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. 

Photos by Peg Hunter, 

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

Translated and reposted from CHIRAPAQ

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