I will make this short. There is no published entry, exit, customs or immigration fees. An outsider might think so, but you get accustomed to the “shakedown” as a way of life. Of course you must politely refuse to pay anything that is outside the norm. Good luck with that. You pay or argue. Finish quickly clearing or take days. Your trip memories will suck for the private sector facing this because you do it again when its time to leave.

John should be pissed, the corrupt have no problem asking for $500 when it should be $50. One can only take so much. I think John really lost it when a politician had no problem asking for a $2million handout. Arrrgh, matey, a pirates life for me!! NOT!!.

Hope this makes sense, I get quite disturbed remembering, its not just Belize however.

http://www.elections.gov.bz/modules/wfdownloads/viewcat.php?cid=14

If you will notice, the Belize District (Page 1), “Pirate central” (a total of 80,000 inhabitants representing 22% of the country´s population) has a total of 12 divisions (almost 40% of the nation´s electoral divisions), with only the remaining 19 (60% of the electoral divisions) representing the entire remainder of the country – a population of 280,000).

There are two major political parties in Belize, the PUP and the UDP, and a few very minor ones, but for the most part, only the major parties have been able to raise the electioneering capital needed to advertise and publicize their party during election season. Therefore, every government since 1981 when Belize became independent has been won by either the PUP or the UDP.

The system of voting is based on the UK´s “Westminster system” which admittedly, works fairly well in the UK but not so in Belize. In the UK, the citizenry value decency and practice it as a matter of social convention. In Belize, piracy and how much you can “hustle” out of someone else is the accepted social norm.

That said, a political party wins an election if the party´s candidates cumulatively win one more than half of the total number of divisions in an election. Yes, it is one candidate per party, per division. So, in the case of 31 electoral divisions, the party that wins at least 16 divisions wins the election (first past the post system), and the party leader of the winning party automatically becomes the Prime Minister. As you can probably figure out, the Prime Minister is not elected by popular vote of the entire citizenry. He only needs to win his division, and have his party win the election, to become Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is not elected in a Republican system such as the one that exists in the USA, or in any democratic fashion any at all. Less than 1/31 of the nation´s voters vote the Prime Minister in.

That said, you may want to take a second look at the election results I linked above again. The former Prime Minister´s name is Said Musa, and the current Prime Minister´s name is Dean Barrow. If you look at the divisions in which Said Musa (Fort George Division) and Dean Barrow (Queen´s Square) ran in the 2012 election, you will see that they are some of the SMALLEST divisions on record by number of registered voters. A prime reason for the shameful gerrymandering in the Belize District constituencies is so that the candidates only have to “bribe” a small number of people in order to win their seat.

As it turns out, the Prime Minister, Dean Barrow´s division, Queen´s Square, is the most crime-filled, gang-infested division in the entire country. All of the major gangs such as the George Street Gang and Taylor´s Alley Gang flourish right there in that tiny sliver of square blocks known as Queen´s Square. Queens Square is also the murder capital of Belize (City and Country).

You have to ask yourself why. After all, it is the current Prime Minister´s division and he has not lost an election there for more than 20 years. So why can´t such a powerful man in the all powerful position of Prime Minister rid the relatively tiny area of the crime and depravity? He has been Prime Minister for more than 5 years already, but the area continues to deteriorate instead of rehabilitate. Your guess would be as good as mine. But a friend of mine from the Corozal District has this opinion.

My Corozaleno friend opines that the GSU and by extension the government are really the strong-arm enforcers of the crack / cocaine trade, and specificially, the favored distributors, the George Street Gang. It is her opinion that the GSU and the police lock up petty weed smokers because they do not want the crack / cocaine business to have competition. Her reasoning is that in every community, there are crack cocaine dealers, and the entire community knows who these dealers are, but they are never harassed or arrested. In the 5 years since this PM has been the PM, quite a number of citizens have been jailed for one stick of weed, but not a single person has ever been jailed for selling or dealing crack or cocaine. Truth be told, this was the norm long before this PM was elected, the trend just simply continued. The police statics are also quite dismal, more along the lines of depressing, actually. You can view a media report on it here:

http://www.plustvbelize.com/Featured/NewsDetails/tabid/63/ArticleId/1828/PlusNews-analysis-of-2011-Crime-Statistics-for-Belize.aspx

In April 2012, a very feared gangland kingpin of the George Street Gant located in the PM´s Queen´s Square division named Sheldon “Pinky” Tillett was shot to death, allegedly by a rival gang kinpin from the Taylor´s Street Gang, also located in the PM´s Queen´s Square Division, named Arthur Young. The surveillance video of the execution showed someone who appeared to be said Arthur Young performing the execution. You can view the video here, but I warn that it is graphic.

http://www.7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=22338

Immediately after Pinky Tillett was executed, the GSU began a manhunt for the gang kingpin´s rival and alleged killer, Arthur Young. Now Arthur Young was no saint, and I cannot honestly say that anyone much probably mourned his death, but a few days after the execution of Pinky Tillett, Arthur Young was captured by the GSU, at whose hands he met his death. You can read the media stories about it here:

http://edition.channel5belize.com/archives/69529

Now back to McAfee … my Corozaleno friend opines that the reason the GSU raided McAfee´s Orange Walk ranch is because they believed he was dealing meth. According to my friend, the GSU don´t want crack cocaine to have any competition, hence the reason to shut that “shop” down right away. In Belize, cocaine / crack rules.

In June 2010, the Prime Minister´s law partner was shot in cold blood as he left his law office one night. Was this a mafia warning to the PM of some sort? A young man was convicted for the attempted murder, but many people believe he is as much a victim as the PM´s law partner. But why would someone … anyone … want the PM´s law partner dead?

http://7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=21866

My friend in Corozal firmly believes that the government is the crack / cocaine mafia and the drug mafia is the government. This came in part because a former drug kingpin who was “extradited” to the US to face charges of drug deling alleged in his testimony that a former Minister of Police was his mafia boss.

http://edition.channel5belize.com/archives/42450

Of course, one will never know for sure. But one does have to wonder …

I believe Dr. McAfee has stated elsewhere in another article or comment on the blog that these events led to the blog being launched early.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Goodnight all

Eli