Christina Coc, the engaging young Mayan leader from the Julian Cho Society is fast becoming a media darling. Just this week alone, Christina Coc has made two trips to Belize City to ventilate her community's position in the media capital. And sure enough, it's worked: her clear and well-framed public statements on the plight of the dispossessed Que'chi of Conejo and Santa Cruz have lent much national credibility and public sympathy to her people's cause.
But we thought that maybe Christina Coc had been having it a little too easy, so today Jules Vasquez put some tough questions to her. Firstly, is all the fuss about land rights in Toledo really about the possibility that some of the most abundant oil reserves in Belize are believed to be in Toledo?
Jules Vasquez,
The state may be particularly reluctant to relinquish land upon which it has a reasonable expectation that they could be oil.
Christina Coc,
"No that's absolutely true. That could be a possibility. Therefore if there is oil there, we are not saying look we are going to hijack the oil and keep it just for the Mayan people. That's not what we are saying at all. We are saying look, we need to ensure that if there is oil there, and there are a lot of resources there and if those resources are to be exploited, then we need to ensure that as stewards of the natural forest, we need to ensure that it's done in the most sustainable manner and one that benefits the local people.
The fact that the oil concession was granted for all of Toledo without actually consulting the people of Toledo, demonstrates that the government will exploit and will yes, rape the natural resources that is available to those local people and its just a matter of time when that happens."
Jules Vasquez,
How would you respond to a criticism which says that many Mayans privately sold their lands, what used to be communal lands?
Christina Coc,
"But these are a very few Mayan people when the majority is saying, look we notice that we're losing land by the day and we want to secure the land that we continue to use, that we've realized is rather insecure. Our cause is a fight to ensure that the options for Mayan people remain available and if they choose individual property through the leasing system, then that's fine - that is their right but they are Mayan people down there, including the two claimant communities, who are saying, look we want to maintain our land in a communal fashion."
Jules Vasquez,
In fact your people only came here in the 1800s. In fact descendants of African slaves were here in the 1600s and your people came over from Guatemala or what is now politically recognized as that area, migrated east in the early 1800s. So you do not have pre-conquest rights over this territory.
Christina Coc,
"Well that is an old argument that continues to be brought forward. We believe that Mayan people have lived in this area, in a region not limited to just Belize but Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras even before the current borders existed."
Jules Vasquez,
But at the time of conquest, you all weren't occupying the lands that you are now calling your communal lands.
Christina Coc,
"I beg the question how do you explain the numerous Maya temples that exist in Belize. How do you explain the livelihood that presently Mayan people practice and in comparison to the ancient Mayas continue to hold a lot of direct ties with the ancient Mayas.
On another note the struggle is not so much to say that look we're indigenous and therefore we want special rights. The struggle is saying look, under the constitution of Belize, as Belizeans Maya, we have a right to property in whatever form without discrimination. And for too long we've raised our concerns and we've talked with the government and we've tried to bring these issues up to the discussion table and they've gone unheard. So we're forced to take a legal approach. We're forced to say, look we've tried everything else and it has done nothing. So we're at a new level and saying look, we are going to add legal pressure."
Christina Coc is the sister in law of the deceased Mayan leader Julian Cho. The first hearing for the constitutional case between the villages of Conejo and Santa Cruz and the government of Belize has been set for early May.
