“Beware the Ides of March”

These words were said to the pompous and arrogant Julius Caesar as he paraded himself in front of the citizens of Rome.

What the words meant was a warning that the middle of March held danger for Caesar.

Days after the middle of the month of March, Caesar passed back and said the ides of March has come. He was told, yes, but it had not yet gone.

Caesar was assassinated.

The month of March 2012 will come, but before it is over there will be a general election in Belize. Whether the Prime Minister makes the announcement this Friday or some other time, the race is on.

MESSING WITH FREEDOM

Recently a piece of paper appeared on one of the doors of the Magistrate’s Court in Belize City. It is undated and unsigned. It stated that to sign bail a person must have a phone number. Must produce a letter from employer. Must show letter from Bank or show Bank book.

No warning to poor people. It took effect immediately.

It wreaked havoc on the poor. Off to the jail they started to go. Some are still there. Including a single mother of five children.

It is cruel and poorly thought out. Time has to be given to the poorer classes, ninety percent of bail involves them. It takes days to get a job letter and days plus thirty dollars for a Bank statement letter.

There has been little or no problems with persons signing bail. Less than one percent have minor problems. Why should all the good suffer for a small amount of bad?

The piece of paper has no authority in law.

The Bail Reform law says that up to Five Thousand dollars is a sign bail – NO LAND PAPER, and like Jamaica – No problem.

The purpose of bail is simply a surety to ensure persons attend court. It is not a punishment. Nor should it carry bureaucratic conditions that frustrate those seeking to help by signing bail. Loan shark types are already circling the Court like Jaws. Ask fat father Christmas who thief them blind every Christmas. Our people are not Bank book people but they can find money when it is really necessary.

Please, is there no one to ease these onerous requirements that are causing poor people to go to jail, unnecessarily?

Can we ask the new Chief Magistrate to review the requirement?

POLICE – NO BONUS, NO BANQUET

One of the traditions Police Officers look forward to is the annual Christmas banquet. It was an occasion to dress and bring along wife, husband, girlfriend or boyfriend to a well organized Christmas party – the Annual Police banquet.

It was held in the compound of the Queen Street Police Station. It made Police men and women proud to attend with their families and be with the Police Commissioner and other top brass in the Police Department.

No such thing happened this December or the previous Decembers.

Neither did the nation’s Police men and women receive a Christmas token of appreciation – a “slighters” for Christmas in the form of a money bonus. There are some nine hundred police officers. Surely a five hundred dollars gift each would have been a little help for an otherwise dismal Christmas 2011 and a hard year.

We are told that almost one million dollars have been spent on two hundred “gang members” and 60 employees at CYDP from August 2011 to December 2011. But nothing for the nation’s Police and soldiers.

Not a single gang member has been required to turn in his gun or hand grenade before being put on weekly payroll, but they get quarter million a month. Yet nothing for Police Officers.

It is the Police who patrol the streets and neighborhoods and investigate and arrest criminals. They get no vehicles, no equipment, no overtime, no Christmas party, no thank you. But the criminals get hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Weird.

Hardworking nurses, teachers, public officers get no raise or bonus but criminals the collect every week.

2012

The so-called New Year is here.

There is talk of early elections and of gang warfare breaking out. On Saturday night January 7th gun shots were ringing out like crazy on the southside. Theses shots were not part of any celebrations. One gang was out for revenge. At least two residences of rival gangs were raided and shot up. Hit men travelled to Orange Walk Town and took another innocent life in the tit-for-tat, dis for dat which takes place in street violence; where violence begets more violence and revenge killings begets more revenge killings.

The government will claim it’s not gang related.

2012 is also a time for New Year’s resolution. But before we go there, have you seen the result of an Amandala newspaper poll showing that 84% of its readers DO NOT FEEL ANY SAFER under the government sponsored Gang Truce?

This, dear reader is a crisis of confidence in a solution-less situation.

Now, on a more positive note. The beginning of a new year is as good a time as any to make plans and make resolutions.

A good new year’s resolution is always to resolve to eat healthy and to do regular exercise. Your greatest asset is not your house, or vehicle or money in the bank. It is your self – your body and your mind. Take good care of your best asset.

Also, help your community or school or church.

Also, help those who need help. School books or tuition for a student. Food for a poor or neglected poor person. A needed donation to the children’s home or girls home. Or help to some female prisoners whose children must be suffering while their mom is in jail.

Can we give a little bit of our dog food to the many half starving and neglected dogs walking the cruel streets in chronic hunger.

Or get our churches to organize help with clothes and food and shelter for our neglected fellow human beings begging on our streets and sleeping on our sidewalks.

Can we find time to read a book? Reading is so relaxing.

Can we all try to make this year better than last year?

We can you know. It starts with each of us.

$80,000 US EACH

Foreign plane that crashed by Camalote. Two persons in the plane died.

Each of the two persons was found with eighty thousand dollars, US currency in their underwear.

This da gazette.

FINESE – THE BOAT

All the world is a stage, and all the men and women are merely players. They have their entrance and their exits. And one man in his time plays many parts. Words that effect come from Shakespeare.

George Gabb was a man of many parts. Thinker, tailor, soldier. He was poet, painter, sculptor, scribe. He acted in plays and he was quite a story teller in his time.

He was also a keen yachtsman. George Gabb was big in the pitpan revival and river regatta. Oh! How the good old days are gone. Never to return.

He also sailed in the Baron Bliss and other sea events.

He designed his boats. One such, of which he was proud, was called Finese. The once proud and exquisite Finese can be seen not far from Buttonwood Bay, by the sea side, squatting on its discarded side like an old throw away turtle shell.

DAWN – GEORGE GABOUREL STABLE

Mr. George Gabourel lives at the entrance of the airport road. He and his forefathers lived in that vicinity for donkeys’ years.

Mr. Gabourel informs that ‘back then” when there was no Haulover Bridge, there were two ferries. One took the people across the river to go north to Orange Walk and Corozal. The other ferry took people across the river but they headed west to go to Cayo.

I wonder if anyone has photos of the two ferries.

Few ferries are still working the rivers in Belize. Well known is the ferry at Succotz Village which carries mostly tourists across the river to reach the tall Maya temple at Xunantunich.

Mr. Gabourel, 88 years, had cattle and horses, ducks and fowls and several fruit trees, especially a particular type of sweet mangoes. Several acres of his land were “acquired” for the new airport road and he is yet to be paid. Those who own the airport collect everyday but Mr. Gabourel can’t get his money. Just another example of how the poor and the elderly get chanced in this chancey country.

Anyhow, Mr. Gabourel loves animal, in particular horses. Several top horses are from his stable. Horse racing aficionados keep their horses at his stables.

The Christmas Horse Racing at the Burrell Boom race track brought joy. Mr. Gabourel and his friend Kevin Castillo witnessed one of their special champion horses take the six furlong race in classic style. Just as they both predicted.

DAWN, that’s the champion horse.

KIRK ANDERSON ON WAGNER LANE

Kirk Anderson is now a Supreme Court Judge in Jamaica. It is one of his lifelong dreams that he has achieved. Congrats are due. He has also remarried and we wish him and bride all the best.

Kirk came to Belize in the 1990’s. He worked as a Crown Counsel, a Prosecutor and was an outstanding and successful attorney. He worked at the law firm of Barrow & Williams and then with Norman Neal and Dickie Bradley. He became the Director of Public Prosecutions.

While on Wagner Lane with Marina Welcome last week, was reminded that Kirk lived on the once famous lane following his arrival from Kingston, Jamaica.

At the Old Belize marina at Mile 8 Western Road is a sizeable boat named ‘Wagner Lane’. How come? John Woods’ wife is a born and raised Wagner Laner. She is the granddaughter of Gemima Young turned Usher, whose son was Henry Usher Sr. a.k.a. Eagles of HRCU and basketball fame.

Lionel Del Valle, a.k.a. the Lion, is Wagner Lane. So too is Keith Arnold, former Governor of Central Bank. Marina is not sure if Sir Colville Young is from Wagner’s but he was frequently on the Lane and his wife who is of the Trapp family is Wagner Lane.

Timmy and Dikon, who for a fee would visit burying ground (Cemetery) with black candle, mirror and rum to get messages from the dead for living relatives (believe or not) are from Wagner’s Lane.

Roy Stanley Gill, the Pharmacist on Freetown and his brothers Stephen Gill and visiting brother Andrew, are all Wagner’s Lane, born and raised.

Cross Country champion Alfred Parks and basketball star Mervin Rhodas and Cycling Queen Judith Gongora are all Wagner’s Lane.

And the list goes on and on and on.

