BELIZE CITY, Mon. June 22, 2015–This morning, a news bombshell of serious proportions sent shock waves throughout the media: a voice recording, identified to be that of former UDP Minister Melvin Hulse, now standard bearer for Stann Creek West, was made available, and in it, Hulse spoke candidly about his Party Leader and Prime Minister, Hon. Dean Barrow – and none of the remarks were flattering.
In fact, the “revelations and allegations” were astounding, and damaging, and they surfaced as the Prime Minister and his governing United Democratic Party (UDP), and the Opposition People’s United Party (PUP) converged on Dangriga for nomination of their candidates for the July 8 by-election in Dangriga, Hope Creek and Sarawee.
Hulse, a former Minister of Works, obviously was talking to someone, some trusted person, at length, and it was clear that he had not the slightest suspicion that his words were being recorded, or that that recording, which ran for almost half-hour, would be made available to the public.
The astonishment generated by the recording was not due to the information itself, which was sensational enough, but was primarily due to who made the allegations – Melvin Hulse, from “the river bottom,” a UDP insider, a former minister, a man widely known to speak his mind without “giving a damn” about who may or may not have liked what he said.
In a nutshell, Hulse said many severely critical and unrepeatable things about his Party Leader and Prime Minister, including, among other things, comments that Mr. Barrow didn’t care about anything except making history by winning a third consecutive term in office, and criticism of the Prime Minister for spending money when he didn’t have to, just to ensure the party’s dominance on the electoral front, so that he could become Prime Minister again, for a historic third time.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow rushed into damage control, issuing a press release both through his office and through the law firm of his brother, Denys Barrow, Barrow and Company.
The Prime Minister’s release stated in part that he was “extremely disappointed to learn of a recording in which Melvin Hulse, the United Democratic Party candidate for Stann Creek West, engaged in the spreading of what is a very serious piece of falsehood, a very serious lie that grossly libels me [him, the Prime Minister].” The release went on to state that Hulse “appeared not just to have been propagating the libel, but embracing and endorsing it.”
“He will have to explain this to the public, the Party and his constituents, and he will have to apologize to me. He will also have to suffer the consequences, both political and legal, for his actions,” the Prime Minister further commented in the release.
In a threat to the media, Barrow said, “I also want to make clear that no one should feel free to repeat Hulse’s libel just because it originated with a UDP candidate. Some have already done so … they too will have to face the legal consequences.”
Barrow and Company called Hulse’s statements “highly defamatory,” and warns the media not to “repeat libel” – cautioning media houses “not to repeat the defamation and further defame” their client’s reputation.”
In another unforeseen, sensational twist to the story, late this evening, the “villain of the piece,” Melvin Hulse, gave an exclusive interview to LOVE FM, ostensibly apologizing to the Prime Minister, but the apology appeared to be blaming the person (or persons) who made his comments public, rather than abjectly apologizing to his Party Leader for the accusatory words.
We reproduce Hulse’s remarks that he gave to LOVE FM, in toto. The remarks are not edited:
MELVIN HULSE: “For somebody of PM’s caliber, yes, I complained, but Dean has always known that, but without reservation, it’s not something I would have ever said on any TV or channel. I was complaining, they were complaining, I was complaining, and they taped me. So, let me address that first; part one, without any reservation or hesitation, one, I’m made to understand it mentioned Mahmud. Man, look, I hope that this doesn’t cause him and his family anything, and I apologize because it was never meant to hurt anybody and definitely I will apologize to Dean. Hopefully, one day we’ll find out who took a private conversation and tried to hurt the man and put a bad spin on this man’s reputation. I have worked with Dean from 1988. I have never not support him, nor the party. Yes it looks bad right now and I am the one that ran off about it, but this is not going to hurt Dean Barrow because nobody can question, nobody has developed this country more than him, so I don’t know why they are creating this problem. I can imagine they air something like this about the man’s character or integrity, you can imagine how his family feels. Without question I apologize to him and with the same token, I can’t just leave the PM by himself. I am a family member of the UDP, have been for a lifetime now, and so this in turn makes the party look bad, because they aired some horrible things I said about the party leader. Now we go from Prime Minister to party leader and there is only a degree of apologies and regret, because me, I have never made the UDP party look bad, and I would never. The UDP is the UDP; I can say sitting here, that is who developed and without any reservation from since the UDP started to win in 1984, every development that has come about in Stann Creek West, and you know that is my home, has been under UDP, and I’m sorry that Stann Creek West people got caught up in it, because they end up now where you hear the Standard Bearer having attacked the leader and making the party look bad, but Stann Creek are solid people, they know I am a workaholic, they know that I run off. So I apologize if they end up being in a limbo or end up feeling like that, I really feel bad about that.”
It was when the governing United Democratic Party (UDP) and the Opposition, People’s United Party (PUP) converged in Dangriga this morning for nomination of their candidates in the July 8 bye-election in Dangriga, Hope Creek and Sarawee, that the recording began making the rounds in political circles.
In an interview PM Barrow gave to reporters today in Dangriga, he insisted that he does not really want to sue anyone, but the PUP radio station Positive Vibes and Plus TV were not so fortunate. The indication is that the PM will take legal action against these two stations.
The full audio recording made of Hulse was posted on the YouTube website tonight.
In the recording, Hulse was critical about the Barrow government’s spending of what he said was 2 million dollars in the Dangriga bye-election, because in his view, “Papa Mena not running nothing … and [Ivan] Ramos [who vacated his PUP seat] will never vote for UDP.”
“I do not support Dean and what he is doing. I think Dean di mek ego and money get to his head … PUP is not spending no money on bye-election. For what? They are not wasting any money on these things. Dean will not spend no money on the rural areas.”
Hulse said, “You already got control of the National Assembly; there is no benefit to it … Dean di run the show.”
“I have notice in my lifetime people ego mek dem lose common sense. What you got to prove, that you can win a bye-election?” Hulse asked.
Hulse said, “The only thing important to Dean Barrow is for him to win a third term so that he can go down in history. He wants to be in the history book as the only person to win three terms back to back. That is the only thing important to him. And he say it in every speech; he said it every opportunity he get an opportunity. He said it again on Sunday. Boy, you nuh tell people that … ‘e di push too hard now!”
Hulse wants Barrow to “stop with this talking of how powerful and unstoppable UDP are. Just let the good things speak for itself.”
Hulse said that Ralph and the PUP did the same thing in 2008, when they had unlimited money. “You nuh do that to Creoles. Dem Spanish no different from Belizeans. Dem nuh like feel like you di force them to do something,” he said.
Hulse told his listener that he would bring up some of the issues he touched on in the conversation at the UDP Party Council meeting on Saturday.