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THE BELIZE TIMES
GSU AGAIN!!
Mechanic says GSU officers abused and threatened to kill him Belize City, September 29th, 2014 Belize City mechanic Allan McCoy has accused the notorious Gang Suppression Unit of putting a hellish beat down on him. McCoy had left MJ’s Nightclub on West Collet Canal on Saturday morning when a dark-tinted vehicle with no license plates drove next to his pickup truck and he heard shots being fired. He said he thought it was a robbery attempt, so he sped off. When he looked into his rear view mirror, he saw the flashing lights of a siren so, believing it was the Police, he stopped. It was law enforcement officers but not the regular Police. It was the elite, heavily-armed, military-trained Gang Suppression Unit which was on the prowl in response to a report that Police Constable Dejohn Cayetano had just been knocked
“Mark Flowers condones abuse and violence by the GSU” down while driving a motorcycle at the corner of North Front Street and Douglas Jones Street. They learnt that the culprit was driving a pickup truck, which led them to McCoy. The GSU officers were apparently convinced that they had nabbed the perpetrator and they went on attack mode. McCoy’s account of what transpired next is simply terrifying. “Two of them grabbed me, threw me to the ground and handcuffed me. One of them put his knee on my back, on my shoulder blade and the other one or the same one, slapped me on the back of my head. I told them that this is uncalled for because I am not resisting arrest in any way. They asked where I was coming from. They said, you know what you just did and I said ‘no, please explain to me what you are arresting me for because as far as I am concerned I was at MJ’s bar and I’ve been there all night and I have proof and if you want to know just go over there’. “They took me to an accident scene. On the ride over there, the two officers; a male
LIQUOR LICENSE NOTICES Notice is hereby given that SHAHEEN CHOWDHURY, MD MONOWER HUSSAIN, ZAKIR AHMED and MD AZIZUR RAHMAN AZAD is applying for a Shop Liquor License to be operated at “Black Water Village Shop”, situate at Black Water Village, Orange Walk District under the Intoxicating Liquor Licensing Ordinance Revised Edition 1980. Notice is hereby given that CATHY WHITING and DONNA SPENCER are applying for a Shop Liquor License to be operated at “Grab & Go”, situate at Terminal 4, Tourism Village, Fort Street, Belize City, Belize District under the Intoxicating Liquor Licensing Ordinance Revised Edition 1980.
and a female, assaulted me several times in the back of the truck. The officer was in the back of the pick-up truck with me all the while, he got
back in the truck and he started to punch me in my belly and in my ribcage. He punched me a few times in my head and in my face, but the one that got me upset was the one that punched me in my face. When they finished their first wave of assault, several of the GSU’s came on the scene one by one and they started to hit me in my face, everyone took their turn. When the second wave started again the same officer who was beating me the first time, he jumped in and started to beat me up again. By this time one of the officers had already punched me in my face and it cut underneath my eyes and swollen Continued on page 23
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BUSTED!!! Barrow caught violating the Finance and Audit Act
Belize City, September 26, 2014 The Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, Dean Barrow has been busted by the Opposition, People’s United Party (PUP) and the media, in particular Jules Vasquez of Channel 7. The PM has been exposed making excessive borrowing from the Petrocaribe Fund provided by the Venezuelan Government but not seeking proper approval from the House of Representatives for it. The UDP Government has been borrowing monies from the fund and spending without adhering to the Laws of Belize. The Finance and Audit (Reform) Act of 2005 requires that any effecting borrowing by the Government of Belize that is over or above ten million Belize dollars (BZ$10.0m), or the aggregate of the said sum in any fiscal year shall require a resolution by the National Assembly to approve such borrowing. The Opposition PUP was critical of the Government’s wanton access (borrowing) and reckless spending of the Petrocaribe Funds without getting lawful approval. “There is no grey area about this matter. These funds do come out of the Finance and Audit Act and there is a requirement for these monies to be tabled and disclosed at the National Assembly. The Government has not complied with the Finance and Audit Act. The