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THE BELIZE TIMES
National Service Day Monday, 19th September 2017 Good morning and on this warm Belizean morning welcome to all of you here present and those streaming live. Congressman Eliot Engel and the members the US delegation, and our other friends in the diplomatic community; former Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Said Musa, Deputy Party Leaders, Party Chairman and supporters; members of the Price Family and to all gathered here today: we’re glad you came. Every year we come to Lord Ridge Cemetery not to mourn but to celebrate the life and work of Mr. Price. We place flowers on his grave to show our love and appreciation for his life and his work in the service of God and country. We offer prayers of thanksgiving and we sing the songs he loved to sing in church, songs like Onward Christian Soldiers, marching as to war and an Army of Youth flying the standards of truth. These are spirited songs that are anthems to a revolution of the mind and the spirit; they are a call to action. These were hymns that Mr. Price believed embodied the message of his peaceful, constructive Belizean Revolution. So sing them with much spirit, as Mr. Price would have loved it. In the sixties and seventies Mr. Price traveled across our country, especially speaking to young people about his revolution. In Stann Creek he spoke of the new Belizean man and woman strong and sturdy, fully prepared for nation building. In Toledo he taught about Belizean values. He always believed that Belizean values were at their core Christian and democratic. He sought to build and proclaimed our political philosophy as one that he referred to as Christian democracy. He started this movement in a time when our world was divided politically into two super powers and a new world order was being formed putting colonialism in its rightful place, in the trash heap of history. Mr. Price knew all too well that we had to think and act differently. In his wisdom this was the best way to save us from becoming pawns and avoid us being caught up in the conflicts that were surrounding us and were oppressing many of the people in neighbouring states. The sixties were troubling times in this region and the influences that were driving the world order were power and greed. He summed it up aptly in his speech in Punta Gorda in 1965 when he told students that “we live near the geographic navel of the Americas, where north and south and east and west meet in an earth-shaking conflict of ideologies that proclaim each in its way of thinking the best way of life for the twentieth century man and woman.” He said for us to build Belize the foundations could not be power and greed, but compassion and hard work. He believed with all his heart that those values that would last through the ages, and would mark our true worth as good Belizean citizens are Christian values. Mr. Price said “this meant that our task is to work to produce the goods and the services that will make Belize great, to help our less fortunate brothers and sisters who yet suffer poverty and misery and humiliation.” He told the students in PG that even Christian and democratic concepts of values change, that some could be lost and some destroyed. The values that cannot be destroyed or lost however, the ones that were precious and imperishable for Mr. Price are those values that are within us. He said: “they are our mind and our heart, and our ability to enjoy the riches and joys of the world around us.” In my weekly radio address I said that Mr. Price never cared about the many awards and titles he received. I also said that he always saw himself as a worker. Perhaps his successor and one of our former Party Leaders and Prime Minster the Rt. Hon. Said Musa, also a compassionate man, knew all too well and felt that a man who cared so much for a nation and for its people and who asked nothing in return was truly deserving of the title of National Hero. And so on this National Service Day, which was set aside to honor this humble yet strong man, our Father of the Nation, let us never forget our duty to our families, our community and our nation. Let us do so in that tried and tested tradition of Service to God and country and let us together continue the task of building a Belize that works for everyone. Long Live Belize, Que Viva George Price Que Viva Belice!!
24 SEP
2017
24 SEP
2017
18 JAN
THE BELIZE TIMES 2015
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TRIBUTE TO THE FATHER OF THE NATION By: Said Musa September 19, 2017 He was the architect of Independence. He is the Father of the Nation. George Price who died on the 19th September 2011 thirty years after he led our nation to Independence with full sovereignty and territorial integrity over land and sea. The Rt. Hon. George Price is the National Hero of Belize. He was one of a small group of rebel leaders calling themselves a People’s Committee which began holding public protest meetings when on December 31st 1949 the colonial Governor using his reserve power in the Legislative Council, decreed a devaluation of the dollar. Devaluation was the catalyst that triggered the Nationalist Movement led by the People’s United Party formed on the 29 September 1950 to end the exploitation and free Belize from the oppressive and deplorable conditions in which the people were living; abject poverty, rampant unemployment, a depressed economy under colonial domination. George Price became the leader of the PUP in 1956 and for 40 years he was the undisputed driving force in the people’s struggle for self-government (achieved in 1964), the building of a new capital Belmopan following the disastrous hurricane Hattie in 1961 which devastated Belize City. The change of the name of our country from British Honduras to Belize took place in 1973. Premier Price in introducing the Bill in the House of Representatives remarked “To retain the name British Honduras is to subvert the burning ambition and aspirations of the Belizean people for independence.” It took a while but this vision of George Price and the dream of the Belizean people were finally realized on September 21st 1981. Today, six years after the passing of our great Leader, this generation who are the inheritors of the peaceful constructive Belizean revolution led by George Price must gird our loins and be prepared to engage in a new phase of this revolution. The promise of Independence is yet to be fulfilled. It is a work in progress! Our National Anthem proclaims: “From proud Rio Hondo to old Sarstoon, through coral isle, over blue lagoon, keep watch with the angels, the stars and the moon; For freedom comes tomorrow’s noon.” That part of the anthem is the inspiration but the anthem is also a call to action: “Arise! (Ye sons and daughters of the revolution). Put on your armour, clear the land! Drive back the tyrants, let despots flee, Land of the Free by the Carib Sea.” Yes, drive back the tyrants those who will use the security forces not to fight crime and violence but to oppress the people for demonstrating against wrongs committed in high places. Drive back the tyrant who instead of standing up for honest governance to put a stop to the abuse of office by his Ministers, uses sophistry and rhetoric inebriated by the exuberance of his own verbosity to cover up the abuses and corruption in his government. Let despots flee who will use their ministerial office for self-aggrandizement in the sale of visas and passports aiding and abetting modern day slavery of trafficking in persons. Let despots flee who will use the Ministry of Natural Resources to enrich himself and his family in a gigantic fraudulent land scheme involving thousands of acres of prime land robbing the resources of Belize in the millions of dollars. What a betrayal of the trust and legacy that our national hero George Price who dedicated his life’s work to empower thousands of Belizeans to own their homes and to own their own parcel of land to farm and produce food for their families and the nation. Let despots flee those who will squander over $400 million dollars of Petro-Caribe money and raise our country’s national debt to over $3 billion dollars without a single housing program to benefit the people who live in overcrowded dilapidated shacks. All these millions spent and yet so many of our young people are denied a quality relevant education; so many millions spent and yet basic primary health care is denied to many while a cash-strapped government drastically reduces the benefits of NHI and deplete the funds of Social Security to spend on B.T.L. and UDP political activities. And so as we honour and pay Tribute to the Father of the Nation, let is resolve to right the wrongs and continue his constructive revolution for freedom justice and equality. Let us arise, put on our armour and clear the land of injustice, abuse and corruption. And let us work to fulfill the promise of Independence. Que Viva George Price! Que Viva Belize!