Black Immigrant Daily News

BELIZE CITY, Fri. July 8, 2022Today, UDP Chairman Michael Peyrefitte informed the public that the party has sent a letter to the Governor-General, Dame Froyla Tzalam, in which they formally call for PUP senator Collet Montejo to vacate his Senate seat. The party is asserting that he was disqualified from sitting in the upper house after having taken an appointment as the Field Supervisor on the Re-districting Task Force – a key national role that he alone will be occupying. The Minister of Public Service and Constitutional Reform, Henry Charles Usher, said late last month that, based on his interpretation of the law, Senator Montejo’s appointment is permissible. The Governor-General thus finds herself caught between two conflicting legal interpretations—one being offered by the current administration, and the other by the Opposition.“In essence, I’m asking the Governor General to make a call to the Prime Minister and say, ‘Prime Minister, this particular senator that you asked me to appoint is acting contrary to the Constitution of the country. I am asking you, Sir, to please replace that senator with somebody else.’ If the Governor General cannot get that done, then our options are open. If he says, ‘Look, I am no longer taking or accepting that position with the Elections and Boundaries Commission, I will not be the supervisor for the re-districting process,’ then my argument is over, then he can remain in the Senate. But he has to give up one of them, he cannot keep both,” Peyrefitte said during a recent interview.The UDP chairman reiterated today while being interviewed that the Constitution makes it clear that he must vacate his seat, since his responsibility will involve directly the revision of the new electoral list.“He is a member of the Senate and Section 63 of the Constitution is very clear. It says that a person has to vacate his or her seat if they act in any office that: one, has any response that involves any responsibility for or in connection with the conduct of any election; or two: any responsibility, and this is the critical part, F2, any responsibility for the compilation or revision of any electoral register,” Senator Peyrefitte said. In an interview in late June, however, Minister Henry Charles Usher had stated that, in his layman’s view, Senator Montejo’s appointment is acceptable. “Mr. Montejo is not in charge of elections; he is not revising any election list. He is merely a technical part of a task force appointed by the Elections and Boundaries Commission, so, in my layman reading, I don’t see it as being a conflict,” he had said.A press release issued on June 9 said Montejo would be responsible for all fieldwork involved in the gathering and providing of information regarding the various features of each constituency – including, among other things, “the distribution of the population across the various divisions in accordance with section 90(2) of the Constitution.”UDP Chairman Peyrefitte, however, has pointed out that Montejo is the only person appointed to carry out this key task and will be in a key role in the compilation of the register, exactly what the provision is aimed at preventing.He explained, “So when you decide that you are going to be a key person in the re-districting of constituencies and electoral offices, you are essentially going to determine how the register is compiled. Honorable Collet Montejo will be in a key position to tell you how many people remain in Lake-I, how many people remain in Collet, how many people will remain in Albert, or whether or not they will combine divisions. That’s a key, key role, and what the Constitution envisages is that members of the Parliament should stay away from the conduct of elections or having anything to do with the compilation of registers or the determination of voters lists or anything of the sort.”He lamented the fact that the only field supervisor appointed by the task force for the entire country happens to be the Deputy Secretary-General of the PUP, Montejo, and says he took no pleasure in bringing the Governor General into the situation.“It gives me no pleasure to write a letter like that, but as the Opposition, we have a responsibility to make sure that the government upholds the law and follows the law, especially the constitution of the country. Now you have a situation where there is only one field supervisor that’s going to be appointed for the redistricting exercise that the country is going through. Now it is bad enough that the country decided to choose the Deputy Secretary-General of the People’s United Party to be the field supervisor. You can’t tell me that there are other people who cannot do that job in a professional manner without even being questioned as to whether or not there is any political bias,” Peyrefitte said.He is calling on the PUP to select an appointee for the role who is not so extensively tied to any political party, or for Montejo to resign if he indeed goes on to fill that key role. “What the Constitution envisages is that members of the National Assembly should stay away from the conduct of elections or having anything to do with the compilation of registers, determination of voters list of anything of the sort, so like I said, it is bad enough that he is the Deputy Secretary-General of the PUP. It is unconstitutional what they are doing and they need to pick someone who does not have any of those connections, and we are saying that if he insists on taking that job, if he insists on taking that position then he needs to resign from the Senate,” he said.

NewsAmericasNow.com

Black Immigrant Daily News

“I will always be grateful to Dr. Aranda for being my ally” – Evan X Hyde

by Khaila Gentle

BELIZE CITY, Mon. July 11, 2022Dr. Theodore Aranda wore many hats throughout his adult life—UDP leader, Garifuna activist, PUP parliamentarian, academic, and most importantly, a prominent figure in the shaping of our nation, and we at AMANDALA are saddened to learn of his passing this week.Dr. Theodore—affectionately known as “Ted”—transitioned on Sunday, after a recent decline in health. Many knew him as a politician and scholar; even more persons knew him as an advocate for the Garifuna people. But to the AMANDALA publisher, Evan X Hyde, Dr. Aranda was an ally, as admirable as he was enigmatic. In an interview with KREM News and AMANDALA, Hyde reminisced on the days when he first got to know of the local politician: “I had never heard of Dr. Aranda until he returned to Belize. And he returned to Belize as a high official of—you said on the radio the Peace Corps. I have always been confused, thinking it was CARE; there was an American organization called CARE. but probably Peace Corps. I don’t know—I was in the midst of a lot of turmoil with UBAD because UBAD began in February of ’69 and it was a time of the Vietnam War…,” Hyde said.Dr. Aranda obtained a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1971. Three years later, he would join the newly formed United Democratic Party and quickly rise up its ranks. He also worked with the Peace Corps in the country and served as its director.In an interview series titled “Lions of the South”, aired in June 2014, Dr. Aranda told Leonides Sanchez about his foray into the world of politics, which occurred while Belize was approaching independence:“Since I didn’t see any serious effort by the Opposition—that was the UDP at that time—and by the leading brains of Belize to sort of fight for the welfare of the country and the survival of the country, I started writing articles about it, then eventually the UDPs came to me and asked me to work with them and run with them, and I was more than happy to,” he said.“I think Dr. Aranda probably joined the UDP pretty soon. He didn’t run in ’74. In ’74 Mr. Paul Guerrero ran for that Dangriga seat for the UDP—he was one of 6 UDP winners,” noted Hyde.While he did not run in the 1974 elections, Dr. Aranda served as the representative for the Dangriga constituency after it was handed over to him by Paul Guerrero. He would later become one of five UDPs to win their seats in 1979 for the constituency, and would soon after go on to serve as UDP leader from 1979-1983, later being succeeded by Rt. Hon. Dr. Manuel Esquivel.“He won it [his constituency] in ’79, which is when three district representatives chose him as the UDP leader, because only two city UDPs had won—Mr. Goldson and Curl Thompson,” said Hyde.While he was known to have lived a private life, Dr. Aranda is recognized for his significant contributions to the development of the nation. Born and raised in Dangriga, he helped to improve his hometown’s drainage system, as well as develop its commercial center, and improve health services in Belize. He was also an advocate for the Garifuna people during a time when the Garinagu and other Afro-Belizeans were subject to extreme racism and discrimination as a result of Belize’s colonial past.“He had so many outstanding credentials—he wasn’t a carouser. The thing, of course, was this ethnic prejudice in Belize, right? And the racism in Belize has—I’m not talking about just the ethnic part having to do with the Garifuna. It’s very entrenched and can be subtle, and very, very painful; you know how the racism works in Belize. But Belize she, ‘well we nuh have no race problem;’ that’s what they’re always saying—‘oh you bring that from America!’. Well, the British had their own way how they created that racism,” remarked Hyde.Dr. Aranda’s days as UDP leader have been described as tumultuous, and the terms of his exit from the party in late 1982 have often been debated, but according to AMANDALA’s publisher, the Dangriga area representative had resigned:“Now he has said to me—Dr. Aranda has said to me—because my impression as publisher/editor of AMANDALA in late 1982 was that they had pushed him out, whereupon they held a leadership convention in early 1983 involving Esquivel, Lindo, and Goldson…But Dr. Aranda has said to me personally that he resigned,” Hyde said.Aranda later joined the PUP and would regain the Dangriga seat from 1989 to 1993. But before that, Dr. Aranda formed his own party, the short-lived Christian Democratic Party. Years later, he would play another pivotal role in Belize’s history—the planning of the Belize Black Summit alongside Hyde himself.“Now, I would like to say this before we end, and before I forget, and like I said, I hope nobody takes it disrespectfully: I think Dr. Aranda started as a UDP, became a PUP, and ended up UBAD,” joked Hyde. “Because without him there would not have been a Black Summit.”Hyde became working allies with Dr. Aranda sometime around the time of the 2003 General Elections. The duo—Hyde’s United Black Association for Development (UBAD) alongside Dr. Aranda’s World Garifuna Organization, which he founded in 2000—began working on the historical Black Summit set to take place in September of that year.“The World Garifuna Organization travelled to Belize City, I can’t say on how many occasions, but I know we in UBAD also traveled to Dangriga. We held months of meetings to put that Black Summit together, and it was a bone in my throat for many years, and so I will always be grateful to Dr. Aranda for being my ally,” said the AMANDALA publisher.

“A remarkable man, a unique man. He maintained his dignity and privacy, and of course, his people always had that affection and respect for him to the nth degree,” he added.AMANDALA sends our condolences to the family of Dr. Theodore “Ted” Aranda as well as to his friends and the Garifuna community.

NewsAmericasNow.com

Black Immigrant Daily News

Média

Depuis le début de la saison cycliste, une femme a intégré l’équipe de reporters sportifs de Radio Inter Tropicale (fréquence F.M. 90.1). En effet, Patricia Germé assure les retransmissions en direct des épreuves cyclistes du week-end. 

France-Antilles Martinique

382 mots – 13.07.2022

NewsAmericasNow.com