An incident on Maya land in southern Belize has sparked a passionate national debate in Belize over the role of race, ethnicity, and democracy in Belizean society.
An incident on Maya land in southern Belize has sparked a passionate national debate in Belize over the role of race, ethnicity, and democracy in Belizean society.
Photos: 1. Cristina Coc, addressing the United Nations on the recent land rights case at the Caribbean Court of Justice. 2. Caracol temple in Belize, by Dennis Jarvis. 3. Uxebnka Archeological Site, by Elelicht.
International human rights organizations Cultural Survival and Rainforest Foundation US stand behind Maya Leaders as they Peacefully Protect their Lands.
Joint Statement by Cultural Survival, the Rainforest Foundation, and First Peoples Worldwide.
Statement by the Maya Leaders Alliance
April 21st, 2015 – The Caribbean Court of Justice, Belize’s highest appellant court, yesterday reaffirmed the unbroken chain of lower court affirmations that the Maya Indigenous People of southern Belize have rights to lands they have customarily used and occupied. The Court affirmed that these traditional land rights constitute property within the meaning of the provisions of the Belize Constitution that generally protect property free from discrimination.
The Maya people of Toledo are scheduled for a hearing to reaffirm their land rights case at the regional Caribbean Court of Justice in April of 2015, after almost a decade of back and forth in the national courts in Belize. Their claim to the land has been upheld twice in the Supreme Court, once in 2009 and again in 2013. The government of Belize continues to assert that the land title the Maya hold should not be considered Native or Indigenous land title, but merely based
Maya Leaders Alliance
Punta Gorda Town, Monday, September 29th, 2014.
A delegation of Maya Leaders, headed by President of the Toledo Alcaldes Association, Mr. Alfonso Cal, has been commissioned by the Alcaldes’ assembly to deliver a letter to the Prime Minister. Consequently, on September 25th, 2014, the Maya Leaders Alliance and Toledo Alcaldes Association met with the Honourable Prime Minister, Dean Barrow, at the Prime Minister’s Office in Belmopan.
Over a hundred Maya people from Southern Belize gained access to their traditional communal lands that have been expropriated by Texas oil company US Capital Energy in a staged peaceful protest in May.
Press Release by the Maya Leaders Alliance
June 26th, 2014, Punta Gorda Town. One year after the decisive judgment of the Belize Court of Appeal that upheld Maya Customary Land Rights, Maya people of the 39 villages in southern Belize came together at Indian Creek village, Toledo. This was The Gathering of the Children of the Earth. This historic event led by the Toledo Alcaldes Association and the Maya Leaders Alliance is an affirmation of the Maya Peoples solidarity for creating a more dignified and just Belize!
Punta Gorda Town, Toledo, Belize
On July 24, Andres Bol, an Indigenous resident of Crique Carco village, Belize, stood in front of a room of 115 Mayan villagers, and delivered the following message:
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.