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Seaga cannot have it both ways
WIGNALL’S WORLD
Mark Wignall
Sunday, June 20, 2010
In 1999 Eli Tisona, who in the early 1980s was in Jamaica operating as manager of Eddie Seaga's much vaunted Spring Plains Agro 21 project, was convicted of conspiracy and money laundering for disguising US$43 million in Colombian drug cash for the Cali Cartel as profits from a family jewellery business. He was sentenced to more than 19 years in prison and fined $50,000.
In June 1999 he was found guilty of all 146 federal counts against him in one of the nation's biggest drug laundering trials. Charges against Tisona included filing false bank statements and making illegal overseas wire transfers.
DUDUS… rumours mount as to his whereabouts
DUDUS… rumours mount as to his whereabouts
1/1 
For those who came in late, Spring Plains was Seaga's high-tech Israeli-partnered agricultural investment while he was prime minister that would see Jamaica selling winter vegetables to the US market. Other projects involved growing tilapia, macadamia nuts, hearts of palm and other non-traditional crops for export.
While Tisona had 'most favoured person' status in the eyes of the boss in Jamaica House, two ministers in the Seaga-led Government, Tony Abrahams in Tourism and Brascoe Lee in Agriculture, told me, at the time of Tisona's conviction, that on separate official trips they had made to Israel in the 1980s they were approached by Government officials who told them that Tisona, who was being paraded as an agricultural expert in Jamaica, was in fact an Israeli mobster.
Both men told me that on their return they took the information to Prime Minister Seaga. Tisona continued as the guru of Jamaica's new launch into high-tech agriculture until it became bankrupt, lost $48 million and continued to rack up debt until the 550 acres of farmland in Clarendon was leased to High-Tech Farms in 2001, a joint venture between Jamaican and Chinese investors. That, too, bombed miserably.
While Tisona was in Jamaica, planes were leased specifically to fly out the winter vegetables to the US. The planes flew over from Colombia early in the morning, arrived in Jamaica then were loaded with winter vegetables after which they took off.
Today as we sense that there is a burning need among our people to see a cleaning up of our politics and a detachment between it and organised criminality, we need to ask ourselves if our leaders, present and past, have been entirely honest with us as we struggle to force their hands towards a new governance and a whole new interface with us the voters.
Eddie Seaga, who is the architect of Jamaica's first official garrison enclave, Tivoli Gardens, has been at pains to point out the goodness of the community, but incredibly, when there is mention of its warts, boils, guns, ammunition and highly organised criminality, it is someone else's fault.
In 1992 when he described Lester Lloyd 'Jim Brown' Coke as the protector of the community and walked at the front of his funeral procession, he had failed to elaborate what 'Jim Brown' was using to protect Tivoli Gardens. Toothpicks? Paper bags? Lollipop sticks?
As Uriah King pointed out in his excellent piece on Seaga last Thursday, 'Edward Seaga: Deification of a Demigod', Seaga's accolades arise mostly from a hangover of a time that many of us want to forget.
I can recall a conversation I had with Seaga late one night at his home in 1996 after a media party. He was, as I saw it, talking rubbish about duppies and spirits. His wife Carla was there and so was my then wife, Ann Marie. But there was also another person, a woman of a complexion much darker than my own.
As I interjected she stopped me in my tracks with, "No, no, let him finish." As I looked across at her, I saw in her eyes not admiration but pure adulation. Seaga was her demigod and demigods must be allowed to talk rubbish while sensible folk must listen and applaud.
This view was captured by Seaga's sister, Jean Anderson, as she criticised me recently. I had implied in a column two Sundays ago that in the 1990s when Mutty Perkins and myself were invited to search for tunnels in Tivoli Gardens, because we were no specialists in such matters, it came across as nothing more than good PR for the JLP and Eddie Seaga.
According to Anderson, I was jealous because Seaga had recently mentioned on a Nationwide programme that he had taken Perkins to look for tunnels and he had found none. I pointed out that Perkins had done nothing more than greet Tivoli residents and that it was I who had embarked on that most foolish exercise.
Said Anderson, "You are true to form in your article in today's Observer. Your writing is getting more vindictive, confused and illogical by the day. I have diagnosed the baggage you carry around and put in your columns for selected targets as that of 'red eye' and colour prejudice. Am I right?"
