On Saturday, the farmers from Valley of Peace attended BGYEA's "Plant Di Corn" Rally, and one of the spokespersons told us that they intended to defy Green Tropics by not moving off the land. Well, the multinational company is not taking that lightly, and if they farmers don't vacate soon, the company will sue them because they are squatting.
On Monday, their attorney, Mikhail Argalles wrote a letter of notice to the vegetable farmers giving them notice vacate the land before July 15th at 3:00 pm. If they don't, Arguelles's instructions are to press the matter with both a criminal complaint and a civil suit.
That's a very strong demand, but last week, the CEO the Ministry of Agriculture told us that both sides were negotiating to come to an amicable resolution. Well, with this letter, it suggests those negotiations have broken down. Today, we spoke with Agriculture Minister Gaspar Vega about the change in direction:
Daniel Ortiz
"How is it that we are here at this point where the threat of lawsuit is at this point right now?"
Hon. Gaspar Vega, Deputy Prime Minister
"From what I know I believe that my CEO is trying to bring the two parties together again today. As I always say, we cannot dictate to either party what to do. We are there just as someone to try appease the situation so that it doesn't go to court and get worse for both parties. But we cannot tell Green Tropics what to do or the farmers. I know that we have done an inspection of what occurred there, we have our data. We will be having another meeting and if nothing, if both parties say we cannot have an amicable solution then we will be able to just give to the general public what our findings were. But we dont want to jeopardise the negotiations right now, so I would prefer not to comment on it. I would prefer to give them one more chance and see if they can find solution to the situation."
Arguelles says that this the very last warning for Jose Mesa, and presumably, the other farmers who are squatting on Green Tropics' land.
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