Belmopan, Belize 6 December (Belizean.com) Prime Minister Dean Barrow recently spent the better part of two weeks in Port of Spain Trinidad attending a Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit. While the Summit is being billed as an address to Global Warming, PM Barrow's motives seemed on an entirely different tangent. In what has been described as an "extraordinary intervention",
Mr. Barrow used the occasion to promote his personal war (read "pissing contest") with British Peer Lord Michael Ashcroft and to levy threats against the British Empire. In an article published in last week's INDEPENDENT newspaper of the United Kingdom, columnist Jane Merrick wrote: "The Prime Minister of Belize warned David Cameron last night that he risks damaging relations between Britain and the Central American country if he gives Lord Ashcroft an influential position in a Conservative government."
Now if this scenario was not so concerning and serious it would be downright hilarious. It brings to mind a 1955 novel written by Irish American Leonard Wibberley. The Mouse that Roared, later a movie starring the very funny Peter Sellers, was about a tiny country (smaller even than Belize) that declares war upon the mighty United States. Of course, if we really think about this long enough, one might be tempted to suppose that maybe just maybe our Prime Minister is onto something here. In explaining to his people why they should declare war and fight against the infinitely more powerful United States, Rupert Mountjoy, Prime Minister of the miniscule Duchy of Grand Fenwick surmised: "We declare war on Monday, we are defeated on Tuesday, and by Friday we will be rehabilitated beyond our wildest dreams." The rationale used by Grand Fenwick's Prime Minister, if not also by ours, was that they could repair their badly damaged economy using the generous largesse usually awarded to countries following a defeat. Okay! Do you think it could work?
A major concern of ours should be however, that if our Prime Minister is not really trying to pull a Rupert Mountjoy on Elizabeth, then there would be other motives behind his brash talk. Could Dean Barrow's contrivance be to meddle in British politics? Unless you have been somewhere under a rock over the past few years, you will know that Michael Ashcroft is a key player in one of Britain's major political parties. After two terms in opposition, the Tories are expected to regain a huge majority in Britain's parliament in next year's elections. Most polls are projecting a wide to landslide margin of victory. England's ruling party, which seems on the verge of relegation to opposition, has been using Michael Ashcroft as their point of attack against the Tories. The labor party has had Ashcroft under a microscope and as could have been expected, Barrow's comments were plastered on the headline of every government friendly paper in that country. Piccadilly is looking for any peccadillo to use against the Tories and one has to wonder exactly from whose song sheet our Prime Minister is singing. After all, the Tories were not even represented at the summit, so to who was Mr. Barrow speaking and quo animo?
If what looks like is happening is happening, then Dean Barrow is taking one hell of a gamble with Belize's future. Should this little game backfire, and with the Tories showing such a huge lead in the polls it most likely will, then there will be all hell to pay. Of course Barrow, and Evan Hyde who has been goading and cheering him along, will not suffer; they are both mega-rich. The average Belizean however, who is already living hand to mouth and barely making ends meet, will have an increasingly difficult time surviving. Make no mistake, England can and will make life difficult for Belize. Does Dean Barrow really believe that he can intimidate David Cameron into foregoing Michael Ashcroft's contributions to his party? Belizeans have known for a long time that Dean Barrow has an epic and Olympic size ego but this is straight out hubris
We are grateful of course, that Mr. Barrow qualified his remarks to the British press by informing them that it was his government and not necessarily the whole nation of Belize that is at war with the Tories. There is an old street adage that advises that "the mouth should never write a check bigger than the ass can cash" or as my old auntie would say, "haas widout hawn nuh business eena cow gallup".
Of course there might be another reason for Mr. Barrow's show of bravado in Port of Spain. Barrow has been accused of having "no balls" most notably as recent as a couple of months ago by his own party member and mayor of Belize City, Zenaida Moya. Newspaper readers will also remember the Amandala ads leading up to the 1998 elections that declared Barrow as being "impotent". What better way to prove the existence of balls than to shake your fists in the face of an indomitable and "fearless foe", and one many times your size and strength. As one individual astutely observed however, "there's a big difference between having balls and placing those balls in a vice."
-- G. Michael Reid
A major concern of ours should be however, that if our Prime Minister is not really trying to pull a Rupert Mountjoy on Elizabeth, then there would be other motives behind his brash talk. Could Dean Barrow's contrivance be to meddle in British politics? Unless you have been somewhere under a rock over the past few years, you will know that Michael Ashcroft is a key player in one of Britain's major political parties. After two terms in opposition, the Tories are expected to regain a huge majority in Britain's parliament in next year's elections. Most polls are projecting a wide to landslide margin of victory. England's ruling party, which seems on the verge of relegation to opposition, has been using Michael Ashcroft as their point of attack against the Tories. The labor party has had Ashcroft under a microscope and as could have been expected, Barrow's comments were plastered on the headline of every government friendly paper in that country. Piccadilly is looking for any peccadillo to use against the Tories and one has to wonder exactly from whose song sheet our Prime Minister is singing. After all, the Tories were not even represented at the summit, so to who was Mr. Barrow speaking and quo animo?
If what looks like is happening is happening, then Dean Barrow is taking one hell of a gamble with Belize's future. Should this little game backfire, and with the Tories showing such a huge lead in the polls it most likely will, then there will be all hell to pay. Of course Barrow, and Evan Hyde who has been goading and cheering him along, will not suffer; they are both mega-rich. The average Belizean however, who is already living hand to mouth and barely making ends meet, will have an increasingly difficult time surviving. Make no mistake, England can and will make life difficult for Belize. Does Dean Barrow really believe that he can intimidate David Cameron into foregoing Michael Ashcroft's contributions to his party? Belizeans have known for a long time that Dean Barrow has an epic and Olympic size ego but this is straight out hubris
We are grateful of course, that Mr. Barrow qualified his remarks to the British press by informing them that it was his government and not necessarily the whole nation of Belize that is at war with the Tories. There is an old street adage that advises that "the mouth should never write a check bigger than the ass can cash" or as my old auntie would say, "haas widout hawn nuh business eena cow gallup".
Of course there might be another reason for Mr. Barrow's show of bravado in Port of Spain. Barrow has been accused of having "no balls" most notably as recent as a couple of months ago by his own party member and mayor of Belize City, Zenaida Moya. Newspaper readers will also remember the Amandala ads leading up to the 1998 elections that declared Barrow as being "impotent". What better way to prove the existence of balls than to shake your fists in the face of an indomitable and "fearless foe", and one many times your size and strength. As one individual astutely observed however, "there's a big difference between having balls and placing those balls in a vice."
-- G. Michael Reid
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