Belize Times September 7, 2014

SCAN HERE

The Belize Times

Established 1957

7 SEPTEMBER 2014 | ISSUE NO: 4911

The Truth Shall Make You Free

www.belizetimes.bz | $1.00

GSU

MUST

GO!!

Pg. 3 CORDEL RETURNS TO LAKE I

Pg. 7

BOGUS GROWTH!!

While the UDP grass grows, the horse starves Pg. 6

UDP FAILS BELIZE Still No Changes to Barrow’s Draconian Gun Law

Pg. 6

Murder suspect caught by angry residents Pg. 3

Miguel Choco (pic: Ch5)

2 02

OPINION OUT

!

Dear Editor, My name is Gomer Enriquez, I’m a resident of Benque Viejo. I have lived all my life here, except for the years I went abroad to study. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Tourism administration and a Master Degree in Analysis and Administration of Reliability.

I came back home in January 2014. I decided not to work for anybody because I studied for a reason and I’m working on opening my own business. A couple of months ago I decided to help my mom, who is a store owner, by cleaning and packaging beans bought from our local farmers. I didn’t get a trade license because I was just doing my parents a favor and helping them out with the beans. My current job is being an interpreter at home.

On the 28th of August, the Police searched my house saying I’m doing illegal activity. They confiscated my scale…saying “IT IS ILLEGAL TO HAVE A SCALE AT HOME”. So they took it and said I need to go to the police station and prove I’m not using it for illegal activity. I showed the police man a packed bag of beans.

I have about 13 trophies at home, everybody knows I love football and they questioned why I had so many trophies. I was shocked and was like WTF??? We can’t even be successful in sports??? All those trophies were won during Benque competitions.

My questions now are; are we condemned when trying to progress on our own? Do we need to have a political affiliation in this country?? Do we need to become corrupt for the “Authorities” to respect us? We as the people need to change this situation.

Signed: Gomer Enriquez

5 Sep

OUT

OUT

Police Abuse in Benque Viejo

LOCAL

7 SEP

THE BELIZE TIMES

Some are more equal than others at the Ministry of Education

In Search of True Justice at Immigration Department

!

Dear Fellow Belizeans, We the instructors of ITVET Toledo need to inform you of an injustice continuing to take place at our school. On May 28 in the middle of our investigation into questionable practices by the Manager, Allen Genus, the board was asked to question the Ministry of Education and determine who the manager works for and who he answers to before we proceed. That was the last time we heard from the board and nothing has ever been done to address the problems we presented and they have continued on to date. We still have teachers who have received one evaluation in seven years (only the most recent one). There has been an attempt to copy the one evaluation and submit it for seven times but was stopped by the instructors who want a fair evaluation.

We also have a climate of retribution from not only the manager but this highly political and incompetent board of governors, in that they are willing to replace all seven instructors in order to keep one incompetent manager. Employees continue to teach without a license, which is against the law! But the government seems to be turning a blind eye to this. Why? What does this man have on the government that they are afraid to remove him?

Why is the principal or in this case the manager not held accountable to the Education Act of 2010, when teachers throughout the country are losing their jobs for not complying with the same Act? How can Continued on page 19

!

Dear Editor, As we approach the one year anniversary of the most despicable act of treason committed by a sitting member of this Government, Belizeans continue to be deprived of answers and justice in the Immigration, Passport/Nationality irregularities. It is a shame and disgrace that the powers that be refuse to act on the Immigration wrongdoings. It is imperative that this matter be dealt with and that the perpetrators be brought to justice.

It is important that Belizeans are properly informed of wrongdoing of any Government Ministry and the media must play a crucial role in providing accurate information to the public. It is sad to note that some media houses prefer to sensationalize the Immigration and other pressings issues instead of reporting in an objective manner.

I do challenge the media stations to report the Immigration issue impartially, and do encourage that they do their own research dating back to September of last year. It is absurd that the Auditor General claims that the Immigration Director obstructed their investigation and was giving the run-around and accuses her of intentionally evading their request for pertinent material.

How can this be possible, when the Minister of Immigration and the Director carried out an investigation in the Passport Section and based on their findings the Prime Minister made the decision to remove the Minister of State from Cabinet and three Officers of the Passport Section were suspended?

A report on the Nationality Section was completed by the Director in December 2013 and was leaked to the media in January of this year.

Not much has been said of this reContinued on page 19

7 Sep

8 Sep

OUT Diaspora: Love don’t live here anymore

!

Dear Editor, I am happy that my letter asking the Diaspora “what have you done for me lately”, has stirred once more, the debate about what constructive roles the Diaspora can and should play in Belize’s national development.

I was particularly interested to hear about the contributions of the Diaspora outside of remittances because from a macro-economic perspective remittances are insignificant. In 2013, the Central Bank of Belize reported that remittances were $72.2 million or about 2.23% of our gross domestic product (GDP).

Economists will tell you that any activity generating 2.23% of GDP is not insignificant in-and-of-itself. However, given the nature of remittances, we can discount its overall importance to the economy. In essence, we can take it for granted because remittances are not so susceptible to exogenous shocks.

Put another way, because the $72.2 million come from tens of thousands of Belizeans, each contributing a few thousand dollars here and there, that element of the economy Continued on page 19 SCAN HERE

The Belize Times

Established 1957

14 APR 2013

|

The Truth Shall Make You Free

ISSUE NO: 4840

www.belizetimes.bz

|

$1.00

serving Belize since 1957 as the longest continuous newspaper.

Founder: Rt. Hon. George Cadle Price, People’s United Party Leader Emeritus EDITOR

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WEATHER 6 Sep

2014

269 Mar Sep

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7 SEP

2014

THE BELIZE TIMES

GSU MUST GO!!

Belize City, September 4, 2014 The majority of right-thinking Belizeans are in support of the Opposition People’s United Party’s calls for the disbanding of the UDP Government’s Gang Suppression Unit.

The GSU, trained with elite military forces in El Salvador by the United States of America, sprang into sudden action in 2010. By action we mean terrorizing community residents to instil fear.

Over the years, the GSU has acted like an entity of its own with no one to answer. There is evidence that not even the Commissioner of Police or the Ministry of National Security

Murder suspect caught by angry residents

61 year old Agripina Coc Toledo District, September 4, 2014 Miguel Choco, a resident of San Pedro Columbia, was apprehended today by a manhunt led by angry and concerned residents.

Choco was the main suspected for the murder of 61 year old Agripina Coc has reportedly confessed.

Residents of San Pedro Columbia launched a manhunt on Sunday morning following the discovery of Coc’s lifeless body the night before. She had been left nude on the road side. A large cut injury was seen on her forehead.

The killing of the senior citizen has been condemned nationwide.

Press releases were issued this week by the Chamber of Commerce, National Council on Ageing and Helpage Belize, calling on the Government to deal with crime as a priority.

LIQUOR LICENSE NOTICE Notice is hereby given that MARIO LOPEZ is applying for a Restaurant Liquor License to be operated at “Camaron Loco”, situate at Valley of Peace Village, Cayo District under the Intoxicating Liquor Licensing Ordinance Revised Edition 1980.

PUP Leader Hon. Francis Fonseca and former PM Rt. Hon. Said Musa have control over the GSU. In February 2012, following a vicious beat down of young men from Taylor’s Alley, the Ministry of National Security which heads the Police Department had to apologize to the victims for

the reported abuses. They claimed to not have known of the operation nor have given the order for this attack.

There have been many other cases of abuses. The George Street raids in which residents were beaten. The Arthur Young execution. The use of weapons and live bullets on Dean Street following the January 2013 massacre of four male residents. The Hollywood-style raid conducted at the home of businessman Mike Menjivar, in which dozens of shots were fired into the home.

More recent there are other cases featured by the evening newscasts.

There were the abusive tactics used against the residents of Kraal Road last week. This week, just as the

03 3 criticism against the GSU peaked, they were hardly fazed and were once more accused of abuse against Kariq Tzul and Bernard Myers whose homes on King Street were visited by the GSU. “3 of them just come up by the place, ask me who is up there and tell me get down and start beat me. After a little while, they dragged me to the back and ask me who else in the house, nobody in the house but me.

They start talk about breaking my ribs and start hit me in my face over and over and 3 of them just start beat me up until they tired of beating me, after that they bring me out,” Kariq Tzul told the news media on Wednesday evening.

The PUP’s call for the removal of the GSU is the right one. The GSU’s heavy handed tactics have only incited hatred toward law enforcement officials in our country. Their behaviour is unprofessional and brutal.

4 04 04

THE BELIZE TIMES

on the

A POLICE STATE

By Francis W. Fonseca Violent crime is a serious matter that requires serious attention and action.

This attention and action must come from properly trained and adequately resourced security forces.

These security forces, whether they be the Belize Police Department, GSU, BDF or Coast Guard, exist and function to serve and protect the citizens of Belize and their property and in the case of the BDF to defend, secure and protect the territorial integrity of our Nation-State.

The Belizean people have historically supported and respected these insti-

tutions of national security except where from time to time cases of abuse and criminal behavior have reared their ugly heads within the ranks of these entities.

There have been two notable exceptions to this historical support and both have come under the UDP. First there was the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) established by the Esquivel administration in or around 1994 and now we have the Gang Suppression Unit (GSU) established by the Barrow administration in 2009/10.

The GSU, like the SIS before it, is increasingly

viewed by the majority of Belizeans as an oppressive arm of the state with loyalty not to the people and nation but to their political bosses.

The disrespectful, arrogant and disgraceful rant by the Unit’s Head against former Prime Minister Said Musa, on Love FM’s Monday evening news only served to further harden this growing perception.

As a former Prime Minister and current Member of Parliament, Hon. Musa has not only

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2014 a right but a duty to speak out on issues of national concern such as the conduct and performance of the GSU. The response from the GSU Head is troubling and dangerous and reveals signs of an emerging Police State.

Mark Flowers does not enjoy the support and confidence of the Opposition PUP and the thousands of Belizeans we represent. He must go!

And so too must the GSU. A security force that has lost the trust and confidence of the majority of people it serves cannot continue to stand.

This has been the recorded position of the PUP even prior to the 2012 General Elections and Hon. Musa was reaffirming that position.

Yes, we must vigilantly fight gang violence and there must be in place a structure to do so but it must be one that functions under the Belize Police Department and answers to the Commissioner of Police not to a political boss.

WATCH LIVE on CCV CH18 VIBES RADIO 90.5FM | 102.9FM

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2014

THE BELIZE TIMES

05 5

EDITORIAL

O

THE GSU IS BSU

nly in a Dean Barrow government could something like this happen. A Police Officer engaging in a personal and political attack on television against an elected member of the National Assembly. That member is also the former two time Prime Minister of the country.

It is bizarre and unheard and underlines the low level to which the government is politicizing the police force and the public service.

The Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Francis Fonseca, quite rightly, was swift and unsparing in condemning this latest outrage coming from the government.

On Saturday 30 August in the Lake Independence constituency, the resurgent People’s United Party held its convention to endorse the return of Cordel Hyde as standard bearer for the next general elections. Over two thousand energized residents attended. Former Prime Minister and elected Area Representative from Fort George, Hon. Said Musa was one of the main speakers.

