Maya Land Rights Compliance Hearing; C.C.J. Gives G.O.B. Deadline for FPIC Protocol

Meanwhile, on November twenty-third, a compliance hearing at the C.C.J. level involving the free prior and informed consent, better known as FPIC, was held. While the judges recognized the efforts of the government to keep up their end of the bargain with the consent order that was handed down six years ago, Minister Dolores Balderamos-Garcia says that G.O.B. has been given a deadline for the FPCI protocol to be finalized. 

Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, Minister for Indigenous People’s Affairs

“We are working on what we call the roadmap, we are working on the policy and also we are finalizing what we are calling the FPCI protocol, the free prior and informed consent protocol. As a matter of fact, one of our international consultants is just leaving the country today. She’s been with us for a couple of days working on that very protocol because it is necessary for the government to try as far as is possible to be in keeping with international standards of free prior informed consent consultations with indigenous people according to the declaration of the UN on indigenous people’s rights. So government is very much taking it seriously. It is not an easy issue, but we are working on it and we should have a finalized protocol before the C.C.J. by the end of January. They have given us sort of a deadline, yo know, but we are working very hard on it.”