It’s hard for a Belizean to have gotten much bigger than Dr. Errol Elrington. He had qualified as a physician, the most esteemed profession in the world, in the greatest marketplace in the world – the United States of America; he married another success story, the Belizean physician Ann Gillett Elrington; and he ran his own medical clinic in Detroit, Michigan. Dr. Elrington was sitting on top of the world.
Today, it is difficult to find a Belizean who is in more trouble than Dr. Errol is. There is a United States federal arrest warrant out for him, and he is now a fugitive in Belize. American federal warrants are very bad business, and Belize does not have a history of protecting its citizens from such warrants.
This is a personal and family tragedy, but we consider it also a national tragedy. We wish for a good outcome to this situation for Dr. Elrington. We feel an instinctive solidarity with him, because he is a Belizean, and we are Belizean nationalists.
Dr. Errol Elrington hired an as yet unnamed physician who did not have his medical license in order. This doctor was apparently a charlatan. Dr. Elrington either knew this or he did not know it. He should have known, or he should have ascertained the doctor’s status. It was through Dr. Elrington’s clinic that bills were submitted to U.S.medical authorities for payment, so he had the ultimate responsibility.
If Dr. Elrington knew that the doctor was a charlatan, then he himself became a charlatan. If he did not know, which at this point appears to be a possibility, then it is important for you to understand how the American legal system works, because it is, in practice, a different system from Belize’s.
A classic Belizean case for you to analyze is the Hon. Elvin Penner passport case. In the United States, the authorities would have sought to indict the biggest fish in the Belmopan sea, that is, Hon. Elvin Penner. They would have started the process by seeking out the smaller participants in the crime, and they would have brought pressure on such individuals in order to gather the evidence to make a case against the biggest possible fish. In Belize, however, when there is a problem, our judicial system goes after the smaller people and effectively seeks to protect the bigger ones.
Classically, the United States authorities, once they discovered that a physician was operating without a license in a clinic owned by a licensed physician, would have brought pressure on the vulnerable unlicensed physician in order for him to provide the evidence necessary for an indictment of the bigger fish – the licensed physician.
As Belizeans, we repeat, we wish the best for Dr. Errol. His case is important to examine, however, from the standpoint of showing you why it is that Belize cannot root out corruption. In the United States, they go after the roots of the poisoned tree. In Belize, this politically dominated system makes a show of lopping off a few leaves, even branches sometimes, to make the people of Belize feel as if the authorities are doing their job to protect the public from white collar criminals. The roots of the poisoned tree always remain firmly in place, and so the branches and leaves soon grow back and the poisoning of the system resumes. Business as usual.
The most dramatic of the poisoned tree trimming takes place in Belize when there is a change of the political party in government. There is a lot of hype surrounding a supposed new beginning, but the oligarchical big boys remain in play, the roots of the crimes in the lands, forestry, immigration, works, national security, customs, and other departments, all these roots are safe. After a while, the people of Belize wonder why their move from blue to red or from red to blue did not achieve the desired results. It is because Belize is not a real nation-state; Belize cannot go after the big boys and punish them in proportion to their crimes. Belize is a place where big people never go to jail.