Photos: 1. Cristina Coc, addressing the United Nations on the recent land rights case at the Caribbean Court of Justice. 2. Caracol temple in Belize, by Dennis Jarvis. 3. Uxebnka Archeological Site, by Elelicht.
International human rights organizations Cultural Survival and Rainforest Foundation US stand behind Maya Leaders as they Peacefully Protect their Lands.
Joint Statement by Cultural Survival, the Rainforest Foundation, and First Peoples Worldwide.
Fotos por Vera Narvaez-Lanuza
Escrito por Madeline McGill
In April 2015, Cecilia Mérida, the partner of an environmental defender who was arrested and falsely charged and imprisoned in Guatemala testified at the World Bank in Washington, D.C.
By Ben R. Ole Koissaba
Background
Statement by the Maya Leaders Alliance
April 21st, 2015 – The Caribbean Court of Justice, Belize’s highest appellant court, yesterday reaffirmed the unbroken chain of lower court affirmations that the Maya Indigenous People of southern Belize have rights to lands they have customarily used and occupied. The Court affirmed that these traditional land rights constitute property within the meaning of the provisions of the Belize Constitution that generally protect property free from discrimination.
The Maya people of Toledo are scheduled for a hearing to reaffirm their land rights case at the regional Caribbean Court of Justice in April of 2015, after almost a decade of back and forth in the national courts in Belize. Their claim to the land has been upheld twice in the Supreme Court, once in 2009 and again in 2013. The government of Belize continues to assert that the land title the Maya hold should not be considered Native or Indigenous land title, but merely based
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.