In other words, there are certain sacred cows in this country that are off-limits to certain people who refuse to 'know dem place'.
And in perfectly complementing Anderson's idiocy, Perkins was on his show the following Monday more than implying that I was peeved because Seaga did not mention my name. An endorsement from Seaga? Mutty, you have lost your head!
As far as I am concerned, as the security forces continue their operation, there is one man who has singled out himself who needs to be questioned in-depth. He has a lot of answers to many questions.
Waiting on the LNG roll-out
A few weeks ago when I sat down with Energy and Mining Minister James Robertson, the first thing which struck me was the impressive Barry Watson painting hanging on a wall to one side of his desk.
I suggested to him that such a painting by the Jamaican master would cost in the region of US$40,000, but at the same time I asked him what would be the reason for using taxpayers' money from a poor country like Jamaica to purchase such an exquisite and expensive painting and have it literally hidden away only for the benefit of a select few.
"I inherited it, Mark. I came here and saw it hanging there," he said. I nodded my head and wondered if Watson was one of those painters who would, on the purchase of one of his larger pieces, probably make a gift of a smaller, less exquisite piece (if such a thing as 'less exquisite' could be used to describe a Watson painting) to the purchaser. If so, and it is a big 'if', where was the other piece?
Well, I suppose certain creature comforts are the norm, so we sat down and sifted through many files and folders, most of them highly technical reports on matters to do mostly with addressing Jamaica's energy needs and especially in a climate where consumers have long singled out the Jamaica Public Service Company as the enemy.
However, I wanted to focus on the planned LNG roll-out. Much of what we do in this country is 'plan' but after that, many years pass before 'implementation'. Would this be another such plan?
"This country has been in an energy crisis from 1973 till now," he said. "No new technology in terms of addressing that crisis and that new energy need has been implemented."
I wanted to know some basics. When would LNG be available and how much savings would accrue to the country?
"At today's price point, we are looking at savings of US$900 million per annum," he said. Highly impressive if it actually comes out as planned.
As has been stated, the major categories of LNG suppliers are Qatar Petroleum, Sonatrach in Algeria, Sonnangol in Angola and National Gas Company in Trinidad. Then there are companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron Texaco and Conoco Phillips.
There are also Portfolio suppliers such as British Gas and Gaz de France Suez and Commodity Trading companies like CitiGroup, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley.
According to the minister, as LNG goes, it is a buyers' market at present. I wanted to know if the planned roll-out was based on the fact of a buyers' market, what would happen should that suddenly change? Would it mean that we would pack up our plans and forget about LNG?
According to the minister, the gas markets are in a state of oversupply which has come about because of the recent global economic recession, but another important factor is the increased supply of natural gas from unconventional sources such as shale rock. That has brought about what is now being called the Shale Gas Revolution.
Another important factor to be considered is that where the conventional wisdom of two years ago was pointing to the US running short of gas and had big plans of importing, many countries -- among them Algeria, Angola, Nigeria and Qatar -- developed their LNG liquefaction plants to supply the US with the product.
Almost overnight it seemed, technological developments allowed the extraction of natural gas from shale rock formations. It was not as if the gas which existed in shale was not known, but previous to that time it was thought to be unrecoverable.
As a result of that, the US has gone from a gas deficit to a gas glut. Some believe, subject to more finite evaluations, that the US gas reserves have doubled as a result of that find in shale rock.
According to the minister, all of the LNG supply that was lined up for the US is now looking for other markets, hence the 'buyers' market' terminology.
Exmar Consortium was eventually chosen for the financing, development, ownership and operation of a Regasification Terminal and LNG Transportation system after two bids were received. According to documentation seen, 'The Exmar Consortium Proposal required no Government of Jamaica guarantees and also explicitly states that the financing stands solely on the strength of off-take and supply agreements and the experience of bidder consortium.'
A 2012 timeline is planned, so should we hold the applause?
The two geographical spots being considered are Port Esquivel and the Kingston Harbour and, of course, we would be talking about utilising huge barges which could be relocated in the event of heavy weather.
A savings to the energy sector of US$900 million per annum? Sounds too good to be true!
Was the Tivoli Gardens Operation used to scare dons?