Hon. Said Musa made brief mention of the burning issue of crime and the failure of the government to effectively tackle this scourge in our society.

He quoted from the Amandala newspaper saying, “In Belize today, to be young and black in Belize City today is to be treated as a criminal or a potential criminal.”

“That” he said, “is the sad state of affairs that we are in today.” “When we have the GSU people riding about in pick-up trucks with US flags on them and they go into your home and raid your yard… They lock out the people and then carry out their search…they beat up people as well, we see it on the television night after night. We are becoming a police state under Dean Barrow and the UDP…and they say they are fighting crime. They are not fighting crime, they are the ones showing the bad examples of criminal behavior.

“The GSU is out of control and if I have my way; if I have anything to do with it that is one of the first things the PUP will do-out with the GSU. That is no way to be treating people. We have ministers of government, who are cuddling the criminals, the real criminals, and the innocent people are being repressed and oppressed.”

Since the government formed the GSU in 2010 there has been nothing but widespread condemnation and opprobrium over their conduct. No unit of the police department has ever engaged in so systematic disrespect and

violation of the rights of citizens. These rights are clearly stated in the nation’s constitution.

Newspaper and television reports record the ongoing illegal violations carried out by the GSU against Belizeans.

The situation is so unprecedented that the United States government published a report specifically naming the GSU as a problem to citizens of Belize and a violation of their human rights.

A cloud of suspicion remains over the GSU for the unexplained shooting death of Arthur Young, killed while being handcuffed in the back of a GSU pickup with four officers. No investigation has taken place and no one held accountable. The former Head of the GSU, Marco Vidal, was moved to another Police Unit.

Mark Flowers, a former Police who was put out of the Police Department and years later re-employed as a Sergeant, three weeks ago was put in charge of the GSU. He was a former body guard to ex PM Manuel Esquivel and while on duty in Cayo was seen openly wearing the red shirt of UDP Minister Montero. Mr. Flowers mysteriously emerged as an Inspector and now Heads the notorious GSU which has had no success in destroying the dangerous gangs.

We at the Belize Times are therefore not surprised at Mr. Flower’s outburst. He is at liberty to respond to comments on the conduct of GSU but as an Inspector he is way out of line in making political statements and disrespecting an elected representative of the National Assembly. He is directly violating the Public Service Regulations which forbids public officers from making political statements or displaying partisan behavior. By doing so Mr. Flowers has confirmed he is unfit to wear the uniform of an Inspector of our Police Department and is unsuitable to lead the GSU which has time and again crossed the line and violated the rights of citizens which they are paid to protect in the act of carrying out their duties.

By his appointment and now his political behavior Mark Flowers has confirmed that the GSU has become the BSU-Barrow Suppression Unit.

Since 2011, Hon. Francis Fonseca has called for the dismantling of this notorious police squad and replacing it with a more effective unit. It is principled position as was his call on Tuesday for the removal of police Inspector Flowers. This is part of the responsibility of the Constitutional Opposition when the government fails in its duty to the citizens of Belize.

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THE BELIZE TIMES

UDP FAILS BELIZE Still No Changes to Barrow’s Draconian Gun Law

Belize City, September 4, 2014 When the House of Representatives meets tomorrow, Friday September 5th, 2014, the members of the ruling UDP will report that they have failed to properly address one of the issues that have been terrorizing Belizeans: the criminalization of the citizens and abuse of the innocent through Prime Minister Dean Barrow’s heavy-handed gun laws.

On Friday, August 29th, Prime Minister Barrrow appeared to be caught off guard by the media which sought an update on the changes to the firearms act which the Ministry of National Security had promised to carry out since February of this year. Obviously not quite sure what was taking place, Barrow said he “hoped and believed” that amendments to the gun laws could be introduced on Friday.

Well the BELIZE TIMES has been reliably informed that there will be NO amendments come Friday. This is because the Barrow Government does not take the issue seriously.

Prime Minister Barrow revealed on Friday that the bureaucratic and lazy Minister of National Security has been lobbying to con-

duct a study on this issue. What study does John Saldivar need to realise that the law introduced by his Government is wreaking havoc on families, senior citizens and young people? The images of innocent Belizeans hauled to jail have been too many!

In 2008, the Barrow Administration with its supermajority in the House of Representatives, rammed through draconian amendments to the Firearms Act, stripping away the right to bail and making the sentence a mandatory minimum of five years. Barrow’s heavy-handed firearm law gives the Police the authority to arrest anyone and everyone found within any premise where an illegal firearm is discovered. Adding to the injustice, Magistrates are forced to deny bail for persons charged with possession of illegal firearms for two weeks. The Opposition protested the amendments and warned time and time again that the law is inhumane and can even have negative effects to the nation’s investor climate. The UDP Government has ignored the Opposition and the cries of the people.

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2014

BOGUS GROWTH!!

While the UDP grass grows, the horse starves

Belize City, September 2, 2014 There is something considerably sick and wrong with a Government that would boast about so-called economic growth while the reality for its citizens tells a different tale.

This week the Government-funded Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB) declared that economic growth in Belize had surged to an unprecedented 8.7% in the second quarter of the year. The SIB merited the growth to better performance in sugar and citrus industries, and incredibly, a 13.2% increase in the production/consumption of beer and 7.4% percent rum. This in the heels of a statement by UDP Minister Santino Castillo that stress is causing more police officers to turn to drinking.

We can conclude then that more Belizeans are stressed out than ever.

While the numbers concocted by the UDP through the Ministry of Finance might show pretty figures, the ugliness of high criminal activity and growing poverty in Belize tells a totally different story.

Both are propelled by the lack of opportunities, the increasing school dropouts, the high unemployment and overall hopelessness in the country which has set in after seven years of the Barrow Administration Prime Minister Dean Barrow cannot boast of any great achievement with the recent SIB figures. Not when it represents a disconnection with the hardships which Belizeans are experiencing and living daily. Get it right Mr. Barrow, your purported economic growth is simply bogus!

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THE BELIZE TIMES

2014

Tell we dah no soh!!

UDP Chairman Alberto August has been doing his best to keep “hush hush” an accident that nearly killed a resident of Bullet Tree Falls.

Reliable information reaching this newspaper is that one of the quarrelsome UDP Chairman’s super-sized SUVs (the kind only rich people can afford) crashed into a farmer’s pickup belonging to Mr. Marconi Matus. This accident occurred on Saturday night in the Cayo District. This occurred less than two weeks after Deputy Commissioner of Police Miguel Segura was involved in a fatal accident which killed Succotz resident, Yolanda Consuelo Valencia.

We are told that in August’s case, the abuse of his favourite beverage might have something to do with it. We are also told that to prevent the scandal from getting to the public’s ears, the UDP Chairman offered to purchase the damaged truck. Wow! He must have been carrying that special BWS briefcase.

First it was Deputy ComPol Segura now its Alberto August. We hope that at least he had his pants up. Say it’s not so August....say it’s not so. ……………………..

Somehow we all missed the halo over GSU lord Mark Flowers as he foamed from the mouth and defended the brutal actions of his Gang Unit and even got personal, political and downright disrespectful towards former Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Said Musa. The only thing missing was his red shirt (some

say it was tucked under his military fatigue).

Did we hear right when Flowers said he that he will not watch over a unit that practices any degrading, inhumane, illegal, out of order performance… hmmm…he must have spoken too fast.

Reliable information to us is that Flowers didn’t just watch but actually led some ruthless tactics in a recent secret GSU raid in Lemonal village a few days ago. Say it ain’t so Mr. GSU. We are told that the Gang Unit stoned down a resident’s door with a cement block to access her house…yes the same kind of cement block Education Minister Patrick Faber used to leave a violent statement on his estranged wife’s vehicle some weeks ago.

While we still can’t comprehend how Flowers misinterpreted what the former PM was saying about the GSU, Flowers totally lost us when uttered “whatever I have said is what I have said. What had to be said is what is said”. Let’s just say Flowers has said enough…and his actions say even much more. ……………….

Can someone tell Boots that he can’t paint all the buildings and apartments he suddenly owns in Belize City and Belmopan the same colour and not expect Belizeans not to know something fishy is going on?? We are not fools.

Can someone also tell the FIU that they need to investigate Boots? How many pool tables must Boots sells per week to own all that property? At the rate buildings have gone up since he became area rep for one of the poorest areas in the country, Boots must come clean about his sources of income. He got Port residents singing…. “from roots to fruits, but dah only fi Boots”. ……………….

She’s done it again! The Queen B of Belize has once again found a way to feature her special, elite image on television. Listen Queen B…we all know that you live the life of the rich and the famous. We all know you think you are a celebrity, that you prefer international tabloids at any cost and you dress to impress. But please stop dissing us common Belizeans with your glitterati infomercials. It’s already enough to tolerate one of you royals on a regular basis.

Keep your adventures to yourself please, especially when they are at the expense of our much needed resources. Imagine how many turtles and dolphins Oceana could have saved with that money. At least Laura had the cojones (as Zenaida would say) to call things as they were and take a stand at BTB. ……………….

Prime Minister Dean Barrow has switched from his luxury Land Cruiser to a brand new late model GMC Envoy SUV. Word on the street is that the new vehicle comes fully loaded and even has bullet proof features. Now why would the PM’s vehicle need to be bullet proof? What is he afraid of?

Never has any Prime Minister had to boost up it security as Dean Barrow has. Anywhere he moves he does with 3-4 special branch bodyguards. His home has a security guard inside and outside. Now he gets a bullet proof ride?? It’s certainly a chilling sign of the times. Yet the say crime is down….tell we dah no soh.

09 9 JOKE OF THE WEEK! The GSU Boss visits a farm in Camalote and talks with the owner, an old farmer.

He tells the farmer, “I need to inspect your property for weapons and illegally grown drugs.”

The old farmer says, “Okay, but make sure you don’t go in that field over there.”

The officer verbally explodes saying, “Mister, I have the authority of the Government with me.”

Reaching into his rear pants pocket and removing his badge, the officer proudly displays it to the farmer.

“See this badge? This badge means I am allowed to go wherever I wish on any land.

There is nothing to stop me - this badge gives me the right.

No questions asked or answers given. Have I made myself clear? Do you understand?”

The farmer nods politely and goes about his chores. Within minutes, the farmer hears loud screams and sees the officer running for his life. Close behind is the farmer’s bull.

With every step the bull is gaining ground on the officer.

The officer is clearly terrified. The old farmer immediately throws down his tools, runs to the fence and yells at the top of his lungs...

“Your badge! Show him your badge!!!!!!”

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THE BELIZE TIMES

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THE BELIZE TIMES

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THE BELIZE TIMES 2014

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THE BELIZE TIMES

2014 September Celebrations Message

By Dr. Oliver Ottley District Superintendent Emeritus, Church of the Nazarene Righteousness exalts a nation . . . (Prov. 14:34).

Our September Celebrations remind us of who we are historically.

The dynamics and vicissitudes of life are what history is made up of; but fraudulent history can make us what we are not supposed to be.