No street could rival Wagner Lane. So say I.

LOVE YOU PORTIA

Portia is back. Re-elected as Prime Minister and her party taking 42 of the 63 seats in our sister country of Jamaica.

Jamaica has 3 million people. One million six hundred thousand are on the voters list.

Belize has 300,000 people. Half that is on the voter’s list. Yet we have 31 seats.

Jamaica is ten times our population but only twice our number of seats in the National Assembly. How wasteful can we be?

Last week Belize announced that the Queen had honoured a handful of Belizeans for new years.

Last week Portia Simpson Miller announced Jamaica was removing the Queen and her new year’s list and all that colonial junk out of Jamaica.

Portia’s main priority is to start creating jobs and to renegotiate Jamaica’s heavy debt.

Belize’s priority is to pay criminals for phantom jobs and blame the past administration for the debt.

That should solve the problems – eh?

RACIST GOB

In Belize, the biggest of racist can get away with their racist behavior.

Racism is normally thought of as white hating black people.

But there is racism against the Maya and racism against the East Indians. Is it any wonder that the Maya are at the bottom of the economic, social and political ladders? And next to them are East Indians. The Garinagu are worse victims of British white and Creole racism but their awful strength has overcome.

Have you contemplated how the present government went to the Supreme Court and claimed the Mayas are a bogus people? The Mayas are not really who they claim to be, according to the government. They are second hand from elsewhere. It’s the government saying so. Can’t get more racist than that. Degrade and downgrade just to drill for oil on their ancestral lands.

US MEDDLES IN OUR COURTS

Since Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week the United States of America has been training the Magistrates of Belize. Thursday and Friday is for the Supreme Court Judges in this independent nation.

How can this be?

Can the Indian Merchants and Chinese grocers train our Judges and Magistrates in the law of buying and selling and customs matters?

Can the drug traffickers, dope peddlers and crime bosses organize a training course for Magistrate and Judges?

How can the USA be allowed to come into our country and finance, organize and conduct their own training courses for our independent judiciary? This is unthinkable. That all our Magistrates and Judges can be corralled into attending American brain washing.

It is one thing for the US to give boots and gun to the BDF and send a few on overseas courses. It is one thing for them to give boats and guns to the Coastguard to fight drugs heading to the USA.

But when it comes to the Judiciary, this is a totally different game.

This is serious business.

THE TWENTY IRD PSALM

The Lord is my Area Representative, I want nothing from wicked politicians. HE has me in comfort and green pasture. HE always look out for me. HE restoreth my soul. HE keeps me on the righteous path. He got my back.

Yea, though I walk thru the valley of death itself, I fear no big shot or government Minister or evil ones. For Jah is with his rod and staff protect and comfort me.

Mighty Jehovah, you handle my candle in the presence of mine enemies. You provide food, clothing and shelter. You anoint my head with oil, my cup runneth over. I am forever grateful.

I know goodness and mercy shall follow me all the day of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Can’t wait to get my hands on Godfrey Smith’s first book: “George Price, A Life Revealed.”

There is a formal book launching this Thursday. I wish I could go but feel so out of place at social gatherings. I’ll be there in spirit. But thanks for the invitation.

There is an outpouring of deep love by large sections of our population at the recent passing of the leader who took our nation to independence. No doubt the book will become a must read for students and intellectuals.

Godfrey Smith is himself an intellectual. His first incursion into party politics did not go well. His star rose rapidly in the political firmament. And just as quickly plummeted like the hapless Icerius. Maybe it was the company he kept. Here was a young man who could have become a mighty champion for our people. He needs to ponder Robert Frost’s poem about the road not taken.

None of this distracts from the first rate brain that is highly developed inside the university trained Godfrey. He attended UWI in the 1980s at a time when Norman Manley Trevor Monroe, Ralph Gonsalves and several intellectual giants of our region still counted.

Politics runs through the vein of Godfrey Smith and so there is yet a future beckoning to him.

It also takes a special talent and ability to write a book, as it is given to women only to carry a child for nine long months. The agony and the ecstasy and then miracle of birth. So too it is given to artists and writers to plough and struggle and then finally a book.

Massive respect, Godfrey Smith.

SENATOR SALDIVAR

Arthur Saldivar, attorney-at-law and outspoken advocate of the People’s United Party is to be sworn in as a Senator at the next sitting of the Senate.

Over the past 3 ½ years when the PUP were silent on the airwaves, Arthur was like a one-man guerrilla army attacking on all fronts. He is an articulate and intelligent spokesperson for his party and indeed that should be one of his responsibilities.

Arthur is the standard bearer of the Belize Rural North where there will be three candidates vying for the support of the twenty odd villages that constitute the electoral division. The VIP has a candidate in the person of former UBAD firebrand Rufus X.

The UDP is represented by disgraced Edmund Castro who was kicked out of Cabinet for alleged corrupt practice of selling land and pocketing over fifty thousand dollars, in one known instance.

Arthur Saldivar has also gained prominence by proposing an economic development plan known as the Gladden Plan currently being reviewed by one of the Universities in the USA.

Arthur has two other development plans. One to encourage the return of Belizeans living abroad with economic incentives and the other for the residents of his constituency. This one is to turn the rural area into a virtual breadbasket by the close proximity of Bomba and other villages near the coast, just minutes away from San Pedro, tourist capital of the country.

Arthur Saldivar, Anthony Mahler, Julius Espat, Anthony Sylvestre Jr., Dr. Francis Smith and several other brilliant Belizeans are the new face and new thinking in the PUP.

Big respect is due Mr. Senator.

KEVIN ARTHURS

Defense attorney Kevin Arthurs scored a huge win in Supreme Court this week.

In one of the most sensational cases Kevin “Cowboy” Alvarez was charged for a murder and several attempted murder in orange Walk.

The murder was of a Chinese national. The attempted murders were of Police officers when they sought to apprehend Alvarez from the river in Orange Walk Town. In a Police press release at the time, it was stated that Alvarez emerged from the river Rambo style with a gun in each hand, blazing at officers.

What was not in the press release was the alleged brutal and uncalled for beating unconscious of the suspect, whom the Police also shot at close range with an M16.

What the Police say in their press release and what emerges in Court are usually miles apart.

Attorney Arthurs told us that the trial was for the murder of the Chinese. Yet the Prosecution insisted on presenting evidence about the attempted murder allegations at the river.

Twenty one witnesses were called, but usually when you hear there are so many witnesses it is a case of quantity as opposed to quality.

The case fell apart. It never reached the Jury. Attorney Arthurs made a No case Submission based on the insufficiency of the evidence to substantiate the charge of murder. Judge Hanomansingh upheld the submission. The jury was directed to enter a formal verdict of not guilty.

It is expected that because of the sensational nature of the murder allegation against Cowboy, the matter will be appealed.

It is also felt that the Court of Appeal for legal technicalities will say the case should go to the jury. There will be another lengthy trial wasting the time of the Jury, the Judge, the Court staff and Police officers doing court duty and in the end the result may be the same.

CALLING ALL RASTAMAN

Attention all Rastaman. And Rastawoman too. Sodomites a forward down the road. Dem a go Court to legalize buggery.

It is a criminal offence to go forward by going backward sexually. Dem ma-ma-man don’t check fi get brand as batty man.

The system a fill with sodomites. American TV has promoted their lifestyle. It’s called Gay. Gay all the way.

If bottom a go become legal; a little herb fi be legal too. Moses did see the burning tree.

In the name of I and I, Jah Rastafari – every living ever faithful. De-criminalize it.

RAPE OF THE ROSEWOOD

No amount of media coverage. No amount of embarrassment on tv nightly news. No photos of containers stacked with Rosewood. Nothing will stop the naked rape of Rosewood that continues unabated in the Toledo District.

Persons with direct ties to a government Minister are involved. One easy decision can save our nation’s precious Rosewood trees. It is that Rosewood cannot be cut or transported or exported. Crash the whole Rosewood piracy that is underway in Punta Gorda.

But it ain’t going to happen.

Our nation was found on the cutting and exploitation of logwood and mahogany by foreigners, the British. When the trees were wiped out we were of no use to the British.

Those who are exploiting the poverty in Punta Gorda to be buying Rosewood for US $2.00 per foot are the same type Bob Marley sang about “ole pirates yes they rob I – sold I to the merchant ships.”

The Forestry Department and the Ministry of Natural Resources are criminally responsible for the shame that is going on in Punta Gorda.

FIRST ONION, NOW RICE

Rice from Uruguay has been flooding the Belizean market. Particularly in Orange Walk. This rice is 20 percent cheaper than Belizean rice grown in Belize.

