The five most powerful nationals in this country are Lord Michael Ashcroft, Senator Barry Bowen, Eugene Zabaneh, Said Musa and Ralph Fonseca. We are not sure the Lord is a Belizean, but he must have a Belizean passport after all these years. After all, again, almost everybody else has one, a Belizean passport we mean.

Inside the nation of Belize, we have ambassadors who represent the United States of America and Great Britain, and such ambassadors represent two of the most powerful nations on earth, nations which have been nuclear powers for fifty years and more. So the powers of the American and British ambassadors are in a class by themselves.

Anyway, let us return to the main topic of this essay, which is black leadership in Belize. Kremandala has no constitutional power in this society. We are friends with Senator Bradley, but his loyalty is to the ruling faction of the government. This was established publicly when Senator Bradley was allowed to maintain a careful, studied neutrality during the serious G-7 crisis inside the ruling party and Cabinet in mid-August of this year.

We have chosen the present time to discuss these matters, because we believe that our society is about to enter critical times, and it is important that our people understand clearly what is the structure and order of things. Dickie Bradley became a superstar on KREM Radio in the early 1990?s. He was closely identified with Kremandala, but his loyalty to the ruling PUP faction goes back a decade and more.

Kremandala owes no loyalty to the People?s United Party. We have been friendly with the PUP, for what it?s worth, since 1989. We have not been so friendly with the UDP, for what that?s worth, since 1988. In practical, business terms, what this has meant is that UDP lawyers take us to court for libel matters from time to time, and our defence counsel are usually PUP.

Earlier this year, the UDP lawyer, Michael Peyrefitte, sued this newspaper on behalf of former UDP Leader, Dean Lindo, claiming damages for defamation of character and so on. We gave our defence brief to Dickie Bradley, a PUP lawyer and a man with powerful connections, as we have pointed out already in this essay.

The G-7 crisis in August was bigger than many people realized. PUP leaders and officials had to choose sides in the week between August 12 and August 18, when it appeared that a war might break out within the ruling party. The rhetoric in some PUP quarters was militant and threatening.

The two Cabinet Ministers who are Southside area representatives, Mark Espat of Albert and Cordel Hyde of Lake Independence, were prominent inside the rebel G-7. The other four PUP Southside standard bearers are Dickie Bradley of Queen?s Square; Dolores Balderamos Garcia of Port Loyola; Remijio Montejo of Collet; and Phillip Brackett of Mesopotamia. As far as we know, none of these four supported the G-7. Senator Bradley was conspicuously absent from the scene the entire week of crisis.

When the dust began to settle later in August, it was obvious that one PUP crisis had passed, and just as obvious that there were others yet to come. Kremandala had supported the G-7, and Senator Bradley had not.

We have chosen to remain with Senator Bradley as our defence counsel in the Lindo/Peyrefitte libel matter. We still have a friendly relationship with him. The nature of our relationship with him has changed since 1998, because as we have pointed out, Mr. Bradley has become much more powerful in a constitutional sense, as a result of his special relationship with the ruling faction of the ruling party.

In closing, we now wish to note the remark a couple months ago in the House of Representatives by the UDP Mesopotamia area representative, when he loudly referred to ?the two PUP newspapers.? The Mesopotamia area representative, also a powerful black leader, chose the prestigious hall of the National Assembly to insult this newspaper. Remember now, his position is a constitutional one. Ours is not. When you are ?constitutional,? it means you are protected by the law of the land.

Because we are not constitutional, we have no protection, and that is why our cry remains ? power to the people.