Our sources estimate that the person/s who financed the National Perspective, a local newspaper which was published from late 2009 to late 2011, spent about $600,000 during those two years trying to get something accomplished.

One of the main things the National Perspective wanted to do was to smear the name of the Kremandala chairman, who was featured in a half-page attack ad for every week of those two years.

There are two things we want to say in this editorial. The first is that the $600,000 gives you an idea of the size of the people operating in our country and what they are willing to spend, casually, in order to distort the truth.

The second thing is that there were people operating at this bogus newspaper and being paid from its funding who continue to walk around this city as if they have any credibility left. These were individuals who had value for the National Perspectivebecause they had been involved with UBAD/Kremandala at specific times, and the financiers of NP believed they could be used to confuse the Belizean people, specifically with reference to the Kremandala chairman.

We have said to you before that Belize is a country rich in natural resources – “wealth untold,” as the national anthem describes it, although the Belizean people are poor. One of the reasons Belize is a rich country is because we have oil. This oil, and other natural resources, attract some very wealthy and powerful individuals and groups from the rest of the world, individuals and groups for whom $600,000 is child’s play.

This means that integrity and dignity are at a premium, or should be at a premium, where Belizeans who offer themselves as our leaders and thinkers and spokesmen are concerned. If such people do not possess and preserve integrity and dignity, what they will be is Belizeans without shame who are working for interests whose aim is the exploitation of the Belizean people, not our liberation.

During the two years of the National Perspective, there were individuals who were prominently involved with the newspaper, writing and being paid for bylined columns therein, who allowed themselves to be involved with a process which was hostile to their own people.

A certain columnist who was openly racist was regularly featured in the pages of theNational Perspective. As examples of his venomous racism, we offer quotes from Anonymous’ columns in the Sunday, August 15, 2010, and Sunday, October 17, 2010 issues of the NP. On August 15, 2010, Anonymous wrote: “It is such a shame and a pity that this UDP government is out to destroy the less than few Belizean owned businesses, which will only benefit the Jamaicans and Barbadians to complete their Africanization of Belize to the delight of the UBAD-ers, and there is not one voice of dissent raised among the mainstream traditional media on this abomination.” On Sunday, October 17, 2010, Anonymous wrote on page 7 of the NP: “Similarly, the PM displays his depraved indifference towards Belizeans by ordering the foreclosure of Belizean businesses, collaborates with CARICOM to destroy Belize by bringing CARICOM domination, so why should we accept black Caribbean CARICOM domination, hegemony and rulership. The only ones who will gain from CARICOM will be the people and especially their leaders from the Caribbean. They will gain all our land, all our resources: send all their people here and their violent nature and backward customs and traditions and those few Belizeans who are the fifth columnists and quislings engineering their entire project.”

Ladies and gentlemen, there were black Belizeans who were writing bylined columns in that newspaper. Where was their dignity? Where was their pride? How could they be involved for two years with such an editorial perspective? What were they thinking?

Generally speaking, at this newspaper we ignored the National Perspective, because we think more highly of our people than to believe that they encourage garbage. We cannot allow that newspaper to enter the oblivion it so richly deserves, however, without publicly inquiring of specific individuals we know and have worked with: who are you now, where do you stand, and what do you seek?

Amandala

In my editorial for our mid-week issue, I sought to convince, pressure even, a few people involved with the National Perspective process, which lasted from late 2009 to late 2011, to step back and examine their situation. You have to do this from time to time in life. If you don’t, you may end up somewhere you didn’t intend to go and looking quite the fool, or, at least, not as intelligent as you thought you were.

There was a mind game going on between the NP and myself. One of their assignments was to make outlandish attacks on myself, in the hope that I would respond in kind. The reason I really didn’t have to respond was because the people of Belize basically ignored the National Perspective. I don’t know that I made it absolutely clear in the editorial that the loyalty of the Belizean people was and is something for which I am very grateful.

There was a larger mission on which the NP was focused, and it had to do with a fundamental power struggle within the People’s United Party. For sure the National Perspective spent most of its lifetime launching attacks on the PUP Leader Johnny Briceño, who had defeated Francis Fonseca in the party’s leadership convention held in March of 2008.

With national elections right around the corner, the PUP is in a state of heightened sensitivity, and the individuals who were the ones behind the National Perspective made it a point to preserve their anonymity. If I were to say now that I believe so-and-so and so-and-so were the ones financing and orchestrating the NP process, that would be speculation, and it would be interpreted as hostile speculation.

The ones who were signing their names to stuff have to figure out for themselves what role they played, how important their role was to their principals, and whether the damage to their credibility was worth the money they were paid. At the end of the proverbial day, you know, everything is business.

They say that while the grass is growing, the cow is starving. When a people are oppressed, and leaders try to fight for their liberation, sometimes there are those who become impatient with the slowness of the progress towards liberation. And, there are those who are just plain greedy. So that, there are always some people who give up on the liberation struggle and join ranks with the oppressors. It happens all the time.

For me, the most important thing was always to prevent my political opponents from controlling my destiny. I mean by that, if I found myself in alliance with the PUP, for example, it was important that I control the extent of my aggression against the UDP. Earlier in my life, I was not doing this. I would overreact to whichever of the major political parties I was fighting against at a specific time. My political opponents were, after a fashion, controlling my destiny.

Mark Espat and Cordel Hyde were allies of Johnny Briceño when he defeated Francis Fonseca in March of 2008. By the October 2010 national convention of the PUP, however, Briceño had turned against Espat and Hyde in a decisive way. It happened that the very same people who were his most prominent allies that October 2010, pulled the rug from under Johnny’s feet a year later. This is how power politics works. Cold-blooded, Jack.

But, eventually all the politicians have to go back to the people. I believe what those people who were financing and orchestrating the National Perspective found out, after $600,000, was that the Belizean people stood firm in their judgement of, and support for, the Kremandala operation. There are no guarantees in life, and especially public life. All you can do is do your best, and hope that the people understand.

All power to the people.

Amandala