By Jolly Green

When Gonsalves became PM in 2001,
about 250 expatriates were living in SVG as permanent and temporary
residents; some were even citizens. Many of those had political
voting rights in SVG. None of them voted for the comrade because they
were in the main, not extreme socialists like the new SVG members of
government. They were also very frightened by what appeared to be a
communist-led so-called “Road Block Revolution.” By 2005 just
about all of them had fled, leaving about 500 Vincentians without
jobs. More than half of the ex-patriots rented big houses, and
Vincentian landlords had a good income from them, which was also
lost.

Gonsalves knows only too well that
expatriates, in general, will never vote for him or any extreme
socialist government. That is the reason that he shuns the
Citizenship by Investment [CBI] scheme and bad mouths it. He knows
that by bringing this class of person to the main island of Saint
Vincent will create supporting voters and funding for the NDP,
certainly not the ULP. That is the sole and real purpose and reason
he will not have a CBI scheme in SVG’; despite every other island
now having it and getting rich on the proceeds and cutting taxes. So
once again, Vincentians must suffer due to the Comrades politics.

One I suppose must analyze why
people want citizenship in the Caribbean, in the main, it is because
they are living in countries where extremism in politics is the norm,
they want to escape from that. So leaving a country with bad politics
and perhaps violence, and coming to another country with bad politics
will not work for them. They are looking for peace and security and
decency in leadership. The greatest buyers and investors in CBI at
the moment are Chinese; they want to escape socialism, nasty rules,
and questionable leadership, exactly what SVG currently offers. So
Gonsalves doesn’t want them, and they certainly do not want
Gonsalves or anyone like him.

In about 2006, the British closed
their offices in SVG. Several things annoyed the British Foreign
Office about SVG at that time, and one was Gonsalves. They doubted
him because of his affiliations to the Castro’s in Cuba; they did
not like his politics; they were certainly opposite to the British
views. They also did not like what was happening with the
Castro-Chavez alliance; thirteen countries signed on to Chavez’s
Petro-Caribe initiative, which the British saw as an attempt to
further the funding of communism in the Caribbean. The extreme
leftist’s [which included Ralph Gonsalves] and labor leaders in the
Caribbean, celebrated the deal as a break from what they see as U.S.
imperialism and voiced so. So the British removed [retired] Brian
Robinson, the British Resident Consul General from the Kingstown
office, and replaced him with a rather clever career diplomat with
the skills of political deception, named Terry Knight. Resident
British Consul Terry Knight was someone who Gonsalves allowed to get
close to him, they continually discussed socialism, and Knight fooled
Ralph Gonsalves into believing they were good comrades and friends.
Under his unfettered access to Gonsalves, Knight could provide the
Ambassador at the US Embassy in Barbados and the British Foreign
Office in London with valuable information regarding Gonsalves and
Vincentian politics.

Glenn Jackson, Ralph Gonsalves
press secretary, personal assistant and left-hand man, was a
Vincentian acting as an American spy, gathering important information
from Ralph Gonsalves and passing it to the Americans. The
assassination of Glenn Jackson aggrieved and worried the British;
they may have believed Terry Knight was in danger of the same
treatment as Jackson. So they closed the British Offices in
Kingstown, later selling the Commissioners residence next to Kelly’s
house in Rose Place, Arnos Vale. Terry eventually was recalled to
Britain, and the whole shebang was wound up. SVG had a British
presence no more, all the employees were laid off, and substantial
revenue to SVG lost.

Much of what Terry Knight had been
up to was recorded in a cabled document from the US Ambassador in
Barbados to the US Department of State and also to the Caribbean
Community Defense Attaché’s Office in Caracas, the Secretary of
State of the United Kingdom, London, and the United States Southern
Command (Miami). Also, in the same cable are details about Glenn
Jackson. Being one of the documents which were misappropriated and
published by WikiLeaks and can be read in its entirety here –

https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06BRIDGETOWN554_a.html

There has been much written about
this part over the years, here are a few of the articles and stories,
letters, and opinions.

https://kentonxtchance.wordpress.com/tag/wikileaks/page/6/

https://www.iwnsvg.com/2011/09/06/pms-personal-aide-was-us-officials-main-man/

https://www.iwnsvg.com/2013/08/04/the-assasination-of-glenn-jackson-and-his-relationship-with-us-agents/

Both Terry Knight and Glenn
Jackson are two of the few who have made a monkey out of Ralph
Gonsalves. The shame is that Glenn Jackson is now very dead, and no
one has been found guilty of the assassination; assassination is
Ralph Gonsalves description of Glenn's death, not my own.

Later the British appointed a
Vincentian Mr. Donald G. Browne as Honorary Consul in SVG; this has
been rather inconvenient for British people visiting the island
because Consul Brown is located in Ralph Gonsalves constituency in
Colonaire.

There have been so many rapes and
violent attacks on British residents, visitors, and tourists over the
past few years that Britain made a decision last year to return with
their British staff to try and look after the interests of tourists
and travelers from the UK. Now with an International Airport and some
top-class tourist hotels coming online, perhaps the crime against
visitors will increase, even explode.

The United Kingdom's High
Commission in Kingstown is now the only British representation in
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The new British High Commission in
Kingstown gratefully [by decent Vincentians] established in 2019. The
United Kingdom’s Vincentian honorary consulate is no longer
applicable.

Let’s hope the comrade doesn’t
embarrass us all by attempting to scrounge from the Brits. They most
certainly will not be interested in buying our UN vote.

One of the things that upset
Gonsalves in the past was that they refused to help fund the Argyle
airport. They told him the airport would need constant funding when
it is built; it would not and could not ever pay for itself; for that
reason, count them out [a Dragons Den quote].

I am told and readily believe that
when the British exercise Brexit and depart the EU, they will be
cutting their foreign aid by 50%, and they will no longer subscribe
to the EU foreign aid fund either.

Before National Elections in SVG
the Gonsalves Government and the ULP political party give away up to
50 million dollars worth of building materials to encourage the
recipients to vote for them. Bribery at its worst, not a few trinkets
and a T-shirt, millions upon millions of US dollars worth of lumber,
metal roofing, and cement.

I, as a result of this, ask the
British to monitor the bribery of Vincentians by the ULP with
building materials for the four weeks before and running up to the
next election. I will also invite several international TV news
company observers as well.

Jolly Green.

PS, the chronology in this opinion may be a little skew-whiff, as I wrote all the commentary from memory. But the happenings are true, and they are well recorded elsewhere.

END

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