Mora Apologizes; Insists He Did Not Know He Was Being Recorded

Marvin Mora

This afternoon, Mora issued a twenty-one minute defense outside the B.E.L. compound. He opened with an apology to the Garifuna people for any remarks he made in the incendiary recording which would insult and demean them and bring his own reputation as a champion of Garifuna rights into disrepute. But Mora spent much of the interview attempting to re-state the context of the discussion, which he said was part of a larger hour-and-a-half discussion back in March. For instance, on the portion discussing the so-called ‘law’ against Black Caribs, as the Garifuna were known then, not being allowed to stay in Belize City after six at night, he denied actually making the remarks.

Marvin Mora, General Secretary, Belize Energy Workers’ Union

“I want to openly and sincerely apologize to the Garifuna people if it is that there is anything in there that they believed that I said that they believed is also insulting and demeaning to their culture, to their people; I have absolutely nothing else but admiration for the Garinagu people. I have been working, as you know, in the Reparations Committee for years and in there we have also championed the cause of the Garifuna people so I have nothing against the Garifuna people; I do not believe in racism, if that’s what you want to hear. And if some of the things that are attributed to me in there sound demeaning, I give you my one hundred percent assurance that I said nothing in that conversation that was in fact insulting or demeaning about the Garinagu culture or to any other indigenous culture.  That portion I did not say; I was interjecting, somebody made remarks there. And I guess you know who it is, because it’s only three people having a conversation.”

Reporter

“But at the same time, Eldred Neal is heard saying in a whisper – unless somebody tampered with the recording – Eldred Neal is heard saying in a whisper, ‘You mi hear that? You mi know that?’ when you are explicating, in a very stringent voice, that ‘dehn blank-blank-blank had to haul dehn ‘blank-blank’ outa town?”

Marvin Mora

“I don’t know what all has happened to that recording; I’ll be honest – I did not even know that there was somebody recording that particular conversation.”