Some politically connected individuals who are in support of the Waterloo investment proposal to improve the bulk storage facilities and build a cruise ship terminal at the Port of Belize Ltd. (PBL), a project which entails massive dredging to deepen and widen an existing channel and berthing area, suggest that if the project gets environmental clearance, our concerns should end there, because it doesn’t matter whom you do business with. It’s clear thinking to express concern about the environment; it’s a stunning argument that it doesn’t matter who your business partners are.

It’s a big investment — Waterloo says an estimated US$200 million, and if that is true and it gets the go-ahead, the project would be the largest ever in our country. The NEAC is presently, or shortly will be, reviewing the ESIA, to find out how much all that dredging, an estimated 7.5 million cubic meters of silt, and the dumping of it onshore and near shore, will endanger our environment, and if the project’s social benefits will be meaningful enough for Belizeans, particularly those living in its vicinity.

Among those hoping the investors get the go-ahead immediately are the present area representative of Port Loyola, Hon. Gilroy Usher, and the standard bearer for the UDP in Port Loyola in the last general election, Mr. Philip Willoughby. At a consultation for the Waterloo project held at the Best Western Biltmore Plaza on Thursday last week, both of these gentlemen registered that they support the project due to the jobs it would create. Neither registered any concern that at least three major businesses in which the “mover and shaker” behind Waterloo, Lord Ashcroft, has been involved, in Belize, have been catastrophic to our treasury.

There’s a portion of a KREM News story about the latest multinational on the block, Vulcan, that might help these gentlemen and those of like mind divest themselves of their innocence about large foreign “investors”, and help explain to them why sober Belizeans don’t genuflect when they wave their dollars.

According to the news report, Janet Kavinoky, Vulcan’s Vice President of External Affairs and Corporate Communications, told Dr. Ed Boles, an aquatic ecologist teaching at Galen and the University of Belize, that his comments about the environmental dangers posed by the Vulcan project are premature because the EIA on the project had not yet been done. Kavinoky stressed that Vulcan was committed to carrying out “an economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable limestone quarry”, and that apart from “adhering to Belize regulations” the operation would “be conducted to World Bank standards.”

About the company being blocked from doing business in Mexico, Ms. Kavinoky said, “When appropriate, we have defended our rights as consistent with the law …”

Responding to Ms. Kavinoky, Dr. Boles said he had difficulty visualizing “an environmentally and socially sustainable, large-scale strip mine or open pit mine”, and that the records showed that Vulcan hasn’t been “a responsible steward of those ecosystems where you have established mines.” On the matter of Vulcan defending their “rights”, Boles noted that the company’s response to the Mexican government shutting down its mines because of “abuses of your mining privileges, not rights” was to file “a $1.5 billion-dollar lawsuit in an international court.”

Boles, whose mind is very unlike those of political leaders like Usher and Willoughby, said the recent history of Vulcan “raises alarm.” Boles said “Our small country could not defend itself against even trumped-up charges in an international court. Why should we have to? Why assume that risk to us and future generations?”

The list of wrongs by the Ashcroft Group is long. What is it that these political leaders don’t understand? In less than a week, 20,000 Belizeans signed a petition advising them to think long and hard before they leap. The suggestion from some quarters that those who aren’t sold on the project are being “personal” is ludicrous. How is it that regular folk know how foreign corporates conduct business, and the people we exalt to leadership are so naïve?

What does it take to enlighten these gentlemen when visions of sugar plums, US 200 million dollars, are dancing before their eyes? Simple math would show them that amount will not be invested in the people of Port Loyola. Already, $5 million has been spent preparing the EIA for presentation to the NEAC. The massive dredging will not be done by Belizeans or Belizean-owned equipment. If the project is approved, the giant multinational company, Jan De Nul, will get the job. A much smaller dredging project at the port prior to the GOB selling it to Mr. Luke Espat, reportedly cost the government and people of Belize $40 million.

It is a hoax that 2,500 new jobs will be created. Port Coral, which is building from scratch, an entirely new project, is hiring between 200 and 300 people. It is a hoax that $US200 million dollars will be invested in Port Loyola. More accurately, over a hundred million US dollars will be spent on huge rented dredging equipment, imported cement and steel, and on the old “modus operandi” — management/consultation fees.

There’s a saying: fool me once, shame on you …; there’s no saying about fool me four times, and five times. As the little tune on Lord Ashcroft’s television station says, “Open Your Eyes.”

Everyone agrees that Belize needs “progress”, but it is fallacious to suggest that only the Ashcroft Group can do it. Since getting control of PBL through receivership, how many jobs has the Group created? The fact is, the Group fired people, reduced staff. The fact is that to bankroll their project the Group is going to sources from which our GOB is fully capable of getting funds: the World Bank and the IDB.

For present Belizeans and generations to come, we must ensure that we exercise the best judgment. The NEAC has a big task before it. All our people are saying to our leaders is that they stop getting giddy whenever foreign corporates come around.

Happy St. George’s Caye Day

The records show that on the 10th day of September, 1798, a Spanish fleet retreated from our waters after failing to get through our world famous barrier reef, after disease ravaged their ranks, after meeting strong resistance.

Earlier this month we celebrated the bravery of our Mayan ancestors in the north who, under the leadership of Marcus Canul, fought to defend ancestral lands. In November each year we celebrate the coming of our Garinagu ancestors to the southern districts. In Belize we honor the struggles of all our people.

Over time some controversy has developed around the 10th, with some insisting that the victory belonged to the colonizers (slave owners). It does seem contradictory, for Belize would gain its independence in 1981, from her colonizers. However, the role the Battle of St. George’s Caye played in the Belize we know cannot be denied. And, while the colonizers were at the fore, the victory was far from theirs alone.

That is why on September 10th Belizeans from the Hondo to the Sarstoon will sing: God’s goodness gave this land to me …