Maya customary rights, upheld in Belize court, are clouded as government stirs a backlash

[Derechos]

From First Peoples Worldwide

Maya customary rights, upheld in Belize court, are clouded as government stirs a backlash



For hundreds of years, the Maya depended on customs of land use and occupancy for food, clothing, shelter, medicines and ceremonial purposes. For almost 20 years in the Central American nation of Belize, they have organized to protect customary land rights and rainforests from unilateral government concessions and leases to logging and hydroelectric companies, oil and gas explorers, commercial resort developers. And on June 28, they heard a high court chief justice rule in favor of constitutionally protected property and cultural rights for 38 Maya communities, based on customary occupancy and use. The decision acknowledges the rights of the Maya communities to use and distribute their homelands, and to block development plans in pursuit of their rights.

Past Belizean governments have acknowledged Maya traditional land rights in Belize, and agencies of the Organization of American States and the United Nations have gone further to designate the rights as property protected under international human rights law, according to the Maya Leaders Alliance of Southern Belize. Maya leadership organizations and officials throughout southern Belize, where the communities are located, considered the Supreme Court of Belize decision in June a major landmark on the road to justice.

The government of Belize too would have its day. Its response would complicate the courtroom triumph, even to the point of compromising judicial independence. But first, Chief Justice Abdulai Conteh called on it to refrain from land grants, leases, or concessions that would exploit the resources of the 38 communities without their free prior and informed consent after consultation, a Belize radio network reported. Conteh added that Maya leaders and Belize state officials should cooperate, when issues arise, on the governance of communal land rights.

More than a thousand Maya celebrated the decision, according to online Channel5Belize. Gregory Ch’oc, executive director of Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management, told the newscast that the judgment gave the communities “involvement in determining the use, the management and the exploitation of the resources on land that they have used and occupied.”

Ch’oc called the occasion “a time for reconciliation … a time to put the issues that have divided us apart and to sit with our government and pave a way to concretize the fundamental values that every Belizean in this country ought to enjoy … we’re hoping that, as the Chief Justice articulated today, that a process is established to begin to identify and develop a legislation for the protection of these lands.”

Days later, Ch’oc spoke of his disappointment in the government’s reaction. “This should usher in a climate of cooperation with the government of Belize.” Instead, the government mounted a media campaign anticipating the “Balkanization” of Belize, while casting the Maya in the south as “separatists” of a “breakaway state,” Ch’oc said.

“There are various interpretations that have been circulated around … about the significance of this decision. As the government has pitched its interpretation, it has generated a cloud of fear for the people of Belize. … It is very unfortunate, when we have come this far to vindicate our human rights, that the government would challenge these human rights. Based on the responses and the e-mails that have come in , we have sympathy in Belizean society. And of course the government will engage in a vicious campaign of instilling fear.”

Even so, the media in Belize have proved receptive to the Maya interpretation of their lawsuit, Ch’oc said. “We are allowed a space to clarify … and put it in our context” – the context of the threat to environmental treasures and large parts of national heritage from unilateral government action. By contrast, the Maya have proved their stewardship over centuries. The larger Belizean society has begun to get the message that the democratic values and freedoms, the fundamental rights and protections enshrined in the Belize Constitution, require an active place in the life of the entire nation, Ch’oc added. “Our struggle is your struggle.”

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But the government’s plan to appeal the June 28 decision to the Caribbean-wide courts system has become public knowledge. Conteh is retiring, and Ch’oc said he is not being granted the customary time to clear his active case-load before he goes. Prime Minister Dean Oliver Barrow’s brother has been appointed to a key judicial post in the appeals process, and the government contracts with the prime minister’s first wife, an attorney, in all of the country’s high-profile appeals cases, Ch’oc said.


“Whether we will have an independent judiciary after this is anyone’s guess.”


Ch’oc said letters will reach major Belize media outlets at the following websites and e-mail addresses:


http://www.lovefm.com/ndisplay.php?nid=12254

www.channel5belize.com

http://www.7newsbelize.com

http://www.krembz.com

http://www.amandala.com.bz

[e-mail]



Letters to the Prime Minister’s office should be addressed to Hon. Dean Oliver Barrow, Prime Minister of Belize, at [e-mail].

http://firstpeoplesblog.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/maya-customary-rights-upheld-in-belize-court-are-clouded-as-government-stirs-a-backlash/