[Aztlan] Belize Maya Land Claims

[Wayne Harrison]

Greetings,

For the last 15 years the Maya of southern Belize have been involved
in a battle to have their right to occupy and use the land they reside
on legally recognized. The Government of Belize, regardless of which
political party has been in power, has strenuously resisted the Maya
land claims, both in court and through more subversive means. The
battle continued this week in the Belize Supreme Court.  A report of
these proceedings is contained at the following link.

http://www.amandala.com.bz/index.php?id=8742

While it easy to characterize the battle of the Maya against the
Government of Belize as just one more episode in a long story of
cultural annihilation, what is of particular interest, from the
perspective of archaeologists, is the role of Dr. Jaime Awe, an
archaeologist some of you know, in the proceedings.  Dr. Awe filed an
affidavit, in support of the Government's claim that the Maya of
southern Belize have no claim to the land they live on, which
apparently stated that the Maya presently living in southern Belize
are recent immigrants, as it were, and not "historically related",
whatever that phrase might mean, to the Maya who were in the area
prior to the arrival of Europeans.  As was pointed out by Dr. Richard
Wilk, testifying for the Maya, Dr. Awe's statement is simply factually
wrong. I suspect that it would be extremely difficult to find any
support for Dr. Awe's claims among the members of this list.

The members of this list are probably more accutely aware than any
other group of the destruction wrought upon Maya culture since the
arrival of Europeans. The question is what kind of moral stand are
you, individually or collectively, prepared to take, to attempt to
stop this process before the last vestiges of Maya culture are wiped
out. For example, are you prepared to forgo research in areas
controlled by Governments hostile to Maya rights, so as not to
implicitly legitimize the power and control these Governments claim to
have over Maya artifacts and structures?  These questions are
extremely difficult and would benefit from discussion.

Wayne Harrison