Prime Minister has suggested that he is not clear if these monies fall under the Act, but I am saying that my understanding is that the monies do fall under the Act,” affirmed Leader of the Opposition Hon. Francis Fonseca at a September 8th press conference. The Opposition Leader had challenged the Prime Minister’s cagey attempt to defend the Government’s ducking of the law. Barrow had been cornered by Channel 7 days before, and asked at what point does the Government begin to follow the Law? Barrow put on his “smartypants” and responded that “that’s a matter of how you interpret the rules”. He then concluded, “perhaps I have simply not paid enough attention” and said he would “will have a look at it”. It appears the Prime Minister has been on mental vacation for quite some time. For over three years, the UDP Government has ignored and violated the Finance and Audit Act. Now the Prime Minister and the UDP Government is seeking approval for the borrowings from the Petrocaribe Funds by presenting a last minute resolution before the National Assembly for debate and possible approval on October 2, 2014. However what is astounding is the amount that he wants approved. This amount is already borrowed/spent and stands at a whopping US$114,307,356 or BZ$228,614,712. This is almost ¼ BILLION DOLLARS in two (2) years. The Prime Minister has a lot of explaining to do to the nation. WHERE THE HECK IS THAT AMOUNT OF MONEY?? WHAT IS THERE TO SHOW?? Note these are monies spent already. Plus we have interest of almost two and one half mil-
lion to pay. We carried out a Fact Check and could only find the following expenditures: National Bank Capitalization
-$20.0
Infrastructure of 7 municipalities (avg. $5.0/each)
- $35.0
Belize City Infrastructure
- $10.0
Belize Infrastructure Limited (BIL)
- $60.0
Budgetary Support
- $59.0
Total
- $184.0
There is a clear shortage of BZ$44,614,712. Where is the rest of the money? This is scary because the taxpayers will have to pay. Once more the Government has proved that they do not care about being transparent or accountable. It is clear that the Government was reluctant to comply with the Laws of Belize, even after being exposed by the media and the Opposition, because they
knew when they do, the question of the value of money will arise and this would open a Pandora’s Box. Even scarier is that the UDP Government has been borrowing from all the other Multi-National agents such as the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB,), CABEI, etc. They have claimed that monies borrowed were also for infrastructure and social transformation. Well none of those things have occurred. These debts have increased the overall debt risk. Also, Belizeans cannot forget that millions are still outstanding for Government’s expropriation of the utilities. This liability is worsening, as the debt has commercial interest rates attached to it. Soon the Petrocaribe borrowings will surpass the so-called Superbond and there is nothing tangible to show. The majority of streets and roads of Belize are still in deplorable conditions and Belize social landscape is in shambles. In addition this new Petrocaribe debt will apply further pressures
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2014 on Belize’s already-dwindling cashflow and its ability to debt service it loans. This new payment will amount to US$4,969,885.04 (BZ$9,939,770.09) annually before the interest cost. Also this will cause an undue pressure on the queue for foreign exchange (US dollars). This will continue the crowding out by the private sector by the Government once the grace period on the Petrocaribe loan expires. The Petrocaribe loan payment is scheduled to commence in 2017, which clashes with the period set for the amortization payment towards the Superbond. This is poor planning and a clear sign of Government incompetence which will further burden the shrinking revenue created by the scaring away Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) due to the nationalization of the utilities companies and the weak judicial system.
PUBLIC AUCTION SALE BY ORDER OF THE CHARGEE HOLY REDEEMER CREDIT UNION LIMITED, a Licensed Public Auctioneer will sell on site the following property at the time as listed. At No. 2 St. Joseph Street, Belize City, Belize District on Wednesday 15th October 2014 at 10:00a.m. ALL THAT piece or parcel of land comprising 411.11 square yards being Parcel 770, Block 45 in the King’s Park Registration Section situate at No. 2 St. Joseph Street, Belize City, Belize District, TOGETHER with a two-storey residential building having on the ground floor a two-bedroom apartment the freehold property of MARION WEBSTER JONES.