We celebrate the Battle of St. George’s Caye on the 10th, and our Independence on the 21st. Earlier on we feared that the controversial narrative of 1798 was too divisive to carry into our Independence, but we still celebrate the Anniversary of the Battle of St. George’s Caye, seemingly with little or no fuss. Perhaps it was the behaviour and attitude of some of us that warranted caution. Be that as it may, one thing seems logical; there would not be - there could not be the Belize we now know if there was not something militarily decisive on September 10, 1798. We still sing: “Our

fathers, the Baymen, valiant and bold, drove back the invaders, this heritage hold...” Whatever it was, and however it was, there need not be any divisiveness among a people who have achieved their Independence through a “Peaceful, Constructive, Belizean Revolution.”

Remember that righteousness exalts a nation; God’s righteousness; not “Human Rights.” December 10, 1948 was the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Coined from the terrible experiences of World War II, that document sounded like a soothing symphony to the soul of a wounded world; as were the “Appropriate Remarks” at Gettysburg following the devastating American Civil War of 1861-1865, albeit of a far lesser magnitude than a world war. One important difference between the Gettysburg Address 1863 and the UN Declaration of Human Rights

1948, however, was the inclusion of two words in Lincoln’s Address: “under God.” Nothing like that was included in the title, preamble, or any of the articles of the Human Rights document. Nevertheless, the proclamation was like the prescription of a medication for a sick world, but with little or no thought of the dangerous side effects.

In 1970, I was guest for a preaching ministry in some of our churches in the United States and I visited the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. I joined with others on a guided tour through the various parts of that large and complex facility. At one point we arrived at what is called the Meditation Room. Surprisingly, it was a very small room. If my memory serves me well, it was in the shape of an isosceles triangle; only a few of us could go in at a time.

On the floor was an oval spot of

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2014 light projected diagonally from the ceiling. Nearby was a sign which said in substance, and in different languages, “Here you may meditate on the god of your persuasion.”

The spot of light on the floor was supposed to represent the god of one’s persuasion. Yes, we are created as free moral agents, but choices have consequences, and God in Christ has graciously provided for us the way of His righteousness.

Fellow Belizeans, the Preamble of our Constitution acknowledges the supremacy of God. Be our ethnicity African, Asian, European, Indian, Mayan or Mestizo (alphabetically listed), or a mixture of any or many, may the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ be the God of OUR persuasion as we celebrate the history of this land which His goodness gave to us; and let us remember that Righteousness (His righteousness) exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people (Proverbs 14:34). [Emphasis added] HAPPY SEPTEMBER CELEBRATIONS! HAPPY ST. GEORGE’S CAYE DAY! HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! GOD BLESS OUR BELIZE! GOD BLESS US ALL!

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OUT Diaspora: Love don’t live here anymore Continued from page 2 is not as vulnerable to external shocks as say sugar, citrus, bananas and oil. The likelihood of the $72.2 million in remittances evaporating is highly unlikely because as I said before, remittances are a personal undertaking. People are not going to stop sending money to their families simply because they cannot run for office whilst holding two passports or because they cannot vote by proxy in New York or LA. So if you discount remittances, what else is the Diaspora doing for Belize? Not much else quite honestly. Let me therefore make one suggestion on how they can help.

At the forefront of Belize’s national interest must be Guatemala’s unfounded claim and the strategic risks posed thereby. How does this reconcile with the Diaspora’s interest? Does the interest of the homeland converge or diverge from the interest of the Diaspora?

If we take the position that this is the one issue that unites us as Belizeans then I must ask: what has the Diaspora done for Belize in terms of the Guatemala issue?

The answer is simple. Nothing! This is so because as I have asserted, and William Adderley, Muriel Liang-Arthurs, Bilal Morris and others have agreed, the Diaspora is disorganized. It is precisely because the Diaspora is disorganized that they have not been able to use their collective strength to make the unfounded Guatemalan claim a political issue in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and other places where we have “bulk”, to use Kremandala’s term.

If the Diaspora was organized, it would be that one could not count on the Belizean vote in the United States (where there is Belizean “bulk”) if one did not first tell the Diaspora how one will treat the Guatemalan issue. Their Congressman should have heard about the unfounded claim, the eastward drift, the rape of the Chiquibul, etc, before they gave him their vote! But he did not, did he?

To provide some perspective, let us look briefly at three of the most powerful political lobbies in the United States: the Mexican, Cuban and Israeli lobbies. Together these three groups have a profound impact on US policy both domestic and foreign.

If one wishes to hold high political office in any of the Border States in the United States, one must clearly define one’s position on the issues that are important to Mexican-Americans: issues such as labour reform, immigration, social services, education, etc. Over the last decade, the Mexican lobby has become so powerful, it is now able to influence elections deep in the US mid-western region. And no President comes

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THE BELIZE TIMES to office without addressing the “Hispanic Agenda”.

In Florida, a key state for any Presidential election, one cannot come to elected office without considering the issues of importance to Cuban-Americans: the embargo, democracy, “human rights”, travel to and from Cuba, remittances, etc. Currently Florida’s Cuban-Americans hold four seats in the US Congress—one of two Senate seats (50%) and three of twenty-seven House seats (~11%).

And then there is the granddaddy of them all: the Israeli lobby! So powerful is the Israeli lobby that Israel has become the largest recipient of US foreign aid. In 2013, the United States gave Israel more than $3.1 billion, mostly in military aid. Through their political influence in Washington, the Israelis were allowed to develop nuclear weapons, violate countless UN Resolutions with impunity and, as we saw in recent weeks, massacre hundreds of innocent Palestinians with

OUT In Search of True Justice at Immigration Department Continued from page 2 port even though it contains damning evidence on the Won Hong Kim case. It would be interesting if the independent media compares the preliminary Audit report with the Immigration report. The revelations will indeed stop the propaganda being carried out by certain media houses. The Director’s report posed serious questions to two senior Immigration staff members on the reason why the Won Hong Kim file was submitted to the Minister of State for signature without her vetting the file and also requested for a response on the Won Hong Kim case; these two Officers hired an attorney to protect themselves from answering to serious charges that could have possibly lead to some arrests. The Officers’ defiance is truly an act of blatant disrespect and disregard to Authority and to the Belizean people. Up to this date these Officers are still working in the same section of the Department.

Ms. Maria Marin, Director of Immigration and a former teacher with an impeccable character, is well known among the San Ignacio and teaching Community for the good values she taught her students. The wrongful accusations and defamation of character against the Director is unmerited and completely out of order. In fairness to the Director, the Ministers of Government and the entire Immigration staff, are fully aware that Ms. Marin is a person with high integrity and principles

nary a sound from Washington. Therese Belisle Nweke, not so long ago, provided great insights into the power of the Israeli lobby.

Whereas the Cuban and Israeli Diaspora seem more focused on shaping US foreign policy, the Mexicans seem more focused on shaping US domestic policy as it relates to their quality of life in the United States. I encourage the Diaspora to become more like the Cubans and the Israelis: make Guatemala’s unfounded claim a political issue where we have “bulk” in the United States.

All over the world there are Diaspora lobbies driving their interests and those of their homeland. In fact in Belize we have the Taiwanese Diaspora and from mere observation they appear to be better organized than the Belizean Diaspora in the United States. The Taiwanese’s economic prowess and the political influence they have derived from it, have allowed them to influence both Belize’s domestic and foreign policies; much to the chagrin of many.

who knowingly would never allow corruption under her watch. Since Ms. Marin took over the Department in early 2013, documents were and continue to be heavily scrutinized before they are processed. This did not sit well for certain individuals, hence began the devious plan in circumventing the processing of documents which was carried out by unscrupulous persons in trusted positions. The failure to follow processes was allegedly done by the Minister of State in collusion with Immigration Officers of selected sections of the Department. The corruption was done, as we say, through the backdoor (illegal) and not through the official Immigration Office. It is noteworthy to point out that Director Maria Marin was on vacation leave during the period Won Hong Kim was issued with a Belize Passport. There is much more information to unravel, but time will tell on the innocence of Ms. Marin who is trying her utmost best to run a very troubled Department.

I end by challenging the media houses to not satisfy with just reporting stories to the nation, but to contribute to meaningful changes by advocating for the 13th Senator and a Commission of Inquiry by the Senate, in the Immigration irregularities. The Unions must continue to agitate for a Whistleblower Act to enable Public Officers to speak of any wrongdoing committed by Government Ministers or any Public Official. Until this is done, we as a nation will not see any positive changes and things will only get worse. Belizeans, it is time to awake from the slumber and once again take the reins and steer our Country in the right direction.

Signed, A concerned Belizean (Kindly do not published my name for fear of being victimized) Editor’s Note: We agreed to publish this letter in fairness to the Director of Immigration, Maria Marin, whose name has been called in the Immigration scandal. We have also challenged the author of this letter to provide us the evidence alluded to if he/she is truly in search of justice.

I wish to say once more that I too would like to see a more organized Diaspora oriented towards Belize. I too believe that the Diaspora can play a constructive role in Belize’s development. I just have a problem with the sense of entitlement that some in the Diaspora seem to have developed. Belize did not give up on them, it was they who left. The good thing is that the Fat Lady has not yet taken the stage, though I suspect the DJ may have already cued her favourite song: “love don’t live here anymore”.

Signed: Major Lloyd Jones (R)

OUT Some are more equal than others at the Ministry of Education Continued from page 2 someone work for the Ministry of education but not be accountable to their rules? The Ministry has never once answered this question, but quietly looks for ways to remove teachers who won’t question their authority. If you as a teacher have lost your job because of non-compliance with the Education Act of 2010 or the subsequent rules we implore you to seek legal advice in getting back your job on the grounds the rules are enforced only for some and therefore is not law. How can an education system have teachers that are more qualified than its leadership?

We are asking for the media not to shine a light and then go away, we are asking that the brightest light possible be shone on this until the problem is solved. Good teachers are considering leaving this institution, which has not advanced a single step in seven years due to negligent leadership. ITVET has become the joke of Toledo and not one teacher or member of administration would consider sending their child there, so why should you?

ITVET has potential but not with this leadership in place. The Ministry of Education and the Board of Governance has refused to answer our requests for a resolution and closure in this matter. To date the Manager still feels he has done nothing wrong but all instructors are wrong including the multitudes that left because of these same reasons. If you want verification of how ITVET Toledo is looked at just asked people in the community, past students, instructors who left, partners in in job training about the complete lack of professionalism and integrity in this school due to lack of leadership.

Any positive comments you will hear are about the quality of the teachers and not the administration and leadership of this school.

Signed: Concerned instructor

20 Ex US Governor Found Guilty of Public Corruption

By TRIP GABRIELSEPT. 4, 2014 RICHMOND, Va. — Former Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia and his wife, Maureen, were convicted of corruption in federal court Thursday, following a trial that halted the political ascent of the onetime Republican star and peeled back the couple’s private life to the bone.

As 11 counts of “guilty” were pronounced on counts of conspiracy, bribery and extortion for Mr. McDonnell, he covered his face with his hands and his head fell nearly to the defense table. His wife, convicted on eight counts, looked straight ahead. There were sobs from the seats behind the couple that included their five adult children.

