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Letter to my Area Rep and Standard Bearer

FeaturesLetter to my Area Rep and Standard Bearer

I’ve said that in the next general election I’m voting for the present area rep of Cayo South, Hon. Julius Espat, but this letter also goes to Mr. Ramon Witz, the standard bearer for the UDP, because every day counts in our lives, and his party has the funds to get our pathway done. He won’t win my vote this time around bikaaz the party has done a lot of blank and they’ve been in power too long.

I think Ramon should seize the chance and get the right thing done. He might win the votes of others in our area if he shows that he cares about the lives of people in Cayo South.

The last time Ramon ran (2012), he told me that he regretted not doing more for his constituency when he was area rep, and his excuse was that he had limited funds to work with. I didn’t buy that argument wholesale. A leader might not get much money from the government, but there is a heck of a lot of human resources out there to work with. If he wants a pass, okay, he served as area rep in Cayo South in the UDP government of 2008-2012, before the mighty wild spree with the Petro Caribe.

The people who designed this re-made George Price Highway between Roaring Creek and Santa Elena forgot road safety, but we shouldn’t quit because we can’t get a perfect pathway. If we can’t take out 80% of the culverts and put in a loop road, I am thinking that we could put in boardwalks at the many areas where the driveways are too steep.

We’ll have to access some funds to buy lumber, but we could help pay for that by getting some guides and making it a tourist attraction. The guides can say, “Many little bridges on the pathway because uncaring….” — wa, I’m not supposed to be rude.

Very flippant about incarceration

These folk behind this new Equal Opportunities Bill are very flippant about incarceration. They don’t understand that incarceration isn’t rehabilitation, it is taking away a person’s life. There are a few people who have the mental makeup of Nelson Mandela, but I bet that all that a lot of guys who go to prison think about is escape, or hanging themselves, or making society pay. There is only one crime that absolutely demands incarceration – violence … murder, rape, maim, armed robbery.

The architects of the Bill talk big money like it’s chump change. People who talk about fines of $5,000 and $10,000 and $20,000 can’t know that the minimum wage in Belize is $3.25 per hour. It’s the incarceration that is really out of this world. Belizeans who have money and status don’t go to jail, so they aren’t worried when the Bill-makers throw around 12 months behind bars, and two years and even three years, but those of us who are eligible for incarceration know they’re talking death sentence.

Thanks to “Think About It” and Plus TV

The Belize Times columnist, “Think About It”, and Plus TV’s Louis Wade and Scott Stirm, get my thumbs up for their excellent critiquing of the Equal Opportunities Bill that has been introduced by the LGBT and their friends. Oh, I must also make special mention of the work done by Dr. Gerald Zuniga, in his letter to the Amandala last week.

God never made a human being that doesn’t have something to contribute, so I am sure that there must be good things in this Bill. I am sure that all Belizeans will like much of it. I have not studied the entire Bill yet, but I will, and it is my hope that after I have, that I will be given a chance to make my feelings known about what I like and what I dislike, what changes I feel should be made before it becomes law. The haste seems unseemly. Why, why the mad rush to ram this Bill through?

Has someone from abroad promised Special Envoy and Ms. Judith feathers in their caps for this Bill? Who were the people they engaged to input on the Bill? Why did they not ask regular folk for their wisdom?

Why, why isn’t this thing being done piecemeal? If persons infected with HIV need better treatment and understanding, fair enough, let us look at that, and let the LGBT brothers come with their own Bill.

“Think About It” said the law seeks to help disabled people, but there is a “protected characteristic,” so they could sneak in gender identity, intersex status, and sexual orientation. Scott and Louis say they will stand to the death by Leviticus. Dr. Zuniga said the LGBT is all caprice, and among other things he calls on “all those heterosexuals out there practicing and finding pleasure in anal penetration (to) abstain from doing so.”

PM was disrespectful to Sedi

We all saw the Prime Minister’s press conference last week, where he went to great lengths to explain that he had his eyes on more accusations of corruption in his party, how he had things under control, and what he would do if a whiff of corruption stuck to any of his guys. As usual, he was the hero who had no sin, but this time he went too far to put himself on a pedestal, for in pushing up his stock he demeaned a member of Cabinet who didn’t deserve to be stomped on.

I don’t have the verbatim, but, in my view, he effectively said that no one would dare approach great him with any request for diplomatic “plates,” because everyone knows how big he is, that he wasn’t anyone who would toy with people who were scoundrels. Maybe what he said is true, but how he said it left the Foreign Minister looking like a paperweight, because those being accused had gone to him to seek out the type of diplomatic plates he could give out. If you add or you subtract, it amounted to Sedi looking real minion.

Look, the PM has the biggest office, but a leader shouldn’t make his colleagues look bad. See, those of lower rank than you already have to live with that fact every day. Really, the only way you might consider rubbing their nose in it is if they make a habit of challenging your authority. I don’t know what goes on behind closed doors, but I have never seen Mr. Sedi demean the Prime Minister in public. The PM lost his respect, disrespected Sedi.

If you make your colleagues look bad, dehn noh wahn gat yu bak, and that could explain why the Foreign Minister was forthcoming about who wanted him to see what could be done about the diplomatic post that was denied. It’s not impossible that Sedi felt it was his duty to be honest with the people, or he might have a horse in a race, but what is a fact is that he got dissed, and people who get dissed are likely to strike back.

Intellectually, both the PM and the FM are worn out (one by defending corruption and the other by always playing smart), but over the years the PM has had nothing over the FM. I understand that they are two St. Michael’s boys, and we all know they are both very successful lawyers. Both of them have tremendous experience in public life. They are both eloquent, but PM Barrow gets the nod here for higher theater.

In politics, Barrow had the advantages because his family has been top-ranking in the red party for a long, long time. Sedi had a higher mountain to climb. His family has supported the red crowd for a long, long time too, but I’m not aware that they were in the top ranks at the beginning.

Barrow entered politics at the right time, and this might explain why he has never lost an election. He has always run on the red ticket. Sedi has known defeat – and I wanted Dr. Smith to defeat him in the 2015 election (I had to put that in) – yes, Sedi knows defeat.

In 1998 he lost on a UDP ticket, and in 2003 it looked like the UDP boxed him out; he had to run as an independent. He is the only independent candidate to dust off a candidate of a major party. The full details of that is that Brother Kenny Morgan was angling to represent the UDP in Pickstock in 2003, but Barrow and the UDP wanted Miss Diane Haylock, a local actress. The incredible numbers from that election are: G Smith (PUP) — 899; D Haylock (UDP) —252; W Elrington (Ind) — 439.

And I will end this piece by asking, where is Diane when we need her so? Oye, we are so in need of someone to shed copious tears about the rampant corruption, and bah, she is stuck out da foreign playing diplomat.

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