3 weeks ago, we told you about the announcement from the Toledo Alcaldes Association. They want to go back to the Supreme Court to compel the Government to move faster in rolling out a Maya land rights system which protects the communal nature of the 39 communities in the south
Another part of their statement from that time which we didn't touch is the complaint that the Village of Santa Cruz has against Belizean Rupert Myles.
The village of Santa Cruz, which was a claimant in the original Maya Land Rights case, continues to be displeased with the Rupert Myles situation. As you may remember, the village accused him of squatting on their revered ancient Mayan temple, Uxbenka.
Just 8 days ago, Dr. John Morris, the Director of Archaeology at NICH told 7News that Myles has vacated the site. Well, Toledo Alcaldes Association disputes that and says that Myles remains on the property, despite their request that he vacate and remove his house. So, both he and the Government of Belize have been named as defendants in one of the actions filed at the Supreme Court.
Now, the last time that Dr. Morris spoke with 7News on this issue, he told us that it was more or less resolved. So, when we caught up with him last week Wednesday, we asked him for his thoughts on the Toledo Alcalde's lawsuit in the Supreme Court:
Dr. John Morris, Director of Archaeology
"I am aware of the lawsuit, but I think that it is a bit premature because we are trying to work with Mr. Myles and we are trying to work out so that we can remove the structure off the mound. When you consider that around the entire country of Belize we've had issues such as these. In fact we recently completed one in Corozal where a person had built on the mound and we spoke to them, we worked with them and they moved off the mound. It happens all over the country and it's a process of negotiation with people. You don't want to fill up the courts with needless lawsuits when you can literally sit down and work these issues out. This is a case where we have been working with Mr. Myles, one of the problems with this particular case is that Mr. Myles has indicated to us that the structure that he added to was actually built by his father-in-law. His father-in-law is a villager of the same Santa Cruz village, so the question is do you move the portion that Mr. Myles built and leave the portion that his father-in-law put up there? It doesn't make sense to us. The institute of archeology will remove all the structures on top of the mound. Again, it's just a matter of time, it's just a matter of us negotiating with Mr. Myles and his father-in-law as to where they'd want us to put these structures. You do it in a very transparent way so that you don't end up in court again for another case where you destroy somebody else's property."
The next action that the Toledo Alcalde's Association is taking to court centers around the complaints from village of Jalacte. The involves, quote, "redress for the government's…taking of village lands and resources". The villagers from Jalacte say that the Government appropriated at least 60 acres of their village land for the newly paved highway, and the construction of the Medfly Inspection Center and the Agricultural Outreach Station. Now as viewers will remember, the Mayans complained about it last year, and Agricultural Ministry CEO, Jose Alpuche explained that these facilities were built to assist all the farmers living in that area.
We'll keep following the story to see if these issues actually go to a full court hearing before they are resolved.
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