I retired from fulltime work at this newspaper about six years ago. About a year or two before that, a gentleman came to pay me a courtesy call. He had decided to migrate to the United States. 

During the 1990s, he had been a young boy who sold our newspapers along with his older brother. Subsequent to that, he had worked at the telephone company, been active in trade union affairs, and at one time had even been the editor of the United Democratic Party (UDP) newspaper. This was after Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow took over the leadership of the Opposition UDP following the resignation of Rt. Hon. Manuel Esquivel in late 1998, after the landslide victory of the People’s United Party (PUP) in the August 1998 general election.

I was the first chairman of the board of the University of Belize (UB) when the university was opened in August of 2000. The national university was the result of a PUP Cabinet decision in early 1999 to amalgamate the University College of Belize (UCB), the Belize Teachers College, the Bliss School of Nursing, the Belize School of Agriculture, and Belize Technical College.

I was chairman of UB from its establishment until late 2003 or early 2004. During my chairmanship years, the weekly UDP newspaper used its editorial page to attack the university week after week. The attacks were so constant and vicious that the then president of UB, Dr. Angel Cal, frazzled and desperate, actually approached the newspaper to ask what was the problem.

During my chairmanship years, there were two different editors of the UDP newspaper. One was the late Herbie Panton, and the other was the gentleman who was paying me a courtesy call at Amandala before his migration to the States.

I took the opportunity of his courtesy call to inquire about the UDP newspaper’s attacks on the university. He said that the anti-UB editorials were not written by themselves, as editors, but were sent to them from, to the best of his knowledge, the attorney Denys “Brother Barrow” Barrow, the younger brother of the party leader at the time, Dean Oliver.

Denys Barrow is my “godbrother,” my late father having “stood for” him as godfather. A brilliant attorney, he began his professional career with Ernest “Stud” Staine as his partner in the late 1970s. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first law partnership in Belize where one partner was a PUP and the other was a UDP.

As most of you know, Brother Barrow has risen to the heights of his profession, having been installed a few years ago as a judge in Belize’s highest court — the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

There are two things I want to mention at this point about Denys. The first is that he was/is totally loyal to his older brother, Dean, and the second is that he is a popular personality wherever he goes. Brother Barrow is a very pleasant fellow indeed.

My guess would be that he was attacking the national university because yours truly was the chairman, and any UB successes would have made his brother Dean’s job as Leader of the Opposition more difficult. From my standpoint, meanwhile, with my second son having become a PUP Cabinet Minister in 1998, I felt any success of the university would make the PUP’s road to a second term a smoother ride. 

As it turned out, Dean Barrow’s UDP lost to the PUP in the general election of March 2003. Mr. Barrow then went on to lead the UDP to three consecutive general election victories — in 2008, 2012, and 2015.

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow’s first son, Jamal “Shyne”, became Leader of the UDP Opposition after brief UDP leadership stints by Patrick Faber and John Saldivar. Shyne had been elected in the November 2020 election to the Mesopotamia seat which his maternal uncle, Hon. Michael Finnegan, had won in the 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008, 2012, and 2015 general elections. 

I can’t really say when and where all the confusion and turmoil began in the UDP under Shyne’s leadership. The point I want to make is that any leadership problem or weakness in the Opposition makes Kremandala’s job, as a media house, more difficult. When there is no effective work being done by the House Opposition, it is as if the media becomes the Opposition. The frustration of the public is expressed then through the media. In fact, the media should primarily be reporting what the Opposition is doing to criticize the Government and keep the ruling party on its toes.

Shyne has been embroiled in continuing controversy, and most of us out here are puzzled by the fact that the very powerful Barrow family apparently has not intervened in any kind of way. The purpose of this column, then, was to let you know that Brother Barrow was apparently quick to interfere in UB between 2000 and 2003. This intervention was in the service of his older brother.