Editor Amandala,
Sir,
This letter serves to maybe clear up Elrington’s announcement that a bi-lateral agreement had been arrived at to facilitate travel to and from Israel. He also mentioned that these people were smart and that Belize could benefit from this arrangement.
He, however, failed to name some of the Third World countries that have benefited from relations with Israel and to what extent.
As we speak, Israel’s very friendly neighbour, Jordan, is doled out water in limited quantities because Israel now controls the source of the river. The only time that Israel becomes interested in a goyim nation is when that nation has what Israel wants – i.e., oil, precious metals or precious gems that can be traded on Wall Street. I think Belize has it all, and we definitely have lead.
The only “impurity” of the lead we have is silver, 22 oz. of silver to the ton of lead, and any mining company will tell you that the extraction of silver from lead is profitable. As a matter of fact, nearly all the world’s production of silver is obtained as a by-product from the refining of lead, zinc or copper.
I will go a bit further, and stand to be corrected, to say that lead is an isotope of uranium, so it is not unreasonable to speculate that we may have uranium also.
There are gravel beds in the Mahogany Heights area that are so impacted that only scarifiers have any effect in working them, and these beds may also contain precious gems. Again, there is a white clay which I am sure can be used to make fine chinaware, and this clay is also in the Mahogany Heights area.
I am not volunteering this information to make anyone look bad, but there are a few players out there who could give us good trade-offs. For example, a spokesman for the Chinese government announced a few weeks ago that China was pardoning all its loans to African countries and was in effect pledging ten billion dollars in concessional loans. Even the African countries with human rights violations, the spokesman continued, would have access to these loans, since China did not believe in sanctions and embargoes which would negatively affect the people living in these countries. And that made sense.
With respect to our oil, and I say “our” because a democratic government is a government of and by the people, and it is the people who ultimately should receive the benefits, not only a few of the privileged ones.
Our oil should go to a partner who is prepared to set up a small refinery for our consumption of fuel oils at home to alleviate the hardships we are encountering, and also to attract industries which could alleviate unemployment. Instead, we just keep shipping out crude with little or no transparency and accountability. Sometimes up to sixty tankers pass daily through our Southern Highway en route to Big Creek, or wherever they go. That’s a lot of crude.
But none of this is happening, because our employees we have elected to run our country on our behalf are not qualified to deal with the international sharks. Instead, we build dams at the behest of corporatocracy and eventually owe our souls to the company stores.
And speaking of dams, what they do is to inundate thousands of acres of forest or arable land that can be put to much better uses. Eventually these dams dry up rivers and contaminate them and change forever the lives of the people who depend on them for a livelihood. But then, maybe this is the whole purpose. Who knows? May God help us all.
From a reader in San Martin, Belmopan