The exporters are out in full force.

First they brought in cheap onion and flooded the market at a time when our hard working farmers had fields filled with onion. Those onions rotted in the ground as the exporters sold their cheap onions in front of our eyes.

Now the exportation is in sneaking in rice and flooding the market with cheap rice from abroad while our rice farmers suffer.

ANN MARIE WILLIAMS

Ann Marie Williams has the best campaign messages and advertisements on television. She is the most substantial candidate with an impressive resume. She is way above the other two UDP candidates – Santino and Chandra.

Ann Marie is also a black skinned Belizean with more roots than the other two who are light-skinned. Two black skinned UDP Ministers rushed to support Santi. These two always rush where the money is. One was featured on television showing the mighty Ashcroft and his messed up division.

The Prime Minister and his wife do not support Ann Marie. The wife is openly supporting Chandra. A wife of a Prime Minister should never compromise her husband’s position.

This Sunday’s convention will once again show the Creole, black skinned, roots Ann Marie just what the hoity-toity, bourgeois UDP thinks of her and her kind.

MOYA’S MAYA MONUMENT

Have you seen Moya’s Maya Monument? Out there on the marine parade round-about?

It’s a joke. It a shame and an insult to the majestic Maya monuments that enhance the history and tourism of our country.

When the Maya leaders eventually see this silly replica of their great towering pride they will rightly feel insulted.

ED PETER USHER

Peter Usher, the Magistrate who recently returned from studies for his Master’s Degree in legal drafting, has been promoted.

Mr. Usher has been promoted to a Crown Counsel in the Attorney General’s Ministry. He is a former high ranking member of the Belize Defence Force and a graduate of the prestigious Sandhurst Military Academy of Britain.

Mr. Usher did one year of his Master’s Degree programme at the University of the West Indies in Barbados and is now required to complete a course of research and theses presentation. He is also a poet and his published book of poems.

Congratulations are in order.

Belize’s biggest brothel burned to the ground. Thirty-five ladies of the night are temporarily out of a place to do their waitress work. The term waitress is the used as a cover.

Rose Garden is the official name of the brothel and entertainment spot, on the Northern Road some 3 to 4 miles from Belize City. Sex was sold for eighty-five dollars.

It is situated right on the road side within plain view of all and sundry. In an interview after the fire the owner said that 70% of its customers were women. He must have been referring to the entertainment, semi-nude dancing and wanton drinking into the wee hours of the morning which occurs at the Rose Garden. He couldn’t have been referring to the clientele who patronize the garden.

Belize has some 134 known whore houses, but Rose Garden was the Hilton Hotel of them all.

This will be a dull and dreary weekend for Rose Garden’s customers. They will feel like fish out of water. As we go to press it is uncertain how the waitresses will be able to ply their trade.

UNIBAMER TRAVELS WITH GOVERNMENT

A UNIBAMER member and head activist was part of a government led delegation to the United Nations in New York. The delegation was headed by the wife of the Prime Minister, and included one Orosco, UNIBAM champion, who had a law suit against the government seeking the change the criminal law which carries a mandatory jail term for anyone engaging in sodomy.

Plus TV which reported on the matter interviewed the Prime Minister and suggested that his response is one of wavering and double standards.

The member of UNIBAM according to the Prime Minister was part of the delegation which had something to do with HIV/AIDS. It was in that capacity that the UNIBAMER formed part of the delegation as he represented the local AIDS Commission.

The Prime Minister told Pastor Wade on Plus TV that neither he nor his government knew the UNIBAMER activist would be on the delegation. Then he said he personally knew, because his wife had told him.

Plus TV, Pastor Wade and his associates and church have taken a strong stand against the activities of UNIBAM. They have been calling on their church members to follow the Bible and oppose and condemn what the call the gay agenda which is being brought into Belize by outside forces.

EAT OUT THE LION FISH

It took a foreign lady who is neither a fisherman nor a seafarer to come up with the most logical solution to the Lion fish threat. The Lion fish has become a serious threat to our reef, fishes and our marine future. This fish is an effective predator that is eating out our fishing stock at an alarming rate. As a result it also endangers our made in heaven, magnificent reef.

The lady, who is doing a doctoral thesis on the said say Lion fish, has said that one of the best solutions is to start eating the fish which is increasing in population at an alarming rate. Where three years ago there were only a few Lion fishes, research shows that today Lion fishes populate every corner of our reef.

Eat the Lion fish. Its meat is tender and delicious. It’s a fish like any other fish. If we can eat Tilapia we can eat anything – except Katto (Cat fish).

Let’s start to eat the Lion fish.

NO SOLUTION, NO VISION

The Government of Belize has about three and a half years in office and has neither suggested nor implemented a single solution to the housing/mortgage crisis gripping middle class, working class Belizeans.

Some weeks there are double page advertisements from lending institutions which are selling the homes of Belizean families by the dozens. Hundreds of families are being evicted because they are unable to pay their mortgage.

One of the financial institutions that is evicting families and selling their homes is none other than Social Security Board. Rather than refinancing or finding ways to reduce the high interest on the loans, the cold hearted government and disappointed Board members simply evict and sell.

It is written that where there is no vision the people perish. Each week families perish because the government has presided over a galloping cost of living, a failure to increase wages, failure to pump finances and stimulate the economy. Interest rates at Social Security Board are in the vicinity of the Shylock set who administers the local banks – 15% and over. Social Security Board should be charging 4 or 5 percent.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

Channel 5 morning show “Open Your Eyes” on Wednesday featured attorneys Hubert Elrington and Arthur Saldivar. They were speaking on the recent BTL fiasco in which the Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that the government’s takeover of BTL was in violation of the Constitution.

It was an informative and educational discussion. As a contrast the Ramos show on Krem featured a non-attorney who spoke at length on legal and constitutional matters.

During the Channel 5 interview, Hubert Elrington a former UDP Attorney General and Minister of Housing and Works raised a very important issue. This issue is a serious embarrassment to the Prime Minister and his government. But it was also an arrow directed to the chest of Bernard Quinton Augustus Pitts, Attorney General of Belize.

On Friday evening around 4 o’clock the three Judges in the Court of Appeal handed down their seminal judgment – 149 pages long. BTL had been acquired unlawfully and unconstitutionally. It was a body blow to the Prime Minister and his minion ministers in government.

The government’s attorney, Lois Young Barrow, exiting the Court of Appeals made the incredible statement to the media that over the past six months she had become neutral in relation to the government’s legal arguments over the controversial takeover of BTL. By the six-thirty evening news the Prime Minister had conceded and said the Court of Appeals decision would stand and he would satisfied that he had won a victory in getting rid of an accommodation agreement that favored BTL.

But what Hubert Elrington said raises another important issue. Under the Constitution Lois Young, Mr. Ghandi, nor Prime Minister Barrow are the legal advisers of the government. The legal adviser is the Attorney General. Elrington told his audience that the Attorney General is handsomely paid to be the adviser to the government. And that from Friday until this Wednesday not a single word had been uttered by the Attorney General on this huge legal issue which has now ballooned out to an issue of the Prime Minister disrespecting and defying the Court of Appeal.

Elrington was scornful at the Prime Minister’s explanation that his takeover of BTL was a nationalist issue. Elrington seems to be saying that the Prime Minister had taken over BTL for his own purposes and that Belizeans had no say and got no benefits from the takeover.

NATIONALISM

Speaking of nationalism, ism and schism look at this. Another foreigner comes in this week to be the Solicitor General. The outgoing Solicitor General, a foreigner, will remain on the tax payers’ payroll while doing work in Florida from whence he was recruited.

Belizeans are being by-passed in favor of a foreigner who will come and be the new Commissioner of Police. Belizean lawyers, qualified and experienced, have been by-passed in favor of a foreigner from St. Lucia who has already been appointed as the new Chief Magistrate. This foreigner was attacked and shot several times and is recovering so will be unable to take up her posting until the end of August. Another foreigner has been appointed as Senior Magistrate of Belize.

Another foreigner has already been appointed the new Chief Justice of Belize even though Belizean Judge Adolph Lucas is capable of being the head of our Judiciary and there are many other Belizean lawyers with the experience to fill the post.

A foreigner has been made the Director of Public Prostitution without the post being advertised and without reference to the many experienced and qualified Belizeans.

Another foreigner has been given the post of Legal Adviser to the Prosecution Branch even though there are many qualified and experienced lawyers.

This brand of nationalism is a bitter faith for Belizeans dreaming of upward mobility and promotions in the land of their birth.

