From The Publisher
Posted: 03/04/2007 - 05:32 PM
Author: Evan X Hyde
I want those of you who are my friends to stay close as I seek to explain things which are larger than myself. They are larger than myself because they involve forces which are shadowy, in the sense that they are able to come at you in different and disguised forms.
When the Kremandala Raiders won their first semi-pro basketball title in July of 1993, there was actually no commissioner of the Belize Semi-pro Basketball League. The BSBL commissioner, Gus Perera, had resigned a month earlier to become the chief executive at the Belize version of the multinational Pepsi. When the Raiders defeated Santino’s Hotpoints, it appeared that the league was being run by the man who had been the secretary under Perera, which is to say, Ricardo Aguilar. It is surprising, in retrospect, that the 1993 season came to an organized end.
Daniel Fabro was chosen as the new commissioner in time for the beginning of the 1994 season. Mr. Fabro held several meetings with franchise owners and representatives at the BTL office building at St. Thomas Street. Three of his new executive were officials/employees of BTL - Bevans, Burns and Smith. The big issue on the table was the commissioner’s call for semi-pro games to be televised live from the Civic Center. The proposal was supported by Penta Lakers, the 1992 champions, but opposed by Kremandala Raiders, the new champions.
I can remember the incredulity I felt at what I thought was the preposterous nature of the live television proposal. But I can see now, with the benefit of hindsight, that it was really a case of Kremandala’s being in waters which were too deep for it. The 1993 Kremandala championship was a Cinderella story, and 1994 was supposed to be the time of midnight.
The Raiders, however, refused to yield to the oligarchy, and so it was that controversy and turmoil began to surround the championship team, and, by extension, semi-pro basketball.
Tangentially, in the places where the big people walk, it was never intended for KREM Radio, established in November of 1989, to survive. The fact that it did survive, was a function of the support of you, the people. Now the law firm of Barrow and Williams has written to KREM Radio on behalf of a client named Sagis Investments Limited.
According to Barrow and Williams, Sagis is claiming that KREM Radio owes Sagis $262,694.20 (“excluding penalty interest”) “owing to it under a promissory note dated May 17, 1994 made by KREM Radio Limited in favour of my client which debt is also secured by deposit of share certificate no. 300 dated January 2, 1990 for 50,000 shares in name of Evan X Hyde.” The letter is dated March 28, 2007, and is signed by Rodwell R.A. Williams S.C.
In 1994, KREM Radio was being managed by my father, Charles B. Hyde, and was being subsidized by Amandala (as it was from 1989 to 1998). What I remember, to the best of my knowledge, was that my father negotiated a loan with the Belize Bank for $75,000 to buy a transmitter. The lawyer for KREM Radio was Dickie Bradley.
When I went to sign for the loan as chairman of KREM, I was informed that one of the conditions of the loan was that I had to sell 10 percent of KREM (reducing my holdings in KREM from 40 percent to 30 percent) to Sagis Investments Limited. If I remember correctly, I was told that the price would be $25,000.
All these years I have been under the belief that KREM Radio’s indebtedness to the Belize Bank was handled and satisfied by the newspaper Amandala. I never knew, as it now appears, that the Belize Bank and Sagis Investments Limited were the same thing.
I am explaining this matter to you, the people, because explaining to you is how I have survived all these years. I started out with nothing in 1969. Older Belizeans know this. Along the way, they have come to jail me and they have come to kill me. I have worked hard and I have done the best I could. I have proposed black dignity and I have resisted white supremacy.
I feel that what I am seeing today is larger than myself, and it has caused me to feel a kind of helplessness. When I have been in such situations, over the years, I have always said to you, the people, this is what is happening.
The feeling of helplessness is what you also, as individuals, experience in different ways in your daily lives in this country called Belize. When we are able to come together, then we gain strength. But over the past few weeks, we have seen the unions show weakness in two different and important demonstrations; we saw the Stann Creek Valley’s Denzil Jenkins taken out of the citrus leadership; and then a few days ago we saw Toledo’s Greg Choc with his back against the wall in the Sarstoon/Temash as the multinational oil company advances. In the words of Arthur Koestler, when they come for you in the morning, they will come for me in the afternoon.
Power to the people.
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