The 7-man, 5-woman jury returned its findings on its third day of deliberations in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The McDonnells were acquitted of lesser charges of making false statements on loan applications. Ms. McDonnell was convicted on a charge she alone faced, of obstructing a grand jury investigation by trying to make a gift of $20,000 worth of designer dresses and shoes appear to have been a loan. .

The McDonnells were indicted on 14 counts of conspiracy, bribery, extortion and related charges stemming from what prosecutors said was a scheme to sell the office of governor, which Mr. McDonnell occupied through January this year, for $177,000 in gifts and cash from a dietary supplements executive.

While other governors around the country have faced corruption charges in recent years, none of the cases unfolded in the national glare like the McDonnell melodrama, largely because the former governor was a rising Republican star, whose unexpected defense was that his picture-perfect marriage was, in fact, Photoshopped.

Mr. McDonnell, who carried his wife over the threshold of the Executive Mansion the day of his inauguration, portrayed her in his testimony as a harridan whose yelling left him “spiritually and mentally exhausted,” and who was so cold that after he sent her an email pleading to save their marriage, she did not reply.

The defense used the demeaning portrait to argue that the McDonnells were too estranged to conspire criminally to trade favors with the vitamin executive, Jonnie R. Williams Sr. The jury, which began deliberating at midday Tuesday after hearing from 67 witnesses over five weeks, had the difficult task of deciding whether gifts from Mr. Williams and Mr. McDonnell’s actions on his behalf over two years added up to bribery and extortion.

At issue was whether the McDonnells accepted the largess with corrupt intent. They were not forbidden under Virginia ethics laws from taking the $120,000 in undocumented loans from Mr. Williams, nor the goodies he bestowed – a custom golf bag and Rolex for the governor, Armani dresses for the first lady, a $15,000 check for their daughter’s wedding at a time the first couple owed $31,000 on their credit cards and were hemorrhaging money on beachfront property.

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THE BELIZE TIMES

and pontificates about his infrastructure projects and points to them as his crowning achievements. In fact, it is his only achievement; unless we count the mishandled misappropriation of our utility companies which still hangs in uncertainty before the courts and which at the very least, will have to compensated for. But who is really funding this “massive infrastructure”?

Venezuela does not give us cash money; it gives us fuel at low cost. The government then resells that fuel at asthe World Bank’s figures, 70% of the contronomically high prices to the citizens sumption basket of one poor inhabitant is of this country. Government officials spent on food and energy.” The Petro Cariand high ranking UDP cronies do not be initiative allows participating countries buy gas; they get it free on vouchers to purchase Venezuelan fuel at half the which taxpayers eventually have to pay world prices and get up to 25 years to pay for. The poor people of Belize; the taxi off the rest of the bill. It is, in effect a loan, drivers, bus operators and regular Joe albeit at a rather attractive interest rate and Jane are the ones actually funding of 2%. There have been rumors swirling these projects. that this rate will eventually be doubled, or Sources within Venezuela have worse, which will spell major trouble for been complaining that, “not only has a country like Belize, so already deeply in provision not been made to repay the the hole. debt, but the loan component of the oil While Prime Minister Barrow has price has not been used for the social described Petro Caribe as “another arprograms for which Chávez intended row in our quiver”, Sir Ronald thinks that it.” In Belize, Petro Caribe is used to it could just as well serve as “another nail purchase political mileage; miles and in our coffin.” The death of Hugo Chavez miles of concrete political mileage. Hugo Chavez must be turning in his grave.

The Prime Minister continuously harps and pontifDeveloping conditions in Venezuela will inevitably bring icates about his infrastructure projects and points an end to the Petro Caribe to them as his crowning achievements. In fact, it is “free ticket” which is anything but free. Their inflation index his only achievement; unless we count the stands at 56 per cent and ratmishandled misappropriation of our utility ing agencies like Moody’s and companies which still hangs in uncertainStandard & Poor’s have downgraded Venezuelan bonds to ty before the courts and which at the very junk status. The “strong bolileast, will have to compensated for var” (so renamed by Chávez), has weakened steeply against the US dollar and on the black market dubitably a loan, has this matter not gone in March of last year has left a huge veil Venezuela’s money has dropped in valbefore the House? Are we missing someof uncertainty hanging over the Petro Caue from 8 to 1 a year ago to 87 to 1 at thing here? ribe initiative. Chavez’s successor Nicolas last check.

The Prime Minister does not “think Maduro has had anything but a smooth Prime Minister Dean Barrow it much matters except perhaps just to reign and while he has pledged to continwould do well to heed Sir Sander’s ensure that we are in strict and faithful ue Chavez’s social agenda, the challenge warning and “be prudent by beginning compliance with our regulatory requireto do so becomes increasingly difficult to adjust (his) budgets to take account ments”.Well sir, that’s a big enough matter with every passing day. of the loss of benefits now derived wouldn’t you say? You, who for ten years Sir Ronald warns that “Two events from the oil arrangement.” Knowing railed against many less significant and are playing out in Venezuela to which vigithis Prime Minister however, his hubris minor “unfaithful compliance, ” cannot suglant officials in ministries of finance in Cawill not allow and his pride must goeth gest that “it does not matter”! With all due ribbean countries should be alert. The first before our destruction and his haughty respect, you are “just wrong”! is the problematic state of the Venezuelan spirit before our fall. Heaven help us all!

The Prime Minister continuously harps Government’s finances, and the other is

Reid Has Barrow turned PetroCaribe Gift into Curse?

By G. Michael Reid “The amount of the debt owed to Venezuela by many Caribbean countries is shrouded in secrecy because the process of dealing with Petro Caribe has not been transparent. ….The beneficiary Caribbean governments have much for which to thank Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, but they would be imprudent if they did not now begin to make adjustments to their budgets for a transition from dependence on Petro Caribe to buying oil on the international market.”

“They would be sensible to approach the Caribbean Development Bank for technical advice on how to alter their financial circumstances to make the transition and to propose ways in which such a transition could be accomplished with the least amount of inevitable pain — pain which would be more desirable than calamity.”

The above is the opening and closing paragraphs of an article written by Sir Ronald Sanders that was published in the Jamaica Observer in February of this year. Sir Sanders is a consultant, senior research fellow at London University and a former Caribbean diplomat. Under the title “Petro Caribe: Are Caribbean countries prepared for the worst?” the article delves into the intricate and mostly ignored facts about this novel and noble initiative from the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

In an impromptu interview conducted with Prime Minister Barrow last Friday, Jules Vasquez finally broke the silence and broached the topic of Petro Caribe. The silence has been long and deafening as it relates to this vital stitch in our country’s delicate economic tapestry. With declining oil revenues, a citrus industry threatened by “greening” and a sugar industry facing imminent and potentially devastating uncertainty, Belize’s economy is more than ever, dependent on Venezuela’s boon. Sir Ronald issues a sober and apposite warning.

Belize is one of twenty countries currently benefitting from the Petro Caribe initiative; “all of them representatives of the so-called Third World, that part of the planet where, according to

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the increasing confrontation between dissenting groups and the Government that has spurred violence in the streets”. According to Sir Ronald, Madura might eventually be forced to choose between hanging onto Chavez’s ideals and preserving his own political fortunes. So far, he has been maintaining balance but it is a slender and unstable tightrope upon which he traipses.

Here in Belize, our government has been benefitting handsomely. Where has the money been going though, and are the terms of the initiative being fulfilled?

How much of a debt have we racked up and should GOD forbid, this initiative collapses, what will be our chances of transitioning? The government of Jamaica has proclaimed its debt to Petro Caribe at US$2.5 billion. We know that Belize’s debt is well into the hundreds of millions and this brings us to the question asked of the Prime Minister last Friday. The Finance and Audit Act of 2005 requires that “Any loans or borrowings by Government of or above ten million dollars “shall” only be validly entered into pursuant to a resolution of the House of Representatives and the Senate authorizing the Government to do so”.Why then, with us being well into the hundreds of millions of dollars, of this which is in-

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THE BELIZE TIMES

In my perspective What We Need in Belize is Opportunity!

By Rayford Young As I was thinking about this articlOn my last trip to Belize just a couple months ago, I had some friends over one evening just to chat and eat some Belizean food. The evening was going well then I said something that made one of my guests make a strange face and I knew I was in trouble. I was there for three weeks but I said I was ready to go back home after only being in Belize for two weeks. Her facial expression said it all and shortly thereafter she came back to what I had said and these were her comments: “You were born here, you grew up here, this is your home.

Why after two weeks you want to go back to the USA? Don’t you like your Country anymore?” Fair question. I would say and I do have an answer in one word, “Opportunity”.

I was born in Corozal and raised up in Libertad at the sugar factory.

My dad was the chief engineer there and my sister and I lived in Corozal weekdays to go to school. At that time things were about equal between the Black and Spanish races.

Everyone got along nicely - no racial problems at all. Today, Corozal is totally different. It’s almost all Spanish people, which is not a problem because most of the Black people I knew and grew up with moved to the USA or have passed away.

I was seventeen years old when I went to Los Angeles, California and the place was swamped with Belizeans. Today a large number of Belizeans still live in L.A., but also New York, Chicago and Texas. Coming from Corozal to L.A. was like a shock - wide paved streets, traffic lights everywhere, big buses up and down the streets. People were always in a hurry going who knows where. Big, tall buildings and Hollywood was just a short bus ride away. Wow! This kid was over his head. Never seen anything like this before. I still remember my first job on Hollywood Boulevard at an apartment building named “The Hollywood House”. I kept the place clean, vacuumed the hallways daily, emptied the trash, cleaned out empty apartments, etc. Not hard work but the owners loved me. I was paid $8.00 an hour - that’s $16.00BZ. I made $320.00 a week. After taxes I brought home about $275.00.

That little paycheck allowed me to eventually get my own room and later a used car. By the time I left I was making $10.00 an hour.

I did not have a formal education when I came to the USA. I had just finished primary school but yet I was able to earn some money that allowed me to be on my own. I was what was called at that time a wet back because I overstayed my visa and was in the Country illegally. Then President Reagan was elected and he implemented an amnesty program for people like me who overstayed their visas. I applied and got my green card and ten years later I became a citizen of the USA. This is what the USA offers people from all walks of life: opportunity. It doesn’t matter your circumstances, if you work hard you can become something in life.

My Country of birth Belize is a wonderful place waiting to be developed and offer opportunities to its citizens. Since Independence thirty years ago the Country has made progress but unfortunately we still lag behind in some basic things. We just now provide high speed internet to the regular people and for some it’s still unaffordable. We didn’t have Skype until lately which has been available to most of the world for years. Our infrastructure needs upgrading and we need more businesses that pay a living wage.

The friends that were visiting me also said that all their jobs were given to them by a government minister. It didn’t matter if they were qualified or not. It’s who you know in Belize, not your qualifications or experience. I’ve heard so many business people say they cannot express themselves publicly or let it be known which party they are affiliated with or their contracts or jobs will be taken away. One junior Minister said “UDP first, Belize second and PUP last”. How can a country grow and prosper with Ministers thinking this way? PUP people pay taxes too. You are elected to serve all the people not just the people that voted for you.

Over the years I’ve been out of a job but not once I ever considered approaching a government official for a job and no one

I know works for the government.

