CARICOM at war on three FRONTS!

CARICOM which includes Belize, IS AT WAR ON THREE FRONTS!

Caricom which includes our country of Belize is at WAR on THREE fronts. Unfortunately the leaders of CARICOM countries, what is left of them, as the size of CARICOM membership shrinks, are at heart, country folks, provincial in outlook and nature. For the most part, country Prime Minister’s are not even aware that they are at WAR on three fronts. They have vague conceptions of something going awry with their desires and ambitions, but haven’t really put it into some sort of focus. CARICOM countries for the most part are always on the edge of the struggle for SURVIVAL. That SURVIVAL is intrinsically wound up with the three FRONT WAR, they only vaguely are uneasy about, but can only see by the individual guerrilla actions and small scale battles. Most of which we are losing.

The FIRST WAR FRONT is being waged by the G 7 countries, against CARICOM, through the G 20 group. This is the stripping away of the right to be sovereign in financial matters and compete on a fair level playing field with the G 7 countries for a market share in the financial services industry. The TAX HAVEN status of most of the Caricom countries is pretty much stripped away now and the advantages of offering competitive financial services will ultimately DESTROY the financial services TAX HAVEN status of CARICOM countries. We are losing an industry and revenue income stream. This WAR is commercial in nature, in the cutthroat competitive world of business. G 7 governments are running this war over market share. It is not even that the allegations are true, that they make and their treaties and obligations have any modicum of fairness. There is no fairness in WAR. Only winning and destroying your enemy who is competing with you for commercial business. The fact that all the things they slur and claim CARICOM TAX HAVENS of doing, they themselves do in their own countries, but just under different names and jargon does not matter. The problem for CARICOM is that the weapons in this particular war are the banking system, the need for us to go through their clearing centers, use their financial exchanges, use their wire transfer systems and so on. The answer is to use some other financial center system. Bigger and more richer countries than the small CARICOM countries are struggling with this world wide war.

It is probably time that CARICOM put up their own telecommunications satellite. The Chinese built and put up one for Venezuela. Even Central America should put up their own satellite.



The SECOND FRONT WAR for CARICOM is with the European Union. This war on the part of the European Union does not involve armies, tanks and soldiers. The war uses as weapons, treaties, contracts, memorandum of understandings. The weapons and battles are fought with paper. Essentially the European Union wishes to keep small ex-colonial countries as MARKETS for their finished products. They also wish to keep small countries of CARICOM as suppliers of bulk commodities. The raw materials they need to process for value added products THEY can export to us. Ultimately the WAR is about tax revenues and jobs for growing populations. The war is fought with carrot and stick approach. We get some GRANTS for needed improvements in our struggle for SURVIVAL as populations, which will be taken away if we do not sign on the dotted line by the EU.

We must diversify our marketing and make more export products in competition with the EU, to win this war on our small one country scale for ourselves.



The THIRD FRONT WAR for CARICOM is ALBA, the socialist promised paradise of the CUBAN system of the totalitarian state. This is more the traditional war, more reminiscent of the COLD WAR of recent history. Here we have an egomaniac who lusts for ABSOLUTE POWER in the leader of Venezuela . In the countries currently belonging to ALBA, are subsidiary KINGS who are in charge of their own little fiefdom. Their small kingdoms of which they in turn, lust for ABSOLUTE POWER in their small kingdoms. On the surface, the battle is with WORDS, and CONCEPTS. The jargon keeps changing. We do not call it communism any more, it is now called SOCIALISM and NEO-LIBERALISM. The fight against POVERTY. If one studies history, serving the POOR and DOWNTRODDEN has always been the battle cry of olden Feudal Kings who enjoyed ABSOLUTE POWER. It doesn’t matter whether the title EMPEROR, or senior KING, or an absolute ruler had the title of PASHA, AMIR, AYATOLLAH, Prime Minister for Life, or President for Life. Absolute Power is about absolute power. Certain people are born TYRANTS. This war is being waged by EMPEROR Hugo Chavez of Venezuela with the oil billions available to him. He is also winning this war in the Americas . STALIN, MAO, the CASTRO brothers all killed massive amounts of their opponents and sacrificed the poverty stricken in the domination requirements of ABSOLUTE POWER. We are talking HUNDREDS of millions of people murdered and sacrificed over the fight on poverty allegedly. Again right now, the WAR is like that being waged by the EU and is using the CARROT and the STICK approach. In a time of this new century in which energy sources are changing. The world oil production peaked scientists say in 2008. The USA transportation trucking fleet will be mostly NATURAL GAS driven in fifteen years, substituting for oil imports due to a new BILL now in the USA SENATE. For example Belize is in dire straits and many of the other CARICOM smaller island countries worse off. The price of gasoline in Belize is almost the same as a year ago when oil was $120 a barrel, but right now is in the mid $70 a barrel range. ENERGY is the big weapon in this war. Replacing a nucleur arsenal and aircraft carriers to fight idealogical battles over supremacy. While this WAR on this front with ALBA is using the poverty fighting jargon, of the past, no one should ever mistake the SOCIALIST TOTALITARIAN STATE for freedom. It is SLAVERY in a new disguise. This WAR will ultimately involve secret police, torture, killings, jailing perceived opposition, exile and the real cruelties of WAR, which we can understand and see and feel. Even as I write; the internet chatter says the EMPEROR IN HIS STRONGHOLD OF VENEZEULA is building up his army and acquiring military planes and new weapons to enforce control in his new dominion of the AMERICAS .

