It will be a joyful moment for Belize when Cuban president, H.E. Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, stops over for a brief visit on Sunday. Some argue that under the first leader of the revolution, Fidel Castro, Cuba went too far to the left. But how else could his regime have liberated his people from the grip of the Mafia and a wealthy class that had no compassion for the masses?
There is no discussion about what kind of friend Cuba has been to Belize. We treasure that friendship. Welcome, Comrade Diaz-Canel Bermúdez!
PUP and UDP divided over Mr. Khan
On February 2, Foreign Minister Hon. Eamon Courtenay announced that our country had, as a humanitarian act (and as a favor to the US government), agreed to accept 42-year-old Pakistani, Majid Shoukat Khan, who had been incarcerated at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay. According to KREM News, Mr. Khan was “a former member of Al Qaeda who answered to the man believed to be the mastermind of the 911 attack.” The present Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Shyne Barrow, declared support for the resettling of Mr. Khan in Belize, but other active leaders of the UDP—Hon. Patrick Faber; former government minister, Mr. John Saldivar; and the chairman of the UDP, Mr. Michael Peyrefitte—resoundingly said no to the gentleman coming here.
Hon. Barrow said local and foreign experts had convinced him that the gentleman is not a threat to our national security, and that his support was both humanitarian and personal. As a youth, Mr. Barrow committed a violent act in the US, and he was deported after spending considerable time in jail. His transgression was not nearly as egregious as Mr. Khan’s, who too was a youth when he got involved in criminal activities and was sent to military prison. If we go by past positions he has held on matters that involve the US, the media needn’t have asked Hon. Barrow his position on Mr. Khan coming to Belize, because he never takes up a position that is contrary to what that country wants.
KREM News said Mr. Peyrefitte expressed the view that the government should have brought the matter to Belizeans, and he “questioned what the US has over this administration to have accepted Khan’s resettlement.” In a statement made on social media, Mr. Saldivar said the overwhelming majority of leaders in the UDP “strenuously oppose the decision of government to allow the relocation of a convicted terrorist to Belize.”
At the House Meeting last Friday, Hon. Faber echoed the view that the matter should have been brought to the Belizean people, and said that the people didn’t elect the government to make this decision to bring into our country a convicted terrorist whose capabilities we don’t know. Responding for the government because Foreign Affairs Minister Courtenay is not an elected official and so not able to sit at House Meetings, Minister of Education Hon. Francis Fonseca accused the UDP of handling the matter frivolously. He said the government had acted on expert advice, was acting responsibly, and that our country has always welcomed immigrants.
A couple leaders of the UDP have beat their chest for their standing up to the Obama administration in 2014, when the US government, fearing that an American lab technician on board a cruise ship might have contracted Ebola (the technician had self-quarantined when she learned that she had handled specimens from an Ebola patient), called on the Belize government to facilitate her (and her husband’s) passage from the vessel to the PGIA, where she would have been taken by air ambulance to a hospital on American soil. Belize refused to do this humanitarian act on the grounds that it might expose our people to the disease. The then leader of the PUP, Hon. Francis Fonseca, supported the government’s decision.
The 2014 and 2023 cases are different. In the “Ebola” case, the world was in a state of panic over that disease, and the government acted in the spur of the moment, over hours. The decision to allow Mr. Khan to live in Belize took place after months of deliberation, and while he is not as safe as the clergy, there is no suggestion that he has Ebola or any disease that could bring Belize and the world to its knees.
Somewhat ironically, over the centuries quite a few of the US’s “wanted” citizens have run from law agencies over there to hide here. This week, the US “begged” us to take a man who was once on their “most wanted” list, after they had barbarically done him over. Belize’s decision to accept Mr. Khan on humanitarian grounds doesn’t come with “no risks at all”, and maybe the government overreached, but it’s hard to have seen our leaders holding a referendum on it. The fact is that there are many far more serious issues on our plate.
John is the man for the UDP in Belmopan
On the surface, John Saldivar’s convention victory in Belmopan is a repudiation of the US designation of him as a significantly corrupt person. A U.S. Department of State release in November last year said he had “accepted bribes for the improper acquisition of Belizean immigration documents and interfered in public processes for his personal benefit during his tenure as a government official.”
That’s not the entire story on Saldivar. He accepted “tranches” from Lev Dermen, a man who the United States Department of Justice said was guilty of criminal charges “relating to a $1 billion renewable fuel tax credit fraud scheme.” Quite embarrassingly to the US, Saldivar “chauffeured” said gentleman and some of his cronies on a boat the US gifted to the Belize government for security purposes. John has maintained that he didn’t know the gentleman was a crook. In Belmopan, John Saldivar probably gets more heat for his association with William Danny Mason, who was convicted of one of the most brutal murders ever committed in Belize. Mr. Saldivar, who once headed the Ministry of National Security, said he didn’t know Mason was violent, and his relationship with him was over before he committed the crime.
The UDP has three factions: Saldivar’s powerful Caucus for Change, which features a not so saintly group that provoked the lament from former prime minister, Dean Barrow, “For God’s sake, stop it!”; a powerful faction that didn’t provoke the lament from former prime minister, Dean Barrow, “For God’s sake, stop it!”; and a small but wealthy third faction, the Barrow family. In its present configuration, it’s unlikely that any of the small parties will link arms with the UDP.
The 901 voters who supported Saldivar are not asking what he has done for them lately. He was booted from office over two years ago and is now selling pibil on the weekends, to make ends meet, or for appearances. Saldivar maintains that he took, only to give his people. Those who shared in the spoils, delivered for him on Sunday. If Saldivar is corrupt, they might have been hypocritical to turn their backs on him on such account. They aren’t fools; they are concerned about the US corruption designation. They might have felt “manly”, standing up to the mighty USA, which, no doubt, they all, or many of them, love. In the feverish campaign, they hardly could have thought about the long-term ramifications of their vote.