The opportunities in the USA in the private sector are too great to consider a government job.

Any country that the government is the main employer will not prosper. Government as a whole doesn’t do much well because the employees don’t have a stake in anything they do. The private sector is what drives a country’s economy, not the government.

What government can do is provide opportunities for investors to invest in your country and provide good paying jobs for the Citizens.

So my answer to my friend’s question is very simple. The USA is my home and the wages I make in the USA I could never make in Belize. There are not enough opportunities in Belize. Then there’s too much government in people’s lives. Politicians decide if you get a job whether you are qualified or not. They decide who eats or who starves. We need to find a way to attract big and small businesses to our shores. We are two hours from the USA. We should have big corporations headquartered here.

We have so much to offer but for some reason they stay away. I think it has to do with politics and a government that is corrupt and incompetent.

2014 So, those are some of the reasons many Belizeans including myself come visit Belize but won’t return to live or retire here, and it’s a shame. I drive around Belize City and the conditions people live in make me sick. People living in huts.

I saw one house which had one stick in front and one in the back to hold up the house. It is shameful people are living in these conditions. People are working harder and longer but falling behind while the politicians prosper and are living large on the backs of the working poor. If the conditions were different many Belizeans would love to come back home but I for one will not beg a politician for a hand out or be silent in fear of losing a job.

Finally, we the people are to be blamed for the condition of our country. We keep electing the same people into office. We hold none of the politicians accountable for their wrongdoing especially what this administration has engaged in.

Until we stop talking crap and band together and demand respect and accountability, nothing will change and that’s sad indeed. .Rayford Young is a Belizean-American, who currently lives in Michigan, U.S.A. Send comments to rayfordyoung@comcast.net

PUBLIC AUCTION SALE

BY ORDER OF THE CHARGEE HOLY REDEEMER CREDIT UNION LIMITED, a Licensed Public Auctioneer will sell the following property at the place and time listed.

At the Parking Lot across the street from the office of Holy Redeemer Credit Union Limited, No. 1 Hyde’s Lane, Belize City on Wednesday August 27, 2014 at 10:00a.m.

ALL THAT piece or parcel of land comprising 488.9 square yards being Parcel 814, Block 45 in the King’s Park Registration Section situate at No. 23 Baymen Avenue, Belize City, Belize District, TOGETHER with all buildings and erections standing and being thereon, the freehold property of RICHARD HOARE (Deceased).

DATED this 11th day of August 2014 All sales are strictly cash and deemed final. For more information contact: HOLY REDEEMER CREDIT UNION LIMITED 1 HYDE’S LANE, BELIZE CITY, BELIZE Phone: (501) 224-5644 Fax: (501) 223-0738

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Home Economics The Need for Overhauling Home Mortgage Financing

By Richard Harrison Thousands of Belizean families are still living in sub-standard housing… many in “casas de carton” type dwellings…that slowly descend into ghettos, with several generations piled up one on top of the other.

There is need for a complete rethinking and reformulating of the mortgage financing regime, in order to address this challenge. The existing formula was drafted in the 1960-70s period, and is based on 15% per annum, 15-year-term…with huge advantages in the contracts to financial institutions, including foreclosure rights that give financial institutions complete sway over the assets that back the mortgage.

The World Bank estimated that life expectancy in Belize in 1960 was 59 years…and that by 2012 it had increased to 73…an increase of 14 years, or 23.7%.

In Mexico, the average effective retirement age is 72, while the official retirement age is 65. In the USA, these are 65 and 67 respectively. For France, workers can retire at age 60, with 41.5 years of contributions; for Greece, at 59 with 37 years of contributions. (OECD) To qualify for retirement pension from Belize Social Security, one must be 60-64 and not substantially employed, or over the age of 65…with total of 500 paid and credited contributions…or 9.61 years.

In 1970, the population of Belize was 119,900…today it is around 350,000.

GDP per capita in Belize in 1970 was 206 US dollars, ranked 138th in the world and was on par with GDP per capita in Nigeria (206 US dollars). GDP per capita in Belize was less, than GDP per capita in the World (910 US dollars) by 704 US dollars.

GDP per capita in Belize in 2012 was equal to 4795 US dollars, ranked 116th in the world and was on par with GDP per capita in Iraq (4557 US dollars).

GDP per capita in Belize was less than GDP per capita in the World (10269 US dollars) by 5474 US dollars.

In 1970, the economy of Belize depended on chicle and timber exports, with very little domestic manufacturing. Today, Belize has a much more diversified economy, with a firm grasp of a growing tourism, one of the fastest growing industries in the world, forecast to grow even more as millions across the globe come out of poverty.

The World Bank provides data for Belize’s external debt to GNP ratio from 1971 to 2011. The average value for Belize during that period was 52.48 percent with a minimum of 4.56 percent in 1975 and a maximum of 104.49 percent in 2008. This is the biggest eyesore in Belize’s economic profile.

Surely, these figures show that Belize’s economy is not what it used to be in the 1970s, and that the level of risk to financial institutions are far below what they used to be. At that time Belize was still a colony of Great Britain, and the economy was largely in favor

of big landlords, who exacted relatively high rents on their large stocks of rental properties.

The commercial banks’ terms and conditions for mortgages remain in large part as they used to be in the 1970s - high interest rates of 15% p.a., and short 15-year term, exercising direct rights over the assets that back the mortgages, including complete sway over foreclosure conditions, process and procedures, without need for clearance by a court of law…and they prefer to maintain the stringent terms and conditions on home mortgages, largely because they are not regulated by the Central Bank of Belize in this regard. They are taking big margins on rapid turnover of a relatively small pool of capital.

Some efforts have been made by various Belize governments to try to address this challenge…and to provide for more and better housing to be made available to a wider range of families… mostly with public sector interventions (such as the 1998-2005 securitization of home mortgages to raise debts to finance new homes, and the more recent National Bank of Belize effort at providing lower interest rates in an attempt to “influence” the commercial bank rate. Yet no government has, based on demand from the people, mounted a substantial challenge to this status quo.

They pretty much refrain from using their right to regulate the financial market…leaving them to “self-regulate”… even as the population has soared with greater demand for housing, even while excess liquidity in the financial system continues to pile up. Perhaps they are scared that the commercial banks would not want to work under a more regulated environment, and may choose to pick up their stuff and leave?

There is need for consolidation among their ranks.

The rest of the civilized world is financing mortgages at under 7% per annum, over 25-30 year terms.

While there has been a dip in the average mortgage rate to around 12% p.a. since the 2008 world financial crisis forced lending rates to near 0%, the term has steadfastly remained at 15 years.

RECOMMENDATIONS 1. A comprehensive study of the demand for housing in Belize should be conducted, to develop credible estimates of the demand for housing by the various income-categories, establishing realistic monthly payments that can allow all working Belizeans to afford an appropriate home, with minimum living-conditions-criteria based on that monthly home mortgage payments should not exceed 25% of family income. This complete study should become public information, and widely circulated.

2. A home-mortgage financing and refinancing summit should be called for by the unions, government, private sector and financial institutions…with presenters invited from such regional

housing institutions such as INFONAVIT of Mexico, to learn from others experiences…and from development financial institutions such as IIC of the IABD and IFC of the World Bank to explain how they can work in Belize.

This would allow an opportunity for all parties to bring their observations, analysis, conclusions and recommendations to the table….to fully flesh out the housing challenge that Belize faces, and the concerns of the various actors in the marketplace, with a view to arriving at a consensus for change.

The current formula/regime is certainly not working for too many Belizeans.

There is an age-old Spanish saying “hablando se entiende”…“by talking there is understanding”. We should aim for a mortgage formula of 6.25% p.a., 25-30 year term, which works in favor of borrowers and lenders. Home owners should have recourse in a court of law to challenge foreclosure rights of banks, where if they can show ability to pay under a reasonable refinancing schedule, the banks should be required by law to work with them. This new formula would allow at least 3,000 additional entrants per year into the market for new and improved homes valued at an average of $65,000…increasing financing demand for an additional $200 million investment each year…and creating more than 6,000 full-time employment.

3. Appropriate legal, institutional and other measures must be taken to allow for our domestic mortgage financial market to be linked to regional and international development finance institutions (private sector arm)….such a CABEI, CDB, IADB/IIC, World Bank/ IFC….so that the local commercial banks can access concessionary funding in the appropriate scale, indexed especially for financing mortgages to the lower and middle income segment, which is their duty to the people of Belize.

4. The National Bank of Belize should be “offered for sale” for $1 to all workers of Belize, so that workers who voluntarily commit to depositing 5% of their weekly salaries direct from source become owners of The Workers Bank of Belize, a completely private institution. This will immediately develop a large pool of resources for on-lending to shareholders, and should allow for inclusion of diaspora Belizeans. The government should commit to transferring, by way of grant, the appropriate amount of lands to this bank to provide for 30,000 residential lots measuring 100’x100’, plus for infrastructure, recreation and green spaces….to prevent the formation of high-density ghetto scenarios that we see developing in Belize with the congested 50’x75’ residential plot concept. These properties and the 5% cash-flow from committed deposits can serve as collateral for this private institution to borrow funds on a sustainable basis from the development financial institutions (private

arm) at concessionary rates…providing for access to the necessary capital without increasing the sovereign debt.

100,000 voluntary workers, earning an average of $225 per week, would deposit $58.5 million into this pool annually. This kind of commitment, along with government’s commitment to grant the lands, will bring the whole world development financing community attention and interest in working with us. When the banks finance a home for one of its shareholders, it comes along with the land title, so that all the red tape in the lands department application and approval process is avoided.

5. Currently, 90% of the non-labor cost of home construction is imported, sending most of the money invested in homes abroad. This has to be significantly lowered, by providing for the development of clay brick and roof tiles to be locally manufactured at a cost equal to or lower than cement blocks and zinc roofing, respectively.

Some reserves and protected areas may need to be de-reserved to allow for more production of timber for roofing and furnishing the homes. A $2 million proof-of-concept project should get underway immediately, by inviting bids to private clay brick makers and housing contractors, with the objective of developing good quality, hurricane resistant homes, with optimal reduction of imported materials as a percentage of total cost…while developing standards for managing component costs, including labor.

6. Since this will significantly increase the market base for insurance services, while reducing the overall risk, negotiations should begin immediately with insurance providers to figure out a way how to reduce the insurance premiums to around half of what they are currently.

7. Government needs to rethink its taxes on property for low-middle-income housing, reducing it to optimal levels, and recoup the loss by increasing taxes on large land speculators.

8. The Workers Bank of Belize would be in a strong position to negotiate with outfits that provide credit for furnishings to their members, such as Courts, to significantly reduce the interest they charge…especially if the bank can find a way to provide some sort of risk reduction to these companies. It, for sure, would be developing a much larger captured market for the products and services these companies offer.

