The rumblings of dissent among the Maya people of Toledo over a movement to have their lands formally acknowledged by the government as inherited property, but blocked off as communal parcels rather than individual lease lands, swelled on the grounds of the Battlefield Park today.
The Maya Leaders Alliance (MLA), which is taking the government to court over land tenure issues, has never met this kind of opposition, even with the Conejo and Santa Cruz victory in 2007, when the court declared that Mayan customary land rights exist in southern Belize.
Today, the traditionally united Maya—hundreds of them taking the long journey from the deep south—filed into two opposing camps, clearly divided over the very volatile issue of land ownership. On the one hand, there are those who want a lease for a piece that they can bank, if they so choose; on the other hand, there are those who want the lands to remain as communal properties.
They came about 400 strong, and about 100 packed themselves inside the courtroom of Chief Justice Dr. Abdulai Conteh to witness the hearing of the milestone claim lodged a year ago in the Supreme Court by the MLA and the alcaldes of the villages of Toledo—their ammunition being a tower of 50 affidavits in support of their case.
While the court adjourned for lunch, the villagers convened under the blazing noonday sun at the Battlefield Park, just in front of the Supreme Court, where Coc briefed the Maya on what had transpired during the morning session.
Speaking inside Battlefield Park at the symbolic monument of Belizean civil rights activist Antonio Soberanis, Coc took major issue with government’s contention to the court that the Maya of Toledo are not really indigenous to Belize, and so they cannot automatically claim customary land rights.
Coc told the Maya that they will do everything in their power to defend their rights.
“Again to every skeptic, to everyone that has not known who we are, we call ourselves the indigenous Maya, Belizeans of southern Belize,” said Coc, eliciting a loud applause from her supporters.
However, about 150 Maya standing under a very large tent on the east side of the park were not cheering her on. In fact, they held placards in their hands, taking on Coc and the MLA and making it clear that they do not support their court case and the move for communal land tenure.
Those picketing against the MLA were led by Silver Creek villager, Reynaldo Ico.
“We are not satisfied with the way how the MLA has conducted their consultation process and the signs out there clearly depict that,” Ico told Amandala.
“In some cases the village alcaldes were convinced (to use a lighter term) to sign affidavits and to say that the Maya people want to do such, to participate in such a law suit.”
Ico claimed that he visited about 25 Maya communities to educate the Maya on the advantages and disadvantages of two systems of land tenure – communal land tenure and individual titling – and to give them an overview of what has been happening with the land tenure case filed by the MLA.
“We have found out that a great majority of the Maya people in Toledo do not know exactly what is happening, and do not wish to participate in the lawsuit. Therefore, they need to be heard as well,” Ico insisted, “…every story has two sides to it.”
Ico told Amandala that he managed to organize three busloads of “a little over 200 people” from Corazon, Mabilha, Santa Teresa, Silver Creek, Columbia, San Marcos, San Felipe, and San Jose.
He claims that villagers were not consulted to get their points of view when the MLA had the village alcaldes sign affidavits in support of the MLA claim.
Amandala canvassed the views of some of the Maya gathered in Battlefield Park, and it was clear to us that the battle lines were drawn and those under the tents had opinions as forceful as those supporting the MLA claim.
“We want title!” shouted a group of men standing under the shade of their tent, placards in hand, demanding individual leases.
“Everybody is waking up right now,” a San Marcos farmer and cattle rancher, who claims he owns 30 acres of land, told our newspaper.
“My opinion is, I want my piece of land with my papers…should in case I want to borrow a little loan I could take that paper to the bank,” he said, adding that everyone should have a piece of land for themselves.
He argues that those supporting the communal land tenure have a hidden agenda, and that rather than giving land to the Maya, they want to instead remove the land from their control.
“I don’t want communal land. I am sure of that,” asserted a young man from San Marcos.
Meanwhile, a Crique Sarco elder we spoke with says he is 100% for communal land tenure.
“We need the land for our pikni. We don’t want to buy land, because [a] lot of people buy land and they sell it again. They make their own business with it,” an elderly woman from Golden Stream told us.
(Pikni is Kriol for children.)
The alcalde of Santa Teresa, Elogorio Cus said, “For me, I want communal land; that is what we’re looking for. Why we try to fight for it? Because we are farmers, we need land, we used to [communal land], [to] plant our corn, rice and beans, and that is why we are fighting for communal lands.”
A young farmer of San Marcos who was protesting with family members said they don’t have any land for themselves, and they deserve it: “Each person should get their land title…some people want to take all the land for themselves.”
