by Colin Hyde

Mr. Ashcroft looked quite irate last week when he went to Channel 5, his television station, to vent about the sweet deal Portico had gotten. He took us into ancient history when he suggested that some “boys” in this PUP government might be after a pension plan—a charge he had made about elements in another PUP government when they supported a new telecommunications company to end his monopoly.

Ashcroft would crush that new telephone company with considerable help from the UDPeez Ambrose Tillett and John Avery who, for their party interests and/or because they believed him, repeated his charge until all of Belize believed it. I won’t say that old story wasn’t true, but I will say that because we have seen the gentleman in and out of bed with our political leaders, one night having sweet pillow talk with them, one day complaining about the unfairness of the relationship, over time the weight of his words has become lighter than hot air.

I think the next time that gentleman has a story to sell, he should face a journalist who won’t worry about making him squirm. Marleni, at his television station, is yet to ask him a question he didn’t want to answer. It’s always good to know what elephants are thinking, but those interviews might as well be a monologue.

If it was a popularity contest, very likely Belizeans would choose Jules of 7News for the job. If you’re looking for theater, then definitely go with Mr. Vasquez. I bet you haven’t forgotten the sweet word play between him and Dean. Aw, that friendship was natural, they both being of the Shakespeare fraternity. Hey, Jules is a star alright, and very brave, but I won’t give him the mike just out of spite for the chosen years, when every interview with PM Dean and UDP ministers looked like an in-house thing, a meeting of the boys in the party in front of Brads Gaming House. Play dominoes, man!

Oh no, I won’t give Louis Wade the job, all because that man’s an unabashed capitalist. Aaahm, ehm, if an opinionist would do, there’s me, an L & POB inside the same fence as the UEF. Go figure! Anyway, that would be a dud, because there’d be no bright lights, no cameras thing.

Hey, no more suspense, I’m going with Marisol to put that Ashcroft through the grinder he must go through without stuttering. I’m giving her the job not just because she is a fine talent, but as a prize for having the mettle to survive all those terrible UDP years. Bah, you remember how the UDP PM treated her at his heavily controlled press conferences? Even if the show was on mute, the discomfiture of UDP parties under interrogation could not have been missed. We know why. The lady will ask uncomfortable questions and, aha, that’s why she’s the one that we want.

That Mr. Ashcroft has a lot of questions to answer before next he regurgitates old stories about the terrible PUP and their pension plan for the boys. But that man, bah, he won’t submit outside of “5”. I say he shouldn’t completely get away.

Kicking off the ball with a few soft ones (they say that’s the best way to begin), we’ve never heard about what discussions led to his group getting control of the golden share in BTL. The story is that pen was put to paper to give up such power over telecommunications in Belize when the House had already dissolved in 1993. My, my, we are so familiar with late-hour government activities. It’s a twist from old primary school days, when the last day before the long holiday was for settling scores that had festered for fear of the school principal’s whip.

Did the PUP guarantee monopoly control over telecommunications when your group got control of BTL? PM Musa said that under the control of your group, BTL wasn’t honoring the commitment to expand services across the country. INTELCO got a license in 2003. Really, was BTL not to have competition?

What went down in that room in Miami? A fine businessman like you didn’t know that that part of the, ehm, bargain, the charitable projects part, would amount to nada for lee Belize? If you did know, did you get a kick out of that?

Braa, Belizeans don’t know Luke Espat, and they’d really like to get to know him. We’re aware that a number of your companies have had dealings with the gentleman, and if you have anything on why the old PUP saw so much potential in him, it would be appreciated. Whoa there, though many of us think yu quite chaansi, your contributions don’t go unnoticed, and when it comes to your credibility, you get no points behind the padded walls at Channel 5.

What 37%, Mr. Javan?

Somebody in the DPP’s office really needs to check her/himself before publishing, and scrub from their report the claim that, while public perception is that the conviction rate for the prosecution of serious crimes in the Supreme Court is 3%, it is actually 37%. I got that information from Mr. Javan Flowers in a piece in the Reporter last week which he titled, “Leaked Report: Belize’s conviction rate at 37%! Statistics belie popular public perception that it is 3%.”

When Belizeans speak of 3% and 5% conviction rates, they aren’t speaking about serious crimes; they are speaking strictly about murder cases. There’s a huge difference between murder cases and other crimes of violence. In the latter, the victim lives, and live victims can testify; in the former, the victim is dead, and dead victims don’t testify. Naturally, obviously, it will be harder to get convictions in murder cases.

The story is about the national failure to bring people to justice for the most grievous crime. What’s the point if there are 120 homicides, and you only bring one to court as murder and get 100% for getting a conviction?

Please don’t try and hoodwink our people with made-up truth. Maybe we can accept a new way of reporting on the financial statistics, and a new measure to define poverty, but don’t hide the glaring failure of our justice system through number-manipulation. So many of the murder cases have been made into manslaughter cases. And the “perception” also is that you have dropped the cases you expect to lose on the nolle pros and other technicalities.

Please, don’t give us false numbers. That’s not the way to address the pain of families who lose loved ones and also don’t see the culprits brought to justice.

Restore Sergeant’s Caye

A picture of Sergeant’s Caye that was posted on social media this week reminded me of one in an old family album with my older siblings spending some time there. There was once a government-owned house on the caye, and I think Princess Margaret was the famous British dignitary who overnighted there. The house and the island were destroyed by that beast of a hurricane, Hattie, which hit us in 1961.

My bet is that the GoB could rebuild Sergeant’s Caye. It would be a good complement, addition to Goff’s Caye for the public. I bet it could be done with minimal disturbance of the environment. The “island” is on the main reef, and there is no end of sand that’s being produced there to restore it to its old glory. There are some interesting currents around that spit of white sand; at certain times of the year the sand bar builds up, and then the sand is taken away. The Geology Department knows how to keep the sand from being washed away.