Richard Harrison is a local businessman and investor in the manufacturing and service industries. Mr. Harrison holds a Masters in Business Administration degree from Lancaster University, United Kingdom. Send comments to harrisonbz@yahoo.com

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THE BELIZE TIMES

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2014

KWIKWAY HOLDING LIMITED # 72,239

(“the Company”)

Pursuant to Section 102(4) of the International Business Companies Act, Chapter 270 of the Laws of Belize, Revised Edition 2000, notice is hereby given that KWIKWAY HOLDING LIMITED: a) is in dissolution b) commenced dissolution on the 29th day of August, 2014; and c) Cititrust International Inc. whose address is 35 Barrack Road, Third Floor, Belize City, Belize is the Liquidator of the Company Cititrust International Limited Registered Agent

Estella Ltd. # 82,591 (“the Company”)

Pursuant to Section 102(8) of the International Business Companies Act, Chapter 270 of the Laws of Belize, Revised Edition 2000, notice is hereby given that Estella Ltd. has been dissolved as at 30th August, 2014 and has been struck off the Register of International Business Companies.

Cititrust International Limited Registered Agent

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7 SEP

THE BELIZE TIMES

2014

Petro Caribe: Are Caribbean

countries prepared for the worst?

By Sir Ronald Sanders Caribbean governments that are members of the Petro Caribe Agreement with Venezuela would be prudent by beginning to adjust their budgets to take account of the loss of benefits now derived from the oil arrangement. This is especially important for the countries of the Eastern Caribbean that appear to have made little provision for the possibility that the arrangements with Venezuela could end abruptly.

Two events are playing-out in Venezuela to which vigilant officials in Ministries of Finance in Caribbean countries should be alert. The first is the problematic state of the Venezuelan government’s finances and the other is the increasing confrontation between dissenting groups and the government that has spurred violence in the streets.

Venezuela’s economic conditions make it tough for President Nicolás Maduro to continue the largesse of Petro Caribe started by his predecessor Hugo Chávez. Inflation is now at 56 per cent; the government’s budget deficit is almost 50 per cent; the rating agencies, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, have downgraded Venezuelan bonds to junk status; and the bolivar fuerte (the “strong bolivar” so re-named by Chávez) has weakened steeply against the U.S. dollar - on the black market its value dropped from roughly 8 to 1 a year ago to 87 to 1 now; additionally, while in the Chávez years poverty declined and access to health care increased, today there are real food shortages across the country – the food shortages have a worse effect on the poor who, unlike the better-off, cannot afford to pay to circumvent normal food distribution chains.

The declining value of the Venezuelan bolivar and the foreign currency restrictions that the government has imposed have also angered the Venezuelan diaspora who find it difficult to get US dollars out of the country. This led to a demonstration

by disgruntled Venezuelans outside the Embassy in Barbados on February 17 when charges of human rights violations by the Maduro government were also made.

Venezuela also has debt obligations it must service. For example, reports indicate that the government and the state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) signed loan agreements with China amounting to US$49.5 billion for the period 20072013. Of that sum only US$20 billion or less than half - has been repaid in oil supplies.

These economic conditions make it difficult for Maduro, with the best will in the world, to continue the Petro Caribe arrangements as they are. His government needs to address its crucial fiscal problems as well as the performance issues that confront PDVSA which has been the source of financing not only for the social transformation measures under Chávez, but also for the Petro Caribe arrangements.

There are 16 beneficiary members of PetroCaribe of which 11 are Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries including Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica and Suriname. But the most vulnerable are the smaller territories Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, St Lucia, St Kitts-Nevis, and St Vincent and the Grenadines. It should be noted that two other CARICOM countries - Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago - are not exposed to change in the Petro Caribe Agreement since neither country joined the arrangement. The Bahamas did sign the original Petro Caribe treaty in 2005 but continued to buy its oil elsewhere.

Under Petro Caribe beneficiary there is no reduction in the price of oil; instead Venezuela converts a portion of the cost into a low-cost loan. These loans have become quite substantial.

The amount of the debt owed to Venezuela by many Caribbean countries is shrouded in secrecy because the process of dealing with Petro Caribe has not been transparent. A notable exception is Jamaica where, in January, the government publicly put its Petro Cari-

be debt at US$2.5 billion. For each of the other Caribbean countries, the debt would amount to hundreds of millions of dollars that, in their current situation of very high debt and large fiscal deficits, they would find almost impossible to repay.

Sources within the Venezuelan government have lamented that in many Caribbean countries not only has provision not been made to repay the debt, but the loan component of the oil price has not been used for the social programmes for which Chávez intended it. It has been used in one case to pay the government’s public sector wage bill and in another to meet commercial obligations.

What would be worse for all of the beneficiary governments is either a sudden change in the Petro Caribe arrangements, forced by increasingly difficult economic circumstances in Venezuela, or a collapse of the arrangements altogether triggered by the intensifying confrontation between dissenting groups and the Maduro government in the streets of Caracas.

There is no doubt that Maduro is

politically committed to continuing Chávez policies of helping Caribbean countries through the low-cost loan component of oil supplied by Venezuela. But as conflict and confrontation increases and intensifies within Venezuela, and economic conditions worsen for his own supporters, he may be forced to choose between them and his own political fortunes and a political commitment to Chávez’s ideas.

The present turmoil in Venezuela and the clashes in the streets between groups protesting against the government and security forces have resulted in four deaths so far and increased alarm about the stability of the country and its prospects for economic growth. CARICOM as a whole was right to call on all parties in the Venezuelan confrontation “to take the necessary steps to refrain from any further action that would hinder a peaceful resolution of the differences and a return to peace and calm in the country”.

The beneficiary Caribbean governments have much for which to thank Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, but they would be imprudent if they did not now begin to make adjustments to their budgets for a transition from dependence on Petro Caribe to buying oil on the international market.

They would be sensible to approach the Caribbean Development Bank for technical advice on how to alter their financial circumstances to make the transition and to propose ways in which such a transition could be accomplished with the least amount of inevitable pain; pain which would be more desirable than calamity.

Editor’s Note: This article published on Thursday 20 February 2014 in the Jamaica Observer, reveals the financial and economic risks of the continuation of the Government of Belize’s abuse of the PetroCaribe arrangement for political mileage.

Last week, Prime Minister Barrow evaded responding directly to the media’s probing into Belize’s ballooning debt to Venezuela and the lack of transparency in the obtaining and spending of millions of dollars obtained from the Petro-Caribe programme.

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7 SEP

2014

THE BELIZE TIMES

Belize’s Island Paradise Is Caught Up in a Bloods Vs Crips Floating Drug War

By Engee Jay September 3, 2014 | 8:25 am Reprinted from Vice.com The body was found on August 11, buried in a shallow grave on a beach in remote Ambergris Caye, an island off mainland Belize near the border with Mexico. The 57-year-old man’s throat had been slit and his body had multiple stab wounds. Police said he also bore signs of torture.

The victim, identified as Santiago Trapp, reportedly lived in a wooden shack that was burned down during his murder. This building was once known as a fishermen’s camp but, according to police, it had recently become a base for playadores, or beachcombers.

Yet these beachcombers don’t hunt for shells or buried treasure, but rather for parcels of drugs dropped into the ocean by traffickers. This makes Trapp another likely casualty in an ongoing narco turf war that is plaguing San Pedro, the island’s only town.

Meanwhile, Ambergris Caye was ranked Tripadvisor’s number one island in the world for the second year in a row in February.

“The crime that we’re facing right now is all drug related,” San Pedro Mayor Daniel Guerrero, speaking with hints of Belizean Creole, told VICE News. “The people that have been killed, it’s because of two different gangs.”

Those groups are the Bloods and the Crips, named after the notorious Los Angeles street gangs that they descended from.

Like in the US, the Bloods wear red while the Crips wear blue. Their criminal activity has been exacerbated by the drug parcels that often wash up on the beach here, a byproduct of the trafficking routes along the Atlantic coast of Central America.

“Colombians drop drugs across the reef, but those drugs sometimes drift into areas on the far north of the island. So they have these people combing, trying to find the drugs,” Luis Castellanos, police superintendent for Ambergris Caye, told VICE News.

The Belizean police are not entirely sure when the phenomenon began, but authorities and residents agree that South American drug traffickers are “wet dropping” — leaving large parcels of cocaine in international waters at select drop points, where they float until being picked up by Mexican associates who then smuggle them north to the US. When the packages are washed ashore in Ambergris Caye by changing tides and weather conditions, they are known as “sea lotto” or “white grouper,” Mayor Guerrero said.

The playadores are stationed by the gangs to patrol the beach and retrieve the parcels, which often leads to violent encounters with rivals. Finding shallow graves, like the one where Trapp’s corpse was discovered, has become a common occurrence here and Trapp’s death marks the sixth murder in the area this year. However, the current violence goes beyond a simple Bloods vs. Crips color war — instead stemming from the hunt for sea lotto.

But locals and police are most troubled by the fact that the violence is increasingly spreading south, toward San Pedro. “That problem happening up there is trickling down here,” confirmed Superintendent Castellanos. “It’s becoming a turf war.”

The town became infamous for John McAfee (the millionaire anti-virus software tycoon and bath salt enthusiast), his run-in with the law, and subsequent international manhunt.

This year, San Pedro has seen a spike

in drug-related shootings and murders. And much of the violence in Belize — ranked by the UN as the sixth most violent country in the world, with a murder rate of 44.7 per 100,000 in 2012 — is attributed to the gangs.

The emergence of the Bloods and Crips can be traced back to the 1980s and 90s, when Belizean nationals who were members in the US were deported back to Belize, along with their acquired gang culture and affiliations. For years, they were primarily concentrated in Belize City on the mainland, but sometime in the late 1990s or early 2000s both Bloods and Crips began appearing in San Pedro.

Walking around San Pedro, the different cliques are easily spotted by their colors. If a guy is wearing solid red or blue, it’s highly likely he’s affiliated to a gang. Locals know it would be dangerous to wear those colors otherwise. In alleys around the city, the words Bloods and Crips can be seen spray-painted on walls.

For years, northern Ambergris Caye has apparently been controlled by the Campos Crips.

VICE News spoke to a local drug dealer, who requested that his name be omitted for fear of reprisal. “The big fish is Moses Campos,” he said. “He’s got guys walking the beach for him every day.”

Trapp is believed to have been a playador for Campos. His family claimed he was a caretaker of the shack where he lived, found burnt to the ground about half a mile away from where his body was buried. The owner of the shack was reportedly Moses Campos.

Known to locals as La Isla Bonita — yes, in reference to the Madonna song — San Pedro is a town of less than 20,000 people, where coconut trees sit picturesquely next to crystal clear blue water, and golf carts are the main mode of transportation on the island’s few roads.

Until recently, it had not been known as a violent place, but rather as a premier travel destination. Located along the world’s second largest barrier reef, it has been transformed over the past decade from a small fishing village to the tourism hub of the country.

“The stretch of beachfront on the entire island has been sold out to foreign investment,” Mayor Guerrero told VICE News.

“The big hotels, the big condos, the big restaurants are all owned by foreigners.”

This has led to large discrepancy in wealth between foreigners and locals, leading many impoverished Belizeans to turn to gang life, and fishing the sea lotto.

While poor Belizeans from the mainland still see San Pedro as a land of opportunity, the influx of mainlanders and a lack of locally-owned businesses have created a workforce that far exceeds the available jobs.

