Friday, December 7, was vindication day for Commandant Robert Garcia and Major John Flowers, and $30,000 worth of consolation too, each, (plus costs of court to the tune of $9,000 each) as Justice Samuel Awich ruled that an editorial appearing in the Belize Times of December 25, 2005, had wrongly impugned their characters.
It was a time of great turmoil in the bus industry. The newspapers and airwaves across the land steamed with accusations of cronyism, and malfeasance on the government’s part, in a deal that saw the Novelo’s group walk away from the DFC with about $30 million cold cash to aid a government promoted bid to take over public transportation. Their initiative was derailed by a spike in the price of fuel and oil, and major resistance from unhappy bus owners who had been forced out of the lucrative industry. Talk of a rise in fares only fanned the flames of national discontent. There was confusion in transportation across the land. The giant Novelo’s bus line screeched to a halt under the pressure, its ambitious move to take over the entire industry crashing into receivership after they couldn’t meet the payments to their primary financiers – the Development Finance Corporation and the Atlantic Bank.
Mr. Kevin Castillo, a real estate agent, was hired by the banks to help them retrieve the millions outstanding. Retired BDF Commandant, Robert Garcia, was appointed General Manager, and retired BDF Major, John Flowers, Operations Manager of the embattled company. The highways did not prove smooth sailing for the receivership. Weighed down by staggering overheads and assorted other problems, including the establishment of a rival (sniper) run – National Bus Lines, from the very Novelos whose buses they were operating, the receivership collapsed on December 20, 2005.
In Amandala # 2017, dated December 25, 2005, Mrs. Adele Ramos-Daly wrote thus in a sub-headline article titled “‘Hurry come up’ bus service!”: It’s three days from Christmas, and 318 employees of Novelos Bus Line Limited (the company in receivership), currently the only national bus line in the country, have had their services indefinitely suspended as a result of an unprecedented shutdown of the 40-year-old company. On Tuesday evening, December 20, 2005, the company’s receivers, Atlantic Bank and the Development Finance Corporation (DFC), pulled the plug on operations…
In paragraph 6 of her extensively researched article, Adele wrote: On Monday, December 19, the receivership wrote GOB a letter, indicating that unless GOB provided fuel to run their fleet of buses, they would have to shut down indefinitely because they were too broke to buy fuel.
Government denied the proposal, and the bus line shut down on December 20. Needless to say, especially with increased traveling in that holiday period, there was chaos in public transportation. The Transport Department, under Commissioner Philip Brackett, and the Transport Board, under their Chairman, Brigadier General Cedric Borland, had to scramble to avert a national disaster.
The PUP government, getting into battle gear for the ’06 municipal elections, took the failure very hard, and pointed the finger at the receivership (specifically Garcia and Flowers) in the editorial of the Belize Times, issue # 4468, dated Sunday, December 25, 2005. The crisp article (less than 600 words), titled Receivership Incompetence, declared a decision by the “receivership management of the struggling Novelo’s Bus Line Limited Company to discontinue operations” as “politically inspired agenda.” The article described former BDF Commandant, Robert Garcia, as an “aspiring UDP candidate and member of the UDP Executive,” and alluded to his receiving “instructions” from UDP Headquarters…
Apart from accusations of mismanagement and ambition, there were suggestions of impropriety and sabotage on the part of Garcia and Flowers, the last being the grievance for the libel charge.
On Friday, December 7, Justice Awich ruled for Garcia and Flowers, who were represented in court by Senior Counsel Dean Barrow. The culpable parties, Andrew Steinhauer, editor of the Belize Times; and the Belize Times Limited, were defended by attorneys Kareem Musa and Anthony Sylvester, Jr.
For former BDF Commandant Robert Garcia, there was never any doubt in his mind about the verdict. It was “a lot of untruths, all untruths,” he told Amandala this evening. “I know what I have done, what I am responsible for…I worked 27 years with the government…I reached the level of Commandant…I am an OBE, retired with Commendation from the Belize Defence Force…the article tried to throw that in a cloud.”
Attorney for the defense, Kareem Musa, told Amandala late this evening that he and co-defense attorney, Anthony Sylvester, Jr., are appealing the decision. We are looking at our appeal on several grounds, but it will be based primarily “on our opinion” that the learned judge “erred in striking out our defense on fair comment.” The editorial is “an opinion”… “it is a matter of public interest…the business was in receivership, canceling runs…” attorney Musa said. “We were handicapped” in the case when the judge disallowed “our defense on fair comment.”
The Belize Times has been running on very hard luck in the courts of late.