And while the media had a sit down with these important organizations, Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, the Minister of Indigenous Peoples Affairs, and Commissioner Greg Ch'oc visited the villages of San Pedro Columbia, and San Antonio yesterday.
They were there to discuss the disputed FPIC document that has been filed with the CCJ. Here are a few excerpts of their comments to the villagers who showed up to discuss Maya Land Rights with them:
Greg Ch'oc - Commissioner, Indigenous People's Affair
"Many things have been said, but I want to concentrate on the document that we have dictributed to you and the reason for that is I wish that our organizations, all the Mayan organizations would have taken upon themselves to inform the community, to have conversation with the community about the FPIC. But as I go from village to village I have consulted with 25 villages across Toledo, I found out that not many, in fact, any know about the FPIC, but this started in 2015-2016. Throughout my years of advocating for indigenous people, there was and always been one element lacking and that is the political will to do what is right. We have a government now that I can say has the political will to do and honour the terms of the consent order of the Caribbean Court of Justice. I dont believe that it is only the community that is frustrated that it is taking long. The Caribbean Court of Justice is also frustrated that not much has happened over the last 6-7 years and we have made a commitment, a very ambitious commitment to close this chapter."
Hon. Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, Minister of Indigenous People's Affair
"The work of the government and its not an easy job, it's a complex issue. The work of the government also has to recognize the private land rights of people who have leases and titles, so you might ask yourself well how is the government going to do that, because maybe like for example in Indian Creek maybe you have a private land owner with thousands of acres, but at the same time, we have the villagers of Indian Creek who have rights and so you will ask yourself how are we going to reconcile, how are we going to work that out so that we don't have problems in the future and my answer to you good people of San Pedro Colombia is that the government will need to find a way with the guidance of our ministers, our leaders, our commissioners, our legal advisors - we will have to find a way to balance what you might say are competing interest, one is against the other and the other is against the next one, but I believe it's not going to be easy, but I believe that working together we can work it out. I am convinced of that, but in working it out we have to call on everybody to respect the rights of the other person."
We'll have a little more from both weekend events in tomorrow's newscast.
