A few days ago the news broke that our citizens who are desirous of obtaining visitors’ visas to enable them to enter Canada will soon have to appear in person before the Canadian consular officer in order to do so. That will entail travelling to Port-of-Spain, and incurring all of the relevant additional expenses.
This increased difficulty runs counter to the propaganda of the SCHEME UNITY lot. They have accused our leader and party of being the cause of Canada’s tightening of the rules, and of that being specific to us. Now that it has become open and clear that such is not the case, those who preached otherwise are fully exposed to be the liars and deceivers that they truly are.
But, rather than seeking to make amends with our people, they persist in their evil ways, clinging tenaciously to their falsehoods and outright, most outrageous lying, all the while perpetuating their efforts to deceive and mislead the people of St. Kitts and Nevis.
In our edition of Friday 15 instant, we drew your attention to a precise example of how they go about doing that, again quoting the case of Moghadam, and in writing, even though they know it to be patently false.
As the new development began to bite earlier in the week, they went bonkers. How did they react? In the manner so typical of them. Rather than seeking to make amends they set their sycophants and gadflies on our public, seeking to dominate every radio programme on all stations, again and again trying to play the ‘Moghadam’ card.
Oh, what a dangerous lot they are!
If there is any one person who, at any time, caused us any embarrassment or problems by virtue of holding and using a St. Kitts Nevis diplomatic passport that name would be Jonathan Randall Curshen.
On the 27th of October 2017, at page 15 of our edition Year 60 Number 21, we published an item “Points To Ponder”. We invited you, our people to ask a series of questions concerning Curshen, and we provided some URLs (links) to websites from which certain information could be gleaned concerning that individual.
Some years ago Curshen entered into an arrangement with a minister of the crown then serving in Comrade Dr. Denzil Douglas’ cabinet. That minister concocted and convinced our government of the need to open and operate a consulate in Costa Rico, introduced Curshen to the government, and persuaded cabinet to appoint him as our consular agent in that country, as well as granting him the use of one of our diplomatic passports.
As it subsequently transpired, what Curshen wanted to do all along was to continue a very substantial money laundering operation which he was carrying on in Costa Rico, but he badly needed (and wanted) ‘diplomatic’ status which he thought would have shielded him from the authorities of several countries who were already after him. He felt that operating out of a consular office would have provided him with ‘protection’.
Curshen openly boasted to a reporter, to some of his friends, and to some of his customers, that he had paid the minister in the St. Kitts Nevis government the sum of US$250,000 for the diplomatic passport.
None of that money ever reached the treasury. It was not banked in St. Kitts. The government and people of St. Kitts and Nevis NEVER benefitted from any of that payment. We could not. It was an illegitimate deal from which, it subsequently transpired, ONLY the minister benefitted. Not even Curshen did.
Eventually Jonathan Curshen was arrested by US authorities while he was travelling in New York City. When he tried to avoid arrest by asserting the fact that he was travelling on a diplomatic passport, he received the shock of his life. His ‘status’ did not help him at all.
When the news of his arrest hit the print and broadcast media his St. Kitts ‘minister’ friend dropped him like the proverbial ‘hot potato’.
Curshen was tried on a number of charges, found guilty, and is currently serving some very stiff prison sentences in Florida.
It was his possession and abuse of a St. Kitts Nevis diplomatic passport which sparked all of the hullabaloo (or ruckus) about us. When combined with his consular status and use of his “St. Kitts and Nevis” consular office in Costa Rico as a cover for a vast money laundering operation, we very quickly became a ‘point of interest’ for a number of countries and international organisations around the world.
Needless to say INTERPOL was one of those bodies. So too were the Canadian Mounties, as well as the US CIA, FBI, DEA and FinCEN agencies.
The St. Kitts Nevis cabinet minister who had ‘engineered’ and ‘facilitated’ the ‘arrangements’ for Curshen had taken some extra precautions to conceal his identity and protect himself in the event that anything went wrong. As Curshen himself later disclosed to some of his friends, the relevant minister had told him (Curshen), early o’clock, that in such an eventuality he (Curshen) was not to call his (the minister’s) name, but instead he was to ascribe anything and everything to “The Denzil Douglas Administration”. And so it was.
Such was a major part of the SCHEME to besmirch Comrade Douglas’ good name, thereby making it easier to turn the people against him, and eventually bring down his administration.
Needless to say Jonathan Curshen never got back a penny of his US$250,000. And, as he languishes in prison, the demonic creature continues to ‘run wild’, hither, tither and yon, enjoying all of the good things of life.
One can well imagine that Curshen is thinking to himself just how unfair it all is, and that he does so all day, every day. What, oh what, could he be planning for his former ‘partner’? Most likely we shall just have to wait and see.
For all those who are so fond of blaming Dr. Douglas for everything wrong where St. Kitts and Nevis are concerned, be you PAM, Labour, CCM or NRP, the foregoing is some very serious ‘food for thought’. And we point out to you that the foregoing is only but one (1) sample of the monstrous evil which has befallen our once fair land.
We do hope and trust that most of you, our readers, will now begin to get a better understanding of who and what drove our country into the sad state in which we now find ourselves, and who they were that blackened our name in the international community.
It should become clear to all that our beloved Comrade Denzil Douglas is the true political leader most genuinely interested in you, our people, and our country.
Stand by for further developments.