On Assad Shoman’s Independence Day message to Belizeans
Monday, September 26, 2022
As our political leaders have proclaimed on our Independence Day, Belizeans are “valiant and bold,” and we must remain “proud and strong” as we go forward in this great task of nation- building. We are ever mindful that, as the Father of the Nation once said, “Building is a task for giants.” Let’s get back to work, Belizeans. And as we do so, we must remain vigilant and not let the “noise in the market” distract us from taking note of useful information that may help us as a people to make wise decisions, so that we can lay a firm foundation for the long-term benefit of all Belizeans.
In a Facebook post, dated September 21, 2022, and titled, “Why Belize Needs A People’s Constitution,” which also appeared in this past weekend’s issue of both the Amandala and The Belize Times newspapers, former PUP government minister Assad Shoman made some startling revelations regarding the political realities and circumstances at the time of our country attaining its Independence from “the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” back on September 21, 1981. While the current PUP government has already launched a Constitutional Commission towards revising or drafting a new Constitution for Belize, Shoman’s statement drives home the point that Belize needs a “People’s Constitution,” and he gives some heretofore unknown facts, unknown at least to the general citizenry of Belize, regarding the drafting of what became our Independence Constitution. As a “fish from ribba bottom” who was intimately involved in the Belize government at the time of our Independence, Shoman’s offering is timely and essential reading material for Belizeans generally, but especially for all who feel the urgency to contribute in the process towards what Shoman suggests we should all aspire to finally achieve in order to make our Independence really meaningful – “A People’s Constitution.”
An Amandala headline some months, or perhaps a few years, before that historic occasion in 1981, referred to then Premier George Price as, “Independence Premier, or Moses?” Having announced the drive in earnest toward Independence immediately after achieving self-government in 1964, Price’s slogan for the PUP had said that “with Independence” would come “more development” for the new nation. Price did achieve the dream of political Independence for Belize “with full territorial integrity,” but internal and external factors soon led to economic problems for his PUP government, which proceeded to suffer its first electoral defeat in the general elections of 1984.
Economic factors are always a big part of electoral politics, and while Prime Minister Price, with the urging of the Roman Catholic Bishop, had turned down a major foreign direct investment proposal involving a big hotel/casino complex on the Barracks property, his successor, Prime Minister Esquivel’s UDP administration soon gave the green light, and the Ramada Hotel & Casino became a glittering reality on Princess Margaret Drive. Also early in the new UDP administration was the start of the Belize Economic Citizenship Programme in 1985, which again saw foreign dollars coming into the government’s coffers, although there were concerns expressed by some citizens about the “sale of our passports.” Another move that saw a quick infusion of capital into the Belize economy was the privatization of the nation’s most financially successful government-owned entity, Belize Telecommunications Authority (BTA), which became Belize Telecommunications Limited (BTL), with government securing 51% majority ownership along with a special “golden share” to ensure it maintained effective control on the board of directors. There was progress, but as former P.M. Price had once warned, “progress” could bring “problems.”
And there have been problems, many problems along the way for the Belizean people, under both UDP and PUP governments, over the forty plus years since our Independence on September 21, 1981. The casino business has ushered in the new era of mass tourism, which also saw a number of local victims of the gambling vice as well as the moral entrapment of many of our youths. The economic citizenship program has led to a few passport scandals and suspected large scale “hustling” by politicians and political operatives until its closure in 2002 following the 9/11 catastrophe. And, while the BTL saga must be the “unkindest cut of all,” one British investor has found Belize’s financial/legal climate to be his own “bed of roses”. Over the past couple decades plus, Lord Michael Ashcroft has taken both of our governments “to the cleaners” for hundreds of millions of dollars on different litigation issues, including BTL, Universal Health Services (UHS) and recently the Belize International Business Companies Registry. And while many exasperated citizens have expressed their desire for our government to “bring down the hammer” on this ruthless businessman who always seems to win his cases against our government in court, often by repeated appeals to a higher court (if not at our Supreme Court, then at our Court of Appeals, or at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), and before that the Privy Council); we nevertheless have to accept the official response that we are a democratic country, and our Constitution is the supreme law of the land, which the CCJ will ultimately refer to in administering justice. “Grin and bear” is what our Independence has meant for Belizeans over the past forty years under our current Constitution.
Shoman now thinks that we have a golden opportunity to set things right, a chance with the newly instituted Constitutional Commission, to really get to work in formulating and enacting our own “People’s Constitution,” which should provide safeguards against the pillaging of our taxpayers’ money and the country’s resources by menacing financial sharks that know the location of all the existing loopholes in our Constitutional net. In a shocking revelation, Shoman said that “Belizeans had no real say in the making of the Belize Constitution;” and that our present “constitution was agreed in a Constitutional Conference in London in April 1981 between the British government and a Belize delegation from which both the Premier and the Opposition were absent.”
Belizean students and thinkers should take the time to carefully read in its entirety this article by Assad Shoman, who currently resides in Cuba and was the chief protagonist in government’s campaign in favor of taking the Guatemalan claim to the ICJ, and who is currently a member of the Belize legal team.
There is a lot to discuss and analyze, and Assad’s contribution sheds some important light on aspects of our nation’s struggles since Independence that are only now being better understood.
Here are a few more excerpts from Shoman’s piece:
“At independence, British troops remained in Belize at our request to defend against a Guatemalan invasion. And we depended on the USA to restrain its client state, Guatemala. This meant that we could not adopt any policy or take any action that would upset those countries. Soon not just our foreign relations but our social and economic policies were being dictated by the USA. Belize, underdeveloped by colonialism, began life as an independent country becoming ever more dependent on global capitalism and its current extreme form, neoliberalism.”
“… our present Constitution has a very good Preamble (that part was inserted by us Belizeans and is unique in the former British Caribbean colonies). It demands respect for social justice and for an equitable distribution of wealth,…” “…But the meat of the Constitution, the articles about how the state and the society is structured, do not provide for the attainment of these worthy goals, because the meat of it was written by the colonial masters…”
“The news that the government has formed a People’s Constitution Commission… is heartening. It sounds good, ‘People’s Constitution,’ but it is left to be seen whether this is just a pretty slogan or whether the people will be given a real chance to make the Constitution theirs…”
Wake up and work, Belize! It is up to all of us to get involved and demand that the Constitution really becomes ours, the Belize People’s Constitution. We cannot afford to sit back and leave it all to Government, or depend on an Opposition that seems confused and stuck in an identity crisis. We are Belize!