Let’s get one thing straight from the get go. The Ashcroft attack on Kremandala is a serious situation. It is also a situation that has personal implications. I have had a Sunday morning jazz show on KREM for seven years, and a weekly opinion column in Amandala that is now in its third year. Russell Vellos has told me that a number of people have asked him how he edits my columns. He tells them, “I don’t.” Nobody believes him, but he is telling the truth! The only alterations have been the removal of names (I seem to have finally figured that out) to avoid the strict libel laws in Belize, and an occasional change in paragraphing. That’s it! No one has ever told me what music to play or what to write.
Kremandala has become a platform for some of the most independent thinkers in Belize: Smokey Joe, Kalilah Enriquez, Russell Vellos , Candace Pitts, Adele Ramos and Dr. Isabel Tun, among others. Please forgive me if I accidentally omitted a name or two. There is no question that Mose Hyde and Kalilah Enriquez host the most informative call in talk show in Belize. The Tuesday night Kremandala show featuring Evan X, Rufus X, Cedric Flowers and Patrick Rogers, delves deeply into the significance of current events in Belizean politics and culture. KREM TV, which has the potential of being a totally new television concept for Belize, similar to the concept of PBS in the United States, runs tapes of innovative music, including one of the last performances of the legendary Miles Davis. There is no other media house like this, and if Michael Ashcroft is allowed to succeed, he will have destroyed the only media organization in this country that rewards creativity, and encourages open and honest discussion of the issues that affect us, our country and the world.
Kremandala doesn’t only provide work for creative people. Secretaries, printers, maintenance workers, security guards, supervisors, newspaper vendors, you name it, whatever positions are required to make an organization run, these jobs are filled by a majority of Afro-Belizeans, neighborhood people. What would happen to these jobs in the event that Mr. Ashcroft prevails? His tactics appear to be multidirectional, using the leverage of a possible crippling financial blow in order to force his way into becoming a shareholder in the company.
I have no inside information as to Kremandala’s financial position, and I don’t intend to ask, because I am not a shareholder and therefore that information is none of my business, but a quarter million dollar judgment would very likely destroy KREM Radio, along with KREM television. This would severely weaken Amandala, and it would undoubtedly be next. If Mr. Ashcroft became a minority shareholder, well, his track record indicates that he doesn’t remain a minority shareholder for long and we have seen, by the example of events at BTL, that concern for the livelihood of his employees is not high on his agenda!
I have been incorporating Amandala into my social studies classes for some time now. It is a gold mine of information for students. CXC candidates will find insights into current and historical events in Belize, in the Caribbean and in the world that will help them understand many potential topics, particularly globalization, its application and effect on CARICOM countries. This is one of the most difficult topics to teach, because it is hard for students to make a connection between what often seems to be esoteric, boring and theoretical information that appears to be unrelated to their lives. Articles published in Amandala help them to see that these things not only are related to their lives, they materially affect them in terms of not only the present, but their future, or the lack of it if the manipulators continue to have their way.
Students, teachers and administrators are a part of this community and culture. Our schools cannot pretend to exist in some fairyland “ivory tower” world where knowledge is dispensed without it being connected to life. Students are victims of crime. Some of them, unfortunately, commit crimes. The financial pressures that squeeze their parents squeeze them too. All of them have to take HIV AIDS into consideration. Teenage pregnancy doesn’t only happen to girls “somewhere out there.” Substance abuse is a constant threat to them. SBA surveys show the use of drugs and/or alcohol among high school students at close to 70%! A media organization that recognizes this, as Kremandala assuredly does, can provide invaluable assistance to students who are trying to make sense out of what often seems like a nonsensical world. The UBAD library offers reading material that can be found nowhere else in Belize.
Our young people are not all students. A 1998 UN-sponsored report on poverty in Belize points out that 15% of Belizean children never even attend primary school. The number of students who begin primary school are not the number who graduate; the drop out rate is very high. Less than 50% of those who make it through primary school go on to high school. Thousands of young Belizeans are left without a sufficient education to cope with an increasingly complex job market and without basic life skills as well. They become children of the street, prey to all the problems that affect disadvantaged youth. Not only does Kremandala try to offer advice, it offers as many jobs as it is possible to create to allow these youngsters to earn some money and to help them gain a measure of self-esteem.
So with all that Kremandala provides for Belize, why is Michael Ashcroft determined to destroy it? It’s simple. The more our people are informed, the more they will oppose him and his brand of profiteering! He won’t be able to operate his laissez faire capitalism with impunity in a country with an educated and aware populace. Therefore anyone who is a true teacher is his enemy! His kind relies on ignorance and lack of knowledge to make millions while the masses live in increasing poverty as their country’s wealth is ripped away!
And why do so many of the politicians, PUP and UDP, support him? They are birds of a feather that flock together. They are collaborators in the creation of a world full of ignorance and human misery. Educated and aware people are not “die hard” supporters of any political party, and “die hard” supporters “make” these guys. PUP and UDP are not enemies on the highest levels. Only the “die hards” still believe that game, and their lack of knowledge allows politicians to live easy. The “die hards” live hard, and die easy, and that is a perfectly okay state of affairs for Michael Ashcroft and his political allies in both parties.
Listen up, Belizeans, and listen good! Real knowledge is a serious threat to the power structure because it will set you free! Remember that in the first years of independence there was a law that gave the Minister of Communications the power to ban any material, whether it was written, audio, or audio-visual that “in his judgment was detrimental to the interests of Belize.” They want to go right back there, but rather than reinstate a law that might attract international criticism, why not use the technicalities of the legal system to destroy or to take control of media that they view as a threat?
There are a number of things that we can do. We can alert international associations that monitor attacks on journalism. We can draw up petitions, sign them and send them to the Conservative Party in England, to tell them that we do not appreciate Mr. Ashcroft’s actions here in Belize, and we can notify the Labor Party that we have done so. The Labor Party sure wouldn’t mind beating the Conservatives over the head with those petitions come election time, especially since the Conservatives are making a show over their supposed search for minority candidates!
We can design a web site and post our opinions on relevant web sites that are used by people who have some clout and who might have business dealings with Michael Ashcroft. What about the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US? And we can boycott his businesses in Belize. Ashcroft’s bank is not the only commercial bank in this country. Are you a Belizean patriot or not? The situation with BTL is a bit trickier, because Smart is financed by the same Ashcroft bank. I have never believed that Smart was a truly independent phone company. Follow the money.
We also need to emphatically tell those who are assisting this man, including lawyers who try to propagate the fiction that they can make millions of dollars handling this man’s business without the money affecting their political policies, that they can’t have it both ways. You either work for him or you work for the good of Belizean people, and if you choose him, we will not give you our business or our votes!
We need to form a committee for the defense of Kremandala and meet to consider and implement these and other suggestions, yesterday. Michael Ashcroft is moving to control Belize, and he is moving to try to control the information that we will be allowed to have access to. He doesn’t want creative people and politically aware people to be able to survive in “his country”. The time to fight back is now, before it is too late.
As regards the so-called UHS “guarantee”, along with all its other problems I don’t believe for a minute that the December 9th, 2004 date is real. Why? Because by the second half of 2004, everything, and I mean everything, was being leaked by government employees who were outraged and alarmed by the corruption that they were finding. If this document was there at that time it would have been found and leaked too. The Hon. Mark Espat and Dr. Carla Barnett busted their butts to put together a debt restructuring deal which is now at risk because they were not informed of this so-called “guarantee,” and the deal required disclosure of ALL outstanding debts. They have in effect been hung out to dry and I bet that they are pissed! Wouldn’t you be?