In their effort to try to establish how the oil explorations in the Sarstoon Temash National Park will affect the communities around the park, SATIIM must manage competing interests. First there is the park which it has committed to co-manage. Then there are the communities, mostly poor, who cannot freely exploit park resources and then there's the oil company, promising jobs while threatening the park's fragile eco-system.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
There are no easy answers, because oil exploration brings economic opportunity to communities that live in extreme poverty. One of the louder voices calling for immediate relief is Beatriz Canelo, chairlady of Crique Sarco. Her point of attack and source of despair is SATIIM's executive Director Greg Choc.
Beatriz Canelo, Crique Sarco
"SATIIM is okay. Mr. Greg Choc is okay because he has a big mansion house. Where is the money coming from? That money is coming from the poor indigenous people. We need to know where the money is going. How can we build a big mansion house with a salary of $500 to $800 but he is getting a good salary. Thousands of dollars in money is collected every month."
Urbina Choco,
"We don't realize the ones that are sitting on the floor living in dirt houses and muddy houses and poor children going on the ground house instead of living in a concrete house, a board house, he doesn't realize about his poor indigenous people and he using the money of the indigenous people wisely on himself, not on the poor people and that is why we are disappointed. We want the money to be used in the name of the indigenous people."
Beatriz Canelo,
"We are against what Mr. Greg Choc is doing to us. We need jobs. 90% of the villagers are behind the oil company, support the oil company. Right now there is no jobs. What will the community do? What will the people do? Right now we have young children who passed their exams and they need to go to high school but where will we find the money. We were glad the oil company is back again so we know that we will find jobs, we will find money for sending these children to high school. And not only high school, we need money to buy food three times a day. Right now the corn and the rice is gone so where will the people will go. Where will the people find jobs? That is why we need the company back. We need the company back."
Urbina Choco,
"I don't see why they don't drop the case so that the company will come and work among us so that we could get a little bit of a share of those jobs so that we could eat three times a day. Not only him needs to eat three times a day. We need our basic needs home. Children need their own basic needs and now these times are coming, it is very hard. The taxes are there and how will we buy food with little money. How will we provide food for our families with only $20? $20 cannot buy anything so we need jobs. We need better jobs. We need development in our community."
Villager #1,
"We need jobs because the oil company had already started to work but it worked for three weeks and after that they stopped working. Why did they stop working?"
Alfonso Noble,
What kind of job did you get?
Villager #1,
"Well a job cutting line and…"
Alfonso Noble,
But how long will that job last?
Villager #1,
"Well I think that will last for five or six months."
Alfonso Noble,
Well let's say it goes for a year, what happens after that? After that the oil company will bring its own people, specialized people, and they begin to do their work and you all will still be left where you began.
Villager #1,
"No I don't believe that because we have already shit down with the oil company and they explained this to us already that they will get the people from the five villages to work in the oil company."
Alfonso Noble,
Doing what?
Villager #1,
"Well work."
Alfonso Noble,
Do you have people who are able to drill wells? Do you have specialized people, do the people in your village have the capacity to do the work, the oil work? Anybody in your village?
Villager #1,
"I know we are not educate but some children are coming in from high school, they got their good education already and I think they could get training from the oil company."
Alfonso Noble,
So all in all you think you will get the benefits of it?
Villager #1,
"Yes."
But while these cries aired here are of leaders who waited at the Punta Gorda airstrip for the press' arrival into Punta Gorda, in a meeting of community leaders of the Toledo District held at the town's Parish Hall the atmosphere was completely different. Amidst the desperate demands for economic empowerment, are more moderate and measured voices, like those of Juan Ack who is seeing the people intentionally divided.
Juan Ack,
"I believe, this is my suggestion, I believe that the government of Belize, SATIIM, which represents the protected areas in the Sarstoon Temash National Park, and the oil companies, the U.S. Capital Oil Company, need to come together and bring the entire Toledo leaders, the Village Council Alcaldes and other leaders to make decisions to consult with the people because what is our problem right now is that we are not properly consulted. The oil company is saying a different thing, they are telling us the positive and the negative impacts. They only tell us the positive ones but they are not telling us. SATIIM is the same way. The government of Belize is the same way. So this is something that we need to understand, we need to come together.
The only thing that will give us a solution to this problem is that the government and SATIIM and the oil companies need to bring the entire leaders and consult them. Tell them the positive and the negative impacts of every development that is happening here in Toledo. When you understand that then we vote for it. You vote for what you believe will help the Toledo district."