There is also a debate over which camp has the bigger support. For her part, Coc claims the MLA is the voice of the majority.
“This small minority group [led by Ico] cannot speak for the rest of the people who decide that they want also to have that right to choose. And if they so chose communal lands, then that is what their right is,” Coc told Amandala.
The Maya have gone to court to ask for “protection” of lands they traditionally occupy, until the government gives them an official piece of paper to say that the lands they claim to have traditionally occupied is their property.
It is clear that there is no current consensus on the type of land tenure the Maya of Toledo wish to practice. Those opposing the MLA case actually support a referendum on this issue, whereas those aligned with the MLA say there is no need for one.
“If we need to resort to a referendum, we’d really be happy for that because we feel like we need to be heard as well, because we live in a democratic country,” Ico, who led the opposing camp, told us.
Coc takes the view, however, that there is no need for a referendum: “I don’t think there is a need for people to vote on whether [our land] rights exist.”
Even though those Maya we spoke with were either demanding individual lease titles or communal land titles, Cristina Coc told Amandala that her organization is not trying to divide Maya on that issue, but is simply trying to protect the customary land rights that the court has said exist, and then, said Coc, it is for the individual villages to decide whether they want to practice communal land tenure or whether they want to parcel their lands according to the system of individual lease plots.
“As a Maya person who believes that what we’re fighting for is justice, what we are fighting for is the future of even those people who are standing with those placards, even their children, protection for their right to life, protection for their right to equality, protection for their right to justice,” Coc said.
She said that they are not doing anything to hurt those Maya in the opposing camp, but rather, they are trying to protect them too, whether or not they understand it.
Coc went on to say: “There are several things playing a role here: ignorance is one of them certainly, a lack of understanding of our claim and what it is we’re doing, the misunderstanding has been that we are claiming communal land tenure for all Maya communities; what we are in fact asking is for protection for the lands until the communities can make a decision as to what type of land tenure they want to practice, what kind of titling they want to receive.”
She said that each Maya community has the right to decide what type of land titles it wants.
“If their communities decide, listen we want to have individual lease holdings, I hope that we can advocate for that with government, but in the past we have seen that they have been denied even that,” Coc argued. “I mean we know how long a lease takes to be approved.”
Even as the picketers accused the MLA of taking court affidavits without properly consulting their villagers, Coc accused the Toledo Cacao Growers Association, which filed an affidavit for the government side, of doing so without the authority from the many cacao growers who had, in fact, sided with the MLA.
Coc told our newspaper that, “This is the first time that we’ve seen such an opposition, and we’re not surprised. This administration told us point blank, ‘Enough is enough; the Mayas have gone far too far; we will fight them to the Privy Council.’ We know that there is a hand of the state behind this opposition, we are very clear.”
She told us that the Transport Department had first denied their permits to bring villagers up to Belize City to hear the court case today. In the end, they were cleared to bus about 200 into town this morning.
Second, said Coc, they had problems getting a permit to congregate at Battlefield Park. It so turned out that the picketers made a sort of preemptive move to get the spot first, but in the end, the police allowed the two camps to share the space, although several police officers were on the spot to guard the peace.
Some picketers were clearly aggressive, taunting the MLA camp with their signs and shouting remarks at them in their native Maya tongue, as well as in English. However, they kept to their designated spaces and avoided any physical confrontation.
Referring to the heightened opposition to the MLA claim, Coc said: “It begs a lot of questions. I mean, I have no doubt that the state has a hand in this. I am very saddened that my own people would turn against the great majority of Maya people who are standing up for even their children’s rights.”
The opposition to the MLA’s stance does not only come from within their Maya communities. The East Indian community of Toledo only Tuesday issued a statement, also challenging the claim to customary land rights for large tracts of land in Toledo.
The 7-point statement claims the MLA does not have the support of the majority of the Maya, that their ultimate aim is to control Toledo, that this is apartheid by a different name, that granting communal land rights to the Maya will create unwanted friction among various ethnic groups, that other ethnic groups need to have say in the matter, and that Toledo needs to have a referendum on the issue. The statement closes by pledging support to the government in the Supreme Court case.
Coc said, however, that the East Indian community has nothing to fear, and neither does any other ethnic group in Belize:
“It’s not really to stand up and fight against ethnicities. We’ve lived peacefully with the East Indians, we’ve lived peacefully with the Garifunas, and we continue to do that. We’re not fighting them at all.”