P.M. says he supports Maya rights but problem is complex
They came by the hundreds from Toledo’s villages to express their dissatisfaction with government’s failure to demarcate land for Maya communities. They left behind a pair of constitutional lawsuits in the Supreme Court that seek to compel Belmopan to act. Today, in response, Prime Minister Said Musa told News Five that while government has in some instances been slow to make good on its commitments, the problem is not as simple as it may seem.
Said Musa, Prime Minister
“It’s a very complex issue to begin with. Our government has been working very closely with the Maya Leaders Alliance and indeed the Alcalde Association and other indigenous groups representing Maya Belizeans in the Toledo district with a view to dealing with this whole issue of rights to land first of all, because land is the big issue here, as well as recognizing and respecting their customary right that they have traditionally enjoyed as indigenous people. Let me say, as point one, that we recognize, I certainly do and my government does, that the Maya people are the indigenous people of Belize, at least they are a major part of the indigenous grouping of Belize, and as such they do have certain rights which had not been respected for centuries and in fact they were exploited in the Colonial days. It was only with the Nationalist movement that recognition was given to their rights and indeed a lot of development took place since then in the Toledo district but the facts still show that they are still the most disadvantaged groups in our country based on the poverty assessment report. And all that I recognize, all that my government recognizes and we’ve been trying over the years – certainly since I became Prime Minister I know we’ve made a conscious effort to address their concerns – to ensure that they get equal rights recognized, their human rights. There is no dispute about that. Where the dispute comes in is where, and this is nothing new, they’ve been saying for some time now that they want a special homeland within Belize for the Maya people and I’m saying and I’ve said it publicly, that I will not preside over the Balkanization of Belize, that this part of Belize is strictly for the Maya, that part is strictly for the Garifuna and so on because that will result in a disintegration of our nation as Belize as we know it.”
“And what we’ve been working on is to determine who among them want to maintain communal land as such and who among them want to get title to their own land. The truth is we have been working and say okay, some of you want this thing to remain in certain villages as communal land we will respect that but there are many among you who want to get their fiat, their minister’s fiat, their title, to their individual twenty, thirty acres of land or fifty acres as the case may be. And the truth is our government has issued hundreds if not thousands of titles to Maya Belizeans as well as other Belizeans in our country so that they have their individual leases or their individual grants to their lands. It’s working through that process where the difficulties have come up and I will be the first to concede that we haven’t work as fast as I had hoped. Why? Because it’s very costly, we have to do a lot of surveys and it’s the survey cost that has held up a lot of the work.”
And while a lack of resources may be slowing the work, given the divergent visions for Toledo’s future, is a satisfactory solution even possible?
Said Musa
“The only solution that we have reached, and they have agreed to this too, is that we have to pursue a democratic solution to this thing and the democratic solution is that without holding a referendum as such in a formal way that we consult with each village and not just with the village leaders because often times some of the leaders don’t truly represent what all of them want. What we agreed was formula whereby we consult with the villagers and where the majority want it to remain communal land the government will respect that. We will survey it and leave it as communal land. But the truth is in most of the villages today many of the Maya people have already received their titles so the system has already been evolving into the modern system if you like, the market title system where they are part of the market economy but we are prepared to respect whichever system the majority want. The truth is that in most villages many of the people want their individual title so it has to be a combination.”
“We have come a long way in terms of integrating our society and in recognizing the fact that we have to provide if you like affirmative action to address the injustices of the past, to ensure that the Maya Belizean get the same amount of rights as any other Belizean. I would say let us continue the dialogue, let us continue the negotiation and the discussion. Our government is very sympathetic towards recognizing the need for us to uplift the standard of living of the Maya Belizean as indeed other indigenous groups because that is where we have the serious poverty problem. We can disagree about how we go about solving this poverty problem but let us at least discuss it and work together. Getting a constitutional case and a declaration against the government, if they succeed, is not going to solve the problem.”
When asked to comment on anti-Maya remarks made last night on The Kremandala Show by P.U.P. official Bill Lindo, Musa maintained that he was not aware of exactly what Lindo had said but that when appearing on such programmes Lindo does not speak for the People’s United Party. As for any racist statements that may have been made, the Prime Minister made it clear that such sentiments have no place in the P.U.P.
