RECO and Roadblock

We are in the midst of some civil disobedience down here in Roatan.

Roatan has the Roatan Electric Company (RECO) to supply electricity to the island. The electricity is all produced by diesel generators in French Harbor (the industrial town on the island). Well recently the RECO bills for some went up 2 to 3 times what they had been for the previous month and the previous months were higher than the months before. Not all of this can be justified by the high cost of fuel and some people had legitimate questions.

So the rumors started flying around about all kinds of different things. Lots of unpaid bills causing cash flow problems, the RECO board taking money or taking loans, etc.. So the topic was a hot one on the island.

Well on Sunday I noticed a fairly large (20 - 30 people) demonstration in front of the RECO plant and offices protesting these issues. On Monday the demonstration grew and the protestors in an effort to get the RECO board to step down shut down the roads with roadblocks of cars and people. They shut down the main road at French Harbor, Coxen Hole, Flowers Bay and Sandy Bay. So as you can imagine no one could get anywhere and lots of people had to park there cars at the road blocks and walk home. This roadblock tactic has been used before for teacher strikes and other issues.

It really snarled traffic and lots of people could not get to work or get home. My friend Steven Woods left my house at 5pm and got stopped in Flowers Bay and he did not get home till 10pm. My other friend Melvin Castellanos was doing some work at my house and got stuck going the other way at Sandy Bay and had to walk from there to Brick Bay and again got home around 11pm.

Evidently due to the pressure the director or manager of RECO stepped down and the RECO board agreed to credit some of the overcharges back to people. All of this was a verbal agreement on 6/5/06 and will be in writing today.

So an interesting grass roots movement as of now was effective for the opposition. It will be interesting to see what happens on the upcoming days. I will keep you posted.