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Taking Maduro by force a shame

It just had to happen. Nicolas Maduro, the President of Venezuela who was forcibly removed from his home on January 3 and taken to the United States to face ‘Trumped-up’ charges related to drug trafficking and weapons, will likely not return to his country of birth after facing a New York-based court, on allegations that few know about.

The real reason for Maduro’s kidnapping though, surfaced during US President Donald Trump’s recent news conference, when he revealed that the US will now ‘run’ Venezuela, and admitted that America would take charge of the oil industry, which has the largest reserves in the world of roughly 303 billion barrels.

So, it was never about drug-trafficking and the other things that went with it. ‘We will get the big oil companies to run the industry, and make billions for the economy’, Trump said. That was the situation before Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999 and nationalised the industry soon after. It ended a period in which the profits from oil made by those greedy, big companies, did not stay in Venezuela.

What happened in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas early into the new year not only marked a bad start to 2026, but it just goes to show that the US is now more feared, though less respected by nations.

I am no fan of Maduro… certainly, he is no Chavez, but sovereign nations must sort their issues out by themselves. Claims abound regarding election rigging and vote buying in many elections globally, including Jamaica. What should powerful nations do about that … invade, invade, invade?

Will Cuba be next in line?

As I reflect, my mind ran on former Haitian president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, that nation’s first democratically leader, who was similarly accused of drug trafficking by the US while he was in charge of the former French colony, before he was deposed, for the final time, in a military coup, which critics said had the backing of the US and France.

Aristide became president in 1991, briefly; served also from 1994 to 1996, and lastly, 2001 to 2004 when he was ousted again and flown out of Haiti by US operatives to the Central African Republic. 

Then Jamaican Member of Parliament Sharon Hay Webster, was appointed Special Caricom Ambassador by Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, who was also chairman of Caricom; to join US Congresswoman Maxine Waters, then chairman of the Black Democratic Caucus, Ambassador Sydney Beaumont, and Aristide’s then Florida-based lawyer, Brian Concannon, to escort Aristide from the Central African Republic to Jamaica when the African country gave permission for the deposed leader to stay be transferred to Jamaica. 

Patterson fought stoutly for Aristide, which at times resulted in words being tossed across meeting tables, even leading at one time to an apology by US Ambassador to Jamaica, Sue Cobb, when she scolded Patterson for, among other things, ‘lacking sophistication’ in the Aristide affair. Cobb later apologised to Patterson after he summoned her to a meeting at Jamaica House. 

Catholic priest Aristide remained in St Ann, Jamaica for under a year, before he was cleared for exile in South Africa. He returned to Haiti in 2011

Patterson was also irritated earlier, that Aristide upon his exit from Haiti by US officials after the coup, was referred to as ‘cargo’ on the aircraft’s manifest when it stopped to refuel in Antigua & Barbuda enroute to Africa, citing a connection of when slaves were transported across the Atlantic Ocean.

Much more will unfold in coming days.

Honour and respect to Donald Oliver 

The shocks continue to pile up. 

The death of footballer Allan ‘Skill’ Cole occurred last September and I thought that that shocker would have tapered off into a long period of calm, until I was informed that broadcast journalist Donald Oliver had also left the scene before evil 2025 had ended.

Donald? No man! It had to be an incorrect piece of information put out by mischievous social media characters. Then, reality hit when a close friend of his confirmed the news that no one who knew him wanted to hear.

My association with the vibrant Donald started in the early 1990s while he attended Mico Practising Primary and Junior High School. He began and ended his six-year stint at the same time and in the same class as my daughter, so I would virtually see him every day, either at drop-off time or pickup. 

At the end of the Mico Practising experience, he told me that he had been placed at Ardenne High School. Deep down, I thought he wanted to attend Kingston College, but he still felt good that Ardenne would be his seat of learning, as it was one of Jamaica’s finest then, and remains that way today.

That group of youngsters at Mico Practising was talented. It included some who have gone on to make significant contributions toward the building of the society, among them one youngster they all called Garfield, who proceeded to become a Reggae artiste with the stage name ‘Konshens’.

Donald was determined to commentate on sport from he was a teenager. Outside of sport, few things mattered. Over the years we held countless discussions and reasonings, he telling me how much he admired my work in news and sport, and I responded by saying how much he had become the friend in whom I am well pleased, and how he had progressed at such a rapid pace in his chosen field.

It came down to discipline and commitment, which no one had over him.

He was one who could take criticism in stride and if he was wrong about something, he would do everything not to have a repeat. He was no prima donna. 

There was a time that he used the word ‘stanza’ to describe the start or end of a first or second half in football, and I eventually found him and told him that ‘stanza’ had everything to do with poetry – like line formations in a poem – and nothing to do with football. I never heard him use the term after that, although some journalists and broadcasters still do. 

We cannot determine how long we last on Earth, but heading on to the world unknown, less than a month shy of your 41^st birthday, was not something that was expected of a man who appeared to be fit and ready for more of life’s offerings. And that’s one of the mysteries that we all have to live with.

Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year officials must do better

The annual RJR/Gleaner National Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year ceremony is set to roll out again within days, and again, there is a sort of amateurish approach that continues to stare us in the face.

Year after year, there is an elaborate promotional buildup to the event, which, among other things asks people to speculate in respect of which man or woman will take home the major prize, when it is pellucidly clear who the respective winners will be.

This year is no different, as the question of who will it be, has again hit the surface. Everybody in Jamaica and elsewhere knows that based upon their achievements last year, the only way that 100-metre sprinters Oblique Seville and Tina Clayton will not take the big prizes, is if highway robbery is involved. And, I am sure that the selectors/judges are people of integrity, and would not be associated with that sort of game.

So, the Sportsman of the Year will be Seville, and the Sportsman, Clayton. How then can you justify people who finished behind them in second or third place, to be named as contenders for the most cherished awards?

When the selection is as clear cut as this, the officials must make the distinction. As dry as it might appear to be, the winners must be declared before the night of the show, and maybe a marketing buildup centred on the ‘minors’ could be introduced leading up to the big night.

But to continue with the obvious is, in a way, insulting our intelligence.

Lights not out

Discussions surrounding the use of those LED lights that apparently seek to make motorists blind, have been ongoing.

In pretty much the same way that some of us are being tortured daily with noisy vehicles, many of them ‘souped up’ for the times, the bright lights coming from every third vehicle, must be deeply concerning.

There was a time when I thought that drivers were unable to lower the beam on vehicles, as they get defective, but that turned out to be false.

Brighter bulbs, modified for use in most vehicles without causing them to overheat, electrically, have flooded the market.

For some vehicles, drivers do not need to switch to low beam when others are approaching. They are bright already – to the point of stopping motorists in their tracks.

How likely is it that the police will be able to establish a special unit to deal with the matters of excessively bright lights and noise manufacturers? At the rate at which Jamaica is progressing, that will not happen, and we will be treated to more utterances from the Police Traffic Department that the issues are under control.