by Colin Hyde
Neri Briceno, a Belizean American (BelAm), in a piece in last week’s Reporter titled, “The Cost of Money”, shared some views about the life and character of the present Leader of the Opposition, mostly nice things. Neri said, “I do not hold his past against him nor the circumstances of his arrival back to Belize. There is no one blameless among us, and we must always ask the question: what would I have done if I were in his shoes?”
I guess Mr. Briceno feels proud of himself, feels Christian for his view. And from an individual perspective, I congratulate and concur with him on his compassion. Ah, about this virtue, this compassion which is selfless and kind, like love is, I would ask him if he sees that same quality in this opposition leader. Has the person shown himself to be selfless, or selfish?
Moving on with Neri’s endorsement, he said that while he and the Leader of the Opposition “have varying views on a number of issues, he does seem to have a good grasp of international relations and foreign affairs, and I support his views on quite a few.” He said he shares the Leader of the Opposition’s “stance and support for the right of Israel to defend itself, secure its borders and to exist as a state despite mounting global opposition.” Neri went on to say that he, Neri, supports “the Israeli state not because of anything biblical or religious, but because I know who their enemies are and what they represent.”
I say, Neri, you are very selective with your compassion. I say, if you are not a religious zealot and you are knowledgeable about Israel’s apartheid and expansionism, then you must have a very personal agenda. You must either be married to a Jew who is the sister of the ruthless Zionist Netanyahu, or your position is very good for your bank account. My, in the face of the unrelenting devastation of innocents in Gaza, you say Israel has a right to defend itself!
At times, like this present time, Israel is the worst of sometimes horrible US foreign policy. The US’s foreign policy was cruel when it chased or “took out” leaders in our region because they didn’t kowtow in totality to US businesses; when it propped up the worst leaders in our hemisphere, suffocate(d) Cuba, and didn’t, ehm, dissuade Guatemala in its claim to Belize. America has its points, but I am not aware that it has a soul. If it had one, it could never have dumped Jimmy Carter for Ronald Reagan.
Returning to the Leader of the Opposition, I’ve noticed that BelAms and Belizeans who are gaga about American culture have a different perspective from people like me. Let’s get some clear understanding about BelAms. While we in Belize love them and want them back, the majority of them prefer another country to ours. BelAm women don’t leave America to come and have dehn baby here! Hey, absolutely we want you back. But you’re in love with someone else. Life is like that. Bah, we don’t know what you see in your preferred lover.
Two of my cousins went BelAm when they were young men. Orlando Belisle (Lara), who is 2 years older than I, I adored him as a big brother. David Hyde (Hall), who is 2 years younger than I, I loved him as a little brother. I’ve seen Orlando only once since he left. One time while on fb I saw an Orlando Belisle, and I said, my, this could be my beloved cousin’s son. I reached out eagerly, but he didn’t reach back. The fact is that the navel string of the children of BelAms is buried in America. My cousins’ children are Americans. Their grandchildren and mine will be total strangers.
I applaud the government initiative to try and get BelAms to build retirement homes and businesses here. But I won’t forget that they love another country and its culture more than ours. That country and its culture tend to make people develop a little hubris. It’s their different culture that makes them see nothing wrong with this UDP leadership situation and its implications.
Unfortunate things happen in this world. There are things in this world that we want but can’t, or shouldn’t have. In the classic movie, Shane, after the epic gunfight at the saloon is over, and the bad men are dead and now the rich valley belongs to honest people who want to raise healthy children, little Joey asks Shane, the gunfighter who wanted to start a new life but had to pull out his irons to save the good folk, for a ride back home on his horse.
Shane tells him, “I’m afraid not, Joey.” Joey says, “Please, why not?”, and Shane says: “I gotta be going on … A man has to be what he is, Joey. Can’t break the mould. I tried it and it didn’t work for me … Joey, there’s no living with a killing. There’s no going back from one. Right or wrong, it’s a brand. A brand sticks. There’s no going back.” (dialogue from script-o-rama)
No country is/should be a one-person show. This case with the present Leader of the Opposition, as long as he is on that perch, it will never go away. There’s a lot of mess in that world where the hero whom Neri absolved made his millions, and every time this one’s name or tara one’s name comes up, Belize gets dragged into the American tabloid, like we are some kind of poco tiempo. We know what the issue is here. Some people see us as second rate. Well, we don’t see ourselves that way. Sorry, that’s some squirmy situation for us there, Braa.
No urgency, Mr. Dennison?
I will applaud the NTUCB, clearly leaning on the counsel of a member who has a law degree, for its recommendation that government try a different approach on the acquisition of land at Stake Bank for a public purpose. I understand the government has explained that it considered the counsel that it received from its in-house legal minds to be sufficient.
Now, don’t ever think that lawyers bring a private sector view. There are laws on our books, put there by them, to prevent competition. Generally, the slower things move, di betta fu di laaya. Didn’t one of them charge us a thousand dollars an hour? The more di hours, di merrier.
Some views that Dennison expressed recently for the NTUCB are certainly from a “to the bone” 8-to-5 guy. According to a Channel 7 transcript, Mr. Dennison, speaking about the Stake Bank land acquisition, said: “I just don’t know that it is worth the intervention of the government because I don’t think it’s a simple case before the court, but it’s definitely not a complex issue. So, there’s also the option of doing nothing until that goes through.”
Where was Mr. Dennison when a $30 million UHS loan ballooned to over $90million? We are talking about a $270-million investment here, to let lie, to do nothing until it goes through the court. Congratulations to Mr. Vasquez for asking Mr. Dennison if “urgency” counted for something.
Mr. Dennison suggested that the government had been unfair to Mr. Feinstein. They, the government, “they’ve put Mr. Feinstein through quite a bit”, he said. You know that key to this story was exclusivity, which Stake Bank, by law, didn’t, couldn’t get. When he was before the Senate Special Select Committee, UDP luminary, Mr. Mike Peyrefitte, I am pretty certain he used the words “reasonable expectation” when discussing Mr. Feinstein.
I think most Belizeans wholesale agree with Mr. Peyrefitte on the reasonable expectation of the entrepreneur that government would do all it could to facilitate his project. But we can’t ignore that there was a major gamble here, in fact a lot of gambling. The entrepreneur gambled that government would give his business all that it desired in respect to alteration of our environment; that the NEAC would turn down Waterloo; and that the best site for a cruise port for the giant ships, Port Magical, wouldn’t get the green light. There was a heap of gambling there. I hope for him, and for Belize, that the resolution of this case is satisfactory.