In this business we get a lot of press releases, most of them are about
a page or so – some of the passionate ones – usually from trade
unions are two or three pages long. But yesterday, the Hayward Charitable trust
broke the record – it sent a release that was twenty pages long. Well,
actually it was a covering release with the full, tedious text of a notice of
arbitration taken out against the government of Belize. It’s just one
more snare that the Ashcroft alliance has unleashed against the government of
Belize.
The arbitration is taken out by another one of those shadow shells
– this one called Dunkeld International Investments Limited. The long
and short of it is that Dunkeld on behalf of Hayward is invoking the Belize
– UK investment treaty because government has unlawfully expropriated
its investment in Telemedia. Dunkeld, according to the release is a Turks and
Caicos registered company was the beneficial owner of 69% of Telemedia.
And if you’re keeping score Telemedia was owned – on the
register of companies in Belize by four other companies – who, we presumed,
were holding it in trust for Hayward. But apparently not, because Dunkeld –
on Hayward’s behalf – has entered the picture. Confusing? We’ve
concluded that it’s meant to be that way!
Of course, it shouldn’t matter that no one here knows who Dunkeld
is. What matters is that it is part of the alliance and right now that alliance
is intent on serving Prime Minister Dean Barrow a fistful of humble pie for
Christmas. Today the PM told us he’s not fazed; not excited and not backing
down.
Jules Vasquez,
“There are new fronts of litigation open everyday, there is the Belize
Investment Treaty, and there is arbitration by this group on Dunkel on behalf
of Hayward.”
Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
“That’s all under the Belize UK Investment Treaty. That’s
the last, that’s their last stand in so far as the litigation front are
concerned. I don’t want for people to get discouraged or to get excited
where they put out press releases saying they are going to arbitration under
the bilateral investment treaty. That is their right, there is a treaty.
It will cost us because we are going to be represented but in terms of
the result of those efforts, I am not worried. The investment protection treaty
makes clear that people are entitled to remedies. Investors who have their properties
taken away, if that property is taken away in consequence of an expropriation
as opposed to a nationalization that is done for a public purpose and that provides
for the payment of compensation. We made sure that we nationalized in the public
interest and we made sure we provided for the payment for compensation.
I don’t think they have a prayer but Ashcroft obviously has all the
money in the world, he knows that there is a financial cost to us when he starts
this litigation process under the treaty, we will simply have to confront it
and deal with it. The point I want to make is this: nothing will stop this government
from vindicating the move that it made in consequence of that nationalization.
I just ask the people of this country to continue to support the process
and to support the government in every action that this government will take
to resist and to finally see off this fellow. He must realize I don’t
care how much money he has, I don’t care how powerful he thinks he is,
he cannot and will not defeat the sovereign united nation, a sovereign united
people. That is my message to him.”
The government did not have representation at the London Court of International
Arbitration when the accommodation agreement went up for arbitration –
but as the PM noted, this time it will; coming out of a sovereign treaty we
suspect, it must.
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