Despite declining comment on the council's letter, Minister Balderamos did not hold back when it came to declaring confidence in the commissioner of indigenous people's affairs, Greg Choc. Choc has come under fire form all sides of this divisive land rights issue - with both Mayas and creoles accusing him of working against their interests. But the Minister said, he's doing his job and doing it right:
Dolores Balderamos Garcia, Minister of Human Development
"He continues to enjoy the confidence of my ministry and the government. He's not in an easy position, not at all because the work of the commissioner has to deal with all the various villages all the various communities making sure that they follow the FPIC protocol, The free prior informed consent protocol is adverted to because that is a protocol that the government filed with the court. So we can't file an FPOC protocol and then ignore it so it is important that we adhere to that FPIC protocol but at the same time have some flexibility and I believe that Mr Choc has done his job he works along with the various communities he's fluent in Kechi and he works on behalf of the government. Now we did have the signing just a little over a week ago of the consent of four villages in the south the seismic testing but by US Capital corporation in terms of oil exploration you know and I'm very happy to say that it took a while it took long but we are happy that the four villages have signed on and there are three more pending so we are happy that we could have gotten to that point because it is important to bring development to the south and we consider the US capital corporation to be an important partner."