DATED this 1st day of October 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
5 OCT
THE BELIZE TIMES
2014
Guatemalans build military base for Belize
Opposition Leader protests; blasts UDP Government for not being “awake” Belize City, October 2, 2014 The UDP has gone too far in allowing Guatemala to disrespect our sovereignty and dignity. It has gone too far, and has even cost the life of a young Belizean officer of the law, 20 year old Danny Conorquie. Now there’s the news that the UDP is blindly allowing the Guatemalans to poke fun at us. In no other country would a Government allow an “enemy” state with whom it has a live dispute over territory and full sovereignty to meddle with its national security plan. Clearly allowing such a thing to happen is absurd, but not to the UDP. They are the mothers of absurdity. This Dean Barrow-led UDP Government is allowing a Guatemalan company and Guatemalan workers to construct a military base for the Belize Coast Guard at Hunting Caye. Hunting Caye, which is located within the Sapodilla Marine Reserve, falls right in the 12,700 kilometres of Belizean territory that is claimed by Guatemala. This is absurd! It is also very worrisome
because the Prime Minister admitted today that he didn’t even know that it was a Guatemalan company doing the work, even though the construction has been going on for over a year. That the Leader of the Government is asleep at the wheels while the “enemy” keeps “busy” is a grave situation. Clearly the Prime Minister has been on too many personal vacations in Miami. Barrow added that the base, like almost every other facility and equipment recently acquired by our security forces, is a donation of the United States and that it is they who carried out the tendering of the contract for the work. Unlike Barrow, Opposition Leader Hon. Francis Fonseca expressed alarm over the issue. At the House Sitting held today in Belmopan, he called it “troubling” and a “national security risk”. He chastised the UDP Government for being asleep and not “looking over the matter” properly.
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ILLEGAL BORROWING & SPENDING!! By anthony sylvestre ALBA PETROCARIBE LOAN MOTION - Finance & Audit (Reform) Act, 2005 (Act No. 12 of 2005) The Loan Motion seeking to ratify GoB’s unauthorized borrowing (and partial spending) of $228,000,000.00 BZ since September, 2012, in its recital is said to be in compliance with section 7(2) of the Finance & Audit (Reform) Act, 2005. Far from complying with the Act, the Loan Motion seeks to ratify/confirm an illegal borrowing and spending of GoB since September, 2012. The manner in which the borrowing and spending has been conducted is contrary to the intent of the Act and has defeated and frustrated the intent of the Act, which was to provide for better provisions regulating public revenue and expenditure (taken from long title of the Act). The manner of the borrowing and spending has precluded oversight, accountability and transparency of debts incurred by GoB, without the people’s approval and consent (for that is what the National Assembly is). This is seen when these sec-
tions are considered: section 7(2), 7(8) and 7(9). Section 7(2) This section states that a loan of or above 10 million (m) SHALL ONLY BE VALIDLY ENTERED INTO pursuant to a resolution of the National Assembly authorizing GoB to borrow the money. The section further restricts the spending of the monies borrow: it cannot be used towards “recurrent expenditure” as defined section 23(4) of the Act. Two points 1. The borrowing has already been done. Can GoB now retroactively seek approval of the National Assembly to grant authority to borrow? The words “ANY BORROWING OR LOAN TO GoB OF OR ABOVE THE EQUIVALENT OF TEN MILLIONS SHALL ONLY BE VALIDLY ENTERED INTO” reveals that the section and legislation contemplates that a resolution is passed before the borrowing or loan can be entered into. Therefore, the loan motion cannot be legally brought to address the unauthorized borrowing and partial spending of the $228 m
by GoB. 2. A review of the budgets for 2011/2012 through to 2014/15 does not list Petro Caribe monies as being used towards any “recurrent expenditure”. Of course, it is doubtful that this would have been listed since it was previously not revealed. Section 7(8) This is a mandatory section, which is to say, GoB must comply with it. The section states that when GoB borrows in amounts of less than $10 m (as GoB would have purported to have done here with the aggregate $228 m from September, 2012 to August, 2014) GoB MUST within 3 months of each borrowing, publish in the Gazette matters listed below; namely: (a) Date of the loan; (b) The amount of the loan; (c) The parties to the loan; (d) The purpose of the loan; and (e) The terms and conditions of the loan. There has been no publication in the Gazette any of these matters in respect of any of the $228 m borrowed by GoB over the period Sep-
