The bus industry, in a state of turmoil for years now, erupted this weekend when irate, militant industry players, fed up with the government’s seeming inability to organize the national runs without compromising their livelihoods, blocked the highways leading to the city, and issued an unprecedented ultimatum to Prime Minister Dean Barrow – no talking; listen to us, or feel some pain.
As we went to press on Thursday night, all that the president of the Belizean Bus Owners’ Association (BBOA), Thomas Shaw, would say in regard to latest developments in the rapidly unraveling bus situation was that major operator James Bus Line, the primary carrier to Dangriga, Independence and Punta Gorda, was taking its buses off the road the next day, Friday, in protest of events leading up to Thursday.
Those events included a meeting that was scheduled with operators from the proposed, now delayed, Northern Zone, without the apparent knowledge or consent of Shaw and the BBOA.
The meeting never actually took place (it was postponed, Shaw says a Transport official told him), but Shaw considered it further evidence of betrayal on the part of the Ministry. He would not tell us directly on the record what his aggrieved operators, particularly the Belize Bus Owners’ Cooperative (BBOC) — a cooperative of over 60 operators running buses in the Western Zone and a BBOA member, which was still off the road for the benefit of new company Westline Service, said to be owned by an official of the United Democratic Party (UDP), Sergio Chuc of San Ignacio — would do about it.
But on Friday morning, May 27, beginning at around 4:00 a.m., various operators in the north and west of the country used their buses to block the major roads, entrances and exit points from Belize City to as far west as Mile 31 on the Western Highway, and as far north as the border at Santa Elena, at Mile 87 on the Northern Highway.
The major areas blocked included Mile 6 ½ on the Northern Highway, Mile 15 on the Western Highway at the Colonel English Bridge entering Hattieville, the Burrell Boom Bridge on the Boom-Hattieville Road and the “El Posito” area of Carmelita, Orange Walk, at around Mile 44 on the Northern Highway.
At each of these areas, tires and other debris were piled high and burned, sending black smoke into the air and effectively stopping commuters from traveling into and out of the city.
The various operators – BBOC at Hattieville and Ladyville and several northern operators who are also members of the BBOA, namely Chell Bus Line, Cabrera Bus Line, Gilharry/Venus Bus Line and other affected stakeholders – made it clear to all concerned that they wanted the Government to take them, and their livelihoods, more seriously and bring back order to the transport industry.
Commuters who spoke to the various local media expressed a range of emotions, from solidarity with and support of the operators, to frustration at their decision to demonstrate their frustrations with the government, to general resignation.
From almost the start of the protest, the Government expressed a desire, as expressed by Prime Minister Dean Barrow on KREM Radio on Friday morning, to immediately get the roadblocks clear and return nationwide transport to normal, and secondly, to get the aggrieved operators to the negotiating table.
The Police Department in its various capacities, along with the Ministry of Works and other involved agencies, was called out to achieve the first objective, but only did so upon the accomplishment of the second, which occurred after the Prime Minister made an appeal to Shaw, as president of the BBOA and Claude Frazer, chair of the BBOC, to meet with him.
This took place at 10:00 a.m. Friday in Belize City, and by noon the last of the roadblocks had been cleared. The Northern Highway at Ladyville was clear by about 8:30 a.m. (after a way through a neighboring field was first cleared), Burrell Boom and Hattieville, around 10:00 a.m., and Carmelita and Corozal, by 11:30 a.m.
Several protestors, including Abner Chell, son of Chell operator Thomas, and John Brackett, of the Citizens for Safety (CIFOS) movement, were detained by police during Friday’s activities. Brackett told Amandala later on Fridaythat he was getting legal advice to look into his detention, and opined that the operators should keep up the fight to get what they wanted. No injuries to protestors or bystanders were reported.
The Ministry of Education meanwhile announced that students scheduled to take the annual Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate examinations (CSEC), run by the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC), were expected to go to their examination centers “without taking undue personal risks,” and advised them that if they were not able to make it to their designated center, to go to the nearest one where they would still be allowed to take the examinations within the same allotted time.
At noon Friday, BBOA president Shaw emerged from the meeting with the P.M. and Transport Minister Melvin “Flippin” Hulse, and told reporters that a sort of compromise had been worked out on the understanding that the operator of Westline, Sergio Chuc, had already made an investment on the runs that the Department of Transport had thought that BBOC was leaving behind to go to the new Northern Zone (BBOC, the department maintained, has applied for runs in the Northern Zone).
According to Shaw, BBOC chairman Claude Frazer indicated to the Prime Minister during the meeting that he felt that the cooperative was prepared to accept a compromise and split the 18 total runs that had been taken over in the Western Zone by the new company, Westline, half-and-half with Westline.
Unbeknownst to the P.M. – as the press and the nation later found out at the press conference scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Friday at the Matalon Business Center conference room on Coney Drive – the proposed agreement was apparently still to be ratified by members of the BBOC and the BBOA, most of whom were not in a mood to talk of negotiation and compromise. The Prime Minister went on to meet with 11 operators from the north, led by Roger Tun, all members of the BBOA, who agreed in principle to the proposed compromise.
With all the main players in the negotiations apparently all lined up, the PM, flanked by Transport Minister Hulse and Police Minister Douglas Singh, as well as Shaw, Tun, and BBOC representative Patrick Menzies – standing in for Frazer, who was suddenly not available for the press conference – outlined for the nation the basis of what had been agreed to earlier in the day.
