We the people believe that we have been ripped off, but the individuals in power believe they own us because they paid for us in ?free and fair? elections. So, you see, there is a great difference of opinion between the individuals who are in power and the people over whom they have constitutional power. The people believe they are the victims of a criminal conspiracy, and the politicians in power believe that a game was played in March 2003; and that they won that game, and that therefore they have the right, duty in fact, to govern, in fact to rule.

The unfortunate thing is that both sides are not only right, both sides believe, passionately, that they are right. As a result, Belize may be headed for a showdown. This sort of thing has happened before in the old capital. On those occasions in the modern political era, elected politicians in government felt they had the power and the right to make treaties they claimed would resolve the issue of the Guatemalan claim. The people of Belize believed otherwise, that only the people could decide on so fundamental an issue, and the results of those passionate disagreements were confrontations in the streets.

A lot of the moneys the elected leaders of Belize spent in 2003 to purchase re-election for themselves, came from business moguls with special interests, business moguls who expected and have been receiving huge returns on their election investments. Election investments, if your party is elected to power, are the most lucrative investments in Belize apart from narcotics investments. And political investments are 100 per cent legal, as opposed to narcotics investments, which are decidedly criminal.

The way the election game is played in the system we have traditionally been extolling in Belize as ?participatory democracy?, it allows for what has been happening, and that is the purchase of political power. It is legal for politicians to accept any donations from anywhere for elections in Belize, and while there are laws in the books which forbid the bribing of voters, voters believe they have the right to accept moneys and gifts from politicians who are seeking their votes.

The politicians who bought power, believe they bought it for five round years, and the people are angry because the deal was not that the politicians would be coming back to the people to take back, and more than take back, what the politicians freely and voluntarily gave to the people in March 2003.

Remember now, that there is the inner circle of ruling politicians, and then there are a large amount, a majority in fact, of elected area representatives whose best characteristic, in the eyes of the inner circle, is that they take their money, they shut their mouths, and they accept the rule of the inner circle. These omerta area representatives behave as if they believe it was the inner circle who elected them, and not the voters who marked ballots. And perhaps they are actually right to so believe. Because the way the game is played in Belize today, righteousness is no recommendation. You simply must have money to give to the voters.

At this newspaper, no matter what we say or do, we have to concede our past was bourgeois. Perhaps it is because of our past that we believe that the fault for our political enslavement lies in ourselves, that we are underlings. This is the bourgeois way ? we blame ourselves, not our slavemasters.

Understand, though, that the majority of the Belizean people are not bourgeois. The majority of the people of Belize are revolutionary, and, if given half a chance, they will seek vengeance against those who have deceived and exploited them.

Yet, to repeat, the deceivers and exploiters believe that they were only playing the game; and they believe that, playing the game better than their opponents, they won, and now they enjoy the spoils of victory.

And so, that is where we are today. The lines will be drawn on budget day, and after that, as they say, any number can play.

The truth of the matter is that, to a certain extent, both sides are trapped by the game. Within the regional and global context, a country like Belize is not supposed to achieve wealth and prosperity. The way the international system is designed, the wealth must flow one way ? away from countries like Belize and into the Western banking centers in New York, London, Paris, Brussels, Geneva, etc.

In Belize, the winners of the game are the elected politicians who are paid to facilitate the outward flow of wealth from Belize. The losers are the people of Belize who were bribed to give up their birthright. Every now and then, however, the losers get tired of losing and get into a state of agitation. At these times, the winners become very concerned, because the raw power of the people is as great as that of a tsunami. That is why we say both sides are trapped by the game. At the beginning of the day and at the end of the day, it is the Western bankers who really run the game, and they change the rules whenever it pleases them.

Power to the people. Amandala.