Today the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples' Affairs brought together several parties that would be affected by the implementation of the 2015 Court Consent Order. This included local environmental groups, the Land and Lease Owners, and Non-Indigenous villages. However, notably the Indigenous Leaders Association and the local Alcaldes Association were absent - possibly boycotting the meeting. We asked the Minister about it.
Dr Louis Zabaneh, Minister of Indigenous Peoples' Affairs
"We certainly would have wanted them to be here, it would have been a great opportunity for them to share in fact what they really believe in and how that whole process unfolded up to the point of the consent order in 2015. They have their own reasons where recently they sent a letter to the CCJ for further clarifications because they don't feel like things are going how they expect them to go."
"Each of the various stakeholders have made clear their perspectives, our council from our ministry represented the government's perspective, we had someone from the Big Falls Village who spoke about why it is they as a village are not interested in being a part of communal land rights. We also had a representative of 3 non-Maya communities who also explained why it is that they need their voices heard and how it is that some of the actions taken so far may be adversely affected their wellbeing, their livelihoods. We also heard from the Toledo Private and Leader Owners Limited, they're also stating that they feel the draft legislation does not address their interest properly, questions for example where will the funds come from to compensate them if their land titles are extinguished and we also heard from SATIIM where they themselves expressed their feelings that the draft legislation was prepared without consultations with them and that they feel their voices need to be heard before such a draft legislation would have been put together."
Oscar Requena, Area Rep., Toledo
"It is very heartwarming to hear the presentations by the various panelists, their perspectives I think that that is very important, that we get an opportunity to hear from them their perspectives and they're also making recommendations and suggestions to government, they have certain concerns and as a government it is important we listen to everybody including the appellants but also the interested parties."
This is just the start of the educational campaign and according to the minister there will be more sessions.
