U.D.P. claims possession of secret P.U.P. document; more phony distractions, say P.U.P.
It’s a slow news day so we’re forced to lead tonight’s broadcast with the type of story that, mercifully, only seems to pop up during election campaigns. Appearing this morning on radio station FM Two Thousand’s “Breakfast Show,” U.D.P. Mesopotamia representative Michael Finnegan showed why he has been properly placed as Minister of Mobilization. While hosts Stuart Leslie and Mike Nicholson looked on, Finnegan mobilized a confidential document that he alleged laid out the strategy for a post-election P.U.P. government. According to Finnegan the two pages of small print were authored by none other than P.U.P. leader Said Musa and were part of a fax sent to national campaign manager Ralph Fonseca. Somehow, according to Finnegan, the pages mysteriously wound up on his fax machine last Thursday. Not surprisingly the alleged memo painted a scenario of an evil and vindictive P.U.P. that upon election to office will fire all U.D.P. workers, arrest suspect U.D.P. politicians and harass any opponents until they leave the country in disgust. Like we said, it was a slow news day, so we sent News Five’s Patrick Jones to see what else Finnegan had to say and get a response from P.U.P. chairman Jorge Espat.
Michael Finnegan, Minister of Mobilization
“This letter came through my fax machine last week Thursday, which was the second of July. It was Thursday morning around eleven o’clock I received this fax through my machine.”
Q: “So it just turned up there?”
Michael Finnegan
“It just turn up just like that. Apparently somebody made some error why it reached here and apparently it wasn’t for here. I don’t know where the letter was supposed to go but if you read it carefully, it would sound to me like this letter was supposed to reach Ralph Fonseca because if you notice in this letter, they said that as far as Diane Haylock was concerned she will be a problem but she will probably migrate and that paragraph went on saying she is complaining that there is no choice between you and Coz. Coz is Louis Sylvestre who is running against Fonseca, so apparently this fact was intended to Ralph Fonseca.”
Jorge Espat, Chairman, P.U.P.
“I can tell you that it did not originate from inside the P.U.P. and certainly our leader is far more occupied with other issues of national importance for him to be faxing a fax message to the national campaign manager who is merely twenty feet away from the party leader’s office.”
Q: “Minister we are on the eve of the announcement of a date for the elections, couldn’t this be seen as just another U.D.P. machination to gain public support?”
Michael Finnegan
“I don’t think the United Democratic Party is so foolish. The United Democratic Party is not that foolish. You want to say, and this will travel international, you are saying to me that to gain a little political mileage that the United Democratic Party would want to associate its Deputy Prime Minister with a cocaine fiasco? Never in this world.”
Q: “As chairman of the People’s United Party, you say that this fax message originated with the U.D.P. Now why would a party that is seeking re-election accuse their own people of wrong doing?”
Jorge Espat
“Obviously they want to give credibility to the fax message and therefore to give the appearance that it originated from the P.U.P., they would include some of their candidates so that when they cry and when they scream, oh how can the U.D.P. talk about their own candidates. It is part of the effort to misinform. Let’s put down some U.D.P.’s name and there will be some credibility to the scream.”
Michael Finnegan
“This is frightening. This correspondence is vicious and I will tell you furthermore, the United Democratic Party doesn’t take this lightly. We don’t take it lightly at all. It is serious; it is devious. It is one of the most pernicious piece of correspondence I have come across in all my thirty odd years in politics. And we are not taking this lightly at all.”
Jorge Espat
“It took him seven days before he brings it before the public. Can you imagine if there is such truth to this document, if what he claims it is so dangerous and shocking, why is it he has taken seven days. I am also startled that Mr. Finnegan is able to decipher initials when these initials can be anyone’s initials. Obviously Mr. Finnegan is telling us things that he knows about.”
Q: “Could it be possible then minister that this document could have originated from within your party?”
Michael Finnegan
“Boy, if you are my colleague and you are prepared to do something like this to me for politics, to get head way, then you are not my colleague and you’re not my friend. This is a dangerous and a vicious piece of correspondence.”
Jorge Espat
“I have a flyer here that the U.D.P. sent out last week, and when one looks at it, it says the P.U.P. have said, and the same names that are on this U.D.P. flyer are the same names on the U.D.P. document. Obviously it is a series of letters, part of the campaign of misinformation. They have lost the support of the public servants through their retrenchment – their victimization policy, their witch-hunting – and now they are trying to regain the support of the public servants by giving them the impression that the P.U.P. has some strategy to beat up on the public servants.
This fax message sent out by the U.D.P. smack of hypocrisy at a time when the U.D.P. has chosen “it’s about trust” slogan. How can they ask the Belizean electorate to trust them when they stoop to such depths of misinformation and dishonesty?”
Q: “Minister you seem to have quite a detailed understanding of this document?”
Michael Finnegan
“Well if I received it from Thursday and I have been studying it, and reading it from Thursday until now – almost a week – then if I don’t understand it, then I don’t deserve to represent the people of Mesopotamia division.”
Q: “But you seem to have an intimate understanding of the writer’s mind?”
Michael Finnegan
“No it was you who said it does not sound like the writing and behavior of the People’s United Party and I am trying to show to you why it is the writing and the behavior of the People’s United Party. They love to talk about millions, they love to do things with millions. I am showing you in the document why they want S.I.F., Basic Needs Trust Fund and D.F.C. – forty million dollars they perceive is there. The United Democratic Party would never want to associate its ministers, its political officers and its Deputy Prime Minister with anything that is illegal and irregular. We are above board.”
Q: “Not even to win an election?”
Michael Finnegan
“To win an election? Why should we just to win an election implicate decent and honest people in our party with these kind of charges. To win an election?”
Q: “Why would you try to malign your opposition?”
Michael Finnegan
“We have not maligned our opposition. They have maligned themselves. Whenever Musa can give account of the 7.5 million dollars that the Auditor General says is missing under his leadership then he will be left alone. Whenever the 3.34 million dollars that was taken from Social Security money, whenever the money is repaid, that is out the way. That’s not maligning anybody.”
As for the authenticity of the document, the weight of the evidence is on the side of a forgery, albeit a clever one. The fax conveniently did not have a return address on it, thus ruling out the wrong number theory and suggesting a deliberate plant. More importantly, those familiar with P.U.P. internal communications tell us that plans such as these, even if they existed, would never appear on paper. Furthermore the style of language used is not that normally used by the party leader… or almost any senior party official. Deputy leader Maxwell Samuels, for example, is known to P.U.P.’s as “Max,” never “Maxie,” as referred to in the document. Likewise, Said Musa would never refer to his close friend Salvador Figueroa as “Figueroa”. He is known to virtually everyone as “Sal”. Same for Javier Berbey Garcia. P.U.P.’s may call him Javier or Berbey… but never Bur-Bur. That name is reserved for the “Pulse”.
