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Village Leaders Well-Oiled?
posted (April 28, 2014)
And in our last piece of news from the Mayan Communities in the South, the Alcaldes who spoke with us today say that they are in support of US Capital Energy because the company has been helping their villages improve their standards of living.

They explained that the drilling in the South will also help to improve their lives with the access to jobs:

Daniel Ortiz
"Do you have any kind of ties to US Capital which would suggest that your opinion is not objective?"

Joaquin Cucul - Resident, Conejo
"I just want to clear - this is the situation: we are seeing development of this company started, so we are appreciating it, but since Satiim is there for such a long time and there are no developments, only separating the people. We don't like that anymore, so we need development and we need jobs. If Satiim would give us jobs for 19 years I don't think this would be a bigger problem. Mr. Ch'oc is delaying the Maya people of getting jobs."

Pedro Ba - 1st Alcalde, Sunday Wood Village
"We already see the benefit and the development from US Capital. In my village we already have a library and 16 computers with internet and the repairing of our bridge and our health post."

Dr. Joseph Palacio - Chairman, Barranco Village
"We are not neccessary in a position to say no to any development, particularly the one which has been in the district for quite some time, spent quite a bit of money and has followed the law as much as possible."

Daniel Ortiz
"Do you have any of ties to US Capital in any way that they can justify saying that your opinion is slanted?"

Dr. Joseph Palacio - Chairman, Barranco Village
"I certainly don't have any personal connections with US Capital at all. US Capital has assisted the village of Barranco in quite a few ways like for example in collecting our garbage for the past at least a year or two and there are other things that I can mention, but that the oil company does as a way of goodwill with people living in the buffer communities. This is the way how companies work with communities. I don't think it is an effort to deliberately bribe or to deliberately buy us the communities - it is an effort of saying we are going to be working with you - this is a goodwill gesture."

As we've told you, the Buffer Communities who are against the company has filed a post-judgement injunction seeking to restrain the Government from waiving the expiration of US Capital's Drilling Permit which would have ended on Wednesday. That injunction hearing is still pending, but as we've shown you, Prime Minister Dean Barrow has confirmed that Government has waived the expiration, rolling it over with no fixed date of expiry.

As Ch'oc said, the Communities have not come to a consensus about how they will challenge this decision. It also remains to be seen if that injunction hearing will be able to reverse that wavier of the expiration.

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