THE LAND OF THE MAYA

A source of boundless pride for Belizeans is the apparent harmony between the various ethnic groups that call this Jewel home. The hymn sheet is familiar to any primary school student or tour guide: “the Mestizo, the Maya, the Creole, the Garifuna, the Central American immigrants, the Mennonites, the Chinese, the Arabs, all living in harmony.” This week that harmony was shattered with the thunder of a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court against the UDP government and in favor of the Maya people of southern Belize. The Court has recognized that the Maya of Toledo possess customary land tenure rights.

When the PUP was in office, that administration sought a constructive engagement with the Maya people and their Alcaldes and representatives. Because this issue of communal lands is so explosive, the PUP government sought to strike a balance between tradition and modernity. One alternative the PUP had put on the negotiating table, in general terms, was to allow for specific areas to be designated as communal lands while in other areas, the normal rules of land ownership and development would apply.

When the PUP administration put forward this reasonable option, it was the then Leader of the Opposition, now Prime Minister Dean Barrow, and his ex-wife who advised the Maya leaders to reject any settlement. To embarrass the PUP government, to secure immediate political gains even at the expense of national unity, Barrow and company prodded their clients into yet further confrontation. They actively blocked any settlement.

Now that the UDP are in government, Mr. Barrow has shamelessly switched sides; Lois is being paid (from the taxes of the Mayan people) to defend the government’s petition that the Maya people are entitled to no customary land tenure rights. In effect, those same UDP personalities who made arguments on behalf of the Maya people are today the merciless spear carriers against their erstwhile clients.

What has been especially repugnant about the UDP government’s case to discredit these significant and symbolic communities and their leaders is the argument that the Maya of Belize are not direct descendants of the ancient Chol Maya people who inhabited these lands long before the arrival of the European invaders. To buttress their position, the UDP utilized senior personnel from the National Institute of Culture and History (NICH) who testified in support of the case against the Maya people. So vile is this administration that it would publicly disown its own citizens, the original inhabitants of these lands that now constitute the nation of Belize. So wicked are the UDP that they co-opt professionals whose salaries are generated from the fees that visitors pay to enter our Mayan sites and deploy them to the courtroom to disavow the contemporary Maya.

Alienating the Maya people is unpardonable. But the implications of this government’s posture and of the ruling are immense particularly in the midst of this prolonged, biting recession. For the global community of investors, this ruling essentially pushes the pause button on Belize. Property and forestry development, mining, hydro electrical investment and land transactions will come to a virtual halt in the Toledo District. To retard the progress of the people of Toledo could not possibly have been the intention of the Maya Leaders Alliance but they were obviously left with no choice by this UDP Government.

No sooner had the Chief Justice delivered his ruling than the government announced its intention to take this matter to the Court of Appeal. So much more productive it would be for the Government to engage with the Maya Leaders Alliance and with the citizens of the Toledo District in order to arrive at a reasonable resolution. But that is not the way of this administration. The UDP tendencies are to confrontation and the rule of the hammer.

The indigenous historian Ward Churchill writes of the centrality of land in a colonization process he labels “the American holocaust.”  On the island of Hispaniola, for example, occupied today by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the slave policies of the Viceroy Christopher Colombus reduced the Taino population from eight million to 100 thousand in seven years, according to Churchill. That was 500 years ago. That genocide was perpetrated so that Taino land could be seized and used by European “settlers.” The history of this entire hemisphere, not just of Hispaniola, gives the Maya people of Belize every cause to be conscious of land tenure. The future of the Mayan people of Belize cannot be divorced from their land rights.

It is truly a blight on our already fragile national spirit for this UDP government to pursue any further this confrontation with our indigenous people. Humble yourself, Mr. Barrow and settle this matter with the people you swore to represent.

| | | | | |