Hubert Elrington did not point out that when he and other UDP Ministers resigned in support of Phillip Goldson, one of the true heroes and icons of nationalism, it was Dean Barrow who was against Phillip Goldson and solidly in favor of the British and American plan to give large geography of our southern seas to Guatemala. Goldson was defeated and Guatemala got most of our southern seas. It was called “The Maritime Areas Act”. Goldson resigned in disgust and formed another political party – The National Alliance for Belizean Rights.

Goldson never returned to the UDP. He went to his grave bitter and disappointed over what Barrow, Esquivel and the UDP had done in supporting Guatemala and depriving Belize of its southern seas which we will NEVER get back

FROM HAIRY WORM TO BUTTERFLY

Have you ever seen a hairy worm? It is a green worm with many feet and it can be seen eating leaves all day long. After a while this worm sticks itself on a branch and starts to weave a kind of threading around its body. It completely covers its body in a kind of cocoon.

After a while the cocoon starts to open, it falls away. When you look closely there is no hairy worm inside. You see thin pretty wings starting to unfold. The wings flap slow and gently. Oh my gosh, it’s a plane, it’s a bird, its superman – no it is a butterfly.

From hairy worm to butterfly – it’s a miracle. In words of the Arab freedom fighters Allahu Akbar – God is Great.

JOHN LONGSWORTH

Spotted in Belmopan, one night last week, sitting with friends at Buca Shell Service Station was none other than the one and only John Longsworth.

John Longsworth gave the best years of his life to the Public Service of Belize. During his illustrious career, which spanned a period from the Colonial government through the transition to Belizean government, he was a District Officer, Finance Officer and he reached the highest point in a Public Officers career, that of Permanent Secretary which today is Chief Executive Officer. He served under several Ministers, in both UDP and PUP administrations.

John Longsworth is the son of Togo Longsworth and so is the nephew of several colorful and talented Longsworths of an era that was part of the best times and the good old days.

Most of the Longsworths of that time had an outstanding talent. They were thinkers and talkers. By talkers we mean they had the gift of the gab. John Longsworth is probably the deepest thinker and the most articulate of his name sakes.

The person who ran into John Longsworth on a cool and breezy night last week informed us that Mr. Longsworth was in good health and good spirits and was using the magic of his words to entertain his friends. There was even a story from the Maya culture about the size of the umbilical cord when it is cut and what the length represents.

Best of health and best wishes John Longsworth. Man like you have nuff history to tell. The University of Belize needs to check in with you.

“The richest man in Babylon” is a small book that can be read in three hours or so. It has a lot of financial wisdom.

The person who wrote it put it in a kind of style, like it was parables coming from wealthy and successful persons in the great City of Babylon.

The book has good, sound, sensible financial advice. If you read it you will learn important matters on how to get rich, how to save money, how not to waste your money. There is no magic in controlling your money. Even if you are an ordinary worker you can benefit from reading the book.

The financial common sense in this book will help you if you read and learn.

Some of the headings in the chapters are:- Control Your Expenditure; Make Your Money Multiply; Guard Your Money From Loss; Make Your House A profitable One; Increase Your Ability To Earn.

The book is published by Signet Books and some two million copies have been sold.

There is another book – “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. This book deals with what rich people teach their children about money, that the poor and middle class don’t know about. It was on the New York Times best seller list which is by itself a form of high recommendation. It is written by Robert Kyosaki and Sharon L. Lechter.

According to the back cover the book will teach you what to teach your kids about money. It defines what is an asset and what is a liability (you be surprised). It will show parents that they can’t rely on the school system to teach their kids about money.

In a recent conversation with a hard working and successful Mennonite from Spanish Lookout, he asked if I had heard of the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I was able to expound on my reading. I was proud of myself that I knew of the book and its contents.

If the Mennonite had read this book it means other Mennonites have also read it. Are they teaching their children at Spanish Lookout what is in the book? I would bet they are.

Are other Belizean children being taught what are in the above mentioned books? I bet they are not.

I want to thank Mr. Lascelle Arnold, who loaned me both books. In turn I have been lending them out so I have not yet returned the books to Lascelle.

Lascelle was in conversation with a lawyer and friend on Dean Street and out of the conversation Lascelle later sent the books to the lawyer. Some nine persons have since borrowed, read and returned the books. With high praise.

Plus TV may wish to carry a discussion on the contents of these books. So too Krem and Channel 5. Love TV too, as their morning show is among the weakest, and least informative. Channel 7 has no educational local show. They are news, UDP propaganda, commercials and back to foreign trash.

The University of Belize has an obligation to promote discussion on these two books.

It is a crying shame that the more talk shows, the less knowledge is imparted. Belizeans are in crises. It is time the quality of information and discussion be raised.

Finally, let me say that I have the greatest of respect for Lascelle Arnold and his wife Dolores. They are real, live, role models – right in front of our eyes. They are a national asset. They have built a successful business Belize Laundromat. They live a God fearing, happy and prosperous life style. They are not materialistic. They are not arrogant or show offs. They are not boastful. They are not wasteful.

There was a time when Lascelle was a welder. He sold small bar-b-que grills at corner of Albert Street and Dean Street. He and Dolores now own the successful laundry and clothes rental business beside Rogers Stadium on Dolphin Street in Belize City.  Look – and see – how God has blessed these two wonderful human beings.

NEW CHIEF MAGISTRATE

After getting a black eye over his heavy handed behavior in trying to sneak in a foreigner as Chief Magistrate, the government has now resorted to the proper procedure. It has advertised for applications from interested lawyers.

Another interesting question is what now becomes of the present retiring Chief Magistrate. Previous Chief Magistrates have gone on to become Director of Public Prosecutions and then Judges in the Supreme Court. It is the view in some quarters of the profession that it would be wasteful for government, having spent a small fortune to train a qualified lawyer, then allow her to go to pasture with her best years still ahead.

Put another way, if Judges by law can work to 65 and 72 years, why throw away an experienced Chief Magistrate at 55.

Then again, no one can accuse the government of having any vision or caring for career public servants.

SHE IS BACK

While on court matters, we wish to note the return from long leave of Judge Michelle Arana. Her Ladyship Arana has the distinction of being Belize’s first female Judge in the history of our country.

As a student, Judge Arana was nothing short of brilliant and became the nation’s top recipient of scholarships which lead to her becoming a highly trained attorney.

Judge Arana’s dad, the late Greg Arana was a teacher, well beloved of his students. He was intellectual stuff.

There is no doubt a day will come when Madam Justice Arana will be Belize’s Chief Justice.  Welcome back.

FATAH & HAMAS

Most Belizeans know very, very little about Hamas. They know even less about Fatah.

Very few Belizean know the injustice and cruel treatment by Israelis against Palestinians.

Palestinians are refugees and second class citizens in their own country.  They are under military occupation by Israel. Israel has been holding on to Gaza and West bank and has been constructing houses and settling more Israelis in Palestinian territory. All this in defiance of United Nations resolutions, International Law and morality. How Israel is supported by the USA and you know might is right.

Fatah and Hamas are the two major parties for the Palestinians. They cannot get along with each other. Hamas is radical. But they have now joined forces. The Israelis are in panic. The USA doesn’t know what to do.

The alliance is for the purpose of going to the United Nation General Assembly and following what George Price, Assad Shoman and Said Musa and Belize did in 1980. Request the general Assembly of the United Nations to support an independent state for the Belizeans.

The irony of this is that Belize which is under threat from Guatemala and only got its independence through the United Nations will not be supporting what is right and just for the Palestinians. Belize, under the pro-Israel  UDP, will abstain in the vote at the United Nation and will join Guatemala and Israel and USA  who oppose freedom, justice and equality for the long suffering Palestinians.

You done know that all those spy equipment and preventative detention and strange laws to listen to our telephones and read our internet came for a purpose.

KARL HEUSNER GOES TO KARL HEUSNER

The Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital is named after – you guessed it – Karl Heusner. His namesake and family member Karl Heusner was on Tuesday handcuffed behind his back, beaten and repeatedly kicked in the chest and ribs by police that he had to be hospitalized at –you guessed it-

SOLD FOR ONE –SEVENTH

You may remember all that fuss by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) where they held on to the wife and child of an American citizen in order to force a guilty plea from the hapless and frightened man. The man’s boat was confiscated. Government has now sold the boat for over a hundred thousand Belize dollars.

Problem is the boat was valued at more than seven hundred Thousand dollars.

MISS EMMA FLIES

Miss Emma Boiton, that stalwart, rebellious warrior with Cayo blood in her veins who stood by Phillip Goldson through thick and thin, finally took some time out and flew the iron bird. She was recently in the USA.  All our best wishes are with Miss Emma.

