Unjustified reaction

March 25, 2003

Dear Sir,

It was disappointing to see Bermuda's front page news today. It contained an hysterical reaction - an all too frequent occurrence every time the Government is either criticised or questioned in the normal course of politics.

In the past year I have been dismayed that there has been no improvement in the manner in which some of the Government MPs deal with being accountable. A ruling party will always face valid and invalid criticism, political baiting and requests to provide details and justifications. To demand apologies to all and sundry, threaten legal action and generally over-react in response to a relatively innocuous suggestion astounds me. The Premier's formalised reaction has breathed new life and a level of attention to what could have been an unfounded, political speculation. Now there may even be a need for the Registry to prove Mr. Moniz wrong.

The Premier's statement berates Mr Moniz for "discrediting the Civil Servants" yet she chose to remain silent when several of her MPs not only attempted to do the same to Larry Dennis, but did indeed slander the man in the most unseemly manner. The very fact that our Premier chose to defend one and not another of the Civil Service has now given some credence to suggestions that before could have been dismissed as "political".

I question the judgment of those who provide consulting and review services for many of the Smith Government's public statements prior to their release. This last one smacks of hypocrisy and hysteria. Much of this is symptomatic of the inherent inefficiency and ineffectiveness of party politics and shining examples have been provided on both sides.

It is a sad fact of party politics that we can never have all the best candidates serving Bermuda at the same time and often voting is based on the lesser of two evils. Party politics reduces the players to school-yard behaviour where nobody owns up to mistakes or ever gives credit when it is due to the "other side. Our system is less effective than most because we lack many of the checks and balances and even rules (or the rules are being ignored) that vest confidence and legitimacy and ultimately transparency. We have always been lacking certain controls that highlight conflicts of interest and require decision-makers to recuse themselves when they arise. I would challenge the PLP to address this if they want to regain the confidence of the voters.

NICOLETTE J. REISS

St. Paul, Minnesota

Moniz out of line

March 27, 2003

Dear Sir,

If the conduct of Trevor Moniz exemplifies the "New" United Bermuda Party (UBP), then they are doing its members and the general public a major disservice and the party will not stand a chance in the next election.

It is no secret that Trevor Moniz was reluctantly "welcomed" back to the UBP last year, and by now many in the party are realising what a costly mistake this has been. Trevor Moniz is a known liability to the UBP and the general perception is that his is only a token position in the party.

The UBP need not worry over retaining him any further as there are others who are far more intelligent and competent to replace him in the party. He is not a team player and seems to refuse to keep the best interest of Bermuda, let alone the UBP, at heart. His conduct is increasingly destructive to the UBP and is a constant reminder of how disappointingly weak the party has allowed itself to become as it struggles to overcome this hurdle. The situation has become untenable and it has many UBP members concerned because the bias and unfairness of Trevor Moniz's rhetoric is clear and it is not in keeping with the spirit of unity that Bermuda deserves.

Many people in the community feel that there is a strong case for legal action to be brought against Trevor Moniz for his grossly irresponsible attempts to malign the former Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Khamisi Tokunbo, members of the prosecution team of the DPP's Office, and now, his latest target, the Parliamentary Registrar, Sabrina Phillips. It is clear that Mr. Moniz is trying to play politics with their careers and is attempting to deceive the general public with his appalling rhetoric. Bermudians are becoming impatient with his baseless, monotone ramblings and outraged by his inflammatory comments and conduct. Trevor Moniz should give a public apology to the members of the DPP's office, Mr. Tokunbo, and Mrs. Phillips, without exception. It is one thing to attack the initiatives and concepts of the PLP; but it is entirely another to hurl insults and unnecessary attacks on civil servants, thereby attempting to demean their professional integrity. Even the Speaker of the House, Stanley Lowe, had to caution Moniz a few weeks ago in the House of Assembly when he launched into a vitriolic attack on Mr. Tokunbo. (Mr. Lowe even had to remind Moniz about the specific rule of the House that forbids him from criticising individuals who function in this capacity - a rule of which Trevor Moniz seemed embarrassingly clueless!)

