a bunch of armed villagers then descended on the man’s home when he was in San Pedro and set it on fire. We know that after the act Police detained the villagers responsible for burning the home and then released them without charges. Hey, sure as hell there are different sides to every story but one thing is for damned certain – the Police Department slipped up big time in this whole mess. The villagers seem to feel that they were ignored by Police while pointing the finger at this American gentleman, so they burned his home. My friend Sgt. Fitzroy Yearwood who has been placed in the unenviable role of Police Press Officer, claimed that the Police could do nothing to stop the villagers from burning the home and that seems ludicrous. There are a lot of questions – what evidence do the villagers have against this gentleman? Has a thorough investigation been done on this American to clear him? Why haven’t the villagers been charged with arson? Like I said, it’s unreal and nobody in authority seems to have a clue. So we’ve got an investor losing what he claimed was about a million dollars worth of property, more than a hundred angry villagers who won’t back down, and two missing children whose chances of returning home safe dwindle with each passing day…unreal!

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Stupid speeches…

On September 10^th the Prime Minister of this nation will stand up before a group of invited dignitaries, guests and a cheering squad of diehard UDP supporters and he will paint a glowing picture of our nation. He will blame any economic glitches on a worldwide thing and just like he has for the past months, he will claim that all indications are that we are coming out of the crisis. He will pontificate and posture, he will throw out words never before heard and spout quotes from various philosophers who are long dead and have never visited our shores. He probably won’t go so far as to claim that the magic is still here, though he’s been known to do stranger things. But the bottom line is that the Prime Minister will not be talking about our Belize when he waxes poetic. Our Belize is a cesspool of crime and corruption and economic stagnation/reversal and rising costs and desperation and anger and frustration. But the Prime Minister can’t say that because all these things are happening under his watch. He can’t talk about the tourism crisis and businesses closing down and employees being sent home and people killing themselves because their lives are crashing down around them as the economy dies. He can’t talk about children having to beg on the streets instead of being in school because if they don’t beg they don’t eat. There are many realities Mr. Barrow won’t be able to bring up during his speech, but the people are feeling and the people know. This morning on KREM’s morning show Mose referred to it as suffocation and that is exactly what it is. Our people are suffocating because this Government is incompetent and negligent and corrupt and many of them are filling their own pockets while the people starve. Our people are suffocating because Dean Barrow is focused on taking care of his own family members and ensuring that their economies are robust. Our people are suffocating even as Lois and Anwar and Deanne bank their millions and drink Moet. You won’t hear any of this in the Prime Minister’s speech on September 10^th…but the people know.

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