Tonight, the indigenous Mayan communities of the Toledo District continue to celebrate a major judgment that the village of Jalacte has won in the Supreme Court.
Acting Chief Justice Michelle Arana has granted the villagers an award of damages in the total of just over 6 million dollars. The judge has arrived at the conclusion that the Barrow Administration violated the customary land rights of Jalacte Village. Between March 2013 and November 2015, the then government entered into a 47-million-dollar contract with CISCO Construction to fully upgrade the rural road from the Dump area, all the way to the edge of Jalacte.
It was celebrated as a major infrastructure upgrade for the residents of the Toledo District who live or travel through that area for visits to the Belize/Guatemala Border. Back then, Jalacte was well-known for the unregulated, cross-border interaction between Belize and the neighboring Guatemalan village of Santa Cruz.
All those works were well-intended, but details have come out in the Supreme Court that in order to get these projects done, the Barrow Government made a compulsory acquisition of over 31 acres of customary lands that belonged to residents of Jalacte.
So, the villagers sued the government for violation of their rights and the destruction of their farmlands. They got a full hearing before Chief Justice Arana back in 2018, and yesterday, she delivered a major slap-down judgment against the Government.
In her written decision, the judge says, quote, "This case should never have arisen. The Defendants were aware of Maya customary land tenure along the route of the road in Jalacte; they were aware that agricultural lands would be damaged, and compensation would be needed; they were aware of Maya fears that the new road would increase pressure on their land tenure by outsiders, and they were aware that it was a constitutional violation to ignore Maya customary rights." End quote.
Among other reliefs, she ordered that the government must return all vacant lands that were acquired for these projects. Additionally, she ordered the government to pay the villagers of Jalacte a little over 6.3 million dollars in damages.
This evening, the Maya Leaders Alliance and the Toledo Alcaldes Association hosted a Zoom press conference to note the outcome of the case and, of course, to take a victory lap. Here's what one of the attorneys for the claimants had to say about the findings of fact in this lawsuit:
We also asked the attorney about the challenges that the Briceno Government will face in complying with this judgment:
This evening, the Maya Leaders Alliance and the Toledo Alcaldes Association publicly congratulated the village of Jalacte for their perseverance and patience with the court process that has now produced this victory. Here's what their spokesperson had to say:
