This morning, we got a chance to speak with Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde on the topic at another event. As we told you last night, PM John Briceno is in Honduras and Hyde is Acting PM. We asked him for his views on the stand-off between the Port of Belize and the CWU - which, of course, is led by his brother Mose Hyde:
Hon. Cordel Hyde - Acting Prime Minister
" You know, it's a really difficult situation. These are issues that are longstanding, and so they're very tense. It's pretty much a face-off, and I don't think you ever reached this point lightly. Nobody takes this lightly because everybody loses. The stevedores are losing wages. The company is losing business. Customers - consumers are waiting on their stuff. Businesspeople are lamenting the extra costs that they may incur. So, nobody really wins in this. The job of the government is to try to ensure that everybody wins, you know. I think that we've taken a really solid approach to the process. I think we started from an Orange Walk with the cane farmers and the BSI/ASR face-off, where I think we were involved and hands-on, and we tried to function in a peaceful atmosphere, where tensions did not reach where they could have reached. So I think that in this particular situation, the present Minister of the Ports is actively engaged, actively shuttling between the two sides. And as I said, I'm an eternal optimist and I believe that I'm hopeful that something will get sorted out pretty soon."