AS the search for 'Dudus' continues the rumours mount. Each day I have someone e-mailing me 'details' of the location of 'Dudus'.
He is in St Elizabeth, he is in Portland, he is in The Bahamas, he is headed for Venezuela. One told me that he is undergoing plastic surgery and that in another few months he will walk on the streets of Kingston and we will never know who just rubbed shoulders with us.
One lady told me that she walked by him on the streets of Brooklyn. 'Dudus' in the US? Madness!
Some have even suggested that he was killed in the Tivoli operation but the security forces would like to keep the pressure on the gang leaders and their henchmen, so 'Dudus' as fugitive is the carrot being waved before the horse to keep it galloping.
There are many who believe that when the US entered Iraq for part two of its war and an operation was on in Afghanistan to capture Osama Bin Laden, the Americans really did not want to hold on to Bin Laden too early as that would signal to the world that the US objective had been met, therefore it should pack up and leave Iraq and Afghanistan.
That position is quite plausible, and one wonders at the ability of 'Dudus' to elude the most massive manhunt in our history. The other point is the possibility that the army operation in Tivoli and its ferocity were deliberately used as more than a message to the heads of the many criminal gangs operating in this country. If that is indeed so, there will be only a few Jamaicans who will not be prepared to support the security forces.
Remember now, the rogue elements in the security forces have not suddenly met Jesus and have all been saved. They are still there, but for the very first time in the last 40 years it is difficult to find one person who has anything bad to say about the members of the security forces.
The idea that the Tivoli operation has scared the criminals is borne out in the ease with which certain 'persons of interest' handed themselves in to the police as their names were called. Granted the Emergency powers have given the police much latitude, but it is my belief that with the nation looking on, even those rogue cops who would still want to lie in bed with dons have awakened early and left the room, left the house.
Any pressure on the dons is also pressure on the rogue element in the JCF. By way of example, a bus which plies the St Thomas to Kingston route is required to pay $700 per trip as extortion tax. If that bus makes 15 trips per day, that is a cool $10,500 and there are hundreds of buses making many trips to Kingston.
No extortion racket can exist for long without the support of the rogue element in the force. So in cleaning up the dons and making an attempt to end garrison politics, some of the rogue elements of the force will have to find other means to 'eat a food'.
Change is never easy.
observemark@gmail.com
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...h-ways_7721762
WIGNALL’S WORLD
Mark Wignall
Sunday, June 20, 2010
In 1999 Eli Tisona, who in the early 1980s was in Jamaica operating as manager of Eddie Seaga's much vaunted Spring Plains Agro 21 project, was convicted of conspiracy and money laundering for disguising US$43 million in Colombian drug cash for the Cali Cartel as profits from a family jewellery business. He was sentenced to more than 19 years in prison and fined $50,000.
In June 1999 he was found guilty of all 146 federal counts against him in one of the nation's biggest drug laundering trials. Charges against Tisona included filing false bank statements and making illegal overseas wire transfers.
DUDUS… rumours mount as to his whereabouts
DUDUS… rumours mount as to his whereabouts 1/1 While Tisona had 'most favoured person' status in the eyes of the boss in Jamaica House, two ministers in the Seaga-led Government, Tony Abrahams in Tourism and Brascoe Lee in Agriculture, told me, at the time of Tisona's conviction, that on separate official trips they had made to Israel in the 1980s they were approached by Government officials who told them that Tisona, who was being paraded as an agricultural expert in Jamaica, was in fact an Israeli mobster.
Both men told me that on their return they took the information to Prime Minister Seaga. Tisona continued as the guru of Jamaica's new launch into high-tech agriculture until it became bankrupt, lost $48 million and continued to rack up debt until the 550 acres of farmland in Clarendon was leased to High-Tech Farms in 2001, a joint venture between Jamaican and Chinese investors. That, too, bombed miserably.
While Tisona was in Jamaica, planes were leased specifically to fly out the winter vegetables to the US. The planes flew over from Colombia early in the morning, arrived in Jamaica then were loaded with winter vegetables after which they took off.
Today as we sense that there is a burning need among our people to see a cleaning up of our politics and a detachment between it and organised criminality, we need to ask ourselves if our leaders, present and past, have been entirely honest with us as we struggle to force their hands towards a new governance and a whole new interface with us the voters.
