By: Devina Samaroo
A Belizean delegation is looking to learn from Guyana’s experiences with its Amerindian Act as their own country is in the process of drafting legislation regarding the indigenous peoples of the Central American nation.
The Amerindian Peoples Association (APA) recently hosted the delegation from the Toledo Alcaldes Association (TAA) and the Maya Leaders Alliance (MLA) from Belize’s Mayan community.
The team, jointly led by President of the TAA Andres Kus and their spokesperson Cristina Coc, visited several indigenous communities including Imbaimadai, Wakapao, Kambaru, and Omanaik where they met with leaders to better understand the issues faced by their villages as well as their achievements.
Belize Legislation
Government officials from Belize, also a Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Member State, had last year visited Guyana to learn about measures in place to support the development of indigenous communities here.
Belize’s Minister of Rural Transformation, Community Development, Labour and Local Government Oscar Requena had engaged Guyana’s Minister of Amerindian Affairs Pauline Sukhai as well as visited some hinterland communities to learn about the country’s indigenous experiences.
Belize’s Prime Minister John Briceño had also visited Guyana where the two countries signed an agreement which among other things, allowed for cooperation on best practices for indigenous peoples’ development.
The Government of Belize is in the process of implementing measures in keeping with a ruling by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) that Mayan communities are constitutionally entitled to land rights they currently occupy.
The implications of this ruling are significant in that the Government of Belize can no longer issue land titles, concessions, licenses or permits without the consultation of the villagers, since the land is recognised as belonging to the communities.
In this regard, Belize is looking to develop its own indigenous protection legislation.
Guyana Experiences
Amid news that the Belize Government is looking to learn from Guyana with regards to indigenous peoples’ rights, advocacy groups TAA and MLA decided to visit the country on an information exchange programme to learn about the realities of Amerindian peoples here.
Coc, during an interview with this publication on Friday, explained that there are a lot of commonalities between Guyana and Belize.
“We have some of the same struggles of our indigenous communities…,” she remarked, noting that globally, the challenges facing indigenous communities are seemingly “never-ending”.
While the rights groups of Belize laud the move of their government to create legislation recognising the rights of the country’s indigenous population, Coc said there are some concerns.
“We are aware that the government of Belize made a recent visit to the Government of Guyana to learn from their experience of the Amerindian Act. But their exchange fell short in my opinion because they never really consulted or met with indigenous communities to inquire about the impacts or the limitations or even the perception of the Amerindian Act, where it concerns the people whose rights its speaking to.”
Coc added that Guyana’s Amerindian Act, while laudable for its recognition of indigenous rights, has several limitations and inconsistencies with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
“It’s very concerning if in fact the Government of Belize is considering mirroring the Amerindian Act in the state that it is,” she explained.
Notwithstanding, she noted that there is still a lot Belize can learn from Guyana’s experiences, especially from the perspective of the Amerindians.
“We will lean on them to continue to help us to understand what we some of the red flags we should be looking out for as we engage with our government to build a legislation that would encompass and that would honour the recognition and affirmed rights that we now have in southern Belize,” Coc expressed.
Expanding on this point, the spokesperson noted that the advocacy groups can now ensure that in the new legislation, there must be strong safeguards against the exploitation of resources from indigenous communities and better measures for the autonomy of indigenous peoples to make their own decisions and to be self-determining when it comes to the development of their land.
Moreover, she said learning from the Guyana experience, the Belizean organisations can lobby for their government to ensure a better balancing act in the law to resolve third party interests with regards to indigenous lands.
Coc pointed out that it is very common in indigenous communities globally wherein resources earned from ancestral lands are not reinvested in said communities, resulting in indigenous peoples struggling with access to basic services.
This, she indicated, is something Belize will have to legislatively, guard against.
Long-term partnership
Noting that the groups only visited a small percentage of the 240 indigenous communities in Guyana, Coc expressed hope to return in the future to visit more villages and further learn from their individual experiences.
In fact, she expressed hope that this initial visit sets the foundation for a “long partnership” between the indigenous groups of the two countries.
Moreover, she pointed out that the relationship does not have to be one-way stream, and rather, Guyana can also learn from the Belize experiences.
In fact, it is her hope that Belize can put forward a model legislation regarding indigenous protection which Guyana can in turn learn from, especially in light of its planned revision of the Amerindian Act.
The current governing administration has announced its intention to revise and update the Amerindian Act of 2006, with some $10M being set aside last year to begin consultations.
Coc lauded the fact that the Guyana Government recognises the importance to revise the law to make it better.
Mayan History
The three Maya groups in Belize are the Yucatec, Mopan, and Q’eqchi’ Maya. The country now known as Belize was originally a key part of the ancient Maya civilization, which began expanding around 1000 BCE.
The physical ‘boundaries’ of the ancient Mayan empire spanned the countries of modern-day Guatemala, Belize, the western parts of Honduras and El Salvador and the five Mexican states of Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Campeche and Chiapas.
Ancient Maya cities established far-reaching production and trade networks as well as temples and religious centres and developed writing, mathematics and astronomy, which allowed them to monitor other planets and predict eclipses.
Maya territory in Belize supported an estimated population of 1 to 2 million people. Belize was the home of the earliest Maya settlements. The earliest known settled community in the Maya world is Cuello in the Orange Walk District of Belize. Archaeologists have found evidence that trace Cuello to as far back as 2000 BC.
The Maya of southern Belize have experienced a harsh history of colonisation and continue to be deprived of their human rights, especially in relation to the lands and resources that they have traditionally used and occupied.
Coc explained that “when it concerns cultural heritage and the management of those heritage sites, indigenous peoples in Belize struggle because where our cultural heritage sites are, are not within the direct control of the people themselves. There’s been a lot of struggles to make visible the living Mayan people and not just the stories of an ancient time. We’re also not a people who are from a culture that is static, our culture is constantly evolving, we are adapting to new realities…”
Among the most famous sites found in Belize are Caracol, Xunantunich, Altun Ha, La Milpa, and Lamanai. Each is unique unto itself, and each reveals another aspect of the Mayan civilization.
Today, the Maya makes up about 11 per cent of Belize’s population. Most Maya live in traditional villages but some also live near the now-ruined cities of the Ancient Maya Empire.
