The, “Do you agree that any legal business”…shouldn’t be the only question on the ballot on April 10. It isn’t proper to waste time or opportunity, so there should be at least one other question on the ballot. That definite other question should be: Do you want to be a citizen of Guatemala?
Belize needs all qualified hands on deck
Ambassador Alfredo Martinez had an untimely death, and as far as we know he wasn’t working on any memoirs. If he had, those are not for public viewing. All we have from his work on the Guatemala claim are in hard-to-obtain government files. However, except for two others, one of whom cut out for a most disappointing reason, all other hands are on deck at this critical time.
Ambassador James Murphy is long retired from the public service, and he seems to be the type who is comfortable living his life below the radar. But he wrote a couple books on the history of the negotiations on the Guat claim and these are available for all Belizeans to peruse.
Cabinet Secretary, Senator Henry Gordon, writes a weekly column, and appears on two talk shows, so his views on the Guatemalan claim are fully in the public arena, for all who are interested in the truth.
Ambassador David Gibson has retired from public office quite a while now, but he has never put his light under a calabash. Mr. Gibson has featured on a number of morning shows, and he writes to the press on occasion. And there is his think tank, a group of concerned citizens who knock heads on political and environmental issues in our country and region. Mr. Gibson is an available resource for all of us who want information, counseling, anything to do with this relentless claim of Guatemala.
Former Foreign Minister Assad Shoman found his”seven days of freedom” (also called comradeship) in Cuba, so he walks the streets of another nation. But he has written volumes on the Guatemalan claim to our land, and he has visited on occasion to hold talks with concerned citizens about the matter. Indeed, it is about that he might join the ICJ team to help win a yes vote.
Of the two others, one of them cut out for a most disappointing reason. There are rumors that the far and away most disappointing one, a female, is on Facebook, available for a select audience. I don’t know the lady, but just like you I used to help pay her salary. That’s why I feel I have every right to be disappointed.
For just a little while it looked like Ms. Lisa would be the champion for us. She was prominent on the first trip to the Sarstoon, when Belize showed the world we were not the pushover that the present Foreign Minister was trying to paint us as. She was quite regular on the morning shows, sharing her ideas on the ICJ. And then, suddenly, she completely disappeared. Nobody put out any missing person. She’s an adult woman, free to go and come as she pleases. And she is no longer in our employ.
We had to consider that the lady’s withdrawal from sight might be strategic, that she had disappeared on instructions from her party.Or that she was just following some money, like the other one who went AWOL ICJ.
Eamon has also been silent a while now. We knew what had called him away. He was very busy attending the business of Troy Gabb’s greatest hero, the British knight, Lord A. Some people like to downplay the power of money, but the Bible is filled with instances when people sold their souls for it. The list is endless, the number of people who sold out for money.
Eamon is definitely not alone. We can deal with that. What we can’t deal with is being sold out for gay rights. That’s what Lisa sold us out for. Love hurts, when it is a one-way street. We got it the worst kind of way. We got dumped, crushed, left at the altar for an unworthy cause. Just about nobody sold out for gay rights. That is a new thing, only for this modern world.
It’s the Europeans who started this thing. Tired of fighting wars, they are bored, and they need battles to fight. These battles don’t have to make sense. The wars didn’t make sense either. Bah, it is for this new European battle that Lisa spurned us. And at such a critical moment!
At this extremely crucial time, Belize needs all hands on deck, and I mean the fore deck, not at the stern (there’s a name for that part of the ship that I restrain myself from using here), plotting a mutinous scheme to take over and shift course, from the one being followed since the days of Leviticus, to one far south of the conventional. But some people don’t care.
You saw the picture of the poster boy for the European agenda in The Reporter, posing like he is some kind of old time pistolero. That’s bragging! He gloats because he knows he’s got the right, after stealing away one of the leading lights for our defense, the consequence of which could be that our case is shot to hell.
The Leviticus acolytes warned us that if we gave the closet, they wouldn’t be satisfied, that they’d turn taar pahn wi. It’s sad, but real. Yes, we see it all too clearly now; extremism can only be fought with extremism. Turn the other cheek and you will get slap again.
We don’t need a referee to tell us that they won the last round. They can say they beat us. But the fact is that there was no fight at all. They pointed to the closet and without a fuss we said, yours, all yours, to do anything you want in.
I would ask them to stop wanting too much. And it is just not the time for their distraction. At this moment we need all our qualified hands on deck.
Neri blew out a candle
Reporter columnist, Neri Briceño, is one of those treasured Belizeans who did well in school abroad and is now a winner of foreign dollars, some of which he invests in his cash-impoverished homeland. Hurray for Belizeans who win the prized foreign exchange and spends some with us. On most things they should get a pass.
In his story, “For Real…Johnny?”, which appeared on page 33 of the October 28 Reporter, Mr. Briceño had issues with John Briceño’s (PUP leader) call for us to explore the legalization of marijuana. Neri wondered about the need for “another mind altering agent” when we have rum, and he called it a “drive to vote pandering.”
He said that with so “many pressing, critical issues ranging from extreme violence, high level of unemployment, national corruption at every level and an economy that all will agree will crash in the next couple of years”, he expected more from the PUP. He said we can expect nothing great from legalizing weed, “except create a next generation of induced pot heads.”
Commenting on new approaches, Neri said: “The strategy has been a liberal approach to the strict marijuana and drug control laws that has clearly not worked.” (emphasis mine)Therein is the source of my beef. Most accept that the marijuana law has not worked. So, the Opposition Leader lit a candle. And Neri blew it out.
Neri knows the role drugs have played in the corruption of our society, and the violence, decimation of whole sections of it. We all agree that the status quo has “not worked.” He condemns legalization. Well, then what?