Skerrit’s Pyrrhic Victory

(An oration on Dominica’s Election Night December 6 2019 delivered to a gathering of Dominican patriots in the cause of democracy)

By A  DOMINICAN PATRIOT

Pyrrhic victory (/ˈpɪrɪk/ PIRR-ik) is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has also taken a heavy toll that negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress.

(Wikipedia)

Good evening dear brothers and sisters.

Yes. The dictator Roosevelt Skerrit has stolen another election. However, he has won a perverse pyrrhric victory. It is a victory that he should be ashamed of. Ashamed because he procured it by fraud. He rigged the vote.

He procured that election victory with a bloated voters list.

He procured that victory by importing people from overseas to vote by paying their passage and travel expenses. That is a bribe in any decent system of Justice and as such a violation of our laws against bribery and treating.

He won by 100 percent manipulation of the state owned media that is tax payer supported. He eliminated the Parliamentary Opposition from such unbiased use of state media.

He won by using tax payer funded vehicles and other state resources to favor his own party to the exclusion of the lawful Parliamentary Opposition.

He won by using millions of dollars secured by passports sales, diplomatic and regular, or the proceeds of Illicit activity to rig the vote in his favor.

He won by importing foreign troops from the Regional Security System to abuse and bloody the people of Salisbury on the eve of the election. Dousing their homes with teargas over many hours, threatening to kill them all, and using live ammunition on unarmed civilians in the dark of night.

The regime has shown itself willing to shed the blood of our people, with the help of foreign troops, to entrenched its one party dictatorship.

Dear patriots, that is the Dominica we have today.

A Dominica which is a lawless failed state run by a criminal enterprise, where democracy has been placed in a tomb.

Thanks my dear friends for being honest and just Dominicans.

Thank you for standing for democracy on our imprisoned island.

You are Dominicans whose names will be written and spoken of for the ages because you refused to prostitute yourself in the cause of a dictatorship.

You did not take the bribe money to go home and place a dictatorship over our country, even though some of you were approached by Skerrit’s agents in the United States.

You did not drink the red koolaid served up by the cult-like leader Skerrit who has brainwashed so many Dominicans with dependency via the Red Clinic where he doles out favors and money directly to Dominicans struggling to survive in an economy that has been ruined under his rule way before Hurricane Maria.

Those in the United States and on Dominica who support Skerrit have raised him up above all reason and unbiased judgement.

They have excused his every crime of abuse of office. They have excused away every fraud by him and his associates. They have refused to accept that Al Jazeera confirms that he has sold passports to criminal on the run from justice such as Ali Reza Monfared, the Iranian sanctions busting agent. They have elevated Skerrit to the throne of idolatry. He can do no wrong and is as white as the driven snow.

Sadly, as with every dictatorship from Nazi Germany to Zimbabwe, to nearby Haiti where Papa Doc and Baby Doc buried that country in poverty and crime, there are willing followers. Skerrit is not alone. On the pirate ship to which he has reduced our small Caribbean island he has a crew. He has enablers. We would be blind to not admit that Skerrit cannot and does not act alone.

Who are his enablers?

• They are the passport sellers.

• They are the policemen who brutalize democracy activists.

• They are the biased judges who have enabled his destruction of our judiciary. No wonder our people distrust the courts.

• They are the civil servants who see wrong and cover it up with a wink and a nod.

• They are the voters who refuse to abide by law and accept bribes to vote as against their own best interest and the long term health and welfare of our country and its democratic traditions.

• They are the regime agents who spy on Dominican democracy activists in the United States and try to kill them and ensnare them in situations that will lead to their demise. Be careful my friends. Skerrit has declared war on Dominicans who disagree with his rule and is a desperate man who will do anything to stay in power and avoid justice.

The reality is that the hearts of many Dominicans today have been corrupted by greed, and envy. They have even sunk to the ridiculous level of encouraging racial hatred,and color prejudice by accusing those of us who assert our democratic right to criticize them to be “trying to bring white people to rule over us.”

They accuse us of being American stooges and CIA agents.

This regime has encouraged a hypocritical and perverse anti Americanism. Yet Skerrit runs to America to have his kids delivered in American hospitals. At the same time when cornered for his crimes against our nation, he asserts that the OAS and the US are plotting a coup against him.

While they engage in this anti Americanism, so many of them on Dominica depend on funds and barrels from America or love to live and study there. They depend on that American largesse from our hardworking Diaspora because Dominica’s economy was the worst in the Eastern Caribbean before Hurricane Maria due to an incompetent government that practices the economics of poverty expansion.

Dominicans in the United States live in a society where they enjoy the fruits of rule of law, an independent judiciary, independent legislative branch and an opportunity to improve their lives. However, some of them have opted to abuse their fellow Dominicans by denying them the very liberty, prosperity and opportunity they enjoy in the United States.

We shall now address those who went down to vote into office a dictator on Dominica yet have the unmitigated gall to criticize Donald Trump.

Whatever you may think of President Donald Trump, he is before the courts in New York City. Just a month or two ago he lost a case in NYC and was fined 2 million dollars for improper use of his nonprofit corporation.

Today President Trump is before the Congress for impeachment over a phone call he made to Ukraine a. No one accused him of being a hungry hyena who took gold bars from a criminal in exchange for a diplomatic passport. Or that he plundered the US Treasury to win an election.

About eight of Trump’s campaign workers are in jail or took criminal pleas, to include his own lawyer. Whether one agrees with President Trump or not, no one has accused him of running a Republican Clinic where impoverished supporters have to line up outside the White House to receive handouts which is what Skerrit does on Dominica in his Red Clinic.

That is the democracy and rule of law we have in America that these Diaspora Dominicans enjoy. Yet because of bribery, or blind allegiance to the regime, they go to our island which has been impoverished by a corrupt dictatorship and vote them back into office after receiving a bribe of a airfare and stipend. We know airfares to Dominica from the United States are close to, or often exceed, a $1000. That these voters have also not met the residency requirement of our law is another thing. This is the criminal and perverse stealing of an election that these overseas Dominican participated in to continue to bury our country in backwardness, hate, crime, and demonic practices masquerading as the Christian religion.

If that is how you win the “victory” then enjoy it. There will be the ashes of defeat in theirs mouths soon enough and they’ll will come to regret the day they sold their souls for thirty pieces of silver to overthrow democracy on Dominica.

Stay strong dear patriots. One never despairs when one is embarked on a just cause.

As with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr we are dedicated to liberty and democratic governance on Dominica. We shall never relent in that noble cause.

God is not mocked.