Eddie Seaga, who is the architect of Jamaica's first official garrison enclave, Tivoli Gardens, has been at pains to point out the goodness of the community, but incredibly, when there is mention of its warts, boils, guns, ammunition and highly organised criminality, it is someone else's fault.
In 1992 when he described Lester Lloyd 'Jim Brown' Coke as the protector of the community and walked at the front of his funeral procession, he had failed to elaborate what 'Jim Brown' was using to protect Tivoli Gardens. Toothpicks? Paper bags? Lollipop sticks?
As Uriah King pointed out in his excellent piece on Seaga last Thursday, 'Edward Seaga: Deification of a Demigod', Seaga's accolades arise mostly from a hangover of a time that many of us want to forget.
I can recall a conversation I had with Seaga late one night at his home in 1996 after a media party. He was, as I saw it, talking rubbish about duppies and spirits. His wife Carla was there and so was my then wife, Ann Marie. But there was also another person, a woman of a complexion much darker than my own.
As I interjected she stopped me in my tracks with, "No, no, let him finish." As I looked across at her, I saw in her eyes not admiration but pure adulation. Seaga was her demigod and demigods must be allowed to talk rubbish while sensible folk must listen and applaud.
This view was captured by Seaga's sister, Jean Anderson, as she criticised me recently. I had implied in a column two Sundays ago that in the 1990s when Mutty Perkins and myself were invited to search for tunnels in Tivoli Gardens, because we were no specialists in such matters, it came across as nothing more than good PR for the JLP and Eddie Seaga.
According to Anderson, I was jealous because Seaga had recently mentioned on a Nationwide programme that he had taken Perkins to look for tunnels and he had found none. I pointed out that Perkins had done nothing more than greet Tivoli residents and that it was I who had embarked on that most foolish exercise.
Said Anderson, "You are true to form in your article in today's Observer. Your writing is getting more vindictive, confused and illogical by the day. I have diagnosed the baggage you carry around and put in your columns for selected targets as that of 'red eye' and colour prejudice. Am I right?"
In other words, there are certain sacred cows in this country that are off-limits to certain people who refuse to 'know dem place'.
And in perfectly complementing Anderson's idiocy, Perkins was on his show the following Monday more than implying that I was peeved because Seaga did not mention my name. An endorsement from Seaga? Mutty, you have lost your head!
As far as I am concerned, as the security forces continue their operation, there is one man who has singled out himself who needs to be questioned in-depth. He has a lot of answers to many questions.
Waiting on the LNG roll-out
A few weeks ago when I sat down with Energy and Mining Minister James Robertson, the first thing which struck me was the impressive Barry Watson painting hanging on a wall to one side of his desk.
I suggested to him that such a painting by the Jamaican master would cost in the region of US$40,000, but at the same time I asked him what would be the reason for using taxpayers' money from a poor country like Jamaica to purchase such an exquisite and expensive painting and have it literally hidden away only for the benefit of a select few.
"I inherited it, Mark. I came here and saw it hanging there," he said. I nodded my head and wondered if Watson was one of those painters who would, on the purchase of one of his larger pieces, probably make a gift of a smaller, less exquisite piece (if such a thing as 'less exquisite' could be used to describe a Watson painting) to the purchaser. If so, and it is a big 'if', where was the other piece?
Well, I suppose certain creature comforts are the norm, so we sat down and sifted through many files and folders, most of them highly technical reports on matters to do mostly with addressing Jamaica's energy needs and especially in a climate where consumers have long singled out the Jamaica Public Service Company as the enemy.
However, I wanted to focus on the planned LNG roll-out. Much of what we do in this country is 'plan' but after that, many years pass before 'implementation'. Would this be another such plan?
"This country has been in an energy crisis from 1973 till now," he said. "No new technology in terms of addressing that crisis and that new energy need has been implemented."
I wanted to know some basics. When would LNG be available and how much savings would accrue to the country?
"At today's price point, we are looking at savings of US$900 million per annum," he said. Highly impressive if it actually comes out as planned.
As has been stated, the major categories of LNG suppliers are Qatar Petroleum, Sonatrach in Algeria, Sonnangol in Angola and National Gas Company in Trinidad. Then there are companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron Texaco and Conoco Phillips.