Already ALBA now counts 11 controlled votes for the United Nations, the OAS and other conferences and meetings, versus the shrinking CARICOM number of votes which at last count was only 10. This is alarming because most CARICOM countries are mismanaged and many are simply supplying labor and brain drain workers for the G 7 countries. This is a form of island country population control. Nearly all CARICOM countries have perpetual DEBT. Even our own Belizean Prime Minister of Belize believes in perpetual DEBT as an operating system. DEBT of course is lost revenues for development and self sufficiency requirements. You also lose the freedom to make choices and choose the courses you wish are best for Belize . This latter sentence is more profound in performance and implication, than all the various philosophical arguments about whether government debt is good or bad.

To my personal view, Belize at least inside CARICOM has to get rid of the debt to be truly FREE and INDEPENDENT without obligations to anyone outside. Leaving our choices open to choose. We have to also provide ourselves with everything possible we can need. This is easier in Belize and Guyana than other countries of CARICOM. Commercially our future is more with Central America , Mexico and the USA in Belize . Though putting all your eggs in one basket is wrong. We do need more economic diversification. The world right now is our market, not just traditional places. We must be able to shift markets with changing times, to remain fluid in our small niche, brand name way. We need to slide under the G 7 world radar in our small scale, like Marie Sharpe Products, or Grace Kennedy Ltd.

I could probably go on writing for a long time, but you get the essence of this article. Which is that CARICOM leaders and our Belizean Prime Ministers of the present and future, need to think differently, less selfishly and be more self sufficient in attitudes and policies. The system or one political party wins the government attitude has to change and adapt to think more about being a sovereign independent, self sufficient state. That is our REAL CHALLENGE for Belize . We need Prime Ministers with a wider vision, less bureaucratic minds, less regulation and more innovation and experimentation. This is a tough balancing act, when revenues are shrinking currently, oil prices rising and we wait for the next world BULL MARKET. When things get tough, the tough get going should be our attitude in Belize .

CARICOM RAPIDLY BREAKING UP! - ALBA WOO'S TWO CARICOM COUNTRIES AWAY WITH FOOD AND OIL!

CARICOM RAPIDLY BREAKING UP!

