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Today the Yemeri Grove villagers banded with the other non-Maya villages of the Toledo District and the Kriol Council to host a press conference in Belize City, fully ventilating their side of the dispute.
The last we told you was that there was an agreement to a temporary border, however, today the Yemeri residents said it was only verbal.
But before we get to why they refused to sign it, they explained that the reason they called the conference was to emphasize the history of their villages, which were created before some of the neighboring Maya villages.
And they say that there was harmony in Toledo until the 2015 Consent Order, and now they're afraid they'll lose what little land they have left.
The chairman of Yemeri Grove explained more.
Harold Usher, Chairman, Yemeri Grove
"Right now presently we are having a problem with Laguna, Laguna is our neighbor, and Laguna is a much smaller village than Yemeri Grove. I believe that the population of Laguna should be around somewhere like 200, if it is so much. And Yemeri Grove is somewhere over 400. "
"Before 2015, I should say that Laguna Village along with all the other Maya villages that border us, we all used to share, sing and learn to love each other and live in harmony. Since 2015, we have a small group of people who actually dictate the pace. The border between Yemeri Grove and Laguna, they move it like 5 different times. So every day, every month, every week, Laguna is growing when it comes to the land size."
"Right now the problem we are having, Laguna keep on adjusting their village boundaries, they keep on entering into the farmlands and different area that Yemeri Grove people have."
"We have use for our land, whilst the village that is coming and trying to claim our land, actually I would say have about three times the land mass size that Yemeri Grove would have, they have less people than us, but because of this consent order, they believe that they could just come and grab."
Arden Edwards, Former Village Councilor, Yemeri Grove
"What we are telling the government to do is not to allow Laguna to show us where our boundary is when we are 40 years older than you. Use our traditional boundary. There is one million acres that the Mayas are claiming as communal land like we said, we have no problem with them using communal land, just respect our village boundary, they could do what they wanna do."
So while they're currently on a ceasefire, they said there were too many issues with the draft agreement for them to sign. They also added that the negotiations have so far been one sided in their view.
Harold Usher, Chairman, Yemeri Grove
"Yes there was a verbal agreement however the ministry has actually given us some time to respond on a draft agreement that they had made out and we have actually read the draft agreement and we have found that there is a lot of issues of it, however, we have been respecting the verbal agreement whilst Laguna people are not doing the same. I have personally brought it to the attention of the Commissioner of the Indigenous Persons and I have asked him to actually intervene and ask these people to stop what they are doing and I must say that he actually told me that at that time he would not do it. We were also told that once such things are happening then we should have called the police department and made a report to the superintendent in charge of Toledo district, I did the same however we were told that they have to get instruction from the Commissioner of Indigenous People so that they can act."
"The reason why things are dragging on slow is because the process is so one sided. If you have any negotiation between two parties and you are one sided then that's not negotiation. That's more like a dictation. So they are dictating to us basically because if we have no say then that is not negotiation. For example, since the government said that none of the parties should do anything in the area, how comes they're still allowing Laguna to keep building? That's just an example to show how one sided this process is."
We reached out to Greg Choc for a comment, but up to news time he has not responded.
