Implementation of CCJ Consent Order Reaching Tipping Point

Dolores Balderamos-Garcia

Minister Dolores Balderamos-Garcia also made a plea to the Maya Leaders Alliance. She suggested that the MLA is responsible for influencing villagers towards denying the draft policy. She called on the alliance to let cooler heads prevail and to allow the Government of Belize to consult with villagers first.

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

“I do want to say this. I call on the appellants in this case. We call them the appellants, as I have said; the MLA is really a misnomer. But I call on the appellants in the case, am responsible; don’t be riling up the people to tear up a piece of paper when we have not even had a chance to have the consultations as yet. It is even suggested that we might have to go village to village and explain what the situation is, because sometimes, an alcalde or chairman or leader might go to a meeting, but we don’t know that the message is being taken back to all the members of the community. And another thing, in terms of a decision of a particular village, it could be Crique Sarco, Sunday Wood, Mabil Ha, in terms of the decision of a village for communal land, you will have to have a voting on it, and you don’t want to have a fifty-one percent vote because if somebody change their mind, you don’t have a decision. It would have to be a sizeable vote, we believe, of the community that they wish to have the communal land system and we will respect that. But it can’t be a situation where they will take ten years to decide or twenty years to decide, there has to be a limit to that, but also, what we are saying is that we believe that the people of each village should be given an opportunity to decide for themselves. The government is not pushing anything down anybody’s throat, but we have the responsibility to the best of our ability to implement the ruling of the Caribbean Court of Justice, as a matter of fact, Madam Justice Rajnauth-Lee of the CCJ around the end of November was actually commending the government and the parties for how far we have reached, but, we the get to the hard part now.”