by Colin Hyde
This story about cocaine being found in Mr. Perez’s boat, of course it’s not impossible that the minister is a sly one. He’s human, isn’t he? Under the sun, almost nothing is impossible, almost everything is possible. Naturally, people being suspicious animals, they looked at the possibilities of the little ember. Some were disappointed that the Police Department came with a fire extinguisher.
We know that cocaine has to be making the rounds on that island that hosts the most tourists, and the reason we know that is because the white powder is popular with the rich. Wealthy guests need their fix. We drink Belizean Rum and Green Stripe. Rich guests snort. I have the cocaine evidence. A 2010 story in The Wall Street Journal by Kyle Stock said, “Last year, cocaine showed up in 7% of the positive tests at Wall Street firms, down from 16% in 2007 …” We don’t need the sense here of what they were switching to that year. The important “sense” is that ten percent of the rich crowd is compatible with the drug.
The accusers say the police needed to be seen as having more interest in the minister, that they didn’t see the fine-toothed comb. Indeed, the commissioner’s coziness with the blue camp is bad for the perception. Uy, heat from the police would have played up well with the local cynics. Those who dwell on the negative would then have felt justified in thinking the worst, that Andre likes cocaine or is involved in the trafficking of it.
In this instance I think the police did well to temper their excitement. Some years ago, hero Godwin Hulse took some heat over some weed that was found in a silo at a ranch he managed under a receivership. In those days, we weren’t so cynical, but there are a few people in the PUP breed who still view him with suspicion. It is so that if there is smoke where you’re at, people will believe you have some knowledge about the fire. In a matter like that, I don’t know how you clear your name in the minds of people who baan fu believe the worst.
The silo where the goods were found was a distance from the main office at the ranch. A number of people who were associated with, or worked at the ranch could have stored their product there. Little old me, who visited the ranch a few times with my boss to do a little work, heck, I, he too, could have been hauled in and asked some questions.
We really have to be careful with our cynicism. If the police had brought major heat on Andre, then everyone who parks a boat or car outside of their yard needs to get extra bedding and prepare to say farewell to their families until their boat or car is back in their yard. And our yards would have to be made impregnable. Everyone with an unfenced yard would have to get a loan to build one. And no fence for show would do either. It would have to be a brick wall, and have heavy barbed wire at the top, like the ones we see in Nazi movies, or wire with high voltage electricity passing through it. Aha, the population of pit bull and Doberman dog breeds would explode to meet the need to prevent bad eggs from stashing things in/on other people’s property.
All UDP energy on playing watchdog, none on developing Red plan
There’s a lot of noise, from the UDP especially, about Andre Perez and cocaine in his boat which was in an unsecured dockyard since 6 months ago. One thing this UDP and its backers
have become expert at under present leadership is pointing out the worst possibilities in everything the PUP does. Oh, if they’d find some energy to work on a Red plan just inkaysn the big election were called next month, and fortune surprisingly turned a smiling face their way. It’s not impossible. Who gwain da heaven gwain da heaven, an who gwain da hell gwain da hell, but here on earth any number can play.
I expect that in their wildest dreams the UDP’s leaders hark back to the elections of 1993, a time when boom—the “ill-prepared” UDP was catapulted into government.
It would be an empty krokos beg for the people if the UDP rode a surprise horse. When that 1993 crowd won, dehn neva ready fu dis. Does the UDP think the Belizean people didn’t learn any lessons from that period? Ah, and the circumstances today are so different. When the UDP lost a squeaker in 1989, the questions for the party were about aloofness, not being in touch with the people; sales of passports to China; too much doing US bidding, such as spraying weed. The only similarity between UDP present and UDP past is the, ehm, division in leadership. UDP leadership then was more credible in both factions.
Bah, there is nothing solid coming out of the UDP camp about how they would govern the country if the election was called next month; nothing, nada. The people of Belize deserve better. But you know what the problem is. The substance in the UDP is in the exiled wing. In the side in the saddle — Shyne, Pehreh, Albert, and Delroy—the only talent there is color, much of that rude theater.
People need PUP to be very kind to UDP
Recently, we saw/heard the PM wringing his hands and dropping tears in the House over the absolute chaos in the main opposition party. The PUP needs to deliver deeds to prove they are good people. Mere looks and words noh di kot it. Most everybody can mouth off; it’s when people walk the talk that we should give them the points. The PUP will show they aren’t about mockery if they go to a convention and vote on a declaration that they won’t call the next big one until the UDP and the UDP alliance have a chance to face the people in a referendum to decide which of the two has the nod to seek national office.
We know the fiasco when 3rd parties go to the polls. If the strength of the UDP is split, the election will effectively be the PUP against 2 UDP third parties plus the traditional ones that get in the race for the excitement. Whoa, what an esteh it would be if one of those much rejected third parties should overhaul both those red UDP bohgaz!
If yu see your brother falling by the way, just stop and say, you’re going the wrong way … The PUP would earn a lot of points for compassion if they waited – the UDP did it in 1998 – to allow this UDP to patch up their ship before the gun goes off for the big race. I buy the odds that the PUP will wait until the red ship is no longer a krenki thing. Remember, PUP da, ehm, love.
The British and the carving out of Israel
Like it or noh like it, we are in the British orbit, Charles is king, and our GG is his representative here. In our present world, the three main orbits are American, Russian, and Chinese. They are the ones who have the most bombs. The British are in the American orbit, and Bill Lindo will tell you that they, despite not being militarily as powerful as the Americans, actually steer the former colony. But I don’t believe everything Mr. Lindo says. Those Americans are a very upstaat set.
I often turn to Britannica for information, because I think they shoot very straight. The story, “World War I and after”, by Kathleen Mary Kenyon and William Charles Brice, with fact checking by Britannica’s editors, is pretty long. But for my purpose, we only need the introduction. For more info, you know where to look.
Britannica’s story said, “During World War I the great powers made a number of decisions concerning the future of Palestine without much regard to the wishes of the indigenous inhabitants.” Palestinian Arabs thought the British had promised them independence, and that the British had made “certain commitments to the Arabs in return for their support against the Ottomans [Turks] during the war [WWI].” However, by 1916, Great Britain, France, and Russia had decided that “the bulk of Palestine was to be internationalized.”
In the Balfour Declaration (1917), the British secretary of state for foreign affairs expressed “sympathy for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people on the understanding that ‘nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.’” Ah, “This declaration did not come about through an act of generosity or stirrings of conscience over the bitter fate of the Jewish people. It was meant, in part, to prompt American Jews to exercise their influence in moving the United States to support British postwar policies as well as to encourage Russian Jews to keep their nation fighting.”