By: Omar Silva I Editor/Publisher

National Perspective Belize — Editorial Board

www.nationalperspectivebz.com

Belize City: Monday 8th December 2025

📰 EDITORIAL

In what can only be described as a brazen betrayal of the Belizean people, the Briceño administration has once again proven that its allegiance lies not with our Constitution, not with our courts, and certainly not with our local investors—but with foreign financiers cloaked in corporate anonymity and backroom diplomacy.

The latest revelation that MSC Shipping, a global behemoth, is interested in acquiring Stake Bank and possibly the Port of Belize, has blown the lid off the government’s compulsive appetite for closed-door deals and executive overreach. Incredibly, the Prime Minister himself went on national television to boast that this was one of the reasons for the government's compulsory acquisition of Stake Bank: to sanitize the legal “mess” and hand over Belizean territory to foreign interests on a silver platter.

Let that sink in.

Rather than defend a Belizean investor—Mike Feinstein, who invested decades and millions into the Stake Bank cruise port—the Government of Belize used the full power of state machinery to bulldoze its way through the dispute, weaponizing the Land Acquisition (Public Purposes) Act in what now appears to be a pretextual land grab, designed to appease a foreign shipping conglomerate and its suspected Honduran intermediaries.

The timing is no coincidence.

Feinstein is locked in a legal battle with OPSA, a Honduran group with financial tentacles that reach deep into the undercurrents of this entire affair. And now, damning evidence has surfaced in the form of leaked emails—suggesting that OPSA-affiliated operatives attempted to sell the very same island to MSC even before receivership was declared. A move that, if true, constitutes outright corporate sabotage and potential criminal collusion.

Yet, rather than defend the national interest or await a judicial outcome, Prime Minister Briceño’s administration intervened—bluntly and unconstitutionally. The government’s claim of “public purpose” is riddled with contradictions. Since when did “public purpose” mean clearing the runway for a foreign investor who refuses to deal with a Belizean business dispute?

The truth is chilling: the State acted not in defense of Belizean sovereignty or maritime potential, but to pave the way for foreign ownership, bypassing the courts and suppressing due process. It undermined the constitutional protections of private property, ignored the legitimate legal processes still unfolding in the High Court, and sent a brutal message to every Belizean entrepreneur: "You are expendable."

Even more disturbingly, the Feinstein Group—formerly backed by Marine Parade Chambers—has now been forced to change local legal counsel, switching to Bryan Neal, presumably to cut costs amid prolonged legal warfare. This signals the mounting financial toll that the State's aggressive and politically motivated maneuvers have inflicted.

Is this the development model we are to accept in 2025? A model where foreign capital dictates national policy, where legal disputes are preempted by executive fiat, and where Belizean land is traded behind closed doors to sanitize investor hesitations?

If the Briceño administration believes it can hide behind glowing endorsements of “excitement” from MSC executives who helicoptered over the Blue Hole, they are sorely mistaken. The Belizean people are no longer dazzled by staged investor romance stories and glitzy promotional rhetoric. We see the pattern, and we know the cost.

What’s at stake is not just an island or a port—it’s the constitutional integrity of our nation, the dignity of local investment, and the future of democratic governance. This is not “opening Belize to the world”—this is selling Belize behind the backs of its people.

e call on civil society, legal professionals, the Belize Chamber of Commerce, and every Belizean who values our national sovereignty to demand a full, independent investigation into the Stake Bank acquisition, the role of OPSA, the leaked communications with MSC, and the possible misuse of the Land Acquisition law for private corporate interests.

This isn’t governance. This is corporate colonization.

Enough is enough.