PM says he’s not fazed by teachers who asked for a meeting on Thursday despite a scheduled rally

Teachers held their largest rally to date in San Ignacio last Friday, and it was also the most focused, on the Prime Minister and his Minister of Education Patrick Faber. Belize National Teachers Union executives were angered by comments in the House of Representatives two days prior to the rally, and voiced that displeasure freely, and for almost four hours, on Friday. And it seems to have offended the Prime Minister to no end. There is the matter of a meeting between union leaders and the PM scheduled for Thursday. During the rally firebrand union activist George Frazer stated that Barrow called them to a meeting, apparently because he was feeling the pressure of people’s power. Barrow has gone to great lengths to dispel that assertion, sending out a release on Monday stating that it was instead the union who begged for a meeting. It might seem like a small point of dispute, but the PM took it to the airwaves. The leader of the nation claims that far from being pressured by the showing of teachers, so far, he is not at all impressed.

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Voice of: Prime Minister Dean Barrow

Dean Barrow

“How do you get to a point where teachers who are supposed to be role models for our students can actually tell such a great, big, fat, whopping lie? How do you get to a point where they get out there and say that I hurried to call them on Friday because I was feeling the pressure in consequence of their rallies? Palacio did not deny it. Fraser made the point that you saw the president on the phone…man, clarify that because Frazer is speaking for them and Frazer must know that they are the ones that asked me for a meeting. Look…you know I have not gotten into any back and forth with them. I believe that in a lot of what they do, they are being heedless of the interests of the students. In particular this last thing where the same Thursday that they have asked me for a meeting I now hear that they are going to have the rally that was originally scheduled for Friday, simply because they want to get two holidays instead of one. I find that sort of thing really demeaning of their cause, whatever you may think about their cause. That sort of attitude…that sort of device…that sort of stratagem….that sort of artifice…I think really makes them look bad.  I hope that when they do come to the meeting…and I want to see what will happen now. Because they asked for it Thursday, and now Frazer has gone and said they are switching the rally which was planned for Friday to Thursday…the same day and the same time as which they asked for a meeting that I have now given them. Now don’t come to me and tell me that things have changed because we want two days holiday we will now have the rally at the time we asked to meet with you…so we will need to postpone…well that postponement…that postponement will be an extremely long postponement.”