Photo: Jose Tush, elder of Mabil Ha Village tears up copy of GoB’s latest draft Maya Customary Land Policy
TAA says 34 villages have rejected draft Maya Communal Land Policy, accusing GoB of wanting to fence them in with new proposal
TOLEDO DISTRICT, Thurs. Jan. 25, 2024
Surrounded by leaders of two other Maya villages who came together to record their rejection of the Government’s latest draft Maya Customary Land Policy, Mabil Ha Village elder, Jose Tush is seen tearing up a copy of the document, saying it is of no use to them. He emphatically declares, “This policy is worthless since it says one kilometre around our village. It is like affording us just the pig pen where you are placing us. You are not treating us with dignity and that is why this is of no use.” The Toledo Alcaldes Association (TAA), an appellant in the Maya Land Rights case, has recorded several other videos in which leaders of multiple Maya villages likewise express their rejection of the policy. Adandino Ack, Youth representative from Otoxha similarly destroys a copy of the draft policy labeling it as “… a threat that is going to harm us, or kill us and destroy our livelihoods.”
Since it received the draft policy from the Government on January 5, the TAA has been going into the Maya communities to seek their feedback. Having polled 34 of 41 Maya villages and obtained a resounding rejection from all, the TAA wrote Senior Counsel Andrew Marshalleck, the Government’s lead attorney in the case, on January 24 to share the majority decision. Village leaders have also come together and jointly communicated their rejection to Marshalleck. A letter from the leaders of Santa Elena, Santa Cruz, San Jose, Crique Jute and Na’Lum Ca dated January 23 notifies Marshalleck that the leaders are not in agreement with new insertions in the policy, and in particular, that which makes reference to a land recognition and titling scheme based on a circular area of 1 to 3 kilometers from the center of the village depending on the population size. The letter states, “This is a scheme that is unilaterally proposed by the government and does not reflect how we live on our lands, making this an impractical proposal if in fact the intention is to protect our land tenure system.” The leaders then point out to Marshalleck that they have invested a considerable amount of their time and resources from partners to auto-delimit the lands they use, enjoy and occupy, and their expectation now is for the Government to move to conduct its verification exercise as the next step in the demarcation process.
In the letter from the TAA, Marshalleck is informed that “the communities emphatically declare that the circular scheme does not reflect how we live on our lands and that it fails to protect the lands that face the greatest threat, our farmlands – the lands on which we depend for our food, traditional medicines, and self-sufficiency.”
The government had invited the village leaders to consultation meetings on January 27 and 28 in Punta Gorda, but the TAA says their feedback is that the leaders feel the Government representatives should speak directly to the villagers because “it is unfair to ask them [the leaders] to explain the government’s draft policy to the village members.” As a result, the village leaders are proposing that the Government officials make their presentation in Santa Elena, Toledo, where villagers will be gathered beginning at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, January 27.
Mabil Ha elder, Jose Tush affirmed, “We do not accept! We do not accept! What we want is all the lands we have been speaking of.” Directing himself to the Toledo West Area Representative, Hon. Oscar Requena, he says, “We are not asking for money from you. Instead, we are saying, give us the lands we work on and which we occupy. I ask you here to help us the same way you asked for our support.” The villagers are asking for Requena to also attend their meeting on Saturday. Nela Pan, Deputy Alcalde of San Lucas, questioned, “Why are they doing this to us? Don’t they see we are farmers who depend on the land to eat? Where else would we work? Where else would we eat along with our children?” Pan makes the appeal, “… don’t take away our livelihoods. We are Q’eqchi; from the land we feed. There is where we earn our income, our food, everything. So why are you killing us?” Mr. Sub, an elder of Dolores, reminded the Government that they were not elected to harm the people. He questioned, “Why is it then that our government does not see our value? To the government, we are nothing.”
The Alcalde of Santa Elena, Brigilio Ack said, “We want ALL our land. The land is for us. We are the owner of the land … I want you to get it clear. We will continue to fight, and we will not give up! We will stay fighting!”
In response to the latest developments, today, Thursday, January 25, Minister of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs, Hon. Dolores Balderamos Garcia said, “Well, first of all, what they tore up was a draft, so we’re not going to cry over that.” She then shared the belief that the village leaders are being influenced to be hasty without having participated in another round of consultation. She told the media that the circular scheme is “only one of the suggestions and the proposals that we have made.” She said the Government can increase how far the communal land extends out if the villages can provide proof of further use and occupation.
Pointing to the challenges of implementing the Caribbean Court of Justice’s April 2015 Consent Order acknowledging the rights of the Mayas to their land, the Minister pointed to an example of third-party rights conflicting with communal land. She shared that in Golden Stream, there is a spice farm owned by Doctor Thomas Matthew and his wife who have been in Belize for 32 years. She stated, “I would wish to see that we can have a meshing or at least a melding, a coming together of interests so that we don’t have to be fighting one another. Because if the spice farm employs over 30 employees from the Maya communities, why would we want to send him home? This is his home now.” According to the Minister, the owners plan to construct 12 rustic cabanas which will provide even more jobs. She then questioned, “So, why would we want to deprive our country of that kind of resort and facility, when we can probably find a way to live together without having to take away people’s land; and in any event, we have to respect private ownership.”
Minister Balderamos Garcia is calling on the Appellants to be responsible. “Don’t be riling up the people to tear up a piece of paper when we have not even had a chance to have the consultations as yet,” she said. The Minister also acknowledged that they may need to meet with the villagers “because sometimes, an alcalde or a chairman or a leader might go to a meeting, but we don’t know that the message is being taken back to all the membership of the community.”
Worth noting is that the Minister today said that the Government officials who were planning on conducting consultations with the village leaders this weekend in Punta Gorda, will, in fact, attend the meeting that the TAA has called them to attend in Santa Elena.