There are also Portfolio suppliers such as British Gas and Gaz de France Suez and Commodity Trading companies like CitiGroup, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley.
According to the minister, as LNG goes, it is a buyers' market at present. I wanted to know if the planned roll-out was based on the fact of a buyers' market, what would happen should that suddenly change? Would it mean that we would pack up our plans and forget about LNG?
According to the minister, the gas markets are in a state of oversupply which has come about because of the recent global economic recession, but another important factor is the increased supply of natural gas from unconventional sources such as shale rock. That has brought about what is now being called the Shale Gas Revolution.
Another important factor to be considered is that where the conventional wisdom of two years ago was pointing to the US running short of gas and had big plans of importing, many countries -- among them Algeria, Angola, Nigeria and Qatar -- developed their LNG liquefaction plants to supply the US with the product.
Almost overnight it seemed, technological developments allowed the extraction of natural gas from shale rock formations. It was not as if the gas which existed in shale was not known, but previous to that time it was thought to be unrecoverable.
As a result of that, the US has gone from a gas deficit to a gas glut. Some believe, subject to more finite evaluations, that the US gas reserves have doubled as a result of that find in shale rock.
According to the minister, all of the LNG supply that was lined up for the US is now looking for other markets, hence the 'buyers' market' terminology.
Exmar Consortium was eventually chosen for the financing, development, ownership and operation of a Regasification Terminal and LNG Transportation system after two bids were received. According to documentation seen, 'The Exmar Consortium Proposal required no Government of Jamaica guarantees and also explicitly states that the financing stands solely on the strength of off-take and supply agreements and the experience of bidder consortium.'
A 2012 timeline is planned, so should we hold the applause?
The two geographical spots being considered are Port Esquivel and the Kingston Harbour and, of course, we would be talking about utilising huge barges which could be relocated in the event of heavy weather.
A savings to the energy sector of US$900 million per annum? Sounds too good to be true!
Was the Tivoli Gardens Operation used to scare dons?
AS the search for 'Dudus' continues the rumours mount. Each day I have someone e-mailing me 'details' of the location of 'Dudus'.
He is in St Elizabeth, he is in Portland, he is in The Bahamas, he is headed for Venezuela. One told me that he is undergoing plastic surgery and that in another few months he will walk on the streets of Kingston and we will never know who just rubbed shoulders with us.
One lady told me that she walked by him on the streets of Brooklyn. 'Dudus' in the US? Madness!
Some have even suggested that he was killed in the Tivoli operation but the security forces would like to keep the pressure on the gang leaders and their henchmen, so 'Dudus' as fugitive is the carrot being waved before the horse to keep it galloping.
There are many who believe that when the US entered Iraq for part two of its war and an operation was on in Afghanistan to capture Osama Bin Laden, the Americans really did not want to hold on to Bin Laden too early as that would signal to the world that the US objective had been met, therefore it should pack up and leave Iraq and Afghanistan.
That position is quite plausible, and one wonders at the ability of 'Dudus' to elude the most massive manhunt in our history. The other point is the possibility that the army operation in Tivoli and its ferocity were deliberately used as more than a message to the heads of the many criminal gangs operating in this country. If that is indeed so, there will be only a few Jamaicans who will not be prepared to support the security forces.
Remember now, the rogue elements in the security forces have not suddenly met Jesus and have all been saved. They are still there, but for the very first time in the last 40 years it is difficult to find one person who has anything bad to say about the members of the security forces.
The idea that the Tivoli operation has scared the criminals is borne out in the ease with which certain 'persons of interest' handed themselves in to the police as their names were called. Granted the Emergency powers have given the police much latitude, but it is my belief that with the nation looking on, even those rogue cops who would still want to lie in bed with dons have awakened early and left the room, left the house.
Any pressure on the dons is also pressure on the rogue element in the JCF. By way of example, a bus which plies the St Thomas to Kingston route is required to pay $700 per trip as extortion tax. If that bus makes 15 trips per day, that is a cool $10,500 and there are hundreds of buses making many trips to Kingston.
No extortion racket can exist for long without the support of the rogue element in the force. So in cleaning up the dons and making an attempt to end garrison politics, some of the rogue elements of the force will have to find other means to 'eat a food'.
Change is never easy.
observemark@gmail.com
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...h-ways_7721762
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