7 News Belize

FECTAB Calls For Level Playing Field At Nohoch Che’en
posted (February 5, 2016)
For weeks now we've been reporting on the Bradley Paumen murder conspiracy. And that has brought the whole issue of Nohoch Che'en into focus. That's the cave system formerly known as Cave's Branch where about a dozen tour operators ply their trade. The allegation has been - and we saw this for ourselves - that NICH is very strict when enforcing standards for the local tour companies, but totally lax when doing so for the foreign owned tour companies. Bradley Paumen's Dark Night is one of those foreign owned operations - and today FECTAB held a press conference to demand that NICH institute a level playing field:...

David Almendarez - Fantasea Belize
"This is what we have subjected the others to. While you give another man a cave system and you give him the artefacts, you subject us to be like this and then you say we have no right to make no noise on our land. If you are going to put a check point for us, the local and Belizean people, your brothers and sisters who you are put to protect, put a check point at Dark Night Cave System. Make sure it's accessible for all Belizeans. We want to make sure that everybody is paying the adequate park fees. You can't have a company collecting government's money. Nowhere in the world that is being done. We want access to all cave systems. No longer should nobody own any cave and say no Belizeans who are tour guides who are trained to do a cave system, cannot do a cave. Those days are done. We want equality for everybody."

Yohnny Rosado - Cavetubing.com
"FECTAB is saying chancey foreigners. If you come to my country and you chance us, we don't like you. Foreigner are coming here like Leonardo DiCaprio and you like the poor man and you like the Rasta man and you like the mestizo man - we welcome you. We want to do a movie with you. We have come to realize with all we are showing you that Belize is not being an equal place to live anymore. In our industry we have feeling the pain. We are feeling the hammer when we cannot work peacefully by NICH employees. By our own government officials. NICH has brought us down very low by putting a lot of signs like we don't know what to do. The over signage is killing our sweet tour. When you put all those signs amongst us, you are telling us cavetubing.com does not comply. So please make sure you comply. Cavetubingrus, major Tom, VIV, Extreme Belize, Extreme Tours - all the local tour operators are a part of FECTAB - we are not qualify, so please make sure we are qualified. The actions in those signs are telling our guests that..."

"I'm telling you the people are not talking about coming to press conference anymore. People are getting violence Jules and we tell them, listen. We will tell this government and we will tell the media, we will show them what's going on. We are only doing our job, because myself have been pictures as the most dangerous person, the one that will kill your child, will kill you whatever - Ironic. Who got arrested for doing all the hits?"

"We are just doing our job because this is the way we feel that we could let the country and the government know, we don't need to go to violence. We don't need to go out there and burn tires and I already have a tire shop - not will work."

Tom Greenwood tells us that since we last visited the area, NICH now has a warden in place at Dark Night - which requires passing through Michael Modiri's land.

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