Caricom is rapidly breaking up! Caricom was the successor to the failed Federation of the West Indies. Another attempt to join the English speaking Caribbean nations into one country. An idea of academic intellectuals, much exaggerated as to benefits from common currency, common free trade markets and common citizens, able to travel into and back and forth as citizens of fourteen very small island nations. With a couple of bigger mainland nations thrown in.
The only thing the CARICOM countries were able to forge over 45 years of trying, were a united block and consensus for voting in INTERNATIONAL FORUMS, such as the United Nations. Mostly the drive to join as one country, was promoted by highly educated academic intellectuals, who could see permanent civil service job opportunities, with high salaries and perks, with travel allowances and per diems.
What happened in the pragmatic sense, is that no politicians were really willing to surrender their island kingdoms, even though they were only elected monarchs called Presidents, or Prime Ministers. Any talk of surrendering their currency, Central Bank functions, civil service jobs to other island populations, met with delays and study groups.
ALBA the grouping of communist led TYRANTS, currently temporarily freely elected to 7 Latin American nations under the leadership of Hugo Chavez, of Venezuela; who were all allegedly COMINTERN student members in their youth, has re-written the political landscape of the Americas. Venezuelans are smart and they have loads of money, with their rich oil field exports. Hugo Chavez the leader of Venezuela plays the clown, but he has a lot of very intelligent people in his bureaucracy. They are so far, smarter than the Europeans and the USA. Mostly because they are not playing with the same mind set in business and government, which throws democratic nations off kilter.
The ALBA trade group and communist ideology is using oil wealth to form a block of communist dictators, as Presidents for Life, or TYRANTS of the countries of the Americas. Copying the successful example of the Castro brothers of Cuba. The battle is between Communist trained people, versus the democratic USA. So far the USA has been concentrating on oil supplies from middle Asia and the middle East countries and ignoring the Americas. The European Union countries have abstained from the struggle and simply adopted the old Imperialist colonial methodology of securing resources and markets under new stratagems.
Caricom it was announced yesterday has just lost two more INTERNATIONAL VOTES ( making three ) of their fourteen country grouping to ALBA. Leaving only eleven countries left, at odds with each other. Two more very small, previously CARICOM island nations it was announced on the evening news, will join ALBA, a trade group, whose contractual requirements require they surrender their foreign policy voting to the ALBA group, instead of CARICOM. The reward is a promise of FOOD and OIL supplies to serve the needs of their citizens. While a lot of talk from the ALBA communist SEVEN is about social programs, and communal trade, it is turning out in practice, to be a move to solidify the seven main countries into tyrannical dictatorships like Cuba, or North Korea, with the SEVEN new Presidents of their countries, being PRESIDENTS FOR LIFE, as in a new empire of TYRANNY. Stalin, Castro, Kim Jong and Mao are the examples being followed by these previous alleged American COMINTERN leaders. The upper class business people are being forced into exile, the middle class is now under attack, with further expropriations and either going to jail, or being forced into exile abroad. All opposition is being eliminated in one way, or another by these ALBA country leaders. The last free press is being eliminated as I write in Ecuador and Venezuela. The others to follow soon.
This is the Bolshevik Revolution methodology in a slightly different operation. One should read the BLACK BOOK OF COMMUNISM to understand, for new generations without practical historical experience.
The jealousy and fear about surrendering their CARICOM economies, revenues and political power of elected Prime Ministers and Presidents of CARICOM countries has turned out to be nothing but academic intellectual dreams, that became shipwrecked on the personal get rich greed ambitions of political leaders of CARICOM. The whole idea never had a chance to start with, because it ignored reality and the ambitions of freely elected politicians for personal gain and pride. Human nature is the downfall of Caricom. Like the Federation of the West Indies before it, CARICOM is crumbling to dust.
Basic to CARICOM original ideas were the need for internal transportation. The island countries were scattered miles apart by the Caribbean sea. In an orgy of pride, the major economic countries of CARICOM went their own way in battles of competing national airlines, bureaucratically run by party hacks at frivolous costs, supported by taxpayer subsidies at a loss, impractical for private sector, smaller airline ventures to compete. These airline systems also are collapsing because they are government controlled. Last year to break the political and economic impasse, in Belize, we attempted to bring a dash of cold water on this process and form an affordable private sector run CARICOM AIRLINES out of Belize to join the countries of CARICOM together. The idea was rejected out of hand by the host Belize Government ( no shares, or bribes for politicians available ) and found no support with the competing agendas of politicians in proud sovereign member nations of CARICOM. The main leaders of CARICOM were Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados. They basically decide the INTERNATIONAL VOTING for the fourteen countries as a group. Nothing else has really worked. Now the international voting bloc is being steadily whittled down from fourteen countries to eleven countries and probably more will follow as oil prices rise, causing inflation in small economies that cannot afford it. ALBA is exploiting this weakness and the loss of power by the USA to economically intervene in the Americas.
This is a WAR, it is a war like no other in history. It is a war using OIL as a weapon and the wealth that OIL produces in a time of declining energy supplies, increasing world populations and the need for both natural resources and markets for products. Complicating matters are the rise of ASIA which is surpassing the manufacturing ability of the Europeans, or the USA, to dominate the political processes involved. With the new Taiwan –mainland China policy of one government, two systems and open trade between them, the Chinese just became a much larger powerhouse in trade. In the meantime, future TYRANTS are using their communist worldly training, to create dictatorship tyrannies on the American Continent and a NEW WORLD ORDER serving them. The spider in the web of this NEW WORLD ORDER battle are International Corporations, working behind the scenes, who treat the planet as their own backyard and greedy governments and corrupt politicians as inconveniences to be exploited.
Politically speaking, the G7 countries are fighting for survival against the growth of the economic power of the ASIAN countries. In turn they are enlisting a broader spectrum called the G 20 countries to fight this war, with bureaucracy, regulations and world trade organizations and the banking system to design their own NEW WORLD ORDER. In that sense, the battle is four fold. The ASIANS, the EUROPEANS, the USA and ALBA, fighting to see who will win supremacy. ALBA is concentrating on the American continent. The traditional weapons of huge armies, and nuclear arsenals are proving useless in this type of world war.
Small CARICOM countries self absorbed by economic problems and their own growing populations are not too concerned by this world war, being battled early in this new century. Here in CARICOM it is about GREED, PERSONAL AMBITIONS in the political arena. Together we stand, or divided we fall is the old cliche. It sure looks like we are going to be pawns in this new WORLD WAR and one can only wonder how our politicians will handle it? In my opinion, nothing can beat self reliance and I think Belize should pursue this path, failing any legitimate pragmatic aspirations from a failing crumbling CARICOM. Since energy supply is the key to economic independence, it behooves the UDP Cabinet to develop some sort of encouraging program to increase our already diversified energy supply. About the only new addition to the mix would be ethanol, which is not quite at a price yet to make totally practical, but for which backyard and farm makers could at least establish through experiment, the technologies on the cottage industry scale, the rudiments of production and distribution, once the price of world oil rose enough to make the program of ethanol production, commercially viable. There is an earlier article on this BLOG about cottage industry ethanol production, with an investment of $2000 bz. needed to produce 5 gallons of ethanol a day in your own backyard. Given that and the encouragement of further private sector energy suppliers, through tax holiday encouragement, and favorable cooperation and possibly legislation, Belize is on the path to energy independence of a sort. Certainly the potential is there given wise decisions by our political cabinet. The only real way we can compete and survive in this third world war for this century is to be energy independent as a basic.

