Right now the battle over Maya land rights is at a fever pitch – and looks to be coming to a head with US Capital Energy versus SATIIM over traditional lands used to extract oil. But might an important player be leaving the furious fray? Well, maybe….two weeks ago we first heard reports that Greg Choq, the Executive Director of SATIIM was resigning and going to study law. It seemed far - fetched considering how heated things are right now with the land rights issue and the central role that Choc plays.
So, last week, we asked Choq casually if it was true, and he denied it. And we thought that was the end of it. But today, an unsigned, but every lengthy email purporting to come from "young Maya and Garifuna youths from the villages around the Sarstoon Temash" claim that Choc has resigned. The 2,600 word email says, quote, "This afternoon we received news that tells us that…Greg Choc… resigned…last week. We want to publicly ask Mr. Choc why is it that he is abandoning SATIIM and the Maya communities at such a critical point…:"
Now, the email is unsigned and has no names on it, and it is not the kind of thing we usually lend much credence to – because it could just be mischief making by opponents of Choq and SATIIM. But, fitting it in with what we heard from reliable sources two weeks ago, we had to take it seriously. So, we called Choq this evening, minutes after the mail came in. We told him what the mail says and he didn't outright deny it, but said he'd have to read the mail first before he can comment. We sent him the mail and called him back in twenty minutes, and then again in thirty minutes, but got no response. We'll definitely be following up on this tomorrow.
If true, Choq's departure would strike a very serious blow to the Mayan land rights cause and to his organization SATIIM, which he founded, and which is also recovering from losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars to embezzlement attributed to a former staffer – one who was not criminally charged.
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