The alleged mastermind behind the daring attack that embarrassed the United States of America on 9.11.2001 has finally had his day of reckoning.  Osama Bin Laden was ambushed at his house in Pakistan and was shot dead in cold blood in front of his wife and twelve year old daughter. His body was flown from Pakistan and dumped in the sea. There was rejoicing in certain parts of America that their No. 1 enemy was finally brought to “justice”.

In 1980 Bin Laden volunteered to join the war against Russia which had invaded Pakistan. He formed the famous Afghan Mujahideen which eventually drove the mighty Russian empire out of Afghanistan.  Considered an intense and shy person, Bin Laden married young and spent a large amount of time studying scriptures. He was born in Saudi Arabia but his citizenship was withdrawn because of his radical views particularly that puppet governments like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt and many Arab countries should be overthrown.

The Muslim Brotherhood, considered one of the most influential Islamic groups, condemned what they called the assassination of Bin Laden and said that there should have been a trial.

The President of the USA, in breaking the news Monday this week, told the American people that Bin Laden was killed in a fire fight. This has proven to be untrue and America has been forced to acknowledge that Bin Laden was unarmed when he was killed. His twenty year old son Hamza was also killed by the elite Navy Seals unit of the US military.

Bin Laden was the cause that led America into two wars. Consequent to his planning which led to the plane attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon Building, America lied to the world and unleashed the invasion and occupation of Iraq and ongoing dirty war in Afghanistan.

IN COURT 8

This week while awaiting the Court No. 8 to start persons gathered heard a shocking story. A 15 year old charged along with another minor and about six adults for firearm and ammunition possession, was telling his horrifying nightmare.

His claim is that the Ladyville Police moved him from his cell and administered a cruel and brutal beating including the using of electric shock on his body in an effort to have him implicate one or more of the adults. His mother along with two other mothers present sat behind the minor with their eyes filled with tears.

Ladyville Police Station has one of the worst reputations for abusing citizens and engaging in actions which if published abroad will bring disgrace to Belize.

As the tale unfolded one person stated that the government had let down its citizens and were secretly supporting the ongoing accounts of illegal treatment of Belizeans in police custody. The person stated that the Ombudsman and the Minister of Police should be forced to resign as accounts of police abusive were reaching epidemic proportions.

MARK, CORDEL and Francis

More good news for Johnny Briceño and the PUP. Mark, Cordel and Francis will be more active as the PUP starts to capitalize and benefit on all the errors, lack of leadership, lack of vision and abuses being heaped on citizens by the UDP incompetent government. Life under the UDP is unbearable and has been creating a ground swell of discontent and anger particularly economic hardship and the utter failure to create investment and employment.

Things are so bad that the government has virtually unleashed a low grade war against poor people.

Was it the UDP in opposition who were always shouting the words of Erwin X’s poem – “Life haad out ya”.  In three years they have succeeded in making life the hardest it has ever been out ya.

CO-OPERATIVES

Belize needs to revisit the issue of co-operatives. There was a time when co-operatives made major contributions to employment and economic development. Think of the Fishermen Co-operatives and the Bee Keepers Co-operatives. In a sense Credit Unions are co-operatives.

Now more than ever we need to help our citizens. Co-operatives can be formed in a number of new areas. An example would be making small souvenirs for the tourist industry. These can be little art work from bamboo. Little items from straw and shells. Other products using the coconut shell, the coconut husk and the coconut leaves. We need to show our people that working in groups to make money is something beneficial to all.

On another point, there was a time when groups of citizens at the work place or sometimes at the neighborhood will form syndicates. These syndicates are operated along the lines that each person would put in say twenty five dollars weekly. If there were ten persons the first week the first person would get $250. Everybody continues to put in their $25.00 until each person has collected their $250. It was your own money that you put in every week. Syndicates have played a great role in helping persons struggling to get a little small amount of money. Nowadays everybody is just hoping to win Lottery, Mega Bingo and all the other pie in the sky dreams that are being sold.

FIRE THE ONION MINISTER

Where in the world in a functioning democracy what happened in Belize with the recent onion scandal could happen and not a single person is held accountable. What kind of ten cents country have we become? Farmers are abused in the most hurtful manner, their hard labor pissed upon, their means of earning a livelihood thrown in the garbage dump. While the farmers have onions, thousands of dollars of onions are imported just to allow a handful of hustlers to rip off the tax payers. No one is accountable.

The idea by angry farmers to transport thousands of rotten onions and dump it at the Agriculture Show should have been supported by the various social activist groups. In fact Belizeans should have boycotted the Agriculture Show but such a move would have required media and social partners’ involvement but neither feel the pain of these farmers who have really been screwed.

When farmers are screwed all of us get screwed.

Fire the Onion Minister so this nonsense never happens again.

WILLIAM “BILL” TILLETT

For younger Belizeans who don’t know William Tillett, better known to his friends as Bill Tillett, was the President of the Public Services Union during the convulsion in the country against the Heads of Agreement in 1981.

Bill Tillett was a senior official in the Lands Department and later became a Permanent Secretary which is the highest position for public officers back in the good old days of the Public Service.

During the civil disobedience that followed publications of the Heads of Agreement in March 1981 the then opposition UDP was as ineffective as they could be. It was Public Officers who led the charge who was supported by the Chamber of Commerce and a number of organizations and individuals.

Bill Tillett is an unassuming Belizean. He is not the man to seek publicity or the type to blow his own trumpet. But he came under tremendous pressure from all sides including the British government and he conducted himself with grace and dignity throughout. It is a story that should be told. This is where the University of Belize and NICH- the so called National Institute for Culture and History have dropped the ball, missed the boat, let us down.

A child begging in the streets is an indicator of social decay within our communities, the communities in which our children must live the realities of their daily lives. This phenomenon can be caused by various factors, but in today’s economic climate, the primary factor is an urgent need. Families need to eat to survive, but food costs money. In Belize today many of our poverty-stricken families are single parent families, or cases of children being raised by an aunt or grandmother. Sometimes the guardian is forced to stay at home or to eke out a living outside of the home, thus the responsibility for assisting with a little food for the evening meal rests on the child who takes his plea for assistance to the streets.

While there will always be instances of lazy, negligent parents or guardians slacking off while sending their wards to reap the meager rewards of begging, with 43% of the nation below the poverty line and another 16% at risk of falling below the line, there is cause to think that things have changed. In Belize, we have gotten to the point where every day is a struggle for survival, and every member of every family needs to put in their pound. In instances where a mother is caring for two or three babies while taking in washing for a little $50 a week, the onus lies on the older child (anywhere between 5 to 10 years of age) to do whatever they can to help. That is the reality. We see it every day at the major supermarkets, on street-corners, at Chinese stores and popular fry chicken spots. For these children, it is not a matter of begging for the fun of it or to buy two ideals and a toy, it is about making enough to buy a loaf of bread and maybe a wedge of cheese to feed a family of four.

In today’s economy life is hard for all of us. Businesses are closing their doors, employees are being laid off, those precious few tourism dollars are tapering off and there has been no indication of a light at the end of the tunnel. The Prime Minister has stated that things are picking up and the economy is on an upward swing. He has said the same thing for the past three months. But there is no evidence on the streets to support his claim. Ask anybody, from the smallest entrepreneur to the largest business and the story will be the same. Throughout this time of recession, there has been no obvious move by this government to stimulate the economy in any way or to provide incentives as buffers to businesses which are hard hit. Likewise, there has been no obvious move by government to provide relief to those most disadvantaged persons who have been hardest hit by this recession since they are at the bottom of the food chain, realistically speaking.

For many of us who live ‘on the other side of the streets,’ so to speak, it is difficult to imagine the abject poverty which results in children being forced to beg to survive. It is perhaps difficult to imagine children sleeping on the floor of a broken down shack without electricity or running water. It is difficult for us to imagine going to bed without any food in our stomachs and waking up to the same predicament. It is impossible for many of us to imagine the desperation which grips so many Belizeans when they see their children at the point of starvation and there is nowhere to turn. It is this abject poverty, this desperation which has led to this phenomenon of children begging on the streets.

Our Government has fallen down on their responsibilities to the people of Belize, the people who needed them the most. Our leaders have been rendered aloof by their wealth to the point where they can drive by the slums of the nation in their air-conditioned luxury vehicles and not waste a second glance at the barefoot, shirtless children on the street-sides. The priorities of our leaders have become skewed. Our ministers and their families and friends are enjoying the bounty while the people who should be most in their thoughts sink deeper into despair. Our leaders think nothing of spending a quarter of a million dollars on a luxury vehicle and are uncaring of how many mouths that money could have fed. Our Prime Minister attends cocktails and ballroom functions in all corners of the globe where he hobnobs with the wealthy and privileged while the people he pledged to care for rummage for scraps to feed their children. Our leaders who pledged to serve all now serve the special interests which can return favours when requested.

