Last night on this newscast - you heard Maya leader Greg Choc demanding that Government respond to a report from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which urges government to redress wrongs committed against the Maya of Belize.
It's an interesting proposition - but one the government can quite smilingly walk away from because - the Inter-American Report is a suggestion not an order. But even if GOB does walk away from the Commission's Report - what it cannot walk away from is the groundswell of resentment about how land in the Toledo District is managed and mismanaged.
If - as Dr. Leroy Taeger says - "the land is the Bank" - then a whole lot of people are angry about getting locked out - and as we found out that anger is simmering.
Frederico Sam, Midway Village
"Maya people we are the Indian people we have to find land! Every each single one have to find a piece of land."
That point was made emphatically at yesterday's press conference - the entitlement to a piece of land, communal lands for this people whose arrival on this soil predates European conquest and sovereignty. According to this report, systematic misuse and misappropriation of Maya communal land by the government of Belize is a violation of human rights:
Greg Choq, Maya Leader's Alliance,
"What we have been made to accept as normal attributes of democracy in Belize are in fact serious breaches of our internationally recognized human rights"
And according to IACH those human rights mean that government must recognize the communal property of the Maya - that is, lands they have traditionally occupied and used; and put into law legislative and administrative measures to demarcate Mayan communal territory. Sounds like a homeland to us, and it's an idea prime minister said Musa says is aberrant:
Prime Minister Said Musa, December 2003,
The important thing is I will not preside over the balkanization of Belize! A homeland just for Garifuna just for Creole, all of Belize belongs to all of us. That's the first principle.
It maybe a first principle for the Prime Minister but it was a faraway thought. At yesterday's press conference, when Choc marched out community leaders citing abuses of those Mayan communal lands. According to this report those abuses are more than just the usual government shadiness and high handedness - it's the systematic exploitation of human rights:
Rafael Cal, Chairman - Medina Bank,
"The people is staying poorer and poorer the break is given always to the foreign investors which come with all those big money that's why break is not given to the local people."
Juan Ack, Chairman - Alcalde's Association,
"In those remote villages - people go and apply for land without consent of alcalde - we do not have the right to recommend."
Justino Peck, Chairman - Cacoa Grower's Association,
"This industry has been affected by what the Government of Belize has been doing without consultation of the community they're doing surveying of lands. You become to be an old man and you never get you land but what I see people most of them are foreigners get many thousand acres of land and they are not ready to get it."
Frederico Sam, Midway Village,
"Most of the people here in town they grab our village - they grab 100 acres of land and they never work in the bush before. Hundreds of acres they get there in midway them cayetano's 400 acres for 4 men. And all we get is 30 acres for each."
Toledo villager,
"Later on it will be causing a war and I'm serious."
It's serious indeed - but not just for the Mayas, for all Belizeans. The government argues that land ownership problems that reach across all parts of Belize. And poverty? Well the Mayas don't have the market on that cornered either: that stretches from Otosha all the way to Port Loyola. And that sense of inequal opportunity - that when it comes to land in Toledo - some are more equal than others is what galls those non-Mayas born and grown in Toledo:
Eva Middleton-Cayetano, Toledo resident (non-Mayan)
"Can a non boom creek persons apply for a lot in your community? I am in the same shoe like you and do not have a piece of land this is us living in Toledo."
Juan Ack, Chairman, Alcalde's Association
"The way I understand the way you understand as Garifuna members bout 3, 4, 5 years ago we hear about this homeland - you know how much the Garifuna is worrying about and that is what we should consider - remember when forum like this comes up we face to those problems. How can you come to live in Punta Gorda and I can't go live in Big Falls that is the first question - and as Mr. Choc seh there is nothing concrete yet - and I think we need to reconsider about this type of situation so that we don't hurt any races especially the born and grown Belizean. "
But Choc says it's about more than race; in fact he thinks that's a red herring set up as a divisive tool by the politicians. For him the real struggle is about land and power - those most precious assets which government protects as its eminent domain.
Greg Choc, Maya leader's alliance,
"There is nothing or no policy regarding who gets land and where they get land but I want to tell you something we have no control over that right now; it is the government who is deciding who gets land where they get that land whether you like it or not."
And so far it is that same government that will decide if whether it will adhere to the recommendations of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights - and the Maya Leaders hope that with international pressure - they can bend what has so far been intransigent political.
On January 19th the Government promised it would post the report from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission the following week. Over two weeks it still has not been posted until now:
CONCLUSIONS of Inter-American Commission Report:
Based upon the foregoing analysis, the Commission hereby concludes that:
186. The State violated the right to property enshrined in Article XXIII of the American Declaration to the detriment of the Maya people, by failing to take effective measures to recognize their communal property right to the lands that they have traditionally occupied and used, without detriment to other indigenous communities, and to delimit, demarcate and title or otherwise established the legal mechanisms necessary to clarify and protect the territory on which their right exists.
187. The State further violated the right to property enshrined in Article XXIII of the American Declaration to the detriment of the Maya people, by granting logging and oil concessions to third parties to utilize the property and resources that could fall within the lands which must be delimited, demarcated and titled or otherwise clarified and protected, in the absence of effective consultations with and the informed consent of the Maya people.
188. The State violated the right to equality before the law, to equal protection of the law, and to nondiscrimination enshrined in Article II of the American Declaration to the detriment of the Maya people, by failing to provide them with the protections necessary to exercise their property rights fully and equally with other members of the Belizean population.
189. The State violated the right to judicial protection enshrined in Article XVIII of the American Declaration to the detriment of the Maya people, by rendering domestic judicial proceedings brought by them ineffective through unreasonable delay and thereby failing to provide them with effective access to the courts for protection of their fundamental rights.
VI. RECOMMENDATIONS
190. In accordance with the analysis and conclusions in the present report, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recommends to the State of Belize that it
1. adopt in its domestic law, and through fully informed consultations with the Maya people, the legislative, administrative, and any other measures necessary to delimit, demarcate and title or otherwise clarify and protect the territory in which the Maya people have a communal property right, in accordance with their customary land use practices, and without detriment to other indigenous communities.
2. carry out the measures to delimit, demarcate and title or otherwise clarify and protect the corresponding lands of the Maya people without detriment to other indigenous communities and, until those measures have been carried out, abstain from any acts that might lead the agents of the State itself, or third parties acting with its acquiescence or its tolerance, to affect the existence, value, use or enjoyment of the property located in the geographic area occupied and used by the Maya people.
3. Repair the environmental damage resulting from the logging concessions granted by the State in respect of the territory traditionally occupied and used by the Maya people.
191. The Commission decides to transmit the present report to the State of Belize in accordance with Article 43 of its Rules of Procedure and to provide the State a period of 60 days to comply with the recommendations set forth herein. The time period shall be counted as from the date of transmission of the present report. During this period, the State shall not be authorized to publish the report. The Commission also decides to notify the Petitioners of the adoption of this report.
From the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights