It's been a long time coming!

So what's new eh?

Parliament dissolved!

   Not sure what was all the excitement about, because that was as predictable as anything this century.

   Having cast his lot by suspending parliament six months ago to avoid a total collapse of his government -- in his "nobody can cheat me of my time" mode -- time effectively ran out on the Tillman Thomas administration on Wednesday.

  The brief TV appearance on Wednesday night was not just an acknowledgment of that, but a sad requiem on four and a half wasted years that started with so much potential.

  And though the government has technically 90 days to hold a general elections -- expect one in less than a third of that time.

  The financial and political realities -- and the legal budgetary requirements -- have further boxed in this administration.

  Traditionally, politicians under the Westminster system use the non-fixed date approach to spring surprises to their advantage.

  In this case though, there are no surprises to be sprung.

  In the end, it is not any parliamentary maneuver, nor any protest in the streets (surprisingly there was not any) -- but it is time, that will eventually "cheat" the Prime Minister of his time.

  As he tried to figure his next move, there was always one thing this administration feared more than anything the likes of Keith Mitchell, Peter David or Glynis Roberts could have thrown at them -- the clock!

  And for all its flaws, this is what makes this democracy so amazing. Time eventually gets you.

  And as time creeps up on this government, you run the range of emotion -- you want to scream and cry; and jump for joy all at the same time.

  Last night I was watching the Karl Hood clip from that 2008 classic campaign at La Borie where he said: ""They can go as long as they want and do what they want, but election must call. This corruption in the land must end."

  It is canny how history and events repeat themselves.

  Far removed from all of this -- 20 to 30 years from now -- when we take out all the emotion of this time, we will come to solemnly reconcile about what a waste of opportunity and potential the last four and a half years had been.

  If we never knew, we now know though -- leadership matters.

  When people ask me what went wrong, I have a one-word answer: Leadership.

  I was told a story this week by a (former) NDC activist who said that a party campaign team had come to visit him recently, trying to "reactivate" his community role of the last campaign.

  His retort to them was -- "why are you coming to me now?  At the convention in September, you did not just expel Peter David and Glynis Roberts and them. You expelled the people."

  Which brought me back to a commercial, that I had personally got up after midnight one night over five years ago and coined - that said in part -- "we had a government that has been choosing wrongly for us, but now the people have a chance to choose for themselves."

  Indeed it is canny how history and events repeat themselves.

  There is a song that goes something like this... "it's been a long, a long time coming..."

  I tried singing it last night, and it tore me up.

  So can somebody help me sing along?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbO2_077ixs

Of mass deception and paranoia

GRENADA’S Finance Minister Nazim Burke was on one of his tours of mass deception on Wednesday, while avoiding the issue of his dealings with the National Insurance Scheme.

He won’t subject himself to any interview with the Associated Press, the Caribbean Media Corporation or CARIBUDPATE News – but he went on very friendly territory Wednesday, including of course – naturally – the Government Information Service.

He was all over the place declaring that government did not “request” any money from the NIS, while in the same breath stating that government has “business with the NIS” – business that he says is “not wise” to speak about.

He told GBN that the report (I guess supposedly the CARIBUPDATE and/or CC6 one) “is totally false”, yet he told MTV that “this may be so, but..”

Mr Burke went on a well thought-out and orchestrated campaign on Wednesday to try to confuse people and deliberately mislead.

Also disingenuous was his assertion that businesses and institutions do business all the time, but they don’t speak about it.

The government is –well just that – the government who supposedly is beholden to the people. The National Insurance Scheme is not a private credit union or some commercial bank – it belongs to the workers of Grenada technically.

Whatever transactions that go on between the government of Grenada and the NIS are of national interest – and it is fair for people like us to ask questions.

This “none of-your-business” attitude that repeatedly comes from Burke does little credit to his own government.

Burke must stop hiding behind semantics, and state whether what we ascertain as the facts are true or not – no beating around the bush.

Has not government sought 10 million dollars from NIS, offering the organization land and government bonds in return?

Isn’t this the third time for the year the government has gone to the NIS with some “business proposal” so that it can get money to “meet its current bills” – well in our interpretation – to pay salaries?

This writer is absolutely confident that these are the basic facts of the most recent developments – and Burke can look to dance around it how he wants to his own declining credibility.

Most of us who have seen his sleek operations have always known that he is stingy with the truth – no wonder he avoids as the plague any invitation to sit down for an interview, at any time, at any place and under any general conditions of his comfort.

Here is a gentle reminder, my learned friend: The truth needs no avoidance to tough questions.

“We are in business with the NIS. The NIS is in business with us,” Burke told GBN on Wednesday.

Since the Minister has an inability to piss straight – let me break it down for him.

What you are saying, sir, is that you went to the NIS (again) for more money, in exchange for lands and bonds, and it is considering the application

So fair enough – you are in business with the NIS, and the NIS is in business with you.

And what is so sinister about this, that you cannot give a simple acknowledgement?

I suspect the problem with the Minister is that it reminds people of the government’s fiscal crisis, and how he has so badly mismanaged the economy, in yes sure – an otherwise very, very difficult economic environment.

