Lord Ashcroft?s book is not available in Belize, so I asked a couple people if it was possible to publish a book and not have it available in a specific market, or have it confined to only one market, and the answer was in the affirmative. That was interesting to me, and I am sure it is also interesting to you.
If you think about it, the only one in Belize who has ever stood up to Mr. Ashcroft is Rt. Hon. Dr. Manuel Esquivel. This took place during Mr. Esquivel?s UDP administration of 1993 to 1998. I don?t have the details of that fight at my fingertips, but we can say, I think, that Lord Ashcroft ended up winning that fight when the PUP, which the Lord had been heavily financing, devastated Mr. Esquivel?s UDP in August of 1998.
Mr. Esquivel, apparently crushed, retired from electoral politics, although he continues to actively support the UDP, now led by Dean Barrow.
I hesitate to say that Paul and Christine Perriott are fighting with Lord Ashcroft, because the Perriotts are employees of Ashcroft?s BTL, so they wouldn?t stand a chance. I prefer to think that the Perriotts are fighting with the Government of Belize to assure and obtain employee rights at BTL.
In the case of Mr. Esquivel, during his fight with Lord Ashcroft he was the Prime Minister of a sovereign nation ? Belize. Technically then, for Mr. Esquivel to be in a dispute with a foreign businessman, no matter how wealthy that businessman was/is, should not have been a case of a one-sided fight.
But the businessman was a British citizen, the billionaire treasurer of Great Britain?s Conservative Party, and an acquaintance of the royal family, so these factors had the effect of rendering the technicalities more confusing than definitive. Belize, yes, is an independent nation, but the head of the state of Belize is the Queen of England. All members of the National Assembly, including Prime Ministers, swear allegiance to the Queen, ?her heirs and successors,? whenever they assume office in the House of Representatives or in the Senate.
It is difficult to confine Lord Ashcroft to the classification of ?foreign businessman?, when his Queen was, at all material times, the Queen of Belize, when the Privy Council of which Lord Ashcroft is a member/peer, is the highest court of appeal for the nation of Belize, and when the military forces of Lord Ashcroft?s Britain are a part of the national security apparatus of Belize.
The Lord made the whole debate even more complex by becoming a citizen of Belize sometime during the 1990?s. And when he was appointed Belize?s Ambassador to the United Nations after the PUP?s 1998 victory, then indeed there was no way he could any longer be just a ?foreign businessman.? How do you classify a citizen who controls the finances, the major businesses and utilities, and the politics of a small nation whose annual budget is much smaller than the value of that citizen?s international portfolio?
So colossal is Lord Ashcroft?s presence in Belize that the leadership of the same UDP party he had demolished in 1998, entered the 2003 general elections committed, until the very last day of the campaign, to hoping for some of Lord Ashcroft?s largesse in order to neutralize the PUP?s wealth advantage. That largesse never materialized, and the waffling UDP went down to another general elections defeat in March of 2003.
Our sources say that Lord Ashcroft has, for all intents and purposes, told the present UDP leadership that he will continue to support the PUP for, at least, the foreseeable future. Our sources are quite reliable, but that information, you should understand, cannot really be verified.
What we know is that we have not seen any all out assault on the Lord by UDP propaganda organs. Such an assault would have tended to confirm the information we received from our sources. No assault, no confirmation.
In conclusion, based on what we know in December of 2005, I must tip my hat to the Rt. Hon. Dr. Manuel Esquivel. Like most men, I admire courage wherever it is manifest, and Mr. Esquivel was a brave Belizean to confront Lord Ashcroft. Straight.