Wikileaks Barbados: US Embassy Bridgetown sent alert on Sir Allen Stanford three years before arrest.

Private message to President George W. Bush

Barbados PM Owen Arthur asked the Ambassador Kramer to deliver a private message to President Bush

Sometimes snacks are more delicious than a large meal. With hundreds of cables from the US Embassy at Bridgetown, Barbados yet to be exposed, Bajans at home and abroad are anxious to see what the insiders saw years ago. The latest drip, drip, drip concerns SIR Allen Stanford and also then Barbados PM Owen Arthur asking the US Ambassador to speak to President Bush.

Okay, I’ll bite: How much money did Sir Allen Stanford provide to the Barbados Labour Party and the Democratic Labour Party and when? The US Embassy cables make it clear that Stanford didn’t favour any particular political party: he gave his money freely to all sides.

What other revelations will be coming? The Barbados FBI files? Corrupt VECO building our new jail? Offshore bank accounts of BLP politicians? The Canadian Government’s intervention in that nasty mess with the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary? Stay tuned folks, because the hits keep on coming!

May 3, 2006 Cable from Bridgetown Embassy

“Sir Allen Stanford’s companies are rumored to engage in bribery, money laundering, and political manipulation.”

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First Time! Transport Minister mentions ‘Breathalyser’ will be part of new Road Traffic Act

Is this announcement legitimate or once again blowing off the press?

Transport Minister John Boyce

For the fourteenth time since January 2006, a Barbados government Minister has announced that a new Road Act should be ready “soon”.

Today’s announcement comes from Minister of Transport and Works, John Boyce, who tells The Nation that the new Road Traffic Amendment Act “should soon be ready”.

For the very first time we are being told that the act will have a breathalyser section.

But read a little further and you’ll see that the new law will be ready for “public comment” at the end of March. How much longer it will be before it gets through Parliament, or why the law has been sitting around since 2007, we’re not told.

We’re also informed by the Minister that the DLP government has “been talking about recently” a new Road Safety Umbrella organization called “National Council for Road”.

Well, isn’t that nice? The Minister has been “talking” about it. No doubt there will be more meetings about holding more meetings “soon”.

Minister Boyce’s announcement was no doubt in response to a recent series of articles at Barbados Free Press where we chided the government for not caring about road deaths due to drunk drivers, and the fact that British tourists have a 240% greater chance of being killed in a car accident in Barbados than back home.

So Boyce says that Barbados will have breathalyser laws in 2011.

Do we believe Minister Boyce?

Given the record: Not really.