Too many of our leaders are content to roll down the windows of their luxury SUVs and instruct their drivers to give the children begging at the stoplight a dollar before rolling on feeling like they have fulfilled their obligations. It is past time for this government to focus its priorities on the social decay which is fragmenting our nation. It is not right that our children have become beggars while our leaders live in luxury.

On Friday 28 May the United Nations passed a resolution establishing a conference in 2012 to reach agreement that the Middle East be a Nuclear Free Zone. The Resolution also calls on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and open its facilities to international inspection.

Israel is furious over this Resolution. Israel boycotted the UN conference when it became clear that Egypt and other nations were going to call out Israel on its nuclear weapons. But Israel’s anger was much deeper. This was because the USA under Obama fully supports the UN Resolution and the Nuclear Free Zone objective. Under Bush, Reagan and other US Presidents, no such support would have been received for any UN Resolution passed “against” Israel.

Israel has been defying and getting away with ignoring UN Resolutions over its torture and treatment of Palestinians and the continued illegal occupation of the Palestinian people and their lands.

Obama is being cursed by the Israel newspapers over this historic move by the USA to be seen to be a bit more even handed and balanced regarding the Middle East and the issue of nuclear weapons. To date there has been much US, Western and Israel propaganda over Iran trying to get nuclear weapons while Israel got loads of nuclear weapons for years and nobody has been condemning them for it.

In the words of Tracy Chapman  - “Finally the table has started to turn”. It is a huge blow to Israeli policy.

Even as Israel was been condemned over its backward behavior over the nuclear weapons and perhaps to distract attention away from this fact the Israeli military committed a high-handed action. On Monday 31 May Israeli commanders attacked a group of ships in International waters which were carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinian in Gaza. It turned into a minor bloodbath. Nine aid workers were shot by the Israeli forces, the ships were disabled and towed away and over 500 volunteers were imprisoned in various desert detention centers. Even the UK and the USA who for years have encouraged Israel in its illegal activities and its defiance of United Nations Resolutions were forced to condemn the heavy-handed actions of the Israelis.

For those who do not know arising out of a 1967 war Israel has “stronged” several bits of territories from the Palestinian people. After being forced under International Law to return most of the captured lands Israel is holding on to the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. Gaza has a population of 1.5 million Palestinians in 2006 and internationally supervised elections resulted in the so-called radical group Hamas being democratically elected as the governing body. Hamas gets strong support from Iran and as a result Israel, USA and the UK have declared them a terrorist group. Israel has an embargo against Hamas which has created severe suffering and a humanitarian crisis for the people.

WORLD NO TOBACCO DAY

Tobacco is a destructive drug with deadly effects.

World Health Organization statistics show that tobacco kills 5 ½ million people each year. This translates to a tobacco death every sixty seconds.

Tobacco is the NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF DEATH in the whole world.

Women and young girls have become the new target of the tobacco industry.

Nuff young people in Belize are smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol. Belize needs a vigorous sustained program against the twin evils of tobacco and alcohol, both of which are open and legal under the present system in which we are living.

In Belize, Monday, 31 May, 2010 was not World Tobacco Day. The evil of tobacco smoking was not brought to Belizeans. Instead the whole week is Insurance Week. Insurance in the humble opinion of this writer’s is an organized rip-off, but at least nobody could be addicted to it.

WHO LEAD CREOLES?

Who is the leader of the Creoles?

Who are the leaders of the Creole ethnic group in Belize? Hey, don’t feel no way. This is only an opinion. It is not even an opinion. It is just like poetry poorly written in poorly portrayed poor prose.

It is the Creoles who built Belize. Don’t study that foolishness ‘bout the Baymen’s glory. Dey gone live at St. George’s Caye. Dey make that the Capital of the territory. Dey make up a fairy tale story that a handful of them and some flunky slaves defeated dozens of Spanish battle ships carrying thousand of soldiers and sailors and this was done with a few cannons and some pokono boy sticks.

Never mind that Anansi story. Back here on the mainland in the forests and the jungles in the thick of the flies and insects it was we the rough and the tuff Kruffy who mi di do things. Da we mi the chop down the logwood and mahogany trees, da we and the cattle drag these monster trees from the jungles to the rivers. White men can’t chop mahogany trees, they worst can’t do it in the heat of the jungles. This was no Tarzan movie. This was God awful, hard, brutal back breaking work, only the strong survive under these conditions. And when the mahogany camp rested it was bacchanal in Belize City. The masters forced us to make plenty pickney. It was cheaper to born and raise little pickney slaves than to import all the way through from Africa through Jamaica.

Back then we were Eboes, Ashantis, Mandingoes. Eventually we became Creoles. Before our Mestizo brothers and sisters came we had built this territory. When they arrived Belize was already a country. YEA! We been slaves, we been colonized. But check this, we survived. We had a kind of education, we had skills. Most of all we were strong and proud. We were sex and love. We mingled and co-mingled. We hated no one, not even the lighter shades of pale who did us wrong.

As the years went by so came other peoples. But first our Garinagu brothers and sisters whom we have now come to love and cherish. They seem stronger than us. Their talents equal ours. They too are drummers, singers and dancers. They are speakers of tongues. And they thirst for education. They have preserved much of their culture.

There also came the East Indians and the so-called Turks, then Mennonites and the Asians, particularly the Chinese. And others.

There be none like the Creoles.

We come along way. From slaves to colonial subjects to second class citizens to top dog Belizeans.

We come a long way. From Number One with the biggest population in the land to the bottom of the ladder – socially, economically and otherwise. It’s quite a fall. Except for a handful of professionals, technocrats and beaurocrats. The majority of Creoles are suffering. They are demoralized. These once happy people so full of music, song and dance seem frightened.  The future seems bleak. Of all the negatives the worst be lack of role models and the absence of leadership. In the words of another Creole from across the seas, from Jamaica – Bob Marley – “Send us another brother Moses”.

Who is the leader of the Creoles? Who are the leaders of these mighty people?

FEMALE GANG

There is talk that a girls’ gang has formed on the Southside. They are calling themselves Garza.

In Jamaica there is a gang called Garza but it is not a really serious gang. It is more a rivalry between music groups. One called Gully and the other called Garza. We hope what we are hearing is a music group and not a violent gun gang.

CHANNEL FIVE

Amalia Mai, Mary and the other members of staff deserve a special award. They have taken local television to a very high level. There is nothing in the history of local programs to rival Channel Five’s shows in particular the award winning performances in Duets and the KTV Latino. These are a huge contribution to developing and showcasing the talents of our people. The Bliss Institute has been overflowing with enthusiastic supporters who know a good thing when they see it. There is also a large television home audience who tune in weekly to watch these performances.

The morning show “Open Your Eyes” has potential but it has ways to go. It’s a bit too staid and laid back. There is no sparks much less fire although we should concede that getting guests every morning must be quite a challenge.

TONIGHT’S GONNA BE A GOOD NITE

CBC has out done itself. This is a catchy creative commercial. Are those people Belizeans?

It’s the kind of ads/commercials we like to see.

Makes you wanna switch to CBC if you don’t have it.

At the same time, Perdomo’s absence as well as that of his Chief Executive Officer the former Deputy Commissioner of Police Alan Whylie at the head table at last Thursday’s press conference that detailed how the Police Department busted up the criminal ring and put one of its very own behind bars perhaps reveals that the Prime Minister Hon. Dean Barrow has now placed all his fate in the Commissioner of Police Crispin Jefferies to ratchet up the administration’s fight against crime, and that he finally has had enough of the incompetent Perdomo, who has been fluttering in the wind for much too long.

But to put it bluntly, Barrow himself has displayed abject leadership in the fight against crime and has failed to inspire confidence that he has the inclination, will, or that he can develop effective strategies and policies to support the police’s operational efforts. Since he took office, no serious progress has been made in the fight against crime.  This has resulted in most of us living in fear and being terrified to leave the false security of our very homes.  Yet to date, no one has been held accountable for the failure to reduce crime, particularly the intolerable murder rate.

Instead, Jefferies, who is way past the mandatory retirement age, was given another one year contract despite his heavy handed policing methods that has turned many law abiding citizens against the very persons who are tasked to protect them.  As the country’s top cop, Jefferies has hardly made any difference and is as accountable as his boss Perdomo for the failure to reduce crime that has led to the police losing ground to criminals.  Perhaps Barrow cannot let go of Jefferies yet because he has little confidence in the ability of the other top ranking officers to lead the attack against crime.

