In mid-December we showed you a story on Capital Energy's work in Southern Belize where villagers from the five so called 'buffer communities' of Barranco, Midway, Sundaywood, Conejo, Crique Sarco and Corazon had been employed by the oil company and had nothing bad to say about it.
Well, tonight SATIIM is reporting that things have changed. The Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management reports that the company has fired all 23 workers from Conejo village.
And the reason? Well, last week SATIIM raised a howl of protest when it discovered that US Capital Energy had cut a seismic line through Conejo's territory.
It was supposedly a mistake but SATIIM claims that, in retaliation, US Capital fired all 23 Conejo workers.
SATIIM calls it a collective punishment for the village leadership's insistence that the community decide together their response to the company's activities.
It seems the oil companies must first get the go-ahead form the villager leaders - who want to consult with an attorney before that permission is given.
Satiim says, Conejo's position is therefore entirely consistent with Belizean law, and accuses US Capital Energy of compounding one transgression with another.
SATIIM reports that US Capital Energy started installing computers at the village school on Friday 3 February, a day after allegedly sacking the entire workforce from the village.
We could not reach US Capital for comment
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