The testosterone level in Belize is high and the outright grand-standing of John Saldivar and Patrick Faber, both desperate for UDP leadership, cannot go unnoticed. John, taking the hard approach, wants to be the saviour of the crime situation, while Patrick, taking the softer approach to gain visibility and show he is fit to be leader, has been touring and using his September celebrations platform to speak. John only has police press conferences as his means for visibility. Sadly, I don’t think any is worthy of the leadership, an indication that there is either bankruptcy or full foreclosure on the pool of leadership for this country.
John knows his skeletons in the closet and why Dean Barrow, in the era after the RECONDEV fiasco, had banished him from the party, vouching never to allow him in the upper ranks… well, he swallowed his vomit! If I was not in the party organ and very much involved in council meetings, to know the sordid details, I would say, this can’t be the same John sent into the wilderness… but he came back more ambitious and hungry for power.
Then there is Patrick, who after his outright public display of war against the teachers (mostly women), and the details of his violence against women surfaced, I now put him in the category with Brett Kavanaugh… and if we had a more transparent National Assembly I would be demanding an investigation into his conduct, including his recent run-in with law enforcement in the USA over his domestic problems.
It’s a pity that in Belize all the sexual impropriety, such as domestic violence, sexual assault against women and little boys, the drunken debauchery of men in and out of office, does not attract the scrutiny it does in the USA, and so here they get away with it. Otherwise 99 % of those in office would not qualify to be elected. The display of lewdness by Boots in a September celebration parade with such demeaning conduct, sadly does not attract the ire of the masses, but rather panders to that mass segment of the population, who have been oppressed to such levels that questioning debasing conduct is the least of their concerns in comparison to their serious need to just have basic necessities from day to day. Sadly, debauchery is too often also their escape, thus no outcry against the ethics and morals of our leaders! And thus, if it is between the lesser of two evils that people think they must choose from, then the leadership pool is on serious life-support in this country, as the men engage at varying levels in some serious cock-fight!
If you step back you will see the power play and the grass that is getting trampled in the midst. John surely is being ill advised, but his head is in such a dark place that he cannot see that his latest moves are backfiring on him. Preventative detention will not save the day, and his politicization of the armed forces to take a united stance on the issue of the ICJ, has only galvanized more NO to ICJ votes! Poor strategy…. Destructive strategy… chaos created for sure.
The political armed forces
I view it as a national disgrace that the Ministry of National Security would get, encourage or coerce the heads of the three armed law-enforcement entities to carry out a “Yes to ICJ” campaign. This is surely another part of the chaos, as it has always been that these three entities must remain non-political and as such their members do not belong to unions, are considered essential services, and must remain non-political and ready to defend all Belizeans, regardless of their political view or position, race, colour creed, sex and even defend those whose position is NO to ICJ!
Even more disturbing is the fact that this is how dictatorships start, that is where the political directorate and the military can gang up against the citizenry. As in this case, where the various entities are spouting position, but it cannot be that they polled their membership and got that consensus for a vote on the position they have now announced. Worse yet, is it a matter where now they will demand that their members vote along the lines expounded by the entity to which they belong?
It must be recalled that the main thrust of the government would have been to carry out an education campaign, which was to be used to disseminate the information and educate the populace about the ICJ referendum facts, without taking a position, thus the need for the government to appear, at least on the surface, as a neutral party. Instead, they opted to be very partial in stating a position, and now have gone as far as enlisting no other than the three security entities, which must at all times remain neutral. My question is why? Why the need to have the heads of the Belize Defence Force, Belize Coast Guard and the deputized of the Police Department state a position? Was there a meeting of these three bodies with the membership to poll them to see if their stated position reflects the position of the membership? Or is it that they want to impose their position by announcing it and then making the membership fall in place or else…? Or are they expecting us to be so afraid of their enforcement powers that we will cower and vote a “yes”?
As I looked at it, heard all sorts of explanations and processed it all, I wondered why the justification of one of the officers would be that they were only stating their personal positions. So if it’s their personal position, there was no need to make media rounds in their uniforms, with the CEO, and using their official capacity and rank.
Now the optics of it all is that we have a political armed forces! As if the issue of the Belize Guatemala differendum is not sufficiently complicated, we now have the side issues of the conduct of the law enforcement agencies. Next we will have Customs Department and Immigration Department and possibly some other department taking a public position, it seems. I opine this is in poor taste and I am amazed that these highly trained and supposedly qualified officers would allow themselves to be brought into such a fray and participate in lending their faces and voices for something that they know at the end of the day should be left to the choice of each individual.
The mandate of these entities is to protect and serve the citizenry, not to manipulate them nor intimidate them into taking a specific position. This is tantamount to the Governor General deciding to declare a position, when he knows he must remain neutral, though privately he is entitled to his own private position.
On the other hand, this now forceful, no pun intended, tactic of the government to enlist military, coast guard and police to bully the citizenry into a government position, will backfire, because the populace will become very suspicious as to the motives behind this “armed” forces campaign. After all, why not leave the people to decide on their own? This highhanded tactic brings to mind the state of public emergency declared earlier this month, where the police have been lawfully allowed to abuse the rights of citizens, but those believing they will not be directly affected sit back in silence refusing to denounce this excessive step.
Abuses under state of public emergency
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
(Poem written by the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
This poem is so applicable to our present situation, as I have seen clear violations in the very Constitution used to pass this state of public emergency. Those who are benefitting from the false sense of security, have failed to realize that it is best to incarcerate a man under due process of the law, instead of under an abuse of the law, and that it is best to treat the “criminals” with fairness, even when they are not fair, because for us to do otherwise makes us as criminal as they whom we look down upon. I know these human dignity principles are difficult to process for so many, because we have a collective culture of hurt and abuse and we tend to bring down others so we feel above them, and mightier and better than them.
As I look at the various incidences of abuse being done outside the emergency zones and hear the numerous stories of people being harassed, and even detained outside the two zones, and who are not even living in the two zones, I realise that few are concerned because it has not yet knocked at their door.
Two blatant examples I saw were on Carnival Day in Orange Walk Town, when police officers just walked up to people looking on the carnival, not causing any commotion, whom were suddenly stunned when their drinks in their hands were just confiscated from them. Police did not read them their rights and just selected those of a certain racial profile to target. They have the right to their property and if the police want to take it away, there is a process to be followed.
Then there is Bobby Lopez, whom Belmopan police targeted when they denied him the right to participate in the 21st September parade because his message was “Not to the ICJ”. That is his freedom of expression and movement curtailed because his message does not align with the message of the Government of Belize. My people, this is dangerous!
They have not come for you yet, because you say you are no criminal, but when they come for you because of what you represent, and there is no one to stand for you, it’s because you remained silent while others were being taken away. I will keep on speaking until I am taken away.
No to the ICJ!