Sunday, July 18, 2010
The Belize Times
Doug Singh’s queer behavior… By queer in this piece I am referring to strange, though many will choose to take it the other way. I am absolutely amazed by the fact that Doug Singh’s first decisive moves since his appointment as Minister of Police include a new gym, putting policemen on a diet and challenging officers to a manly competition including running two miles, doing 75 pushups and doing 25 chin-ups. Mr. Singh has yet to say anything about rooting out the corruption in the Police Department; rebuilding the lost confidence of the community; strengthening the relationship between the DPP and the Police; improving training of officers; a new forensic lab perhaps; taking the war to the streets or anything remotely involved in fighting crime. Really, the gentleman seems obsessed with the most cosmetic and frivolous inroads into solving a deep rooted and ugly problem, and that is just plain strange. And of course, this seeming obsession with sweaty policemen in scanty attire pumping iron and doing pushups – well that is just plain queer. Faced with an 8 year old who was viciously gunned down while playing in his own yard, just seconds after another man was shredded by bullets from an M-16 assault rifle, Mr. Singh says absolutely nothing. But he has a lot to say about some stupid challenge to officers. This is really no laughing matter. While Mr. Singh indulges his lust for fit police officers, our streets are running red with the blood of the victims and the tears of those left behind. Enjoy your race, Mr. Singh. Unnecessary public insults... For there to be any success in this crime-fighting thing, corruption within the Police Department will have to be rooted out and everyone that’s left will have to move in sync like a well oiled machine. Mr. Singh’s inappropriate comments about sloppy, big-bellied officers will go a long way to ensuring that any cohesion in the upper echelons of the Department will be a long time in coming. The new Minister could well have met with Department heads and addressed the health and fitness of officers, their attire and any other aspect of cleanliness he chose to. Instead he took it nationally and ensured that everyone in earshot of a television heard his insulting and derogatory comments aimed at officers who have our security in their hands. There was no need for that. And here’s another thing. Back when things were under control, criminals used to have a healthy respect for and fear of the Police. How now, Mr. Singh? The funny gentleman has insured by his girlish taunts on national television that his officers have been made into a laughing stock. Those comments will have repercussions for a long time to come; bad repercussions for us. You can take that to the bank, Mr. Singh. The DPP/Police Relationship… For a long time now we’ve been bashing madam DPP, but apparently there’s a lot more going on in the justice system than meets the eye. Rather than being all agog about sweaty policemen, our Minister of Police would do well to try and repair the very critical relationship between these two entities. We all know how important that relationship is. We have seen accused murderers walking down the court steps because of some foul up between the two departments. We have seen the intimidation of and threats against witnesses in murder trials which more often than not lead to the case being thrown out. The DPP should play an active role in just about every aspect of any serious criminal offense. The Police should seek advice and instruction from the DPP in the investigation process, the placement of charges and preparation for trial. This will ensure that when prosecution time rolls around, everybody’s on the right page. That hasn’t been happening and we’ve seen the results. The blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of Mr. Barrow, who has for his own purposes ignored this problem and Mr. Singh, who is fixated on fit police officers and probably isn’t even aware that this is a serious problem. The strange case of Mr. Mangar… Just before the Easter break, the Prime Minister and the Commissioner of Police did their best to ruin a young Police Officer’s life on national television for the whole country to see. They accused this gentleman, Detective Constable Mangar of masterminding heinous crimes, including a bank heist in Spanish Lookout which left one man dead. They said he was the ringleader of a criminal ring within the Police Department. Mr. Mangar was arrested and his home was searched while his wife and family looked on. He was remanded to prison and paraded before the nation as a criminal, somebody to scorn. He is still before the Court even as this is
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being written. But strangely enough, the Belize Times has received a copy of a letter from the DPP to the Police Department advising them that there is no evidence against Mr. Mangar and the charges should be dropped. Even worse, that letter from the DPP was dated June 3rd, more than a month ago. The Police Department has not done as instructed by the DPP. Mr. Mangar continues to serve time in the public spotlight as a criminal. This entire episode has been grossly unfair to Mr. Mangar and his family. He deserves massive financial compensation from the Police Department which appears to be acting without reason or rationale. Unfortunately, the Police Department will never be able to compensate the young man for what he and his family have suffered. The expelled, un-expelled Mayor… Last week Zenaida was expelled from the UDP and then a day or two after, she was un-expelled. Truth be told, the soap opera antics between the Mayor and her allegedly balls-less leader and all the other bit-players means little to anybody out here. All we want – all we ever wanted was a Mayor who would serve the people with integrity, with honesty, with accountability and who would get the job done. Instead we got Zenaida Moya who took us all for a ride. What we got were sweetheart deals, mismanagement of public funds, misappropriation of public funds and audits revealing hundreds of thousands of dollars missing. Oh, and we got underdepositing too. The city is in a wreck and looks and smells like a pig-sty. Our streets have been left to rot. The Mayor has done absolutely nothing for the city since she took office four years ago. A lot for herself, but absolutely nothing for the city! So really, the theatrics, to balls or not to balls shenanigans of this crew mean little to Belizeans. We need the job to get done – end of story! Unanswered questions… Now that the sports hoopla is over and done and the go Belize fever has been broken by the cold reality of defeat, a lot of questions are re-surfacing. Why was proven successful coach Kevin Siroki discarded in favour of a man who had absolutely no coaching experience and whose only claim to fame was playing for great coaches? How much exactly did we spend so that Team Belize could get to the Dominican Republic for a week? Half a million? More? How much did we pay Coach Marques Johnson for his shot and unsuccessful stint in Belize? Who’s feeling the fool now that we’ve lost and the Coach up and left without a word and the entire team is feeling demoralized and disenchanted? Have we gained more from this outing than we lost? People really, really want to know. The UDP Land Grab… What’s going on with all these UDP cronies who are grabbing up choice parcels of land like the proceeds of some giant Gapi Vega cartoon piñata which has been busted wide open? Seriously this thing is completely ridiculous. How come only the UDP cronies can benefit under this Barrow administration? Whatever happened to the oath which talks about serving all manner of men and women without fear or favour. Boss, that means UDP, PUP, VIP, NIP and any other damned P that there is. Taking that oath means that you promise to serve ALL Belizeans. You hear that Gapi? Not only Belizeans with the surnames Vega or Hernandez or Thimbriel or Barrow or Wallace! Over the next weeks Belizeans can judge for themselves because we’ll be letting everything out into the light, but we can tell you that in San Estevan, for example, Gapi’s nephews and nieces are a happy bunch, getting land for little or nothing – like almost 8 acres of land given to Gapi’s nephew Cosme for under $1000 dollars. Check that out. How many of us poor Belizeans can get access to those opportunities? How many of us poor Belizeans are fighting to get even one small lot, one parcel of land? How many of us poor Belizeans are fighting to hold on to a piece of land while this vindictive government does its best to take it away? And at mile 4.5 on the Western Highway, that’s a whole other story, as the already privileged UDPs cream off the jewel by taking hold of some really prime property for little or nothing. More on that story in this issue! There ain’t no shame in the UDP’s game. No shame at all.