“They bring a hammer, a skill, but there are so many laborers available fighting for that same job,” an American restaurant owner who only employs local people told VICE News anonymously. “So a man who would not normally commit a crime is driven to desperate measures because he can’t make an honest living.”

The few locals who do own small restaurants or groceries proudly advertise “Belizean owned” on their signs to try and encourage customers to shop there.

“Young people coming out of college, or high school. They’re going to the drug dealers, and asking them for a job,” David, a security guard who requested anonymity due to his close connections to the gangs, told VICE News.

David works 12-hour shifts, six days a

27 A man walks through an alley in San Pedro, where the walls have been tagged by the Bloods. Photo by Engee Jay

week, for $700 a month, protecting a housing community that caters to foreign timeshares.

However, before he worked here, he too was a gang member in San Pedro. He left his family and school on the mainland and moved to Ambergris Caye at the age of 12. He got by through dealing drugs and said that he could make half a month’s salary in a single night.

“I was a skeleton.

A Crips tag sprayed on a wall in San PeThe same way I was dro, accompanied by a Crip-blue handselling it, I was conprint. Photo by Engee Jay suming it,” explained David. He believes the gang life would have left him dead. “It’s messed up. If I didn’t have Jeffrey. That was the worst feeling.”

Norman and his wife Susanna rushed enough people watching my back I would outside to find their son lying on the street, have been killed by now.”

At 18, his mother came to see him in riddled with bullet wounds.

“They shot up his entire arm — both San Pedro. “She started crying, she said I was a mess. I said I know I’m a mess,” Da- arms. I tried to cradle his body, then he bit vid recalled. “I asked her to take me home. me here. This is the scar,” said Norman, She was waiting to hear that. That minute I pointing to a place on his forearm where Jeffrey clenched his teeth to try to ease the started packing my stuff.”

David returned to his hometown on the pain. “I play with it all the time to feel his mainland for a year, working on construction presence. He died shortly after that, in my sites for as little as $10 a day. Struggling to hands.”

Jeffrey, who had no drug connections or get by and support his mother, he was soon forced to return to San Pedro in search of gang affiliations, allegedly got into an argument with a well-known associate of Moses work.

He said that he still sometimes needs Campos, named Rafael Juarez. Witnesses to “bleach out” — working construction by say that Juarez threatened Jeffrey’s life and day, in between nightshifts, without sleep- allege that he followed up on that threat at ing — to get by. He has also begun selling around 2am. Police have named Juarez as some weed on the side, to foreigners at the a person of interest in the case, but he is believed to have left Ambergris Caye and, community he guards.

David said the gang members he once almost six months later, has not yet been called his friends still loom on the island, tracked down.

“We’re not used to anyone coming to making more money than him but risking kill our kids,” Susanna said. “Growing up we their lives in an escalating turf war.

Residents told VICE News that in this didn’t see what we’re seeing now. I didn’t tourist hub the amount of murders that ac- even know what a gun looks like. How tually get reported are well below the actual come this Campos, no one can catch him? number and disappearances are more com- He has been in this island for so long. We all know what he does.” mon than authorities let on.

After Jeffrey’s death, hundreds of San “They kill you because nobody looks, nobody will find you at all, until a couple of Pedranos marched through the town demonths later in pieces, decayed already,” manding peace. But this symbolic gesture amounted to little more than that. The Eileys said David.

Norman and Susanna Eiley are well- resent that their hometown is being deknown San Pedranos and have seen the is- stroyed by drug trade and gang violence, but land’s transformation firsthand — from fish- the loss of their son has obviously been the hardest blow. “When your husband dies, ing, to tourism, to gang violence.

“Everybody knew everybody, then it you’re a widow. But when you’re a parent, slowly started to shift. More tourists started and a child dies there’s nothing — there’s no to come, and more fishermen became tour name for it,” Susanna said.

Even the head of the local Crips is not guides,” Norman told VICE News. “All I knew immune from gang violence. On April 25, riwas the sea, so I became a tour guide.”

His son, Jeffrey, shared his love of the vals reportedly tried to kill Campos and his water and became a tour guide as well. “He sons. They were reportedly sitting in a golf was a fish,” said Norman. “He always said cart on their property by the lagoon when behind the reef was his playground, and the six masked men came by and unleashed a barrage of bullets. They were not hit, but this reef was his white picket fence.”

Everything changed for the Eileys on was just the most recent attack on Campos’ March 6, 2014. “We heard blasts of gun- control of San Pedro.

Sources close to the Campos Crips shots and it threw me out of bed,” Norman said. “Someone rolled up and said it was Continued on page 31

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7 SEP

THE BELIZE TIMES

2014 Public Auction Sale

By Order of the Board of Directors of Gulf Caribbean Limited, Licensed Auctioneer Guadalupe Montejo will sell the following property:

bellasombrarooms@gmail.com

Happy September Celebrations!

For Sale

By Order of the Mortgagee Scotiabank (Belize) Ltd., a Company duly registered under the Companies Act, Chapter 250 of the Laws of Belize, Revised Edition, 2000, and having its registered office at Cor. Albert and Bishop Streets, Belize City, Belize, hereby gives notice of its intention to exercise its power of sale as Mortgagee under a Deed of Mortgage made the 25th day of March, 2002, between DIONICIO ACK of #13 Lords Bank, Ladyville, Belize District, Belize, of the one part and SCOTIABANK (BELIZE) LTD. of the other part and recorded in Deeds Book Volume 11 of 2002 at folios 1253 to 1276; and the said SCOTIABANK (BELIZE) LTD. will at the expiration of two months from the date of the first publication of this notice sell the property described in the Schedule hereto.

All offers to purchase the said property must be made in writing and full particulars and conditions of sale may be obtained from the said SCOTIABANK (BELIZE) LTD. THE SCHEDULE ABOVE REFERRED TO ALL THAT LEASEHOLD INTEREST IN ALL THAT piece or parcel of land being Lot No. 13 situate in the Lord’s Bank Village, Belize District, and bounded as follows:- On the Northeast for 36.561 Metres by Lot 14; On the Southeast for 24.374 Metres by Lot No. 2; On the Southwest for 36.561 Metres by Lot No. 12; On the Northwest for 24.374 Metres by a Street containing 891.138 square metres as shown on Reg. No. 4 Entry 3100 at the Office of the Commissioner of Lands and Surveys TOGETHER with all buildings and developments standing and being thereon.

DATED this 28th day of August, 2014.

MUSA & BALDERAMOS 91 North Front Street, Belize City Attorneys-at-Law for Scotiabank (Belize) Ltd.

ALL THOSE pieces or parcels of land being the subject of a Deed of Conveyance dated the 11th day of July, 1964, between Alfred Edwards (Vendor) and Gulf Caribbean Ld. (Purchaser) recorded at the General Registry on the 16th August, 1964, and containing approximately 619.593 acres situated on both sides of the Punta Gorda to San Antonio Road in the vicinity of Jacintoville Village, Toledo District.

The Auction Sale will take place on site of the property (near Jacintoville on the roadside of the Punta Gorda San Antonio Road) on the 23rd September, 2014 at 10:30am.

DATED this 15th day of August, 2014.

MUSA & BALDERAMOS LLP 91 North Front Street Belize City Attorneys-at-Law for Gulf Caribbean Limited.

Public Auction Sale

By Order of the Board of Directors of Gulf Caribbean Limited, Licensed Auctioneer Guadalupe Montejo will sell the following property: ALL THOSE piece or parcel of land being the subject of a Land Certificate 1187/91 dated the 19th day of March, 1991, registered at the Land Registry Belmopan in the Consejo Road SE Registration Section, being Block 1 Parcel 172 containing approximately 63.690 acres situated off the Corozal - Consejo Road, Corozal District.

The Auction Sale will take place on site of the property (on the roadside of the Corozal –Consejo Road) on the 25th September, 2014 at 10:30am.

DATED this 15th day of August, 2014.

MUSA & BALDERAMOS LLP 91 North Front Street Belize City Attorneys-at-Law for Gulf Caribbean Limited.

SEP 77 SEP

THE BELIZE TIMESTIMES THE BELIZE

2014 2014

REGIONAL & INTERNATIONAL

NEWS

29

US men found innocent after 30 years in jail

Ebola death toll

Half-brothers walk free after DNA evidence shows they were wrongly convicted of 1983 murder and rape

accelerates in West Africa WHO says at least $600m needed to fight Ebola outbreak, as death toll rises to more than 1,900 people At least $600m is needed to fight West Africa’s Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organisation has announced, as the death toll shot up by about 400 in a week to more than 1,900 people.

There have now been about 3,500 cases in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal, WHO Director Margaret Chan confirmed on Wednesday.

The UN said that fresh fears emerged in Nigeria after the the government announced that a seventh person died of the virus.

“This is not an African disease. This is a virus that is a threat to all humanity,’’ Gayle Smith, special assistant to US President Barack Obama and senior director at the National Security Council, told reporters.

Experts warn Ebola

could spread beyond the five West African countries that are already hit.

The virus has directly impacted the economies of these nations with farmers and miners fearing that they will contract the infection if they step out to work in areas where cases were recorded.

The African Development Bank said that the outbreak could cost the affected countries up to four percent of their GDP. Health workers infected

The top priority is providing protective gear to health workers in the affected areas and ensuring that they receive hazard pay, said David Nabarro, who is coordinating the UN response to the unprecedented outbreak.

A large number of health workers have been infected in this outbreak and many of them have expressed concern over the shortage of protective suits.

Two mentally impaired half-brothers have been freed after serving three decades in a US prison for the rape and murder of a child after DNA evidence proved they were not guilty.

Henry McCollum, 50, hugged his weeping parents at the gates of Central Prison in Raleigh on Wednesday, a day after a judge ordered his release, citing the new evidence in the 1983 slaying of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie.

His half-brother, 46-year-old Leon Brown, was later freed from Maury Correctional Institution near Greenville, where he had been serving a life sentence.

“I knew one day I was going to be blessed to get out of prison, I just didn’t know when that time was going to be,” McCollum said. “I just thank God that I am out of this place. There’s not anger in my heart.”

Superior Court Judge Douglas Sasser overturned the convictions on Tuesday. He said another man’s DNA being found on a cigarette butt left near the body of the slain girl contradicted the case put forth by prosecutors.

JEWS EXPELLED FROM GUATEMALA VILLAGE

Mexico investigates mass fish death in lagoon Fishermen continue to pull tonnes of dead fish out of Cajititlan that has been scene of four fish kills this year At least 48 tonnes of fish have turned up dead in a lagoon in western Mexico and authorities are investigating whether wastewater treatment plants are to blame.

On Monday, fishermen used shovels, wheel-carts and trucks to pull tonnes of dead fish out of the Cajititlan lagoon that has been the scene of four fish kills this year.

Authorities were investigating whether negligence at wastewater treatment plants was to blame after millions of fresh water fish locally

known as “popocha” began to float up last week.

“We don’t want this problem to worsen because we would end up in the street,” said Rigoberto Diaz, a local fisherman who fears that other species such as tilapia, which unlike popocha is edible, will die too.

Fellow fisherman Mauro Hernan echoed concerns that authorities have yet to confirm the cause of the die-off.