BLISTERING ATTACK ON CARICOM, to get Caricom leaders to put up, or shut up!

BLISTERING ATTACK ON CARICOM ORGANIZATION BY EASTERN CARIBBEAN WRITERS

Caribbean countries are tired of the hoopla and propoganda from Caricom Leaders. It is all smoke and mirrors they write. Writers quoted on Caribbean Net News are calling for REAL ACTION to intergrate CARICOM, or break the system up after over 47 years of baloney.
One of the calls for action, is for internal airline transportation. CARICOM AIRLINES venture that was put on a, more or less permanent hold, by the AUXILLOU TOURIST GROUP of Belize earlier this year, after a feasability study costing $100,000 usa in private venture funds. Ray Auxillou, Chairman of the joint venture, said they lost interest for lack of interest by their own Belize Government, or any Caricom country government, for that matter.
"We were looking for $25 million USA of start up capital, for about a 20% share in the new companies", said Mr. Auxillou. "Failing that, we were not interested, because it is a risky start up and impossible to even consider otherwise, even though we got plenty of LOAN interest from banking organizations. Loans are not the way to go in some sort of private sector CARICOM AIRLINES internal transportation system, in our view. Would we try it again? Given the CARICOM countries, buying a combined stake with $25 usa million for 20% of the shares, we would reconsider. Otherwise forget it! We don't even know if the initial aircraft we planned to buy is even available anymore? I imagine it is in Denmark now, or someplace in Europe. We had it here for the AIRCRAFT FLY IN, back in the Spring, at Central Farm Airstrip in Belize. To show the First Secretary of Venezuela's Embassy, to do with an offer they requested for ALBA BANK. The guy never even showed up."

POORLY FINANCIALLY MANAGED CARICOM COUNTRIES GET MORE FREE MONEY, EVEN THOUGH HEAVILY IN DEBT.

Caricom grants coming to Belize by June 26th, 2009.

GEORGETOWN (CARICOM HQ)- Caribbean Community (CARICOM) states are to begin drawing down on grants, interest free subsidies and concessionary loans from the newly-established CARICOM Development Fund (CDF).

In this regard, a three-member delegation, led by Ambassador Lorne Mc Donnough, the CDF's chief executive officer, will visit Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Guyana and Belize, which are among the first group. The visits must be completed by June 26, 2009.

Mc Donnough is a former Jamaican foreign service officer who served in the USA as DCM and Trinidad as Ambassador.

WHERE IS THIS MONEY COMING FROM?

CARICOM COMMON PASSPORT INTEGRATION FALLING TO PIECES ALREADY?

CARICOM COUNTRIES ARE ROUNDING UP and DEPORTING fellow CARICOM nationals from other countries in the membership of the Caribbean area.
So much for intergration, the common CARICOM PASSPORT. Saw the report and videos on
Caribbean News Line. Not sure if it was Barbados or Trinidad deporting CARICOM NATIONALS back to their home countries?

CARICOM INTELLECTUALS CASTIGATED ON TELEVISION IN EASTERN CARIBBEAN

Jamaican produced Blue Hills CARDAMOM SPICE


CARIBBEAN NEWS ON TELEVISION CASTIGATES INTELLECTUALS OF CARICOM

I don’t remember who it was talking and being interviewed on Caribbean News on Channel 5 television last night. But some guy being interviewed out in the Eastern Caribbean was castigating the intellectuals and academics of CARICOM as useless as teats on a bull. ( more or less ) He went on to say in the interview that CARICOM is full of these sweet talking verbose intellectuals with all kinds of pretty studies, position papers and outlines of CARICOM progress, on paper. What he said on television in a nutshell, was it was all poppycock and show. Just paper writings, with no meaning in rhe real world of Caribbean countries. He went on to say, that unless CARICOM bureaucrats can turn paper plans and studies into real world performance, they were a waste of time and money. What he didn’t say, but I got between the lines was that their Ph’d’s, big titles and salaries and expenses were so much as worthless. These bureaucrats were non-performers.
We more or less had come to the same conclusion in Belize up in our Western rural area. We had a CARICOM SECRETARIAT out here a few months back, promising the world and dreams of opportunity and gold in the formation of CARICOM. Like the guy being interviewed on Eastern Caribbean Television, we here in Belize had come to the conclusion it was just a bunch of people currying favor and selling refrigerators to Eskimos in the Arctic frozen wastes, ( con men selling dreams ) in order to provide themselves with salaried jobs at the expense of the taxpayers of CARIBBEAN countries. The reason I formed this personal impression was because they swore up and down to assist us in Belize with any endeavors. Subsequently we emailed enquires several times to the CARICOM SECRETARIAT for information on investment banks and nobody EVER answered us. Their bureaucracy is as bad as our own in Belize. It is like dealing with a BLACK HOLE. Nobody takes responsibility for management. In the private sector based on cash flow, in and out, profit and loss, you can’t work that way. You would get fired immediately.
The Eastern Caribbean television interviewee went on to complain about the lack of transportation internally for one thing. Which brought to mind the little bit of news we turned up lately that the Blue Hills of Jamaica actually produced CARDOMOM spice and we have a photo of it. We have not been able to buy, or even find CARDOMOM spice in Belize and even though Jamaica produces it, there is none here. In fact, there is none here from Guatemala either, which is the biggest producer in the world. ( we are going to make a week trip to COBAN, GUATEMALA and see what we can buy eventually.) We want the ingredient to test for some export product we have in mind of light manufacturing. My immediate thought was on failing to buy Jamaican CARDAMOM spice here, I would hop on a plane to Jamaica and go see the producers and arrange to buy out their crop and production. Alas, as the guy in the Eastern Caribbean said on television, we have no transportation direct from Belize to Jamaica, by ship or air. No way to get there, so how can you do business? This interviewee also went on to complain about lack of an investment bank to start up businesses in the CARICOM countries. We have lamented that same lack here in Western Belize when we tried to start up CARICOM AIRLINE out of Belize as a bootstrap project. We lost $100,000 usa on the feasibility studies, wasted because we could not find investment capital from CARICOM participants. All they know is BORROWING and LOANS. They don’t have a business clue in the world.
PM BARROW and the UDP Government of Belize are misdirecting their energies into CARICOM. CARICOM is useful for International bloc voting, but otherwise useless, when it comes to economics, business and trade. Our Foreign Policy in Belize should be re-directed to the two CHINA’s. That is probably where our business and economic future lies.

