Restore our trust

May 6, 2002

Dear Sir,

The senior citizens of Bermuda would like the Bermuda Housing Trust to take their places like Elizabeth Hills, Heydon and Purvis Park out of the hands of the BHC and put the back in the Bank of Butterfield where they will get fair treatment. The BHC do not follow the procedure the 'trusts' have in the rental agreement.

People who have put their name down for years and (have been) forgotten or passed over by new people who are not on any list and are not as desperate as some of there elderly people.

So who ever is in the trust please investigate this.

SENIOR CITIZENS

Devonshire

Government nonsense

Dear Sir,

I have never heard so much nonsense in all my life.

Roger Russell is tarred with destabilising the Government because he is trying to get information about a public project which every taxpayer has a vested interest in. He should receive thanks and support from those taxpayers, whose pockets are being picked by this group of incompetents.

Spending our money like a bunch of drunks, and arrogant refusal to account for their actions, has the entire community up in arms. Trying to distract people with this idiotic Caricom holiday for the boys and girls just will not wash.

Bermudian taxpayers and voters can see through this bunch and they are going to run them out of town when the next election takes place.

I don't think there is anywhere in the world where the electorate have been betrayed so obviously by the people whose trust they have abused.

They haven't gotten anything right yet and when they are thrown out of office we will be deep in debt with our children's future will have been mortgaged.

TAXPAYER

Paget

Arm bands not a bad idea

May 7, 2002

Dear Sir,

I would like to respond to Ian Hilton (RG May 2). I would agree with him that the proposal of Arthur Hodgson did not go far enough.

However, I am not sure that I want to ask more of the expatriates than is asked of every adult Bermudian.

There is a register for us, as Bermudians, and we have to give our address as well. Moreover our registration is published in alphabetical order. If we want to travel we already have to carry a 'Pass (port)' with a distinguishing number. If anyone wants to harass or hurt us, they will have no problem in finding us. An expat's registration does not call for their address, only their qualification instead, so they would be much harder to find.

On second thought, perhaps they should have to wear distinctive yellow arm badges. Black folks have had to wear a distinguishing and distinctive colour all over, since our birth. God gave it to us and those who have wanted to ensure white supremacy and white economic domination have made full use of our God given badge.

I cannot have a serious problem with the expats who are professing concern about the policies of Nazi Germany. After all, our black Premier, who was brought to her position of significance by the majority of the black folks who wear, and have been exploited because of our God given badge of blackness, made an obvious attempt to raise the racial tension by perceiving the proposal as "smacking of Nazism".

It was certainly an expression which gave great solace to the most virulent and reactionary critics of the PLP who have often accused the PLP of dictatorship and Nazism. I can only guess at the reaction of all of those qualified black PLP supporters who cannot find employment.

Some of them must be totally confused when they heard the so called "power behind the throne", once the voice of the working class, Dame Lois, using the same threat of "a failure of the economy" to prevent the change of the PLP leadership that the UBP used for decades to prevent a change of Government. She should know that we had to make ourselves immune to that particular "bogey man".

John Gilbert is correct. I for one do have an agenda. It is the same agenda that I had when I used the talk shows before November 1998. It is an agenda which wants to see the narrowing of the economic and social gap between the black and white communities, because it is only then that there can be any real reconciliation between the races.

Of course John Gilbert thinks so little of blacks that he thinks that if we changed leadership, as the UBP was wont to do, the country would fall apart, even although whites had no problem in holding the country together when they changed leadership. I know that I am at odds with the Premier who is concerned about "all Bermuda" and "cannot be expected to solve all of the injustices of the past".

This is particularly evident when we consider that the Premier stated that it was a good thing that blacks had filled fifty-one of the new jobs created (although none of them went to any unemployed qualified Bermudian). I think that a mere fifty-one is dreadful when we consider blacks make up almost two thirds of the population and are already at a significant economic disadvantage.

I think that it was dreadful that none of the fifty-one per cent included the qualified unemployed. But then she and I differ on the issue of racial reconciliation in other ways as is evident when her Chief of Staff frequently calls whites "racist" at the drop of a hat, and her attitude of hostility towards whites in public meetings.

Even the Premier's introduction of Caricom, which whatever its benefits, was sure to divide Bermudians racially.

It is hard to believe that this Premier came to power under the banner of a PLP which was so determined to be "integrated" that, at the outset, it rejected a long time black politician and in his place ran a new comer who was a white woman; a PLP which called itself "Labour" because it wanted to narrow the gap between the "Haves" and "Have Notes".

It may be time for PLP supporters to decide whether their agenda is like mine, a desire to see the narrowing of the economic and social gap between the black and white communities, and an agenda reflecting the early principles of the PLP or whether they are merely "pit bulls" for the Premier and are satisfied with the reflected glory of the Premier and Dame Lois, (who was once the voice of the working class) while expatriates take over our country under their protection.

EVA HODGSON

Bailey's Bay

Driving home the point

May 14, 2002

The following was sent to the Editor of The Royal Gazette and copied to Transport Minister Ewart Brown, Director of Marine and Ports Barry Coupland and Transport Programme Coordinator Larry Jacobs.

Dear Sir,

I could not believe my eyes when I saw the new ferry schedule. You have brought in two new boats and cut the ferry service to Somerset in half !

Wasn't the purpose of more boats supposed to encourage ferry usage? In that case, cutting back on service is counter-productive. What do you suggest residents of Somerset East do when there is virtually no bus service and now a very limited ferry service?

Get a car perhaps! Answers please Dr. Brown.

LIZ COUNSELL

Sandys Parish