LAND RIGHTS OR LAND WRONGS?

On Sunday, August 1, 2010, Reynaldo Ico stepped into the glare of history, before an adoring
throng of UDP supporters. Mr. Ico was at the red wrought iron podium of the National
Convention of the United Democratic Party to present the party’s policy statement on “Mayan
Land Rights”.

Mr. Ico, a Maya Belizean from Silver Creek Village in the Toledo District was chosen for the
honor of proclaiming that the recent Supreme Court Ruling secured by the Maya Leader Alliance
is “…not in the best interest of every Mayan citizen and family” Chosen, no doubt, because of
his political stomach, Mr. Ico was put forward as the public face of those Maya who reject
collective land rights for the Maya, because, as he explained to Marion Ali on June 10th, 2009, on
News 5, he wanted a change, development a better life for his children than he lives, “land title
or lease through the government system, through the present land administration system” – all
are laudable goals. All are goals that every Belizean aspires to.

None of these goals, however, is affected in any way by the ruling of the Supreme Court in the
landmark case of the Maya Leaders Alliance and the Toledo Alcaldes Association on behalf of
the Maya villages of Toledo District v. the AG of Belize and the Minister of National Resources,
Claim No. 366 of 2008. That decision, delivered on June 28, 2010, by the Chief Justice of
Belize, Dr. Abdulai Conteh, reaffirms the Supreme Court judgment delivered on 18 October
2007, and declares that Maya customary land tenure exists in all the Maya villages in the Toledo
Districts and where it exists, it gives rise to collective and individual property rights within the
meaning of sections 3(d) and 17 of the Belize Constitution.

The UDP statement claims that “…the ruling has thrown the entire state of Mayan Land Tenure
into utter confusion;” There is no confusion. Land in Belize, held by any Belizean who is Maya,
whether by title or lease, will not be affected by this ruling. There was, in fact, no “state of
Mayan Land Tenure” at all prior to this ruling, to be thrown into confusion at all. The ruling
makes it clear that customary land tenure exists in the Maya villages in Toledo, and any grant of
leases or titles in these villages will have to be dealt with fairly and properly under the
constitution AND in consultation with the villagers of the village in which the land or lease is
given by the government.

Despite the claims of the UDP Statement that “the judgment sets an unwise, undesirable and
impractical precedent that can create and fuel racial disharmony in our Country”; the simple fact
is by this very statement, such disharmony is not only being created, but fuelled by hot political
gas and vitriolic party sentiment. The very “ethnic disharmony” that the article pretends to decry
is the very essence of what it actually achieves in a potent mix of half –truth and non-sequitur .
It claims that “the majority of Mayans believe in their inalienable right to secure a piece of land
with individual title.” The ruling does not stop such a right, nor does it limit that right. Nothing
in the judgment prevents any Maya citizen of Belize from obtaining individual title to land in
Belize. So why include it? Why say that “the UDP is therefore of the firm position that the
issuance of individual titles to members of the Mayan community as is the birthright of all
Belizeans and as has already been secured by many citizens of Mayan Heritage is the right and
desirable way to go.”

Is this said so that Belizeans, Maya and others alike believe that the ruling stops or prevents such
a right? That would be a lie. So that Maya Belizeans believe that if villages obtain communal
land rights, they personally can no longer hold individual title to land? That would be a big lie.
So that Maya or other Belizeans believe that this will force Maya Belizeans to live on
reservations or villages? That would be the biggest lie of all.

But you get the point. The statement is riddled with innuendo and redolent of the rank odor of
fear-mongering – WE NO WAH NO RESERVATIONS (or is it MAYA RIGHTS?).

This UDP government’s defended this case and did so by seeking to discredit these very same
Maya communities (and their leaders) by mounting an attack on the very ancestral bona fides by
arguing that the Maya of Belize are NOT direct descendants of the ancient Chol Maya people
who inhabited our jewel long before any Europeans or Baymen came here. It boiled down to
whether the Achi-Chen Mopan Maya,( including Cristina Coc) were even indigenous to the
Toledo District. The Lead Attorney for the Government referred to the ancestry of these
Belizeans as “Anansi stories”. It made at least one Maya woman state her belief that”… in the
eyes of the state, in the eyes of the government through their attorney, (Maya people) are nobody
to them.” Cruel. Cold. Callous.

And to make their case, the UDP enlisted senior persons from the National Institute of Culture
and History (NICH) and the Institute of Archeology to testify in support of their rejection of the
case of the Maya people, and referring to them as “recent immigrants” Ethnic Disharmony?
Racial Disharmony?

Never forget that in 2002, the Maya Leaders Alliance met with Sir Shridath Ramphal and told
the Facilitator, in no uncertain terms that “The Maya peoples along the Belize-Guatemala border,
Belize border, will be mostly impacted by any decision, any resolutions, any proposals proposed
for that area. Hence, we felt obliged to meet with the facilitator to present our position with
respect to what we consider might be in the interest of the Mayan communities in the South.”
These same Maya Leaders were the first to reject any claim by Guatemala to the OAS to act on
their behalf and issued a Declaration, stating that they were, above all, Belizeans. How can the
UDP now question the same leaders’ bona fides and ancestral rights?

Any support given by the UDP as a party to its own government to appeal to “the highest court
to secure a reversal of the decision of the Supreme Court” was a foregone conclusion, but ask
yourself why such an affront to Maya Belizeans was publicly promulgated. Lurking in the
shadows you may see, albeit indistinctly, the shadowy figures of oil developers as well as
property and forestry developers, mining concessionaires and land “investors”

The real issue is making sure that future generations of Maya villagers in Toledo are assured of
land for village expansion, and for farming, community use, and traditional usages. As one of the
First People of North America, Qwatsinas, Chief of the Nuxalk Nation put it, “We must protect
the forests for our children, grandchildren and children yet to be born. We must protect the
forests for those who can't speak for themselves such as the birds, animals, fish and trees.”

In a final twist of historical fate and terrible irony, the UDP statement on “Mayan Land Rights”
was delivered by Reynaldo Ico, at the request of the UDP, on a day that is traditionally
commemorated throughout the Caribbean as Emancipation Day.