OBAMA WOEFULLY UNPREPARED FOR SUMMIT OF AMERICAS

USA President Obama




THE MONDAY EVENING REVIEW OF THE SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS

by Ray Auxillou ( Belize observations )

It has been interesting hearing the summing up of the SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS on local TV and I think I would more take my impressions from three leaders that have been interviewed. The first was Prime Minister Barrow of the country of Belize, who is also head of CARICOM this year. The leader of Guyana and then the remarks of President Obama of the USA.
PM Barrow of Belize was looking for concrete action proposals, but hinted that in that, he was disappointed, in that there was not anything really going to happen differently. Some hot button items were put on the table for CARICOM concerns and that of Barrow’s country of Belize. Something may come out of these later. There is a quotation applicable here “The Lord helps those that help themselves! “
The leader for Guyana, ‘I forget his name’, said it more succinctly. The SUMMIT more was a sharing of aspirations and common goals by the different leaders and any arguments were more in the nature of how best to go about achieving these for each country present. The fundamental idea was to improve living standards for their citizens and let them achieve happiness, each in his own way. In that sense, the Guyanese leader was positive on the sharing aspects of all the 34 leaders of the Americas coming out of the meeting.
President Obama of the USA was more soul searching. His vaunted ability with the diplomatic words, left him; as you could see the smoke coming out of his ears while thinking hard what to say. In a halting fashion when interviewed, he tried to marshal his thoughts and express them in a manner consistent with the future foreign policy interests of the USA. What came out of his thoughts was that the USA involvement in the past 20 years has been in drug intervention and minor military assistance. He was full of hesitations, searching for words to express the acknowledgement that this had not been enough by the USA and was not enough. It was obvious that OBAMA was struggling with the shortcomings of USA foreign policy regarding his own backyard on the American Continent. He was inadequately briefed and seemed not to know much about the Americas outside of Canada and Mexico. U.S. Foreign policy is still Euro Centric and Russian and Middle East centric. They are probably hiring the wrong kind of people in the CIA? It was clearly obvious that his NEW USA ADMINISTRATION were woefully short on Latin American intelligence, or involvement, that there was a complete absence of any plans or ideas, for the USA involvement with the other countries of the Americas. He obviously did not know the condition of the countries who are his neighbors, or their aspirations interpreted by a juandiced intelligence community in Washington, D.C. You could see that he wished he had something to offer, but his State Department, CIA, and other foreign affairs advisors had nothing for him. He was obviously inadequately prepared with a brief on the American continent current affairs, he did not know his subject and felt embarrassed that he didn’t have a single idea, or program to offer. We understand, because we realize he is new in his job. We also understand, because we are his neighbors and have become accustomed to Euro centric, bureaucratic Washington arrogance, or ignorance. Hopefully, he will find ways to change that? Given his financial problems, one does not hold out much hope. USA National Debt is reputed to be 4% of GDP, ( above the 3% maximums for good governance ) whereas in Belize here, our ratio is 78% of GDP, while some of the Caricom countries are reputed to have ratios of 170% of GDP.
Still, speaking solely for BELIZE, I can give him a few ideas, like I give Prime Minister Barrow in daily and weekly articles. I do this, knowing full well this will put me on a terrorist watch list in the current state of the art, of excessive Homeland Security bureaucratic paranoia in the Washington establishment.
In the weekend newspapers of Belize published down in the port town on the coast, there are numerous quarter page advertisements this weekend from Japan, South Korea, from New Zealand and Taiwan, for scholarships for Belizeans for higher education. Most of these are to do with people with Masters Degrees, going for their Phd, or post graduate degrees. Decades ago the USA used to do these things and so did the U.K., but not for a very long time now. ( decades ) In the very small country of Belize, these type of educational scholarships are going to bureaucrats mostly, in salaried jobs in the civil service. There is nothing wrong with having more experienced academics in the civil service, they perhaps do improve our administrative capability in government. The trouble is, that Belize at this stage of growth as an Independent nation, small as we are, need Community College level specialist courses for our young people. Things that would make them entrepreneurs and productive citizens. Our national need is for more exports, not so much better academic administrators we cannot afford. I’m mindful of a local youth in my community of Hillview, that was keen as a young artist and finally he went to the USA on some kind of scholarship for three months and got lessons in water colors, acrylics, layering and other tricks of the commercial artist trade and I have seen the improvement in his paintings. He has now become a professional artist, thanks to that 3 months scholarship training in the USA. Who paid for it, I don’t know? I’m going to try and fill the information gap in, for the President of the USA, intelligence brief regarding his neighbors of the Americas. While your gurus in Washington, D.C. flounder with what to do for affordable USA foreign policy programs, I suggest you renew short term courses of the Community College level for students of the 34 countries of the Americas. In Belize, that USA artist training worked successfully. We also need software programmers, airplane pilots and airplane and powerplant mechanics certified to FAA standards for licensing here in Belize. There are probably more things your bureaucrats can think of that are not available here in Belize? President Obama, if you are listening? Implement a new low budget foreign scholarship program for assorted technical skills that one does not find normally in a University environment. The short courses, which enhance, at least in Belize, the capability of a new young generation to earn a living and contribute to our country GDP. As you said yourself in that post summit interview in Trinidad, the USA needs ways to influence public opinion in the Americas of which the USA is a part. This is cheap and justifiable as a USA foreign policy interest. This is the way you can do it. Set up a program of educational short term courses financed to bring young people from the Americas to the USA for specialist short term training not available in other American countries due often to economies of scale. Low budget and VERY EFFECTIVE foreign policy results in benefits, to the USA image and involvement with your fellow 34 American countries. If you want to go a step further, expand the budget for your PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS and increase them. We now have similar volunteers from Taiwan, Japan and other Asian countries. We don’t need 4 year Phd courses, we need practical stuff done in short time periods. If you want to do more, then build us some bridges over some of our wild rivers.
On the home front in Belize, it is obvious to me from this SUMMIT of the AMERICAS at least, that it is time to take the organizational events of the past five years with Central American countries and Caricom countries and merge them both, into a more larger cooperative whole. A Group of Caribbean nations, including Central American and perhaps Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela as well, as Caribbean nations. We can call them the group of Caribbean 20 or GC22 or something? Cooperatives and credit unions do not only work for groups of citizens but they can increase our local geographic world political power, by having a larger group of countries. We in Belize are already doing this in meteorology, police, air traffic, bus traffic, disaster assistance and such lower level institutions throughout Central America and Caricom. It is time to expand our capabilities, melding Central American countries and the Caribbean islands together in ONE cooperative whole. Trade and commerce then become practical. Lets do it!
When will we hold the next CG 20 Caribbean SUMMIT?

EXPORTING FROM BELIZE TO VENEZUELA!

SO YOU WANT TO EXPORT TO VENEZUELA FROM BELIZE? ( from the Belize Development Trust )

Some highlights of the requirements.

a) Payment is best done by IRREVOCABLE LETTER OF CREDIT FOB Belizeans
b) Best to have a local agent or partner to deal with the myriad time consuming bureaucratic red tape requirments. There are control prices on almost all food.
c) Some of the imports Venezuela requires are; beans, carrots, mushrooms, sweet corn, seafood, dairy products, candies, jam preserves, honey, spices.
d) Local growers/producers cannot compete with imports, because of subsidized imports.
e) There are many food importers found on the internet for Venezuela. There is even a STATE STORE RETAIL FOOD CHAIN. Called MERCAL.
f) Canada finds Venezuela as their BIGGEST market in Latin America. Mostly wheat, and potatoes.
g) Recently Venezuela had a 14% devaluation of the currency. Inflation is about 28 %.
h) Get paid in foreign currency in your country, NEVER in BOLIVARS.
i)_ The USA supplies about 1/3 rd of the Venezuelan food imports. The EU and Canada are the other big exporters to Venezuela.

A 7 to CHALLENGE G7 for world trade.

A7 GROUP TO CHALLENGE G7 COUNTRIES WITH NEW CURRENCY

By Ray Auxillou

The A 7 countries of the Americas ( ALBA TRADING GROUP OF AMERICAN COUNTRIES ) are to challenge the G 7 with a new currency. Dominant currencies are currently the Euro and the Dollar. The new currency of the A 7 countries will be called the SUCRE .

This is a wonderful idea and if the A 7 countries insist on being paid in SUCRE currency for their OIL, NATURAL GAS, BANANAS, TIN, LITHIUM, GOLD, PLATINUM, COFFEE, SUGAR and many other natural resources and food, that feeds the Europeans in particular, coming from the American Continent, things may indeed get interesting in this hemisphere.

The challenge to the supremacy of the Europeans and the USA in world trade is looking to take a new turn. China is currently well invested into the African Continent and moving into the South American area as well. We look forward to seeing the SUCRE take off. Where the currency market headquarters will be for the new exchange of such things, is reputed to be in Caracas . This will make a new money center comparable to Belgium for the Euro and New York for the Dollar. One can hardly wait for the new currency to be floated.

What makes it even more interesting is if CARICOM as a group of countries would follow Grenada and the Grenadines and join ALBA. With everybody aboard the same boat, we would have the advantage of a similar voting block for the political issues, yet acquire the muscle of the finance and exporting dimension of South and Central American countries. The fear of CARICOM political interests being held hostage by the original communist A 7 signing countries would no longer apply, or restrict CARICOM aspirations for economic and trade expansion. With a Financial Center in Caracas dealing in the new SUCRE currency a lot of the players on the table would be changed. New moves, it makes sense! We could pyramid a multiplier effect and become world players in trade and commerce. Time for a REFERENDUM of CARICOM countries on joining ALBA en masse!

CARICOM free movement of peoples gets THUMBS DOWN from Belize investors.

CARICOM SECRETARIAT FREE MOVEMENT OF PEOPLES AROUND THE CARIBBEAN

We got several books from the Caricom Secretariat who held their Town Hall information meeting, drumming up support from a new generation of high schoolers in Belize. They came, they talked and promoted the Secretariat ( hic! and their jobs )and gave out literature.
After a chance to browse through the literature, any thoughts of hopping over to Dominica or the British Virgin Islands with the new CARICOM passport faded away in dismay. The BUREAUCRATIC RED TAPE is horrendous. Medical, police certificates, education certificates and a host of crapola. If this is what a new citizen of this proposed new CARIBBEAN nation has to go through to become a CARICOM citizen, forget it fellas! I kinda played with the idea of putting a tourist business in either BVI, or Dominica ( both have visited and liked ) over on the Eastern side of the Caribbean, as we in the AUXILLOU TOURIST GROUP of Belize are invested in Honduras, Belize of course, and the USA. Currently we are looking at Guatemala. But CARICOM, the bureaucratic red tape they are requiring would be so TIME CONSUMING and labor intensive, it just is not worthwhile in the current level of this nation building they claim to be doing. Maybe in another 30 years at the past historical rate of progress?

CARICOM SECRETARIAT MEETING HELD IN WESTERN BELIZE, CAYO DISTRICT

Caricom Secretariat in San Ignacio, Western Belize, Cayo District.

CARICOM MEETING, HELD IN SAN IGNACIO THE HEARTLAND OF BELIZE-
"home of the productive sector of Belize"

