On Friday morning history was made as two of the country's major highways were shut down with multiple, simultaneous road blocks staged by bus operators unhappy with decisions made by the Ministry of Transport.
And then in the afternoon, a different kind of history was made when the Prime Minister was shown up at his own press conference after representatives of the bus operators rejected a compromise they had made with him earlier in the day.
It was a situation that developed in real time - and when we left on Friday, the situation was still fluid and it appeared that things could go either way.
By Saturday morning though, it was clear that cooler heads had prevailed and things had gone in the direction of a negotiated settlement rather than sustained civil disobedience.
And that's partly because Claude Frazier the President of the Belize Bus Owners Cooperative returned to lead negotiations on behalf of his organization on Saturday.
With an assist from our friends at Plus TV - we put together a report on that meeting…
Jules Vasquez Reporting
The First thing that happened at Saturday's meeting was that Patrick Menzies was unceremoniously dumped as lead negotiator.
Thomas Shaw and the resurgent Claude Frazier took the lead and huddled with their members to outline the proposal,
Devilling the details where necessary:
Claude Frazer, Chairman - Belize Bus Owners Coop
"When we took a break was to bring back outside to our members because the first part yesterday was sign by the Prime Minister and now with this new one coming out of the West I had to bring it to the members and let them know what was taking place and they decided to quickly write their name down to it and sign as members that they had agree on it and that's where we move forward from there."
The official negotiating team, was led by the Deputy Prime Minister Gaspar Vega with Ministers Erwin Contreras and Melvin Hulse while Works Minister Anthony Boots Martinez - the PM's rep at the meeting - was also doing some gentle persuasion.
And UDP operator and party official Sergio Chuc had no apologies:
Sergio Chuc, Westline Bus
"When the cooperative applied for the northern routes then there was a void to fill in the west and they recommended me and so did the other companies and that is how I got in. I did not get in because of politics."
While agitators were urging a hardline - in the end on this day, the spirit of compromise won out with the BBOC getting back most of its 18 runs:
Claude Frazer, Chairman - Belize Bus Owners Coop
"It was a total of 18 yes and we are leaving here today with 17 which will put us 5 out of Benque to Belize and return and 5 from Belize to Benque and return and 7 from Belize to Santa Elena border and back - a total of 17 and we can satisfy with that."
And with that, all sides left hopeful:
Hon. Melvin Hulse, Minister of Transport
"For the framework of agreement has been put together and found accepted and we will try to finalize it on Monday."
Of course, that was just the initial agreement and fine tuning negotiations continued today in Belmopan. At 3:30 the ministry of transport sent out a release saying that BBOC busses would be making nine scheduled runs in the west starting on Wednesday. Those are four runs from Benque Viejo to Belize City, and five from Belize City to Benque, with returns.
The negotiations for the runs in the north started this afternoon and that meeting finished close to 5:30 pm - and according to the Minister of Transport, all sides have agreed in to seven runs. We were unable to reach the executives of the Bus Operators Association of the Belize Bus Owners' Cooperative to confirm. The minister says that the meeting went smoothly and the operators are now working on times to make sure that there is enough space between runs to discourage racing on the road. He says he expects these runs to go into effect within the next ten days.
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