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National Perspective in perspective

EditorialNational Perspective in perspective
Our sources estimate that the person/s who financed the National Perspective, a local newspaper which was published from late 2009 to late 2011, spent about $600,000 during those two years trying to get something accomplished.
  
One of the main things the National Perspective wanted to do was to smear the name of the Kremandala chairman, who was featured in a half-page attack ad for every week of those two years.
   
There are two things we want to say in this editorial. The first is that the $600,000 gives you an idea of the size of the people operating in our country and what they are willing to spend, casually, in order to distort the truth.
   
The second thing is that there were people operating at this bogus newspaper and being paid from its funding who continue to walk around this city as if they have any credibility left. These were individuals who had value for the National Perspective because they had been involved with UBAD/Kremandala at specific times, and the financiers of NP believed they could be used to confuse the Belizean people, specifically with reference to the Kremandala chairman.
   
We have said to you before that Belize is a country rich in natural resources – “wealth untold,” as the national anthem describes it, although the Belizean people are poor. One of the reasons Belize is a rich country is because we have oil. This oil, and other natural resources, attract some very wealthy and powerful individuals and groups from the rest of the world, individuals and groups for whom $600,000 is child’s play.
   
This means that integrity and dignity are at a premium, or should be at a premium, where Belizeans who offer themselves as our leaders and thinkers and spokesmen are concerned. If such people do not possess and preserve integrity and dignity, what they will be is Belizeans without shame who are working for interests whose aim is the exploitation of the Belizean people, not our liberation.
   
During the two years of the National Perspective, there were individuals who were prominently involved with the newspaper, writing and being paid for bylined columns therein, who allowed themselves to be involved with a process which was hostile to their own people.
   
A certain columnist who was openly racist was regularly featured in the pages of the National Perspective. As examples of his venomous racism, we offer quotes from Anonymous’ columns in the Sunday, August 15, 2010, and Sunday, October 17, 2010 issues of the NP. On August 15, 2010, Anonymous wrote: “It is such a shame and a pity that this UDP government is out to destroy the less than few Belizean owned businesses, which will only benefit the Jamaicans and Barbadians to complete their Africanization of Belize to the delight of the UBAD-ers, and there is not one voice of dissent raised among the mainstream traditional media on this abomination.” On Sunday, October 17, 2010, Anonymous wrote on page 7 of the NP: “Similarly, the PM displays his depraved indifference towards Belizeans by ordering the foreclosure of Belizean businesses, collaborates with CARICOM to destroy Belize by bringing CARICOM domination, so why should we accept black Caribbean CARICOM domination, hegemony and rulership. The only ones who will gain from CARICOM will be the people and especially their leaders from the Caribbean. They will gain all our land, all our resources: send all their people here and their violent nature and backward customs and traditions and those few Belizeans who are the fifth columnists and quislings engineering their entire project.”
  
Ladies and gentlemen, there were black Belizeans who were writing bylined columns in that newspaper. Where was their dignity? Where was their pride? How could they be involved for two years with such an editorial perspective? What were they thinking?
   
Generally speaking, at this newspaper we ignored the National Perspective, because we think more highly of our people than to believe that they encourage garbage. We cannot allow that newspaper to enter the oblivion it so richly deserves, however, without publicly inquiring of specific individuals we know and have worked with: who are you now, where do you stand, and what do you seek?

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