And while the Opposition feels emboldened by popular support, government says it has reason on its side. Today we asked two of the gentlemen lawyers, Opposition Leader Dean Barrow and Tourism Minister Godfrey Smith to comment on the UDP's statement that if a "intransigent, illegitimate and outlaw government" doesn't come through with the money, whatever happens after that rests squarely on that government's shoulders.
Jules Vasquez,
You have said in a release, the UDP says that the party and the council will use all available options to ensure that they get what was promised, $374,000.
Hon. Dean Barrow, UDP Leader
"Yes and those options include of course the kinds of actions that the Mayor had been proposing to take on Tuesday of this week. They include putting thousands of bodies in the streets. They include any and everything that is legitimate and within the law that the party and the council making maximum possible use of their combined imagination can come up with."
Hon. Godfrey Smith, Minister of Tourism
"I did have conversations with the Leader of the Opposition. We did not go into any modalities of the MOU. In fact all we both agreed on was that look, then MOU has to be the point reference to bring the discussions back on track. I agreed to that and thereafter discussions flowed. Now it broke down because obviously the City Council, again being intransigence, feels it should get all this money, $300,000 more, in addition to the $250,000 without showing any plan for a craft market or anything.
The BTB, in my view, acting in good faith agreed to put up some money to show that it was willing to come back to the table in the hope that there would agree to use that money to begin to show some earnest concrete manifestation of their willingness to abide by the MOU. That has not taken, instead the position is give us all this money now and pass a law, otherwise or else and then there is a big question mark.
Let me make it perfectly clear that while the BTB has certainly put on record its position, which I as the Minister with responsibility for tourism fully support, that has nothing to do with the government. That has nothing to do with the Ministry of Local Government and how open the Ministry of Local Government or central government may be towards finding a solution to this. That is entirely open. Why is that not being pursued?"
Hon. Dean Barrow,
"It seems to me that what this has done now is to place the government fully and squarely on its back foot. They ought to have been able to come up with the entirety of their arrears. These were monies that had been programmed. It is my sense and the sense of the party and the sense of the Mayor and Council that to tell us that they can only make an initial payment and that they cannot say when they can make a second payment, they cannot say how much that second payment will be is rubbing salt in a wound.
It means that the effort that we had made collectively, the UDP, the Council, to try and produce some negotiated compromise has been rejected by the government and the bottom line is we will now do, what we have to do having exposed, in our view to the public, clearly a bad faith of the government and whatever happens now is on them."
Hon. Godfrey Smith,
"The effect of the latest alarming UDP position is this, the net effect is this: give us some taxes otherwise we might take actions to destroy the cruise tourism industry. I consider that a highly irresponsible statement and position, first for the Mayor to take and now apparently the entire UDP.
You ask them what is the basis, they say well people is on our side and think we should get this money. But a country is run by public sentiment. Were that so, then most people in Belize or many people in Belize would say for the hardened criminals let's not even give them a trial, hang them immediately. That is not how you govern a country and then to accuse to the PUP of arrogance, this position of the UDP I find to be the most egregious, the most extreme bloated grotesque form of arrogance imaginable.
They're basically saying, 'even though we have no legal entitlement to this money, if you don't give us we will simply take actions that could destroy the industry,' and then it won't be their fault - it will be our fault. I am in total shock, I am perturbed that such a position could be taken and I think that is a clear signal to the Belizean people of two things, one of the recklessness, of the inherent tendency to recklessness and violence manifested by this UDP and to a clear signal, a manifestation of the kind of governance they run, they operate."
The battle lines having been drawn - we'll keep tracking it, and if anything happens, we'll be on it.