Said Barrow: “What was agreed is that the BBOC would not in fact be required to operate only on the northern route, on the Belize City runs going north, but that in fact some of the earlier runs, some of the preexisting runs before the attempted reorganization took place, that BBOC had going west, would be retained. … In effect, we would try to divide up the thing and ensure that as far as possible, the BBOC would not lose any of their runs except to the extent that everybody perhaps, will lose runs, as there is an effort to compress the thing and make it altogether viable and feasible. ...”
Having set the table, the P.M. called on Shaw, Menzies and Tun, in turn, to confirm and second the arrangement, but a surprise lay in wait. Relating the position of the BBOA after its meeting, Shaw explained why he and his operators felt Westline had to go, and right away:
“…these guys (BBOC) have been operating for over 6 years, and when you look at it, they have been taken out overnight and the privilege given to a guy [Chuc] that has brought in 20-30 buses. As the president, I think it’s unfair and I am not going to mince words, but what I am saying is coming from my heart, and as a operator myself, I know exactly the economic crisis — with fuel and all the rest of it. I see what these guys are going through. It’s been more than two weeks that these guys have been out there and not making a dime — they have their families and they have bills to pay… if we have to go back to the table and negotiate for another week or so, then where does that put the 60-100 families….”
After a testy reply from the PM reminding Shaw of what they had agreed to earlier, Menzies came to the podium and leveled the room by declaring that the Prime Minister essentially had two options: agree to “return to normal schedule tomorrow at 5 a.m.… all runs — 18 in the west and 6 up north, be reinstated as it was before… immediate release of all buses and compensation for damage to those buses that were damaged by the folks that moved them…. immediate release of all detainees and all charges dropped by 5:00 on Friday evening, or else.” If not, he warned, “what started today will continue.”
Menzies told the approving audience, which consisted mostly of bus operators and supporters from civil society organizations such as Citizens Organized for Liberty through Action (COLA) and Belizeans for Justice, that, referring to the Transport Minister, “when Minister Hulse turned this thing upside down he didn’t negotiate — he promised a few days. Minister Hulse made a promise that he back out on.” He concluded flatly that he was “not here to negotiate.”
Barrow tersely told Menzies that, “It is completely unreasonable and unacceptable to tell government you have until 5 o’ clock to reinstate the BBOC on the western run. That is unacceptable; I am not going to, in any way, suggest that the government wants a confrontation. I am telling you that it is quite the opposite. The government does not want a confrontation, the inconvenience to the public, the economic damage that it will cause. These are things at this particular juncture we dearly want to avoid.”
Addressing both Shaw and Menzies, he added, “I would hope that public opinion will see that in fact we are attempting to be reasonable and to be fair.”
Only Tun seemed to stick to the party line, stating: “At this stage, we cannot tell the BBOC that we don’t want to see them in the north—they have been operating there [in the north]. … so we are very flexible. As much as I said we are on fire, or we are a district of fire, we believe in flexibility as well. And I stand to be corrected as well by the BBOC members—whether any norteños run in the west. We believe that at this stage, we are open to dialogue with them. … We believe in reform and most importantly, we believe that you cannot stop newcomers to enter into any business. … We all are newcomers to the business at some point in time, be it forty years, fifty years, you name it. However, we must accept the fact that we cannot stop no one to invest. So with that spirit of good, to have a harmonial relationship, I come and I say from the norteños’ standpoint; we are prepared—Mister Shaw knows about it—we are prepared to lend a helping hand to them.”
Amandala asked the P.M. if the basis of the arrangement – BBOC running in both the west and the north – contravened the standard policy in the zoning program of the Department of a company operating only in any one particular zone.
He replied that when he asked the Minister of Transport about that last week, he questioned, as he put it – “was that (the practice) a law from God?” and was told no; he concluded that it was necessary, in this instance, to depart from the policy with a good and sufficient reason – in this case the resolution of a politically tense situation.
Regarding the roadworthiness of the Westline buses, which had been subject to allegations of lack of proper safety features and non-Belize license plates, Barrow put the duty squarely on the Ministry to make sure they come up to standard.
Hulse – who faces a potentially difficult re-election campaign in Stann Creek West – is safe in his job, according to the Prime Minister, despite calls from Shaw earlier in the day for him to step aside. He would lead, along with Deputy Prime Minister Gaspar Vega and Cayo West area rep Erwin Contreras (both deputy leaders of the UDP) and transport officials, the negotiations that had initially been set for today, Monday, but after the surprises on Friday, were pushed up to Saturday in the interest of resolving the situation as soon as was immediately possible.
Ultimately, negotiation was the decided option, and those meetings took place over the weekend and continued to today, Monday, in Belize City and Belmopan. At press time tonight, Amandala has confirmed that BBOC has agreed to take 9 runs in the Western Zone (4 from Benque to Belize City and back, and 5 from Belize City to Benque daily), beginning from Wednesday, June 1. It is expected that WestLine will hold the other nine runs in the Western Zone.
Neither Shaw nor Frazer were available, and Minister Hulse would only tell us that “the framework is being put in place, the arrangements are being made and we are moving forward amiably.” He confirmed the agreement on the Western Zone, and added that he had just stepped out of the continuing meetings with the northern operators, and would prefer not to comment during the ongoing negotiations so as not to jeopardize their progress.