That need to look at the future is reflected in the communities, by regular residents, long forgotten and marginalized. Barranco is one of those villages that buffer the Sarstoon Temash National Park. On the issue of oil exploration in the park the views here are as varied as they come.
Durcy Sandoval, Barranco Village
"Right now we aren't doing anything. The people are doing anything and
people who are not living here but who are out there heard about this oil exploration were so happy because then if you look around the houses are empty and most people wanted to come back home. We need jobs. If you look around right now Barranco is a poor village so nothing is happening here. Nothing is really happening here so we need jobs."
Augusto Castillo, Barranco Village
"Everybody looking out for jobs but when the two month job is over, what happens next. We should be concerned not only about the job but the millions that will be taken out. That is what we are supposed to be concerned about."
Barranco Villager #3,
"If the company will be talking to us, we would demand a share, we would demand an amount, and say what we will do with it."
Augusto Castillo,
"I would look at the millions of dollars being taken out. If the company would come by we would think in millions of dollars so how will we benefit from that millions of dollars then we will have to go into that. For all almost two hundred years the Garinagu people closing in here, for two hundred years, and practically nothing is here. Compared to what we heard about this oil which will bring in the millions and millions of dollars, that is what we want to get into. If you look right here we don't have any type of infrastructure development. Look at the road, bad road, no jobs, even the level of education is so low because of the infrastructure."
Alfonso Noble,
You want to benefit though?
Augusto Castillo,
"Of course we want to benefit."
A few miles down the road from Barranco, which is the only Garifuna village in the Toledo District, is Midway Village. Here it's an entirely different culture, because it is a Maya village. But though the cultures differ, the sentiments mirror those in Barranco.
Luis Ishim, Midway Villager
"We need jobs. I understand that we need jobs but when we sit down and think of it, what kind of jobs, will it be long term or short term and right here we are living in Midway, we don't know how will the company work, what kind of damage the oil company is going to do."
Marcelino Ishim, Midway Villager
"We don't want only one or two month job, what about my little daughter here and if they go and damage everything in the park how will she know something about the park and this is what we don't like because if you go in there right now there is high bushes, animals are there, they are not wild, you could see them, you could find them, but as the time when the drilling will go, you will can't find those animals there and we don't know what…we get to understand
about Spanish Lookout is that a lot of flames is burning out over there and we don't know what the flames are burning. Maybe those are the poison so we don't know. And if you go over there, and they spoil that…."
Alfonso Noble,
You will be left with nothing.
Marcelino Ishim,
"That's right and maybe we will catch sickness, we don't know. What I experience is the jobs that they will giving to the indigenous people are only to cut trails and so but when dealing with machinery and lot of heavy equipment that will be coming, we don't have experience. We don't have education on those things. Who are they going to employ them? The people that live close by or the people….what I experience…I think that the people who are going to benefit are all foreigners. We the people are living here don't know anything at all about it. The only thing we could do is work with machete cutting trails but when that is done, it is done. I think what we need to do is to, if the company is still coming, we need to plan how we can benefit with them and what kind of jobs we will be doing."
The organization agitating for that is SATIIM, and the general in charge is Gregory Choc. He admits that the entire issue of oil exploration is one that SATIIM is capitalizing on because for once, they have leverage, a fulcrum really on which the greater issues of land tenure can be hoisted.
Greg Choc, Exec. Director - SATIIM
"Not resolving the insecurity of land tenure for the communities, no amount of resources or development that comes their way will provide tangible benefits to them because unless they become shareholders and decision makers over resources that is abundant around them, be it logging, be it oil, unless they have a say in determining, in negotiating for benefit, then no amount of development will contribute to alleviating poverty in Toledo.
Many of our communities, many of them don't have rights to the land, don't have ownership to the land. How can any decent person recognize that the economic development of a community, of individuals, will not rest on they being owners of the resources around them.
There was no need for us to go the Supreme Court if the government was negotiating considering, factoring, the interest of the people of Toledo in its negotiating with the companies, development companies. There was no need for that. As many people has said, we could have used that money for something else. But I am positive that if we had not taken the action that we had taken, meaning filing the lawsuit, I believe that a lot of the activities of the company, would have been going on right now without any monitoring, without any oversight of whether they are abiding by the law of Belize, whether they are trampling on the rights of communities. All of these are an integral part of development of communities."
And standing in the way of that is SATIIM and Greg Choc. As he took us on a short tour of the park, he took breaths of tranquility that only nature can give. But these beautiful sights are only a short escape because outside of this green environment is big oil and big money that have every intention of penetrating the pristine park.
