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Earlier we told you about the Maya land rights case that’s being heard in the Supreme Court. Attorney Antoinette Moore is representing villagers from twenty-three villages in the Toledo district – but what really are their rights to the lands they are claiming? The Government’s position backed up by archaeologist Dr. Jaime Awe is that the ancestors of the Mayas now living in Belize did not continuously occupy Southern Belize because when the Spanish arrived, they were all relocated to Guatemala. Anthropologist and Archaeologist, Professor Richard Wilk took the stand to refute that today. Wilk says that statement is factually wrong.

Richard Wilk, Anthropologist
“There is an old idea that at one time the entire Toledo District was empty and there was no one living there for hundreds of years and we have discovered over the last 20 years very good evidence that that is not true and that people were hiding and didn’t want to be home. Of course they had very good reasons not to want to be found because their experience of the Spanish and the British buccaneers was not very good. So it has taken some time to find that evidence but I think now there is no question that there were Mayan people living in the Toledo District from thousands of years ago, right up to present day.”

The Attorney General is being represented in the case by Lois Young. Young is expected to make their submissions to the court on Thursday.