It was in the 1890s that it was discovered “there’s gold in them, thar hills” in our interior!! It created a revolution in our land-use since up to then, we were all clinging on for dear life – like ants on a string with honey – that was our single public road from Charity to Crabwood Creek!! Following the lure of the precious metal, thousands left their families on the coast and rushed into the jungles to become prospectors – or in our local parlance, “pork-knockers”, because they would hunt, roast and eat the “wild hogs” in the said jungles!!
A whole new culture developed when these pork-knockers returned to the coast with their earnings or findings in solid gold. The phrase “wine, women and song” barely described their life as they literally had money to burn – as one named Fredrick Mahaica famously did to light his cigars!! Their notoriety spread across the land as they spread their wealth around liberally! Sadly, most of these pork-knockers would repeat the cycle and die penniless and unmourned.
Well, fast forward to the 21st century and gold’s once more in the news – but for a whole new reason – and on a scale few would’ve thought possible back in the day!! Wealth from gold back then was seen in the Portuguese – who got involved in larger-scale gold mining, jewellery stores and pawn brokerages they opened up in Georgetown. Today, the Americans have accused a SINGLE operator of evading royalties of US$50 million in smuggled gold!! If the 8% royalty amounted to US$50 million that means the total value of the smuggled gold was a cool US$625 million!!
So we’re talking of US$BILLIONS circulating in a few hands. No wonder these modern-day pork-knockers have taken Fredrick Mahaica’s profligacy to a whole new level by giving away houses, cars, money and whatever!! But the world has also moved on to a whole new level…much more intertwined than when Britannia ruled the waves. Today, it’s the Americans who run what really determines rulership – the global financial system.
The US dollar is the primary currency to fund global trade and this gives the Yanks the rationale to track shipments of gold that would’ve been paid for in US$!! As your Eyewitness has emphasised, they could care less about us losing revenues!! What they ARE concerned about is that some of the US$ could be funnelled to finance terrorists in the Mid East where the gold’s being shipped!!
So now that the Yanks have made their findings public, believe your Eyewitness – this ain’t going away until somebody – or some bodies – are put away!! Remember how one fella was “renditioned” to face trial in the US?
That could be in the offing!!
…and old memory
In politics, candidates will go to extreme lengths to distinguish themselves from their opponents: public record, who’s more experienced and in the Caribbean with our “doctor politics” – who’s more educated!! But in the run-up to the November US presidential elections, we’ve got a real doozy between Biden and Trump. No…not who’s more embroiled in legal troubles, but who’s the most senile!!
The 81-year-old Biden’s forgetting where he is or what he’s supposed to be saying at public events has become more than embarrassing. Basically, his speeches are a bunch of non-sequiturs strung together from speeches he made decades ago – and which rises to the top of whatever’s now his “mind”!! At the Normandy landing commemoration, he was accused not only of “spatial disorientation” and “appearing confused” – but of pooping in his pants!!
Meanwhile, when the 78-year-old Trump suggested that Biden should take a “cognitive test” – like he did – in the next sentence he confused the name of the doctor who administered the test!!
