Oil is very, very serious business. I was reading in an American magazine on Saturday that the United States borrows a billion dollars a day to pay for imported oil supplies. Can you imagine that? If you can, then you will understand that we as a Belizean, oil producing people, absolutely have to educate ourselves on the oil matter as quickly as possible.
Let me put it in more bloody language for you. You see this war that America, planet earth’s most powerful nation, is waging in Iraq? It is a gruesome war. In four plus years the Americans have lost almost four thousand dead, but the nature of the war, because of the improvised explosive devices, is such that the real toll is in the number of crippling injuries. There have been six times as many serious American injuries as fatal casualties. We’re not even talking about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties.
But Washington insists on the war, because its oil supplies are a vital security concern. In order to maintain its lofty standard of living, America requires a certain amount of oil everyday. Iraq is an important oil producer in the most important oil producing region of the world. President Bush is not fighting in Iraq to introduce democracy. That’s mere political rhetoric. It’s all abut the oil, stupid.
The discovery of oil in Belize means that the political stakes here have become that much higher. I can’t understand the mindset of some people who are positive that it is a matter of inevitability that the UDP will just sweep out the PUP come general elections. On the other hand, perhaps I can understand. Such observers believe that the people of Belize are fed up with misuse of our money, and will change the government.
But before we consider the oil factor in the elections, consider this. The culture of corruption which exists in the PUP is supported by the vast majority of their area representatives and standard bearers, who are in turn supported by the vast majority of the PUP membership. And when we’re looking at the PUP, we are looking at a party that has won all the general elections held here since 1950, except for 1984 and 1993. With oil making political power in Belize that much more profitable, the PUP will be desperate to retain power. And they know how to win.
In Belize, a quarter century of American television has taken our people to a high level of materialism. We desire the most luxurious of consumer items. But as a nation, we do not produce any of those luxury consumer goods for which we lust, so we have become more corrupt than we have ever been. This is where the PUP have an edge. They know that Belizeans are corrupt. The UDP is naïve. They believe that Belizeans are honest.
When the average person indulges in corruption, he/she readily rationalizes that corruption. My children need this. I am entitled to that. That’s how it begins. After a while, corruption has a simple excuse – everybody’s doing it. When it’s really bad, corruption actually becomes self-righteous.
I keep saying to people – this is a democratically elected government. In free and fair elections, the majority of registered and voting adult Belizeans in March 2003 chose, in 22 out of 29 constituencies, PUP candidates to represent them. There’s no question about that.
When those PUP area representatives did whatever they did, there was no uprising within their own party. And as late as February of 2004, the Opposition UDP was so weak they could not even organize an impressive demonstration. Today, November 25, 2007, the UDP, on the basis of their landslide local government victories in March of last year, guarantee national government triumph next year. It’s not going to be as easy as that.
The Americans don’t really care who is in power in Belmopan. What they care about right now is having access to the oil. So they want a strong government to do business with, a government which can protect oil fields, oil rigs, and oil pipelines.
What we Belizeans need, on the other hand, is a weak government, which is to say, one that can be changed when it is not performing appropriately. The system that the British left us with, is one in which the people lose power for four years and 364 days out of every five years. We saw that vividly in early 2005. The people wanted to change the government, but we couldn’t do it. The government was more powerful than the people. The answer is proportional representation, but the PUP and the UDP don’t want to hear about that.
The history of oil, because of oil’s importance to the rich, ruling nations of the world, is that it inflames political and other passions in poor, oil producing countries. The result of inflamed passions is increased political and other violence.
I think we have already seen increased political violence this year in Belize. Too many of the acts of political violence have been anonymous, which leads citizens like myself to believe those acts are “official.” Do you get the sense? It’s all about the oil, stupid.