He came, he collected, he departed. No one saw the man…well, Amandala’s Aaron Humes reported that he met him …once. Pray, how does Mr. Aaron know that the Ministry of Security didn’t shake him off the scent, pass off some Jamaican tourist as the expensive whiz kid come to save us from crime? It is my gut feeling that our Mr. Crooks is a phantom. My junior sleuth nose has noticed that his first name (Harold), and his last name (Crooks), match up letter for letter with…Carlos…as in Minister Carlos. Ha, his entire name matches up letter for letter…with Gerald Westby. That GW spells the Commissioner of Police, Braa! Now, if I were only smart enough to figure out the “code.”
Wasn’t it just impossible that Mr. Harold Crooks was not in place to defend his report?
Whatever, most of the Crooks’ report is solid stuff. The most serious recommendation is that we step up the war against drugs. Big in that is the suggestion that we set up an Anti-Narcotics Unit. On his “advice,” GoB is also thinking about phone tapping to increase intelligence on drug runners.
This drug war is crazy. Belize is reeling. Look what has happened to our good neighbor, Mexico. Last week on CNN, US Senator John McCain said that significant areas along the Mexican/American border had fallen to the drug cartels. The word is that many jobless illegal Mexican immigrants in the US want to go home, but are afraid because of the horrors taking place in the streets of Mexico.
Last week the Belize Times editorial asked: “Is it not time for Washington and its allies to reconsider and reconstruct the terms of engagement in the drug war?” The Times editorial said that the US “should seriously reconsider the current battle plan. Drug production and trafficking should be addressed as an economic challenge while drug use and abuse are tackled as public health challenges.”Serious.Maybe our GoB can’t respond publicly, but we have to hope that they are sending the same message to the US government.
Meanwhile this war on illegal drugs is taking place, inside every pharmacy in this country there are drugs that are five, ten times more lethal than marijuana and more dangerous narcotics. The American policy on drugs has to change. All we are getting are corrupt public officials and violence.
Education is bigger than policing. Guess what happened to weed smokers all across this land after they read that story linking marijuana to testicular cancer in last week’s newspapers (Reporter, Times). They, all of them, went to bed shivering, holding their seeds in their hands. Truthful reporting of the scientific evidence against drugs will drive down use.
Too sweet to let pass by
I understand a few fans of PM Barrow, and H. Said Musa, took exception to my Tuesday piece, so I want to apologize to them (fans). My apologies. Ai, some people are very tochiz. As former PM, H. Manuel Esquivel said, when people waahn baal yu jos look pahn dehn an dehn run eye waata.
I know (expect) that the great heroes of my Tuesday piece (include the editor of the Reporter) saw it for what it was…satire…that that soup was long on water…some solid ground food, yes…and nuff tomfooleries. By the way, don’t ask me to choose between baked fish and bbq’d pork chops…I might disappoint you.
I tell you, I was minding my own business…until the editor of the Reporter threw his or her hat into the ring for the PM. I mean, on the matter of venue, this wedding was fluttering in the breeze, some for, some against. It was just too sweet to let it pass by.
To be one hundred percent serious, I think the PM should have married Ms. Kim in our land. But that will be a minor blemish on his report if he can navigate our little ship through the turbulent waters of the last two years of the first decade of the third millennium. The financial waters are very rough out there. Our captain has to be sharp. Aye, aye.
Note on Maya land rights
Mr. Armando Choco, the leader from the Toledo Cacao Growers who said that they are not on board with the Maya Leaders Alliance, mentioned that he is from San Pedro Columbia (I think). Columbia is pretty close to PGee. The people in Columbia and a number of other villages near to PGee are more “Western” than the villagers in Conejo and Santa Cruz who were represented in the big case last year in the Supreme Court.
I have offered my suggestion, that each village get a tidy piece of land (traditional communal land) to continue traditional culture. One solid block of land, like what the Navajos have in the US (this is an idea that is floating around), is kind of difficult. The Navajos in Arizona have “their” land, but they have a different history from our people. You also have to backdrop the Navajo rez with the fact that the US is militarily the most powerful country on earth. The Navajos are fully alert that if push comes to shove a leopard might return to its spots.
You can find the consequential ‘spots’ somewhere in the book, Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee. The old Indian warrior said: They made us many promises. They never kept but one. They promised to take our land, and they took it. I read Wounded Knee years ago, so that quote may not be word for word. Ai, can’t remember the author’s name. Apologies to him.