As it is presently, this newspaper is facing three libel suits, all prepared by UDP-affiliated lawyers. Two of these suits have UDP politicians as plaintiffs, but the third suit is so very interesting. It features a prominent PUP crony out of whose offices two of Ralph Fonseca?s personal secretaries are working.

The PUP began this skilful technique of hiring UDP lawyers to represent PUP cronies in political suits shortly after independence in 1981, when they brought back Silky Stuart from exile in California. Stuart had shot four UDP supporters at Central Park in 1975, but when he appeared in court he was defended by a UDP lawyer.

Now, how did we get the sense of what Ralph Fonseca was doing? It was because the publisher of this newspaper was the chairman of the board of the University of Belize from 2000 to 2004. Ralph had a master plan for the university which featured several pieces of prime real estate in Belize City which belonged to the university. In Mr. Fonseca?s scheme of things, the University of Belize was not projected to amount to much. Instead, UB?s assets were to be marketed at strategic times to strategic cronies in the manner in which the Pound Yard property was processed, the way how some 30 acres and some 7 acres of UB?s land, in separate deals, had already been processed, the way how the lands around the Port of Belize are being processed.

The publisher of this newspaper had been an ally of the PUP?s during the 1998 general elections, a small and relatively insignificant ally, but an ally nonetheless. He sought the chairmanship of the University College of Belize in late 1999 because he believed that religious denominations were already too powerful in Belizean education, and that, if only at the tertiary level, there needed to be a state option to church control. UCB/UB was to be that option.

Between 1999 and 2004, Ralph Fonseca controlled the public finances of Belize. Every year from 1999 till 2004, the government subvention to the national university was slashed. Mr. Fonseca sent a specific economist out of his personal office to propose that the university pay its bills by raising bonds. This proposal took place in September of 2002. The chairman of UB (publisher of this newspaper), counselled by the accountant Cedric Flowers, successfully fought against the bonds proposal. In addition, and more important, the UB chairman secured the titles to, and consolidated UB ownership of, all university lands and assets.

During the UB tenure of the publisher of this newspaper, attacks on himself and the university?s administration took place daily on the UDP?s WAVE Radio and weekly in the UDP?s GUARDIAN newspaper. At the end of 2004, the Amandala publisher was replaced as UB chairman by the aforementioned Fonseca economist who had personally presented the bonds proposal in 2002. If you check the record, all attacks on the University of Belize ceased immediately on WAVE Radio and in the GUARDIAN newspaper. There was not a single personal attack on the new UB chairman during the entire 2005 by the UDP.

Now it does not have to be the case that the UDP elements were attacking the UB chairman and the university between 2000 and 2004 because Ralph Fonseca was hiring people to perpetrate same. It may be the case that the UDP just plain dislikes the publisher of this newspaper. Or it may be the case that the UDP just plain likes the new UB chairman and would not want to offend him in any way. That is why we cannot prove to you that elements inside the UDP have been on Ralph?s payroll. But this is something that we believe, and we are prepared to go to court and have a jury of our peers say what they believe. The circumstantial evidence is heavy, heavy. In a way, when you think about it, there is a similarity to the matter of Belize Companies Register/BELIPO. Think about it.