SATIIM official says Ch’oc is under vicious attack due to his activism

A ranking employee of the Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM) told Amandala today that rampant rumors that SATIIM Executive Director, Greg Ch’oc, has abandoned the Maya of Toledo for a big plum – an opportunity to study law in the Caribbean – are being spread as part of “a vendetta against Mr. Choc.”

The SATIIM official told us that as far as they are aware, Ch’oc has no plans to resign and he is still employed with SATIIM. They have no information to indicate that he is planning any immediate departure from the organization, the staff member added.

Amandala has been trying to reach Ch’oc since last Friday, when SATIIM was blocked from entering the drill site of US Capital inside the Sarstoon-Temash National Park; however, we have been unable to speak with him. We, therefore, wondered whether, indeed, the report of his resignation is true; however, staff indicated today that Ch’oc has not resigned.

A widely circulated e-mail, claiming to come from “concerned Maya and Garifuna youth of buffer villages,” and sent to us Wednesday, said, “This afternoon we received news that tells us that Mr. Greg Choc, who is the executive director of SATIIM, resigned from that organization last week, but we understand that Mr. Choc has been very secret about his resignation and exit from SATIIM. We are told that he is going away to study to become a lawyer at a university in the Caribbean and is planning to leave Belize at the end of this month.”

Amandala contacted a well-connected Maya activist, who has worked for the same causes that Ch’oc has, and we were told that that person, likewise, had received no news of a resignation.