by Colin Hyde

It’s hard to understand Belizeans who are full-blown supportive of Israel’s massacre of children, women, and innocent men in Gaza. We are known the world over as a country that stands against military solutions. We are the only country on this earth that has put our entire territory at the mercy of a court, the ICJ. We could have avoided that humiliation by seeking allies to help us make a military stand if necessary. The leader I followed, Philip Goldson, though he was a man of peace, preferred that we become like Switzerland, ready to fight. But the majority chose the vision of George Price, the priest who became the Father of the Nation.

Not all Belizeans buy into the path of peace. God forbid that a Belizean who has access to weapons and influence over a few others, goes berserk and attacks Guatemala and injures or kills Guatemalans. Do our Netanyahu apologists and that ilk believe that would give Guatemala the license to retaliate against Belize a thousand-fold? Did the powerful British have the right to savage Guatemala after Sagastume and his band invaded Toledo in 1962?

Hamas is a violent bunch. Many argue that they are justified in their actions because Israel has had its foot on the neck of Gaza for decades. Indeed, which young man wouldn’t be prone to violence if they lived in Gaza? Hamas has minor military assets compared to Israel. What Hamas did does not give Israel license to murder and maim the children and other innocents in Gaza.

Does anyone have the right to blow up a hospital because they believe their enemy is hiding there? While we know that lawyers are daam arrogant when they say they are obligated to defend anyone who can afford their price, no one questions that doctors attend to everyone who is injured or sick. Are doctors to be blamed if crazed villains hide inside a hospital? Absolutely NO!!!!

Belize went on a limb, now lying low

The kindest, gentlest PUP now sits as Foreign Minister, after his predecessor made the bold move of chasing home the Israeli ambassador. The devout Catholic who now leads the foreign ministry has to condemn Israel’s massacre of innocents in Gaza, but he will keep Belize in the background on this matter, though everyone knows Israel is on a genocidal path.

Israel complains about anti-Semitism. It has created a lot of anti-Semites with its savagery. Just as Russia lost massive points when it invaded Ukraine, the US loses massive points with its embargo of Cuba, and China looks uncivilized with its aggressive behavior toward Taiwan, Israel’s leaders look like people who are unrepentant about murdering The Christ and His Apostles.

Commission of Inquiry dud

Clearly, the latest two to be interrogated, Almendarez and Brackett, should have been interviewed behind closed doors. Mr. Almendarez has a big doctorate, but on this matter, he was just a bit player, a man taking orders. Mr. Brackett, another of the educated elite, didn’t know why he was there, and neither did we. Really, if anyone on the Commission wanted lessons about the processes at the hotbed of corruption, we have to feel that the Commissioner, a public servant, could have gotten a little private PowerPoint going. The one worthy question, if the parcels were private or public lands, remains in a fog. The numbers say they were public lands. The Commissioner should have been told they wanted an answer there.

Hon. Tracy Panton and Mike Peyrefitte, the first two invited to the Senate hearings, they should have faced the Commission for not more than 20 or 30 minutes. What’s with all this repetition and UDP political campaigning? Ah, why all this waiting for the main players—Contreras, Patt, and Vallejos?

This Definitive Agreement, it was signed during the teeth of Covid. The UDP had corralled every asset in the country; every hiring and every contract given out was steered toward the interest of the party, and coming into 2020 they felt they had a good chance to form a fourth consecutive government. Some people were definitely ducking work because of the virus. But Contreras, Patt, and Vallejos weren’t lamping. They had their boots on, in the swamps.

White collar crime, immunity

A long time ago, easily more than a decade, I wrote in a column that blue collar crime was worse than white collar crime. I don’t have the article, but I know my point was that blue collar crime hits individuals, usually the poorest, while we bear the cost of white collar crime collectively. Someone countered that white collar crime is worse because it is the cause of blue collar crime. I believe a fair counter for that counter is that white collar crime isn’t going anywhere.

The story is that when a banker gets greedy and steals from a bank, there is a massive cover-up; matters are settled internally. The argument forwarded for the larcenous banker escaping public scrutiny, and jail, is that banks have to inspire trust. Bankers want people to believe the bank’s vaults are impregnable, so that they (the people) dig up their money and put it in their care. Maybe these banks have the perfect punishment for a dishonest banker, and all’s well that ends well. We’ll never know, because they don’t talk.

There’s this accusation that in our system the biggest of the white collars, the people we elect to run government, no matter their crime, the only possible punishment for them is in the popularity contest, which takes place every five or three years. The vision goes that if we could only jail one of those teefing bohgaz, thenceforward kit and caboodle would straighten up and fly right.

Aha, they say the culprit, the insulator for these criminals, is this, ehm, monarchial system we got from England. Oh, if we only had a republican system, transparency and accountability would rule in our land.

These republican enthusiasts always put forward the USA as their Exhibit-A for the virtues of this system. Now pray, since right next door, to our west, is a republic, why do they have to go 3,000 miles away for their demonstration, for their example of the system we ought to be following?

Last week we saw why they don’t want us to know about the republic, Guatemala. My, we pass the baton election after election as smoothly as the best trained relay team, while these past few months it was some esteh in Guatemala after the people spoke in their last election. For weeks things teetered on the edge of becoming a full blown bosko. On the final lap, Sunday, our PM and FM must have gone through bottles of wine as they sweated out those last hours with the rest of the world.

But what’s happening right now in the vaunted Republic up north, three thousand miles away, makes Guatemala look like “a angel”. Can you believe that one-third of Americans believe their president should operate with impunity while in office? Anyone want to talk about the real monarchy?

I read in the Miami Herald, in a story by Brendan Rascius titled, “Should Trump be immune from criminal prosecution? What Americans said in a new poll”, that a little more than 1/3 of Americans believe their former president, Donald Trump, should be immune from prosecution, after Trump’s lawyers “argued that … he cannot face criminal charges related to official actions he undertook as president.”

Drawing much of his story from an Associated Press report, Rascius said 3 judges, 2 of whom were appointed by their present president, “expressed doubt that the nation’s founders intended ex-presidents to have total immunity.” There are some grey areas in this discussion, but the fact they are having it says a heck of a lot.

There, you see why I’ve never visited the US. What kind of country is that, Braa? Here, a PM or GoB minister could hide behind lies and bribes, never behind immunity. I say, if any big government fish could find cover behind Cabinet, then we should close down the country.