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From The Publisher

PublisherFrom The Publisher
“Ashcroft said he believes former Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh has been the fairest jurist in Belize’s high court. ‘It was very sad when arguably the best Chief Justice, who was not afraid to rule against the state when he felt it was the right thing to do, was unceremoniously dumped out.”
       
 – pg. 4, The Belize Times, Sunday, July 24, 2011 
           
When they write the history books, undoubtedly the most famous of Mr. and Mrs. William Cadle Price’s ten children will be the Right Hon. George, but on the streets in this community and on the ground in this nation for six and a half decades, Miss Jane may be considered the most important Price. She is the Belizean people’s banker, and in the modern world it is money that rules. This was what Fr. Marion Ganey left as his legacy to Belize – the credit union, as the people’s effort to control their own financial resources and protect themselves from a rapacious, profit-driven banking system.
   
In Belize, since 1985 we have had a classic example of the transnational, profit-driven banker, in the person of Lord Michael, and some of our most accomplished, successful citizens have been compromised by him in some way at some point or the other. Whether Lord Michael is evil or not, it is not for me to say. Judge not, that ye be not judged. The more relevant point is that he is playing the game by the rules which he learned in Great Britain and the rest of the world. Those rules have allowed more socio-political weight for money than for morality.
           
Lord Ashcroft visited Partridge Street to speak with me a few months after the PUP had lost the June 1993 general elections to the UDP in a stunning upset. As far as I remember, his visit may have been unannounced: this was the only time I have ever met him personally. We spoke in the stuffy, dark room where the youth used to fold papers in the original Amandala Press building, a one-flat, 24’ by 30’ concrete structure which had begun to sink on its southern side as soon as construction was completed in 1973.
   
In Belize, we are impressed when rich men behave without airs and pretensions. The billionaire Lord Ashcroft had come to the ghetto to talk with a newspaper publisher. This was disarming. More than that, he had come to talk with a newspaper publisher with a black racist reputation. Our conversation was cordial. Looking back, I think that the common ground between us must have been the fact that the new Prime Minister, Hon. Manuel Esquivel, was hostile to both of us.
  
At that time, I had given up the editorship of the newspaper the previous year to work full-time with the Kremandala Raiders, who had won their first of four consecutive semi-pro basketball championships in July of 1993, just two weeks after the UDP election victory. Near the end of our conversation, I suggested to the Lord that he sponsor a team in the semi-pro league. He said to me in response, “You understand, of course, that I would have to win.” I understood what he was saying, but felt that such a matter would be decided on the Civic court. I suppose I must have smiled. The main thing is that I did not ask Lord Ashcroft for anything, and I did not pursue the relationship. For example, I have never been to any of his parties. This caution would have derived from what I would have learned from the philosophy of the Hon. Elijah Muhammad – keep it black and keep it tight.
   
Amandala had been subsidizing KREM Radio from the radio’s inception in November of 1989. Believing that he understood the realistic politics of the 1994 situation, my father, who was the general manager of KREM Radio, in early 1994 approached the Hon. Said Musa, our friend then, to use his influence with the Lord’s Belize Bank. My father believed that KREM absolutely required $75,000 for a new broadcasting transmitter. Negotiations were initiated.
   
When I was brought into the transaction, at the end, to sign the loan guarantee as chairman of the KREM board, I was informed that, as part of the overall agreement, I should sell 10 percent of KREM Radio, out of the 40 percent I owned, to a certain “Sagis Investments Limited.” At that specific moment in time, I remember feeling that Sagis would be either the Lord or the Hon. Ralph. I did not know that 10 percent in limited liability business is a strategic amount with serious implications for the relevant company. I had no say in the price. It appeared to me that we were being told what we should receive for the 10 percent, which was $25,000. The money was received and immediately put into the struggling KREM operation.
           
Where the $75,000 loan was concerned, suspecting that KREM would not be able to service the loan, I was prepared to have Amandala pay it by running advertisements for the bank and its associated businesses. This was done. In fact, just a few months before lawyers for the Belize Bank and Sagis claimed in March of 2007 that I owed them $262,694.20 (“excluding penalty interest”) for that said $75,000 loan, I had been informed by my daughter, Jacinta, the newspaper’s business manager, that we had completed the loan payments. She did not keep any records at hand, no doubt considering the bank a friend. Recently, she found some of these records, which established much of the evidence of payment.
    
Remember now, that I had assumed that the 10 percent of KREM Radio transfer to Sagis had been a done deal. So that, when the Belize Bank lawyers, acting for Sagis, said 13 years afterwards that the paperwork for the transaction had never been completed and needed to be processed, this was not a problem for me. My problem, in the lawyers’ two-part claim, was the $262,694.20, which caused me sleepless nights. Believe me.
   
By the time we went to court, the Belize Bank had dropped the $262,694.20 claim, although my political opponents continue to use it, irresponsibly, to smear my name. KREM’s lawyers contested the Sagis deal in the Supreme Court, because our people knew now that 10 percent in the Lord’s hands was dangerous. Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh, the said, in his wisdom ruled that KREM should return Sagis the $25,000, with the interest accrued over the period of thirteen years. Sagis refused the money when our lawyers sent the check. Because it was the 10 percent which was important to the owner of Sagis, they went to Appeals Court and won a majority reversal of the Chief Justice’s judgement. Needless to say, I believe Dr. Conteh’s original verdict was the best solution to the dispute. Apparently, Lord Ashcroft did not think that “arguably the best Chief Justice” knew what he was doing in the matter of Sagis vs KREM.
   
Power to the people. Power in the struggle.

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