Article about the Outgoing UDP Minister of Housing, Hubert Elrington, in Belize:
belizemall.com
Headline: Hubert's racist outburst</H1>
BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Aug. 20
"My pet issue is that I don't think we should allow our system to be taken over by the Espats and the Musas. We have enough people of our own to do our own ruling of our people. You know, the fact that a small group of Belizean Arabs can even believe that they can take over our country and take over a major political party like the PUP is very presumptive, in my view. And I think we need to say to them that that is not going to work."
- UDP Housing Minister Hubert Elrington on Channel 5, Wednesday, August l9, l998.
Rattled by the unbearable pressure of an opponent he had continued to underestimate and the heat of a Cordel Hyde campaign which had answered his every challenge, UDP Lake Independence standard bearer Hubert Elrington issued the above racist remarks against Belizeans of Arab paternity (all are of Belizean maternity) on Wednesday evening on Channel 5.
There are things any Belizean may think, if he/she is so minded. There are things "unofficial" Belizeans may even talk, on the streets, in clubs, and in their homes, but there are things no member of Cabinet and the House of Representatives should shout on national television.
No one in Belize is any longer surprised by anything Hubert Elrington says or does, no matter how outrageous. But this malevolent attempt to rend the delicate ethnic fabric of our young nation, requires, demands a statement from his Maximum Leader, the Right Honourable Dr. Manuel Esquivel.
Elrington's racist, anti-Arab remarks are politically calculated. They are a sinister attempt to appeal to the majority non-Arab voters in his constituency. But this now public racist is being given aid and succour within a political party led by the "man of trust" and piety.
As we were going to press Thursday evening, we received reports that a flustered Derek Aikman, who appeared on government-owned Friends FM Thursday morning with Hubert Elrington (who else?), had himself begun to play the "race card" openly - at a Tuesday night Cinderella Plaza rally of the UDP and this morning on Friends FM, while being interviewed by Godwin Hulse.
As far as we are aware, this is the first time political campaigning has become racial in the history of major party politics in British Honduras/Belize. It is headline news.
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