BELIZE CITY, Thursday, May 29, 2008
On Wednesday morning, May 28, Kremandala sent a lone volunteer to picket the downtown Belize City headquarters of the Belize Bank, the majority owner of which is Lord Michael Ashcroft.
We have a credible eyewitness who saw two police officers abuse and assault the picketer not too long after he began his assignment. When Kremandala officials came in from the west to check the scene, our picketer had already been run off by the law. The two policemen were standing at the corner of Albert Street and Orange Street, where the old Abdo’s building used to be. One of them had a mobile radio, suggesting that he was in contact with some headquarters or the other.
Lord Ashcroft’s behaviour has indicated to us that the old capital is too small for both of us. Since he intends to destroy Kremandala, then Kremandala must ask him to leave our climes. We will be coming in from the west to make the point to the Lord. This Belize is no Turks and Caicos. We are no “small island.” And Kremandala is not the Red Cross.
Our lone volunteer has, by his sacrifice, exposed the mind set of 60 Market Square and whichever police authority is on their payroll. Kremandala has only 60 employees, but there are hundreds who eat when Kremandala eats. While Ashcroft pressures to increase his profits so that he can ship our money across the seas to Chichester, Kremandala’s purpose is to feed as many of our Belizean people as possible. Kremandala is the people. Chichester is the predator. When we return to Market Square, it will be in numbers.
Kremandala’s credibility is presently the highest it has ever been. That is because Market Square was already disgraced by its BTL/Telemedia gyrations, the Marine Parade debacle, the UHS scandal, the Venezuela/Taiwan money, etcetera. The mood in the streets of Belize City is hostile to the predator.
History has absolved UBAD, publicly reviled by the leadership of the ruling PUP in 1969 as “preachers of hatred and violence.” There is no UBAD program which has not been legitimized by history. The PUP, on the other hand, ended up with a leadership which was neocolonial and neoliberal, and which betrayed the workers of Belize to collaborate with Market Square and other predators.
Lord Ashcroft takes us Belizeans as idiots and footstools, but the generations of 1919, 1934, 1950, 1972 and 1981 stood up for their rights here. The Lord has never seen the old capital “catch-a-fire.” The noise of April 2006 was just looting – plain and simple. The Lord has never seen the old capital “catch-a-fire.”
Power to the people.