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Coalition Ecstatic About Victory, But Not Satisfied To Leave It At That
posted (October 20, 2016)
And after a decisive victory today in San Pedro, the Coalition returned to the mainland to tell us what happened, and what the future looks like in the fight against offshore oil exploration.

Amanda Acosta - Belize Audubon Society
"Well today was a great show of the power of the people and the reality is that from the beginning of the week we've been getting out the information to everybody nationwide, coastal communities, tourism sector, across the country truthfully and what we have seen is that they are rallying and their voices were actually heard. And what we got today was a positive response in that there has been a press release of the ceasing of the seismic activity that had already commenced."

Ingrid Ferlo, LOVE FM
"At this point we don't really know for how much time it's halted, how important is it to be vigilant?"

Amanda Acosta - Belize Audubon Society
"It's exceedingly important to stay vigilant, the reality of this is that it is a suspension, so we need to have an open dialogue, we need to speak our voices still, to be heard and the reality of what's happening next. We need to be on top of it and when there is calls for consultation that we can continue to actively participate in that dialogue."

Janelle Chanona - OCEANA Belize
"At today's announcement, Minister Heredia did mention that at its next sitting, Cabinet will be discussing the finalization of the moratorium. So in terms of vigilance it will also be key because unfortunately we've gotten press releases before, we've heard statements before, we had in good faith accepted those for what it was worth, but at this point and especially as Amanda highlighted that after 5 years of talking about this, we need something in black and white. We need the moratorium to be formalized. OCEANA in June 2015 had submitted a proposed legislation and in that it set out conditions under which the moratorium would be lifted, and I can tell you the 8th condition was a national referendum. Because as we have all been reiterating for the last five years and especially over the last two weeks ever since we heard about this, this is about national, shared resources. Every Belizean deserves to be able to take an official position on how they feel about offshore oil. So whether you wanna vote yes or no, we Belize that they should be an official referendum and at this point, I would hazard a guess as to say that if their immediate response came back and said no it's too expensive, I'm pretty sure we can get some crowd funding, some GoFunding, some pool resources and we can make that happen, because for better or for worse, you know this study was able, the seismic survey was able to start yesterday because a company fronted the money to GOB, we're pretty sure that this is a serious enough issue that we could get some people to front us the money so that we could have our own referendum and one and for all take an official poll of where Belizeans stand as it relates to offshore oil."

John Burgos, BTIA
"With regards to what the government has honored in response what we proposed from yesterday, we're very pleased and we hope that this is gonna be a very good step forward where we're gonna be experiencing good governance, whereby they're gonna listen to what the people, the stakeholders, the ones that are gonna be effected directly, in terms of moving forward. And of course, as Janelle mentioned, we look forward to having closer negotiations per say. We look forward to what they're gonna discuss next week Tuesday at the Cabinet, and of course we stay positive."

And though it seems that the battle has been won, does that mean the war is over? The ships may have been told to dock, but for how long? It should be noted that the government said that the seismic surveys will only be suspended, which means that it may take more public pressure to put the matter resolutely to rest.

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