This was not advertised very well, but after hearing about it on Cable TV, Channel 7, I was able by driving around and persistence, to find out on Saturday, that the TOWN HALL MEETING was to be held at 4 p.m. at Sacred Heart College in San Ignacio.
The impression given by television news, was that it would be attended by the CARIBBEAN HEADS OF GOVERNMENT. This turned out not to be so, and was in actual fact, some duty bound executives of the CARICOM secretariat bureaucracy. A panel of promoters from the Executive of CARICOM basically. This was disappointing, as at a secondary level, such managers do not have the power to do anything, or achieve any progress of themselves. Listening and talking to the soldiers in the trenches is very interesting, but if you want to get things found out, or accomplished, you really need to communicate with the CHIEFS, the real movers and shakers.
Despite this drawback, we did find out from my four questions, that there were no Investment Bankers located in the CARICOM nations. We were looking for an equity shareholder partner for a stake in a proposed Regional inter-Caricom airline service, on a small pioneer, bootstrap scale, to build eventually into something bigger, by serving as the transportation unifying factor for the growth of the much ballyhooed Caribbean Common Market alleged opportunities. This fell flat. Theoretically speaking, it should be possible to issue $25 million USD of Class B preferred shares to some sort of amalgamation of participation, by CARICOM member states through a Caribbean institution, but as we suspected, the building of the ONE Caribbean nation composed of smaller states, has not got that far yet, emotionally, or pragmatically. From the news we received here on the outer Western Rim of CARICOM, in Belize, from this blue ribbon Caricom Secretariat executive panel, it was obvious that even though individual nationalistic fervor predominates in the existing Caribbean airlines operating and supported from losing national subsidies, are still sort of operating in the Central and Eastern Caribbean, are not in regional unity as a nation state composed of smaller states, but as feudal competing kingdoms, for some sort of vague glory of individualistic national one upmanship. Bureaucratic and political controlled airlines will never satisfy the goal of regional airline service. They will always fail. A regional inter-airline service has to be successful as a pioneer airline, run by a competitive private sector company, based on fly for profit principals and service, growing from creation of market demand over TIME. At that point of the Caricom Secretariat meeting, we basically gave up on CARICOM, for without some sort of internal flying transportation service there is no way from Belize, that the time and effort in trying to serve the potentials of alleged CARICOM unity and duty free status for internal trade, can compete against that of elsewhere outside of the Caricom regional market idea. At least on the small scale of private industry efforts, currently common, throughout the scattered nation states that now exist. This same issue was one of the major causes of foundering of the original West Indies Federation and it looks to repeat itself, at least in the form of trade and economics.
The Caricom Secretariat gave their usual spiel on the potentials of trade and such rhetoric, but when questions from the student audience started asking nitty gritty questions about the actual assistance being offered, were met with the usual bureaucratese vague responses, that back pedaled rapidly to explanations of ; “well we ourselves can’t do anything, it is up to you the private sector to take the risks“. All that was missing was the cheerleader section and the marching band with trumpets, drums and cymbals. Western Belizeans in this new generation of students seemed to understand they were being fed hoopla and the best thing was to keep your hand on your wallet, lest this new growing Federal style civil service entity, being promoted by our current UDP government, starts the predatory practice of taxation for this new federated nation state, to support academics in their salaried bureaucratic jobs.
There were some other interesting bits and pieces of information. Some of the Eastern Caribbean countries have the foreign exchange capability and fixed rates of exchange, to enable a person from Belize to do business and get paid promptly in foreign exchange, so this Caricom executive alleged. It has been more than twenty years since we had a failed experiment in exporting fish and lobster from our Caye Caulker Cooperative to the big market in Jamaica, when the difficulties in getting paid in cold cash as in foreign exchange, caused the venture to collapse. The memory lingers on.
The Caricom head executive responsible for the trade and commerce of the Secretariat corrected my outdated 18 month old statistics on exports from Belize to CARICOM with statistics in turn, for more recent events of exports from Belize, of Red Kidney Beans and Citrus products. These he said had grown substantially. I wouldn’t know, as we have not been able to get current statistics for over a year out of our own Belize Statistics Unit under our new government. Similarly, I complained to the panel, that e-mails to statistical units in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad also do not answer public private sector statistical queries either. Without current statistical access I have no idea how CARICOM market opportunities can be found or made? This not counting the lack of affordable direct access by airplane, by an internal regional airline, to allow a private sector entrepreneur to go and meet with suppliers, or buyers in some venture. It was to overcome this problem, that we first decided to attempt to build a CARICOM AIRLINE, about nine months ago. We also in the AUXILLOU TOURIST GROUP also see the potential in CARICOM and have identified internal airline service as the first priority necessary , which is why we are interested so far. In the first building block of economic integration for CARICOM it is our collective wisdom that this is priority number one. So far our endeavors are without success. We have the availability of a plane, but the three to five year expected losing costs of a bootstrap operation are more than we would wish to handle. We want to build this pioneer airline with equity partners in stock holdings, not by loans. We do it on our terms, or not at all. The idea of being undercapitalized is nonsense for such a bootstrap operation pioneering endeavor. The story and photographs are on: http://westernbelizehappenings.blogspot.com
As an answer and information format the town hall meeting was okay. Since most of the attendees were students from the High School and some from Galen University and three students who had traveled to Trinidad somehow to study the workings of the CSME ( something to do with CARICOM Trade- ) I didn’t remember the meaning of all the bureaucratic acronyms. The enquiries got hot and more interesting as the audience livened up, but BEL cut the electricity and we were in the growing darkness without lights or microphone, so somebody ended the growing lively debate.
There were some good speakers among the High School students surprisingly, and one young man really stood out. Apparently he had been to Trinidad and he tried to make the point as an entrepreneur student hopeful, he could do better and make better and faster money by trading with Guatemala, Mexico or Salvador, than with Caricom, based on distance and costs. He did not quite have his arguments articulated and was more expressing his gut feelings, with which most of us Western Belize entrepreneurs agree. Dr. Carrington countered with an argument that you follow the profit, or the money, wherever your source is from, and market is going toward profit, not composed of regional distances like the long distances in CARICOM. A debate of itself that could have become more complex if allowed, but lack of electricity, light and so forth cut the evening short.
My impressions? This was a bunch of bureaucrats fulfilling some sort of quota grade they have to show on a monthly, quarterly, or annual achievement report, to justify their existence and jobs. So many numbers of visits to Caricom countries and conferences, or town hall meetings disseminating information of CARICOM functions and so forth, to fill in the little boxes for justification purposes, when reporting to higher ups. They did not seem to have any power, or functional purpose, everything depended on the different HEADS of GOVERNMENT was my impression. The actual work was to be performed by RISK TAKING CAPITAL from the private sector.
One of the most interesting remarks was made by Dr. Carrington, who explained that BELIZE only joined CARICOM in the early 1980’s to get unified voting support and lobbying assistance at the United Nations for Belizean Independence. This in fact worked out well for Belize. Left unsaid hanging in the empty air was the silence, of all those missing eighteen years between THEN and NOW. Our current Prime Minister, Dean Barrow remembers this very well and currently he is plugging our joining CARICOM with boots, saddle, bridle and horse. Even though there is currently minimal trade to speak of and no airline direct communication to open trade and economic partnerships and business. The private sector in Western Belize is more questioning and pragmatic about the whole thing. Is this thing actually going to go anywhere is the root question? In some areas maybe, like legal affairs and foreign policy? In trade and commerce probably only in a minor way. There seems not to be the political Will or the Financial capability to bootstrap the situation for the next decade at any rate?