It used to be the Citizens Opposing Lord Ashcroft, but now COLA has reloaded its acronym for the distinctly less militant: “Citizens Organized for Liberty through Action.” But while the name may change, for the time being, the man in the crosshairs is still Michael Ashcroft. On Wednesday they take to the streets at high noon to peacefully protest against Ashcroft and his various corporate holdings. Elena Smith is COLA’s interim president and she told us what to expect.
Elena Smith, COLA
“He has come here, he has found everything in place and he has just taken over because he has money. And so he has a hold over the economy, he had a hold over some of the politicians because he has the finance, he can give them what they want. He can support them, so he has a hold. We cannot allow for one person to come here and to take Belizeans hostage because he has the money. If you back to 2005 when the unions were out there fighting, we had urged all our members and people in general to go and remove their accounts from Belize Bank because from then we realized that Ashcroft was a part of everything that was going on. He has a big hand in it and so from 2005 we have been saying to get yourselves away from Belize Bank, get yourselves away from everything that Michael Ashcroft controls and so this is an addition to what had begun then. So we are just continuing the fight to get people away from that. We will have other things planned that will refocus on getting people away from that entity.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
I am wondering what this group thinks about the news that broke yesterday that he also bought Channel 5?
Elena Smith,
“Well it wasn’t much of a surprise and we know that he is going to find whatever means he can to counteract whatever is going on because I am sure anybody, nobody wants to have bad PR out there about them. So he has to find a way to deal with that and he does not have a media house that he can put his message out there so his only other choice was to buy a media house and Channel five was willing to give up so he got what he wanted. We don’t want investors who will come and take over the whole of Belize. You can come and invest and give back to the community and then you have other people who can get a chance to invest as well. What happened to the Belizeans? We can’t invest as well? We have money and we can put our moneys together and we can do investments. But again because he has the bulk of the money that we don’t have, he gets all of these opportunities that we cannot get and so we cannot allow that to continue anymore.”
The march gets underway at the Battlefield Park from twelve noon and should run for two hours. Today in a press release, the Belize National Teacher’s Union called on all teachers, workers, students and the public to join in.
