One scam to drive up land prices is to say this or that celebrity or royalty owns adjoining property.  Take the 2000 acres of what the owners say comprise Isle La Rhonde: it is not enough to say it is the largest privately owned island of the 450 isles up for sale in the Grenadines; you then add the flavour that Donald Trump owns nearby isles – and then there is, despite the quiet and privacy the fact that you are but three hours away from Miami (a fact loaded with implications).

Island Rhonde now carries the highest price tag of any island anywhere (US$100M), and no doubt the buyer will seal off his borders, and who knows, probably even issue his own passport as Van Brink tried to do with his proposed state of Melchezidec (given government would have sold him a parish or two.)

The Internet sales man says “the Government is very friendly to foreign investors, and the region as a whole is seeing billions of investments”.

Yessir, the list is long.  It goes back to 1652 when some Frenchmen landed in the big Lagoon of Camerhogne (the land of many people) and offered the Carib’s chief some hatchet knives, glass beads and two bottles of brandy for his fourteen year old daughter, leading to the first Caribbean war.  Grandma says the canoes sailed south from Santo Domingo, Cuba, Aruba and St. Vincent but the white men riding huge beasts (the horse being the precursor to the Sherman tank) and with weapons that shot fire – and treaties they were immediately broke.  And now the Frenchmen have returned to the Lagoon completing a reincarnative cycle.

To separate rumour from fact in Grenada is often a tricky business but the question has been asked, “did the Developer in the Lagoon pay one dollar per square, and did Government have a right in law to sell not only our lands, but waters?”

Did Port Louis turn around to sell land they bought to develop for a huge interest?

It is the secrecy about these transactions that bugs the public.

Did someone write in an English newspaper that celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates have bought real estate in the Lagoon area?

Zublin is reclaiming land in the areas for Port Louis and another rumour is that they will work hand in hand now that property prices on the Carenage has dropped and businessmen are relocating to the Zublin Mall, together to redesign, not revitalize.

If Oprah owns piece of the Lagoon it follows that land in the area increases in price.

And as the Internet salesman carry on about a chain of islands where the buyer can build “not only Marinas and Hotels, but entire Resort towns”, the Grenada coastline is becoming an unbroken fence of foreigners ownership.

Our economy is hinged not only to these wildcats’ investors, but to the Donors who require a condition of their loans and gifts, an investor-free foreign policy.

No longer in the days of British Colonialism or E.U. preferential tariffs can we depend on foreign generosity with no strings attached.

Caribbean Governments switch donors and ideologies with the case of practiced prostitutes, and as one street corner philosopher said, ‘we should remove the nutmeg from the flag and put a begging hand in place”.

The Caribbean Development Bank with friendly Governments, like Barbados and Trinidad had earlier offered to seek loans so we could develop our own marina.  As obvious a Multi billion earner as the oil that lies under our seabeds that Russian entrepreneurs are patiently awaiting control of.

The recent scandal – the big storms of 2007 – of the Taiwan anthem being played to the People’s Republic of China Diplomats, is indicative of the ease with switch we switch commitments, (perhaps the power of the sidelined Taiwanese to embarrass the government for its change of heart).  And Taiwan has brought us to court for many millions in loans we  thought were gifts.

As Senator Chester wrote, ideological affinities are not to be so easily exchanged for a stadium or two – but then there is the spectacle of the opposition paying calls at Taiwan’s door.

In St. Lucia no sooner John Compton won his elections there was a cabinet revolt to bring the Taiwanese, and the next thing, Compton dies from heart attack.

In Barbados there were interviews with the respective Ambassador as to what role his financial assistance played in removing the Barbados Labour Party.

While some talk of Guyanese immigration as the main cause, others talk of the new Vat Tax that Owen Arthur recently introduced, others are of the firm conviction that foreign governments have been meddling in our various elections – Manning for Mitch, Gonsalves for Tillman and so on.

People in the Ministry of Youth and Culture are speaking of foreigners who are guiding strategies to maximize an election success.

All political parties should be warned that like Barbadians we are tired of interfering outsiders and even tired of CSME that gives foreigners rights that Grenadians are themselves quickly losing.

End this with a quote from a Grenville businessman (an Indian) who said, “all you over-doing it with this independence thing – so much money on flag, clothes, food – save something for Valentine.”

(And on the subject of food, it is curious that Grenadians so easily accept the statement that oil down is our national dish; the fact is ‘oil down’ was the slaves more or less daily menu – but this does not rob us of our continued love for that sweet oil down).