In the first paragraph, we have used the Christian names of the two Cabinet Ministers/area representatives without the ?honourable? embellishments and Ministerial portfolios, because Belize is a small place. We all know each other in a familiar way, and today in the minds and conversations of the people, it has become just Ralph and Said, Said and Ralph. In the rest of the essay, we will return to formal designations.

It now appears to us that the damage caused to the political fortunes of the Hon. Prime Minister and the Hon. Minister of Home Affairs by audiotapes at a PUP Ladyville committee meeting which were leaked to the Opposition UDP radio station, has been incalculable.

What happened was this, according to our sources. Mr. Fonseca essentially overreacted to the challenge by seven of his Cabinet colleagues to his absolute control of Belize government finances, a challenge which took place on August 12, 2004 in the office of the Prime Minister in Belmopan. Sometime shortly after August 12, the angry Hon. Ralph held a meeting of his PUP Ladyville committee, invited the Prime Minister there to talk on his behalf, and had the session taped, as it seems is his custom.

The tape of the speeches by Mr. Fonseca and Mr. Musa is high class, so high class that attempts by the PUP to pass them off as spliced concoctions of the UDP have been completely futile. The tapes are so high class because they were made by a former Radio Belize senior technician, who now owns a radio station which has no audience but is personally subsidized by Mr. Fonseca.

An announcer at Mr. Fonseca?s radio station who was desperate for money, copied the tapes and took them to WAVE, the UDP station. And, if Musa/Fonseca fall, those tapes will be seen by some observers as the ironic straw that broke the camel?s back, ironic because the tapes originated at Mr. Fonseca?s station.

Mr. Fonseca is caught on the tapes in a mood of insufferable arrogance in which no politician should indulge, especially when he knows he is being taped. Mr. Fonseca on the Ladyville tapes confirms what many people had been saying ? that he considers his Cabinet colleagues his inferiors, that he feels he is doing Belizeans a favour by being our Minister of Finance (at the time), and that he thinks he can return to all his offices in ?Montevideo?, Cuba, Cayman, and Canada and make ?a lot of money? whenever he feels like it.

The Prime Minister, for his part, on the tapes swears his lifelong love and loyalty for Mr. Fonseca, and then states: ?Who says the government is broke? That?s absolute nonsense. We don?t have to raise taxes. The taxes are performing.?

In August of 2004, that was a taped statement of incontrovertible mendacity, and it has come back to haunt Mr. Musa. Higher taxes are the odious feature of his Friday, January 14, 2005 budget speech, and those taxes have stuck like a bone in the throats of the teachers and the public officers and the workers of Belize.

To add insult to injury, at a time when his credibility was already in the zero range because of the Ladyville tapes, the Prime Minister tried to convince the Belizean people that the higher taxes would not be passed on to consumers by business people. Many people who know Brother Billy were flabbergasted by this declared opinion in the honourable House of Representatives.

If there is one thing Belizeans do not like, it is to be made a ?pappyshow.? In 2003 when the Government of Belize gave contracted pay raises to public officers, teachers, policemen and nurses, and then almost immediately afterwards raised the social security contributions in such a way as to neutralize the benefits of the raises, GOB appeared to get away with this act of callous cynicism. But it is clear now that the Belizean people involved knew that they had been taken for ?pappyshow,? and they have bided their time until January of 2005, when their intransigence is manifest.

The Ladyville tapes confirmed for the masses of the Belizean people what only insiders had been sure of ? Mr. Fonseca was arrogant and Mr. Musa was loyal to him.

The thing which should now be giving the people pause is that the one is the Minister of Defence and the other is the Minister of Police. The people, however, are an irresistible force. Are Ralph and Said immoveable objects?

Power to the people. Amandala.