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While I was downtown on Tuesday, a prominent (and well-liked) businessman and I got to talking about Michael Ashcroft.

The alleged gun running from our Customs yard shouldn’t be a surprise to any Belizean who is aware of what has been happening here for years. Smuggling has been a moneymaking activity for Belizeans almost from the “get go,” and I’m talking about the inception of the Belize settlement! Belize smugglers operated as pirates in the 1600’s, as gun runners during the U.S. Civil War, and they collected tidy sums from rum running after Prohibition became law from 1919 to 1933 in the United States. Let’s be real. Belize is geographically on a route from the cocaine-producing countries in South America to the country that fuels the majority of that trade - the United States, a country awash with huge sums of money that will probably corrupt any GOB agency that has to deal with it.

I think we should have a referendum on whether to abolish the death penalty, or begin executing the many murderers we have in prison. I hesitate to say “on death row,” because there is no such thing. The death penalty means nothing – no one ever gets hanged these days.

My people, two days from now, Thursday, May 8, makes three months since the United Democratic Party won the February 7 general elections, on a massive mandate from Belizeans fed up with crime, political corruption and untouchable criminals both in government and outside government.

I think we Belizeans really have to begin to constitutionally assert ourselves where our number one “vampire,” Michael Ashcroft, is concerned. We have to remember that what power he has over us was given to him by another enemy of Belize, Said Musa, who, unfortunately for us, was Prime Minister.

“Preventive detention” and legalized wiretapping are subjects that I will not let go of until decision day is reached. I suspect that government is hoping that these issues will fade from public consciousness over the 90-day waiting period for the legislation to take effect and then, “slam bam,” it becomes law with all its earth-shaking implications!

Every society has its own character, its own culture and its own personality. It has its strengths and weaknesses, its capacity for greatness and tendency to mediocrity. It also has the power to transform and recreate itself to advance to hither levels of worthiness. The citizens of our beloved country of Belize have the right to aspire to become the shining light of democracy that God intended it to be but, for this to happen, all our civic, religious and political leaders have to come together and work for the common good.

I am thinking a little this afternoon (Saturday) about the PUP 1998, and the UDP 2008…a tale of two parties swept to victory over parties that had gone rancid, and overstayed their time. I don’t have all the goods stocked up in the pantry, but I have the sense that both of these parties - the UDP 1998, and the PUP 2008, felt that they would ganar…before they got the cold shoulder on election day.

As I like to say, let us separate sense from nonsense. The Minister of Police has my support, but he has to understand that in Belize, in 2008, being a Minister of Police is a rough, tough job.

Sometime in the seventies and early eighties, there was this sudden growth of the marijuana trade in Belize. And there was murder and mayhem in Belize like never before, especially in the north.