The ignorance of Ivan O’Neal makes me sad

The views expressed herein are those of the writer and do not represent the opinions or editorial position of I-Witness News. Opinion pieces can be submitted to [email protected].

After reading Ivan O’Neal’s party political piece in last Friday’s newspapers in SVG, I was horrified that once again he is bringing forward an obvious hatred for people who are better off than him, perhaps even a display of personal jealousy, another direct attack on the Mustique Company and the Mustique homeowners.

For years when Ralph Gonsalves was in opposition he attacked the credibility of the Mustique Company and the homeowners. Once in power he stopped all that nonsense realizing they were a great cash cow for him to milk for projects, even recently taking lease payments from them several years in advance to respond to natural disaster.

Now, he has chosen to work with them — the Mustique Company and house owners. In fact he befriended some of the house owners such as Felix Dennis, the now deceased multi-millionaire, who earned his fortune from magazines that many regarded as pornographic literature.

For years, when Ralph Gonsalves was in opposition he attacked the credibility of the Mustique Company and the homeowners, perhaps even at about the same time when as a proud self-labelled Vincentian revolutionary, Ralph E. Gonsalves was riding in the car of Maurice Bishop following the Grenada revolution, helping writing Bishops speeches.

It was in the same year of 1979 that the Mustique Company was formed.

In 1979, Mustique Island was transformed from a family estate owned by Lord Glenconner into a private limited company with the homeowners and undeveloped plot owners as shareholders.

Around that time, Ivan O’Neal was in the British Air-Force. Perhaps it was there that he learnt to hate the obvious upper class or rich people which he now so despises.

Mustique was purchased in 1958 by Colin Tennant, 3rd Baron Glenconner, under whose guidance the island began to be developed. In 1960, Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowden, the sister of Queen Elizabeth II, accepted as a wedding present his gift of a 10-acre plot of land, where she built a residence called Les Jolies Eaux. We now know how the island progressed from there when in 1979 Mustique Island became owned by a private limited company, The Mustique Company.

In March 2014, I was so appalled by O’Neal’s newspaper attack on Mustique that I wrote “An open letter to Ivan O’Neal, SVG Green Party”.

O’Neal has in my opinion run a hate campaign against them for a number of years.

What do we know about the Mustique Company? We know that Felix Dennis gave help to Gonsalves politically by getting proper Microsoft programs installed on the school laptops at his expense.

What we really need to know about is what does Mustique put into the economy of St. Vincent and the Grenadines? What and how do they contribute to our good?

Over the years, through all the tragedies that we have suffered from nature and weather, they have continuously been the biggest contributor to our relief, financially and in kind.

The Mustique Company established a Trust in 2008, which is the vehicle they have since then used to support and rescue us, only to have their glory stolen by political parties, who have pretended it is them that have funded and helped our citizens.

But it is that very Mustique Trust that has paid for the houses to be built when people homes have been destroyed in hurricanes, storms, landslides, and all such tragic instances. They also pay for school children to go to school, visit the following website. http://www.mustiquecharitabletrust.com/

But much more than that, the Mustique Company and the Mustique homeowners are the biggest employers in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, after the Vincentian Government. So without all of those jobs, we would be in a much bigger mess than we currently are.

Over the years, they have taken Vincentians and given them first class training, trained to be housekeepers, maids, butlers, gardeners, managers, accountant assistants and such.

Many of those as trained professionals have gone on to other places in the world and on cruise ships to apply their talents. What is more, they have always been paid salaries and wages well in excess of any other Vincentian employer, including the government.

So I say to you Ivan O’Neal, a man who owes his position in SVG to the British, who trained him in the armed forces in accountancy and other skills, college degrees, then continue paying him several pensions, without which he would not be able to exist in his big expensive house, retired in St. Vincent to a life of comparative leisure and wealth to other Vincentians. I say to you Ivan it’s time for you to stop this hate campaign against the Mustique Company and the Mustique house owners. The last election showed how many people agreed with you, when you failed to get a single seat in Parliament.

We must remember there are many places on this planet that would welcome these people, perhaps on better terms than they currently get from SVG, without the constant plundering and forced financial help that we now expect of them.

Perhaps it is also time to say a special thank you to Basil Charles. We, decent-thinking Vincentians, appreciate all of your input over the years. Thank you, Basil.

So I say goodbye for now Ivan and may God bless the Mustique Company, the House Owners and the Mustique Trust for all the help and good they have brought to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. There are some of us with the intelligence to know a good thing when we see it.

Thank you, Mustique.

Peter Binose

The opinions presented in this content belong to the author and may not necessarily reflect the perspectives or editorial stance of iWitness News. Opinion pieces can be submitted to [email protected].