On another note, I caught tonight Burke’s “despicable” responses to comment on the management of the economy by members of the business community.

As true to form, without dealing item by item with the concerns raised, he went on a broadside to question their motive, to suggest that as if they are political motivated and have axe to grind with this government.

Burke even accused members of the Chamber of “conspiring” with the previous government to economically mismanage the country.

Is this Minister of Finance for real?

Or are we seeing a new standard of paranoia that is off the charts by his own consistent sweating state of nervous discomfort anytime he is seriously questioned?

But it should not surprise those of us who have studied this government closely.

From the Prime Minister on down, its standard response to anybody or any group that has been “fresh enough” to ask tough questions – is to use state and other resources to systematically try to smear them.

There is an orchestrated one in full gear against Chester Humphrey for example – the man who was their hero when he was lambasting the previous government – but all of a sudden is the worse human being in town.

They had tried it with Scholar when he sang a critical calypso a few years ago.

The same man interestingly they were running down recently to contest a seat for them in St Patrick’s West. (Good for Scholar he is not as “suicidal” and he is smart enough to stay away from this “burning deck”)

Speaking about Burke’s paranoia – as Lew Smith asked him about the CARIBUPDATE report on the economy – he dismissed it with this retort: “This person has taken a very strong dedicated commitment to try to bring the government down.”

Is that me Sir?

Not guilty!

It wasn’t me that has spent four years fighting for power, bad talking colleagues and undermining leaders. (I have just been commenting on it).

You’ve done a very good job at that – and you needed no help.

On the issue of trust

AN ISSUE that appears to light up the online community overnight has been the statement by Deputy Prime Minister Nazim Burke that he was not a member of the hated Revolutionary Military Council that was formed in Grenada in 1983.

Burke at the time, as reported elsewhere, was speaking on the You Decide television programme with host Byron Campbell on Wednesday night.

At the center of the discussion was the issue of trust – the argument Burke was making for the return to power of the NDC, in spite of him presiding over the country’s worst economic times perhaps in recorded history.

Setting off the firestorm was a caller’s assertion that Burke should not be speaking about trust given his political history – dating back to those difficult days of 1983.

I am always one who is careful not to use that old 1983 bogey against anyone – something that frankly has been overused in Grenada’s political context through the years.

But since it was being discussed overnight as an issue regarding trust, it became a relevant discussion again.

Burke was reported as saying: “Your accusation that I was a member of the RMC was false. You know that I was never a member of a military council.”

When host Byron Campbell sought a follow up asking him of his role as the Minister of Finance following the killing of Bishop, Burke said: “It is false.”

Burke said further: “I was never the junior minister of finance under the revolution.”

Here is the fact, as we were best able to ascertain from our research.

When the formation of the RMC was announced following the death of Bishop in 1983, Burke was not listed as a member of the 16 names announced on radio.

Those were mainly of military people, and included by some accounts Vincent Roberts – who is currently among those associated with the current administration.

Burke, from most accounts however, was the defacto Minister of Finance in the six days between the killing of Bishop and the US invasion – though there was no such formal position in the chaos.

His name was also mentioned as a nominee to “a civilian government” that was to have taken over within two weeks.

It has also been established that between the time of Bishop’s death and the US invasion, Burke had joined two military officials in meeting with business leaders in Grenada, to talk about “the economic policy” going forward.

His role was widely publicized at the time – and some historical records listed him as “a Ministry of Finance official” for the new government.

Burke may be technically right per se in that he was not a member of the council, but he was their finance guy, and headed the Ministry of Finance in the aftermath of the killing of Bishop.

He was widely regarded as a member of the inner circle following the death of Bishop.

He was reported by many accounts to be “physically on site organizing things” during the days of the now infamous “shoot-on-sight curfew.”

But after all these years, Burke has still refused to answer exactly where he was on the day Bishop was killed, and what did he do on that day and in the days in the aftermath.

There have been some tantalizing stories, but through the years he has never been one of those to discuss them – not even off the record nor in old talk.

But Naz committed no crime – and he must stop acting as if there is something to run from.

His attempts at denial over the years, that he “never held a gun nor killed a chicken,” have always rung disingenuous.

And those attempts to paint himself as what is he is not – is more troublesome that any “sins” he might have committed – real or imagined.

These are the things that go to the heart of the issue of trust – the very argument he was seeking to make the other night on television.

For me I have long forgiven any role he may have played in 1983 – then he was just an impressionable young man from Carriacou with burning ambitions of any average 20-something-year-old.

 I have been more concerned about the more mature Naz of 2002 – especially since this is the episode that I have more intimate and firsthand knowledge of.

To me and others, he still needs to explain exactly what his role was in 2002 in the plan to unseat Tillman Thomas as the leader of the NDC at the Gouyave convention.

What role did he play in getting the late Teddy Victor to front the push – and who are those in the end that scuttled it?

In understanding that period, we may all come to understand what has transpired in the last four years.

What stands out for me during the lead up to that convention was Burke’s now famous – or maybe infamous -- declaration that (in his words): “Tillman Thomas can’t lead me.”