But this is clearly unacceptable because we cannot continue with what has spectacularly failed.  The unprecedented lawlessness, particularly the wanton murders, poses the greatest threat to our safety.  While the majority of the murders are committed in South Side Belize City, the killing fields are national.  No community is immune or safe today.  This has caused national outrage and engendered a sense of crises, yet it seems that the administration has failed to hear our cries and to realize that the crime situation is growing worse.  Honestly, its response has been disappointing and disheartening.

Perhaps the unprecedented lawlessness wreaking havoc in the country may be arrested through greater cooperation between the badly traumatized citizenry and the police.  Clearly, there are persons out there with valuable information about criminal activities who can share it with the police in order for prosecutors to convict perpetrators of crime.  But that will not happen anytime soon because there is a wide gulf that exists between most of us and the police that has led to a lack of trust that continues to stifle the police’s efforts to effectively combat crime and apprehend criminals.

Although we are fearful of the criminals, we would twice about confiding in the police.  It seems that far too many of our officers are friendly with known criminals.  And as Jefferies admitted last week, there are rogue officers, who purposefully mislead fellow officers in their efforts to solve cases.  We do not want to have our safety compromised by telling the police what we know, particularly when it seems that criminals operate with impunity in our country.  As a result, prosecutors frequently have difficulty proving their cases and have watched people they know to be guilty walk free.

With the evidence that officers are involved in criminal activity, the lack of confidence in the police will only get worse.  Jefferies’ revelation only proved what most of us have suspected for some time now – that the Police Department is corrupt and that this corruption permeates all levels of the Department, including the High Command.  Clearly, too many officers enjoy lifestyles that are inexplicable given their own meager incomes.  Moreover, there is the perception that too many of our officers are not honest, truthful, fair, and dedicated to the rule of law.

To be fair to Jefferies and Barrow, both declared at last Thursday’s press conference that they will not tolerate rogue officers in the ranks of the police.  However, both appeared to have been grandstanding to assuage our fears and gave the impression that crime would be down now that criminal ring was foiled.  But until their talk turns into tangible action that reassures us, particularly in the crime-ridden communities, that they are serious about ridding the ranks of rogue officers, we will not trust the police.  This is not to say that there are not hardworking and honest officers in the Department.

Nevertheless, we are becoming frustrated at Barrow’s inability to respond effectively to the serious threats that crime poses to our society.  Also, he needs to keep in mind that the failure of Perdomo and Jefferies to reduce crime is as much his responsibility as theirs.  By failing to remove them from their posts despite their spectacular failures, he agreed that they were doing a good job.  Come to think of it, the greater responsibility rests with him because he failed to be at the forefront of an effective campaign to attack crime in the country.

Editor’s Note – This article was written before it was revealed that the proclamation at the police press conference was nothing more than a sham to lure Belizeans into a false sense of security and a belief that our government can do something right. Sadly, we are even more certain now that that is not the case.

In the City of Sorrows, capital of the Land of Sad Tomorrows, there descended a curse from the House of Harrows.

Sufferation was widespread across the land.

The people, burdened by mismanagement and malice being stricken in deepening poverty were told of a beast called Recession whose half-crazy sister, Economic Ruin, was seen lurking behind.

And the Pharaoh ordered the already burdened people to batten down.

The people saw where a plague called lice was eating the fat of the land stored up in the Treasury. And the people also saw the children of Pharaoh living in luxury as Prince and Princesses at a time of great hardship.

And the people also saw Pharoah’s favored few given fancy chariots called SUV’s with benefits and privileges.

And the people further saw that the talkers and criticizers of the last rulers now had their tongues silenced with tokens, titles and advertising commissions.

And anger grew in the hearts of the people, for they knew they were once again being betrayed. And their suffering was as great as their anger and hate.

This was at a time when hard hearted killers had not yet transformed to assassins with agendas.

But this is for another chapter, to be told and retold as the tale unfold -in the City of Sorrows being ruined by the family of Harrows.

DJ BUSH JOINS

Popular music magician DJ Bush has joined the long and ever growing list of citizens whose rights have been abused.

If Belize had an effective Ombudsman, or proper Police Complaints Board, such abuses would be few and far between. A decent government would have condemned such rampant and continuing abuse by employees of the government against the citizens of the country.

Since becoming government nearly two years ago the complaints have been pouring into the news-media. Rogue police continue to slap, punch, kick, gunbutt, beat-up, shoot, wound and injure citizens by the hundreds.

According to the government crime is on the decrease. Yeah Right! Well, we guess with nothing challenging to do the Police turn on the very citizens whose taxes pay their salaries.

DJ Bush’s experience is nauseating – a drunken Senior Officer physically beating a cool and humble dude like DJ. Then, to add insult to injury they detain DJ, for overnight.

We strongly advise DJ Bush and all citizens whose rights are trampled by rogue police officers to take legal action in the Supreme Court. Let them pay.

TWO DISGUSTING

Two disgusting events occurred recently.

The first is that a man out of jealously stabbed his woman to death. It was done in front of at least one of the children who tried stabbing the man to save her mom.

Appearing at the Magistrate Court for murder charges to be read, the man said he did it and wants his trial to be held quickly so he can serve his time. Reports are that he left the area and went somewhere else for the murder weapon. He then returned and stabbed-up the woman.

The second event was the verdict in the Supreme Court of a man charged for carnal knowledge. Carnal knowledge is relatively easy to prove. One, the victim, who is usually a minor, had been the subject or object of a sexual act. Two, is the person who did the dastardly deed the accused standing in the Court. The sex part is usually assisted by a medical report.

In the trial in Supreme Court a thirteen year old child gave evidence that when she was eleven years her mother’s boyfriend came home, grabbed her, took her into her mother’s bedroom and had sex with her. The mother returned home to catch her man on top of her daughter. Her mistake was not to grab a machete and chop him up.

The man did not take the witness stand and swear to talk the truth.

The Jury found the man not guilty.

There are many lessons that can be learnt from these two events.

In the stabbing event – trial should not take more than six to nine months. What is left to investigate? Would not swift justice help to deter other jealous men, and save the lives of many women?

What of the mother stabbed to death? Was there something that could have been done where she could safely have escaped from the control of the jealous man? Is there an effective organization to help battered and endangered women?

The sixteen days of activism has been exposed as an ineffective media stunt with little relevance in helping women in real danger or living in the dark shadows of batterers and potential murderers.

“Men must put themselves in the shoes of battered women.” That would give them a wake up call and make them recoil from their deeds. So we were told by the women’s organizations touting the sixteen days of activism a few weeks ago. It is not so in the real world. Not so in the real world. Men who beat women are sick. They need psychiatric help, professional counseling, segregation from their women, and punishment for the slightest infraction; public exposure and condemnation if they failed to reform.

For child molesters who have sex with minors – these cases should never take two years to reach trial. That is punishing the child and her family twice. Why was a thirteen year minor dragged into Supreme Court only to hear it was all in vain? She has been raped twice. And guess what to the shame of all these women organizations, there has been not a single counseling session for this unfortunate child and her mother.

SAVE THE SHARK

A Fisheries Department official informed an attorney who told this writer that Guatemalans and Hondurans come into Belize waters and are slaughtering the sharks. This they do to get the fins which are in demand in those countries.

BRAIN DRAIN

Official statistics show that over the last ten years of Jamaicans over the age of 25 years with University education 89,000 stayed in Jamaica, while 291,000 left the island for betterment abroad.

THIS BOOK IS BAD

This long Christmas weekend provides for a rare activity in Belize. Get a book and read.

An excellent read is OPEN VEINS by Eduardo Galeans. Copies are available at Image Factory Bookstore on North Front Street. This book is bad; an eye opener to the exploitation done by foreigners to our people in our region. It is the book Hugo Chavez gave to Barack Obama during the Summit of the America’s. It’s a pity Obama did not find time to read it. If he did he would have ended the unjust blockade America has instituted against Cuba for the past 30 years and would stop the killing of thousands of Afghanistan and Taliban in an unjust war. His country has been pursuing for the past eight bloody years.

Another excellent read this weekend is the Gospel of St. Matthew or the Gospel of Luke. Every home should have a Bible and regular reading should be done. An all time favorite is the Book of Ecclesiastes, in the Old Testament. There are so many words of wisdom therein. Did you know that this is also in the Bible:-

“A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things.” Ecclesiastes Chapter 10 verse 19.