From A Little Room in an Unpainted Building By Yasser Musa, 19 September 2014 Fordyce Memorial Chapel, Landivar Campus, St. John’s College, Belize City, Belize “If the past has nothing to say to the present, history may go on sleeping undisturbed in the closet where the system keeps its old disguises.” - Eduardo Galeano “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” – African proverb A Spanish expedition setting out from Yucatán to Chetumal in 1531, faces fierce Maya resistance from leader Nachankan who announced the tribute he would pay would be turkeys in the shape of spears and corn in the shape of arrows. Powerful British of the Bay in 1787 began to pass laws, which resulted in them owning four-fifths of all the land. This settlement was 86% African, just two years after the infamous St. George’s Caye battle, a distorted figure since no one counted the indigenous Maya on the register, and the main reason they counted Africans was that they were still enslaved assets. In the 19th century the mahogany lords band their slaves from cultivating this land, a historical
African tradition; and instead structured the economy on exploitation and extraction feeding the headquarters of the British Empire 5200 miles away. My young brothers this is a land of struggle and resistance to oppression. The British were constantly in fear of revolts and escapes. One such revolt in 1773 lasted five months and was only suppressed with help from a British naval force from Jamaica. In 1820 the British reported “two Slave Towns – long formed in the Mountains to the northward of the Sibun.” On the white paper it says that slavery was finally abolished in 1838, but who still owned the land, and who controlled the power and wealth of the economic system that had been established and entrenched by empire? It is important for us to look to our resistance heritage as a wellspring of a nation moving forward. Look to Joseph Chatoyer, the Garifuna paramount chief who defended his people to the death against the Spanish, the French, and the English. Important to understand Marcus Canul, the Icaiche leader who fought a fearless struggle against British aggression, and exploitation in the north of this land
we now call home. We entered the 20th century a backwater colonial outpost. The great poet, activist and freedom fighter Samuel Haynes rose up in riot against the oligarchy and challenged us to take responsibility for our land, to Arise, to drive back the tyrants so that freedom’s noon could be possible. The seeds of national deliverance having been sown would sprout with the agitation of the workers leaders like Clifford Betson and Antonio Soberanis in the 1940s. But the full bloom of our liberation started in 1950 when George Price, a graduate of St. John’s College, joined forces with Leigh Richardson and Phillip Goldson and others around a small mahogany table at #3 Pickstock Street, Belize City to crystalize a real political national consciousness – setting out a clear destiny – self- government and Belizean Independence. In the 1970s we Belizeans used diplomacy to convince the world that this small nation in the hurricane zone deserved its freedom with full sovereignty and territorial integrity. And from a little room in an unpainted building in Belmopan, a small team led the international-
tember, 2012 to August, 2014. Barrow and GoB therefore are in flagrant contravention of the Act. The attempt to pass this Resolution at this time is therefore now doubly dubious. Section 7(9) This section requires than loans less than $10 m which is assumed by GoB must be reported to the National Assembly within 3 months of making and in the report, the matters specified under section 7(8) must again be outlined; that is (a) Date of the loan; (b) The amount of the loan; (c) The parties to the loan; (d) The purpose of the loan; and (e) The terms and conditions of the loan. There has been no reporting to the National Assembly in respect of the $228 m borrowed and partial spent since September, 2012. Again, therefore, Barrow and GoB are in flagrant contravention of the Act. The attempt to pass this Resolution at this time is to ratify a continuing illegal act since September, 2012.
ization process courting poets, generals, revolutionaries, diplomats, world leaders and friendly brokers from Africa to Caricom, Cuba to Panama. So young brothers I come to ask that we not bend, or betray the legacy of our ancestors. I call on all of you to recognize our new appointment with history, to reflect on and own 1981 – the process, the struggle, the opposition, the unfounded Guatemalan claim in order to understand the true aspiration of the Belizean people. Fast forward to September 21, 2014. We will march uniformed this Sunday as an SJC family, not because we have to, but because the journey is still on. The Father of our Independence George Price always said, “we’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go…” It is no coincidence that in our current House of the people’s Representatives we have 30 men and 1 woman. That is perhaps the most extreme absurdity of our journey 33 years on, but it is real. It speaks loud, and it means that at 33 we must still resist, fight, and struggle. Independence is not just an idea or a dream deferred. It is a state of mind and conscience that must find action. Independence can be a creative experience. Let us think about how we can make it so. Happy birthday beloved! Happy birthday Belize!
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