MLA Says Government Is “Imagining” What Maya Customary Tenure Should Be
The Maya Leaders Alliance says the Government of Belize’s entire approach to Maya customary land tenure is based on its own interpretation rather than centuries of established Maya land use.
The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) declined to clarify part of the 2015 Maya land rights consent order on Thursday.
“My first reaction is that it seems that the court doesn’t want to get involved at this point until it is clear to them that the legislation that the government puts forward will be inconsistent with the consent order and the lower court’s ruling,” said Alliance spokesperson Cristina Coc after CCJ’s decision.
Coc argued that the real dispute is not whether Maya customary land exists, but how the government intends to recognise and protect it. She says the position affirmed by Senior Counsel Edmund Andrew Marshalleck on the government’s behalf was based on “imagination of what should be or could be based.”
“That’s what Mr Marshalleck’s position was,” Coc said. “It starts with the imagination in his mind that he’s the one imagining what Maya customary land tenure should look like.”
She argued that Maya customary land tenure is based on generations of existing land use and cannot be reduced to what government officials believe is appropriate.
“The problem that we find with the government is that while they say they know our custom, they want to give us a maximum area, which they measure as five acres per person to measure our land based on population size,” Coc added
“If all you will do is sit in your office and imagine what it should be, then of course you are going to accept that five acres should be enough. Because in your imagination, that is enough,” she said. “The Maya people don’t imagine. We are not imagining how we’re using the land. We are using the land right now. We have our practice on the land right now. There is a way in which we fish and we gather and we hunt and we use the land, and that is not restricted to five acres.”