WEBSITES

Information is the key to knowledge. Knowledge is power. Knowledge can make you make money. But remember it starts with information. Here are a few websites that valuable information can be obtained; All Africa.com., Al Jazera.com, The Nation.com., The Economist Magazine, Jamaica Gleaner, Trinidad Express, New York Times, Newsweek Magazine.com, Grandma.com.(English Edition), New African Magazines,

Amidst the cool winds that come from the North this time of year and the expectations that early Christmas music is stirring among the populace, comes the news that Belize’s newest Director of Public Prosecutions was at the altar.
That altar, dear readers is where we say I do. Cheryl Lyn Branker-Taitt was a few days ago joined in holy matrimony to Officer Vidal.
“Love” in the words of an old classic song “is a many splendored thing. It is the April rose that only grows in the early spring. It is nature’s way of giving a reason to be living.
The golden crown that makes a man a king.
Once on a high and windy hill; In the morning must two lovers kissed and the world stood still. Then your fingers touched my silent heart and taught it how to sing. Yes, time sure is a many splendored thing.”
In this stressful, upside down world we humans are forced to live in, love and money are the answers to just about everything.
Big congratulations to the Bride and the Groom.

THE DESTRUCTION OF DARREN BANKS
Darren Banks had attracted media attention whenever the Police placed charges on him and hauled him off to the Courts. Not a single charge has ever struck. Banks has never been convicted.
On one of the charges for which Magistrates cannot grant bail Banks remained in prison for several weeks. He had a nervous breakdown. When he returned to Court he told the Magistrate he saw snakes. The Prison is no place for a person needing mental and psychiatric attention.
When Banks was released he acted normal and went about his regular business.
Some weeks ago Banks had another breakdown. This time he shaved his head (he was an impressive dreadlocks). He shaved his girlfriend’s head. He behaved weird and aggressive. He is alleged to have stabbed the girl. He was remanded to prison and a psychiatric evaluation was requested by the Magistrate.
Reports out of the prison are that Banks got no treatment and no counseling. What he got was pro-forma, standard crazy-man treatment. He got doses of muscle and motion retardants. These medications are said to be to specifically make docile a human being.
Banks needs real professional help. Prison is no place for a person suffering a mental breakdown. His family needs to go into high gear.
Belize has become a worthless place for the poor and the unfortunate.

HURL HAMILTON
Belize’s newest Magistrate is Mr. Hurl Hamilton. He was appointed three weeks ago by the Judicial Services Commission and is currently doing a familiarization stint with the Belize City magistrates before being posted to the Cayo Court.
Mr. Hamilton obtained his law degree with credit from the University of Guyana which offers a similar course to that of the prestigious University of the West Indies. U.W.I. lecturers and Tutors do the second marking of exams for the Guyana University students. Dozens of ambitious Belizeans who are unable to enter UWI because of quota restrictions pursue their law degrees at the University of Guyana.
Congratulations Magistrate Hamilton. We expect you to be true to your oath of office and dispense justice to all who come before you. We urge you to resist any and every attempt by slimy officials in Belmopan who have started to interfere with some Magistrates who are allowing their decisions to be influenced by the evil Pharaohs in the government.

BELIZE MADE A MISTAKE
Because our foreign policy is not a nationally known and approved one, the government recently dropped the ball. Belize signed an agreement with Israel which allows the citizens of both countries to visit without the need for visas. And Israel offered some technical help to Belize.
Israel has a horrible record of inhumane treatment of Palestinians whose lands were captured in the 1967 war. Israel continues to defy United Nations Resolutions which condemns the illegal holding and occupation of these lands and require their return.
Israel is a key ally of Guatemala which claims most of Belize. Were it not for British troops in Belize and the loud support of the Caribbean and Third World Leaders, Guatemala would have taken over most of Belize. They may still do so militarily.
Belize was recently warned by its Foreign Minister Hon. Wilfred Elrington that if Belizeans reject the government’s efforts to take the Guatemalan dispute to the International Court of Justice, Belizeans should start preparing for war.
Belize should not have cooperated with Israel unless and until it publicly acknowledges our sovereignty and territorial integrity.

ZELAYA AND DEMOCRACY DEFEATED
Big thanks go to the USA and President Barack Obama for supporting the oligarchy and ruling clique in neighboring Honduras. By an illegal coup de etat –i.e a military overthrow, a lawfully and democratically elected President Zelaya was overthrown in June this year.
Sensing the disdain of the region for military overthrow of democracy, America announced it would not support the coup and any elections under their rule would not be recognized. But, surprise! Surprise! America reversed its stance and said it would recognize the elections held last Sunday in which an Oligarch candidate was elected. Four puppet nations followed America and recognized the elections. The rest of the region remains against it.
Can anyone guess where Belize stands on the issue at this moment?

LIKE A PROPHET
There he was on local television – his long whitish beard looking like Charlton Heston as Moses in the Classic biblical movie “The Ten Commandments”.
And his words were like a Prophet. His sentiments are in sync with the sentiments of thousands of our disenchanted and downtrodden who once again see no hope.
Dressed in his trade-mark military fatigues, we speak of none other than the controversial Rufus X.
On Tuesday night 1st December 2009, Rufus X condemned the UDP government for doing nothing constructive for the past two years. He said he was getting tired of hearing the Prime Minister and other Ministers blaming the past government. It is high time to deliver on tackling the high cost of living, the escalating crime rates, the poor health care and social services and the many other problems plaguing the country.
Rufus X was not reading from any script. He spoke at length and he spoke from his heart and his conviction.
Rufus X will have to be gagged for his words will become dangerous as disaffection and anger spread across the land.
And let it be said that Rufus X is no PUP. What he spoke was the truth and his words were spoken with conviction and commitment.
With apologies to Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner as Moses and Pharaoh respectively “Moses (Rufus X) the next time you publicly castigate Dean Barrow and his lackeys like that, you will surely be treated as an enemy.”
So shall it be written. So shall it be done.

BRITISH HIGH
Recently the British High Commissioner (Ambassador) of the British Government to Belize was a guest on Channel 5’s morning show.
Don’t anyone be upset over what I say. It is just an opinion.
The British High was not asked any tough questions. No question on British policy of supporting America’s illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. Of how many innocent Iraquis have been killed (the arrogant USA say it does not keep track of those it kills but the results are in the hundreds of thousands of Iraquis).
There was no question over Human Rights Watch report from New York entitled “Cruel Britania: British complicity In the Torture and Ill-Treatment of Terror Suspects in Pakistan”.
No question of British silence in the face of tiny Belize “nationalizing” a British Citizen telecom company or the issue of nationalizing in general, seeing as how any such by Venezuela is always condemned.
Interviews by other media with the new US Ambassador were equally of a poor and non educational content.
Belize media can be respectful and professional and ask serious questions of these officials and others. The British and Americans are two of the nations Bob Marley sang about when he taught us “They make the world so hard that every day the people are dying.”

WATER vs. SOFT DRINKS
Soft drinks win every time.
Please people drink more water and resist the sugar and the artificial sweeteners. You know these ain’t good for your health.
And the last thing you want down the road is to end up at KHMH – Kill Him Murder Her.

OPEN PAKI
Two Sundays ago Open Paki was most partial in interviewing a misguided homosexual. The cute hostess, obviously supportive of her guest, kinda went over board by challenging those who believe the Holy Bible. She called them hypocrites. She said even if Jesus came down from his cross and told her it is wrong she would tell him a thing or two.
Tek it easy Rosalie. Your guests speak and promote their opinions, even their trans-gender lifestyles. Your role is to ask the questions and provoke responses. Tackling Jesus and the Bible is usually unproductive.
Can we have a few lesbians on the show next time, if only to give balance?

REPORTER NEWSPAPER
The reporter newspaper recently raised the important issue of reducing interest rates in an editorial. It stirred some debate, though not nearly enough.
The Prime Minister’s response of helplessness and throwing up his hands in feigned frustrations is inadequate. It must be one of the many reasons so many persons are unhappy with his leadership.
The Prime Minister needs to stop this endless talking and start to solve problems. Every person in Belize knows that interest rates on loans are just too high.
Perhaps Mr. Prime Minister you can help the many struggling families who are paying interest on loans at DFC, Social Security and Housing Department.
And by the way, don’t you see BTL is a huyu egg. Let dat go!

USA
There are over 30 million Americans without a job and each month the jobless rate grows. The overall statistic is that in a population of over 300 million citizens, 10.2% are jobless. Among black Americans the percentage is 15.7% without a job.
One out of every five American children is living in poverty. For Black American the figure is 35% of their children are in poverty.
Fifty million Americans lack consistent access to adequate food in the United States of America.