In any event, Edward Ball of the Bermuda Public Services Union (BPSU) was quite right when he sternly warned that this sort of treatment of civil servants by politicians would not be tolerated and I would suggest that the BPSU now take steps to support and protect these individuals. As president of the Bermuda Bar Association, Trevor Moniz has abused his position by politicising the office. Members of the legal fraternity have been saying that they do not share his views or criticisms of Mr. Tokunbo and the staff of the DPP's office in general, and they surmise that since his term is ending in April (and he will not be able to run again) he is attempting to shamelessly call attention to himself by abusing his role.

After all, he has done nothing substantial, if at all, to address issues of concern to the public relating to the Ministry of Transport, to which he is the Opposition Shadow!

Many lawyers believe that his latest antics are bringing their profession into disrepute and find his behaviour unacceptable. His poor and undemocratic representation of the Bermuda Bar Association on this issue in particular demonstrates that he should resign immediately, regardless of when his term expires, in order to restore honour, integrity, and much needed transparency to the Association. If there is one lesson for members of the Bermuda Bar Association to have learned from this experience, it should be that politicians should not hold office within the Association so that impartiality can be maintained. At the very least, the President of the Bar Association should not be a politician, so that members and the general public can have every confidence that the views expressed are not politically motivated and that the utmost transparency is observed.

The Bermuda community sadly becomes so easily polarised along racial lines on issues, that it leaves itself open to manipulation by people like Trevor Moniz. His repeated references to the fact that Mr. Tokunbo and Mrs. Phillips are black; or insistence that they got their jobs because they are black is a complete insult to these Bermudians, their families, and the general public - particularly those who know the individuals professionally and the amount of meticulous training, thorough competence, and rigorous interviewing and screening it took for them to secure these senior posts.

The behaviour and comments by Trevor Moniz are precisely the sort of thing that organisations like the National Association for Reconciliation (NAR) and the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality (CURE) should examine and address. Given that it was part of CURE's mandate to encourage politicians to take sensitivity training in respect to race relations, this could serve as a prime opportunity to initiate this training, if it has not already commenced. At a time when we are trying to find meaningful and positive ways to bring people together in our community, Trevor Moniz is serving as a highly negative distraction to true progress and is clearly not willing to be part of the solution in this country.

M.D.S.

Paget

UN missed the boat

March 18, 2003

Dear Sir,

Thank you for the opportunity to voice my opinion on the present conflict in Iraq. Although the world really does not care about what I have to say, at least I am able, under our democratic society to do so without repercussions from some tyrannical regime.

I have watched the United Nations for the past 12 years call for the immediate disarmament of Iraq. First in 1992 and approximately a dozen times since. Most recently, resolution 1441 which the Security Council voted 15 to 0 for Iraq to immediately disarm. I looked up the word immediate or immediately and this is what I found: Present, Instant, Instantaneous, Prompt, Straight away, forthwith, directly, Do you think that the Security Council may have meant the antonym of the word, for instance: Later, sometime in the future, soon, or is it just take your time, there is no hurry?

Some members have called for the weapons inspectors to have more time. Maybe those members should have voted for sometime in the future and not for immediate disarmament. Remember the inspectors were kicked out in 1998. Iraq to date has no disarmed, nor have they made the case that they have destroyed the weapons of mass destruction. Am I to understand that the word immediate to the Security Council isn't what they really meant? Or is it that George Bush and Tony Blair truly understand the meaning of this word? We have had 12 years of hide and seek with the likes of Saddam Hussein, don't you think it is time to act on what we say and that the word immediate means now and not sometime in the future.

War is an awful thing, but who is responsible for this war?

Do we really want the likes of Saddam Hussein to have these weapons? And if the answer is yes, then the countries who are walking way from this are right in doing so, but if the answer is not then who is responsible to see that he disarms and how do we go about doing this? Four months or 12 years is not immediate, at least it doesn't say that in the Oxford Dictionary, but I guess it does to some members of the Security Council.

DEREK MORRIS

Smith's Parish

Still with president Bush

March 5, 2003

Dear Sir,

Concerning the anti-war march that took place on March 1 and what I had said in The Royal Gazette.

Because I said that Bermuda has to be very careful in not cutting off the hand that feeds us, I have been criticised by a number of people in many parts of Bermuda for saying that.

Apparently they had no idea what I was in fact saying, for instance, Prime Minister Tony Blair, President George W Bush and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar where thinking about coming to Bermuda for what I call a very important historic war summit, bringing along the many many people and thousands perhaps millions of dollars along with them, while at the same time, their war summit here in Bermuda could very well have been a massive free advertisement along the tourist industry line. Bermuda would have been advertised, in my view, through out the entire world absolutely free, then, just maybe some of the people who came along with the three great leaders, might have stayed here in Bermuda for a little while longer after the war summit, with all of that going on, it could have saved the Bermuda Government millions of dollars on free advertising.

It is my personal belief, because of that anti-war march, it was decided to have the war summit in the Azores.

However, I could like to say this in closing in the future, whoever is responsible for allowing a march or a demonstration in that similar fashion to take place here in Bermuda, should think very carefully before allowing it to take place.

You all must keenly understand that Bermuda, the Great Island of Paradise don't produce enough food or anything else for that matter, to sustain our very important needs, so the bottom line is, we are relying day to day, let's not forget that although, some people truly think that all of the money that is here in Bermuda is coming from some other part of the world.

I'm still with you President George W. Bush.

CAL WALES

Devonshire

Leaders are warmongers

March 23, 2003

Dear Sir,

I wish to comment on Gavin Shorto 's Opinion column of March 18, 2003 entitled "No moral alternative". Mr. Shorto argues in favour of the US invasion of Iraq despite the fact that the United Nations and the world community do not support the invasion and its inevitable slaughter and carnage of innocent Iraqi men, women and children.

I was struck immediately by the contradiction thrown up by the title of the column and the picture of the current president of the United States. It is well known that Mr. Bush came to occupy the White House because not all of the votes in Florida were counted on that disquieting day in November 2000.

It is less well known that the Bush campaign for the US presidency involved the deliberate, planned and systematic removal of Black and Hispanic voters from the electoral registers in Florida in the year leading up to the 2000 presidential elections (Stupid White Men, by Michael Moore).

The US democratic process was savaged without remorse and without recourse during the last presidential election. Therefore it is both illogical and unseemly to associate 'moral authority' with the current occupant of the Oval Office and his hawkish advisors.

Mr. Shorto then looks to Lee Harris (writer) and Paul Johnson (British historian) to support his contention that the world is at a critical juncture because the rules that have governed international conflict are not accepted by organisations and countries who are opposed to US foreign policy in the Middle East. Their views amount to nothing more than craven and uncritical acceptance of an aggressive US foreign policy in the world.

The simple truth is that US foreign policy is a recipe for international conflict in the Middle East (and elsewhere). For example, look at UN Resolution 242 which called for Israel, which many view as a terrorist state, to withdraw from occupied Palestinian territories 30 years ago. To this day, Israel has defied UN resolution 242 with impunity, and with the active and willing support of the US.

The facts are that since 1958, US foreign policy has supported corrupt and brutal regimes in the Middle East in order to maintain control of oil. Some of us, with clearer memories, remember that the US supported Saddam Hussein throughout the 1980's, and even sold him 'weapons of mass destruction'.

The world needs courageous and upstanding leaders of integrity to re-establish a just world order. The 'warmongers' who occupy the Oval Office and now have infected '10 Downing Street' are inherently incapable of leading us there.

M. SCOTT

Sandys Parish