Actually, the 39 villages having communal land rights absolutely should not have a village chairperson with councilors. However, the system continues to operate with both in place: The Alcalde’s role has been diminished to a sort of Judicial one, while the village council is allowed to act as the Executive, with the backing of the national government.

Until the proper demarcation of all almost 200 villages is conducted, the national government will continue to dictate what happens in all of them — whether they use the Alcalde or village council to get it done.

I have always felt that they were only able to manipulate the village councils. However, these younger Alcaldes seem to have their prices as well.

We need to get our own Indigenous Peoples Act and Indigenous Peoples Land Act in place ASAP to conform with the CCJ rulings and stop confusing BELIZEANS — or remove Belize’s signature from the Convention(s) that mandates it and ties any independent judge’s hands in their rulings.

Belize wants to look good internationally by signing these UN/OAS Conventions to say we value and respect our indigenous peoples’ right to autonomy! The REALITY on the ground is that they RESIST the required LOCAL legal framework (putting in place the NEW LAWS required) to fulfill Belize’s obligations under these Conventions.

On another note — in a similar way, there has been a need for the RECONDEV law to be repealed since 1999 when the The City of Belmopan Act became law and a new authority was legislated to do EVERYTHING RECONDEV does plus everything else the Belmopan City Council continues to do.