“We were told that the state government will support us. We don’t know when we will be able

to fish again,” Hernan told the AFP news agency Jalisco state environment secretary Magdalena Ruiz said it was the fourth unexplained fish kill at the same lagoon this year.

“You can’t deny that there’s a contamination” due to suspected negligence at wastewater treatment plants, she was quoted by AFP as saying.

Authorities are conducting tests on the dead fish while state environmental prosecutors are investigating local wastewater treatment plants.

Lev Tahor community “forced out” after villagers say they felt intimidated by the group’s lack of contact with locals A few months after moving from Canada to a remote part of Guatemala to find religious freedom, a group of ultra-orthodox Jews have now been forced to leave their homes in a bitter conflict with villagers.

The Lev Tahor community packed its bags on Friday in San Juan la Laguna around 150km west of Guatemala City, to board buses bound for the capital after weeks of friction with sections of the local population.

The town’s Elders Council voted last week to force the group to leave because they say some members of the sect have mistreated indigenous residents and tourists in the area, the AP news agency reported.

Verbal abuse, threats to cut off power and eject them by force were, say the Jews, the last straw for the group who began arriving in March from Canada, where the Lev Tahor group’s strict religious ways had clashed with authorities.

Founded in the 1980s by Israeli Shlomo Helbrans, the Lev Tahor practice an austere form of Judaism.

Winning admiration from some Jews for its devoutness, the group is condemned by others as a cult-like sect.

Helbrans declined to be interviewed, but another Lev Tahor leader in San Juan, rabbi Uriel Goldman, fielded questions about the group.

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7 SEP

THE BELIZE TIMES

2014

BELIZE TIMES WEEKLY

SCIENCE & TECH R

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Bill Gates’s epic project transforms farming in Africa “IT’S like having a new life,” says Lucy Banda, a farmer in Mwambaso village in western Malawi. Over the past three years she has trebled her farm’s output and increased her income 15-fold.

Banda is one of 1.75 million African smallholder farmers, 40 per cent of them women, enrolled in a $180-million five-year programme run by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. AGRA was set up in 2006 by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Now, its latest report says the scheme is achieving its aims. Flagship projects in Tanzania and Malawi have each recruited 18,000 farmers, while in Ghana 117,000 have signed up. On average their farms’ yields have doubled (see chart below).

From these initial three countries, the programme has expanded to 18.

“We hope by 2015 to have reached 20 million smallholders,” says Bashir Jama of AGRA, who runs the organisation’s soil health programme.

Farmers’ groups, agriculture ministers, scientists and financiers met this week at the African Green Revolution Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Expanding the AGRA scheme was set to be high on the agenda, Jama says. New Scientist went to press before the meeting finished.

Africa’s farmers have a lot of problems, but one of the biggest is poor soil. Cost and bad infrastructure have long prevented farmers from fertilising their fields, so many African countries have been losing nutrients from their soils (see map above). The AGRA project is the most concerted effort yet to fix the problem. Its soil health programme has set up 9000 dealers within 5 kilometres of farmers to sell them the supplies they need.

The first necessity is fertiliser.

Thanks to the dealers, AGRA farmers now use 10 to 50 kilograms of fertiliser per hectare, and though this is just a tenth to a quarter of what farmers use in rich countries, it is still a big improvement. They supplement that with any animal

manure they have, and compost made from the remains of their previous crops. AGRA has also appointed 2800 inspectors to monitor soil health and advise farmers on how much fertiliser they need.

The dealers also supply the seeds for legumes like soybeans and pigeon peas, which make Well-fed crops (Image: David Rose/Panos) their own fertiliser from nitrogen in the air, via bacteria in their root nodules.

Jama.

This process is made more efficient Groups of 15 to 25 smallholdby inoculating the seeds with the ers are also being encouraged bacteria. to form collectives. AGRA has The other major problem AGRA provided advice and expertise for is aiming to solve is lack of infrastruc155 such groups in Ghana alone. ture. African smallholders are often They give farmers more bargaining isolated, unable to get credit or find power and allows them to jointly buyers for their produce. fund communal assets, such as So AGRA is putting farmers in secure storehouses. touch with everyone from financiers AGRA’s aim, helping small who offer microcredit to agents who farmers become professional, buy produce for sale elsewhere. is backed by the United Nations “We’re connecting [smallholders] Food and Agriculture Organization. to the entire business chain,” says “Making farming a business is the

way to push African agriculture,” says Robert Guei of the FAO in Rome, Italy.

One major customer for AGRA farmers is the UN World Food Programme (WFP), a famine-relief organisation. In 2008 it launched a programme called Purchase for Progress (P4P) that targets smallholder suppliers, including those in 15 African countries. “We already buy 80 per cent of our produce from developing countries, but those that bid for the contracts are usually the larger companies and farms,” says Ahnna Gudmunds, the scheme’s advocacy officer.

P4P aims to “link the smallholder farmers explicitly into the process”.

AGRA farms are key suppliers, says Gudmunds. The WFP has bought 450,000 tonnes of food, worth $177 million, and the scheme is set to continue.

The threat of climate change means smallholders must keep adapting if they are to survive and prosper, says Guei. AGRA’s methods are one way to do so.

The risk is large. A new report from AGRA says climate change could increase the number of malnourished people in sub-Saharan Africa from 223 million today to 355 million in 2050.

Less rain will be a major factor.

“We’re predicting a decline of 20 to 40 per cent in rainfall across West Africa,” says David Sarfo Ameyaw of AGRA. Rising temperatures could also shrink by up to 80 per cent the areas where beans will grow.

For their part, governments must improve water storage and create drought-resistant crops.

In 2006, African governments pledged to inject 10 per cent of their spending into agriculture, says Ameyaw. “So far, only eight of 54 countries have done so.”

“The vision is to produce more efficiently, but to be aware that climate change is happening, and that we must use all best practices to allow farmers to adapt,” says Guei.

7 SEP

2014

UDP Convention flops in Corozal Town

Corozal Town, September 1, 2014 The UDP’s convention held last weekend to unveil the tired faces that make up their pack of recycled candidates for the upcoming town council elections turned out to be a major flop.

Belize’s Island Paradise Is Caught Up in a Bloods Vs Crips Floating Drug War Continued from page 27

told VICE News that they still do not know who was responsible for the attack. Yet in the weeks following the incident, two men believed to be small-time drug dealers were apparently murdered by the Crips in the San Juan area, just to the north of San Pedro, allegedly in retaliation.

“They are just trying to show their power over the island,” an anonymous drug dealer told VICE News. “We got two guys dead and nobody cared how they died.”

“The police know who killed them and don’t give a fuck,” he said. “I don’t know who is next. Something bad is gonna happen to someone. I hope it doesn’t happen to me.”

The government of Belize has begun to take the violence and gang presence seriously. In June, experienced police officer Henry Jemmott was brought in from Belize City and given the post of deputy coastal officer in San Pedro. He’s brought in his own team — a combined special force of officers from the Quick Response Team and Anti-Drug Unit.

“I was slated to go with the GSU [the Gang Suppression Unit], but things change, and now I’m here in San Pedro,” Jemmott told VICE News.

“We’ve embarked on a big operation called Clearwater, where we have targeted specific people — the drug dealers,” he added. “My purpose in San Pedro is after that little [crime] spike, to send it back to normal.”

An eerie calm has come recently over the Ambergris Caye. Rumors swirl about the imminent arrival of the mysterious GSU, which was created in April 2010 to address Belize’s increasing gang-related violence and is known for its extreme tactics in fighting crime.

In a well-reported incident in 2013, four high-ranking members of the George Street Bloods in Belize City, including the second in command, were found dead in an apartment with their throats slit, after apparently being tortured. Although the GSU has repeatedly denied involvement, it is widely believed that it was responsible.

The government’s only response in Belize City has been the continued threat of the heavily militarized GSU. “People are afraid of the GSU,” Mayor Guerrero said. “If I decide that I need a GSU cleanup, I call the central office, and the government will send them. But they never give you a date. When they come its one, two, three, four, BAM! Then they’re out of here.”

“They’re not coming to guess where you are, they’ve done their homework,” the mayor confirmed. “I think it’s good for the country to have something like that, because at some point the people get out of hand, you know? You have to get everything under control.”

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The event, which was supposed to start at 10am saw a small handful of supporters turn up about an hour later. They were the usual UDP fanatics – the handful of lackeys who are benefitting from Government’s resources with special perks and contracts – but there was no major support or fanfare from residents. Not anymore. This was a loud statement from residents… they have witnessed their town deteriorate in every way possible under the UDP town council.

It was really no coincidence that the UDP chose the Civic Center as the venue for their convention. The compound is currently hosting a group of

Central American entertainers that have set up mechanical rides and games. The UDP, we are told, quickly invited some of them to their convention and offered free lunch, to make up the small numbers.

The reality for the UDP in Corozal Town is that their time is up. Hilberto Campos aka “Jill” has been a disgrace at the Town Council and has failed Corozal Town miserably. His Councillors appear to be lazy and empty of ideas for the town. Corozal has seen a spike in the number of crimes such as robberies, but the Council has done little to work with the community.

The Council has disrespected town residents by finally starting some street

PUP STATEMENT ON GSU

September 2nd, 2014 On Sunday evening, August 30th, 2014 the Rt. Hon. Said Musa, former Prime Minister of Belize and current Area Representative for Fort George, speaking at a Party Convention in Lake Independence, made certain specific comments about the conduct and operations of the Gang Suppression Unit (GSU).

As a former Prime Minister and current Area Representative, Mr. Musa has not only a right but a duty to speak out on any issue of national concern such as the present conduct and operations of the GSU. The PUP condemns the response to PM Musa’s remarks com-

ing from the Head of the GSU, Inspector Mark Flowers, on Love FM’s Monday evening newscast.

Mr. Flower’s comments were disrespectful, arrogant and unbecoming of the Head of a Unit of our security forces.

The PUP cannot and will not support a National Security Team which Mr. Flowers forms a part of.

We call on the Minister of National Security and the Prime Minister to take immediate steps to have Inspector Mark Flowers removed as Head of the GSU and further call for the disbandment of the Unit which has lost the trust and confidence of the Belizean people.

work projects a few weeks ago, simply because the town council elections are near.These attempts are too little too late.

The UDP will get a resounding message from Corozal Town voters in the upcoming March elections. People are tired of a Mayor that believes in delivering just the minimum to the people. That is all “Jill” has done for Corozal…nothing but the minimum.

Hon. Jose Mai delivers school bags to needy children of OW South

Children of Indian Church enjoying the school bags delivered by the Hon Jose Mai Orange Walk District, September 1, 2014 With the cost of education on the rise, the assistance provided by Orange Walk South Area Representative Hon. Jose Mai to needy residents has gone a long way.

Last week, Hon. Mai visited families offering support with new school bags to the children attending school.

Hon. Mai told the BELIZE TIMES that the residents expressed gratitude for the help.

Hon. Mai has been very supportive of education in his constituency. He has provided financial school assistance to various families. He also encouraged excellence and has visited and awarded the top PSE students from OW South.

CARTOON

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7 SEP

2014