In a move to reverse the flagging fortunes of the ruling United Democratic Party incumbents in Toledo West and East, Prime Minister Manuel Esquivel on Sunday, December 14, along with his entourage, descended on the town of Punta Gorda to give his support to ousted Toledo Alcaldes Association chairman Leonardo Acal, and to “formally recognize the Alcaldes Association as an officially registered non-governmental organization.”At the meeting, held at the Sports Complex in Punta Gorda Town at 10:00 a.m., twenty-three alcaldes, along with their assistants, were in attendance, but reports to AMANDALA charge that the meeting, under the chairmanship of Elijio Aleman, Human Resource Officer for the Toledo District, “was carefully choreographed and controlled.”
Those who addressed the meeting included Mr. Esquivel; National Coordination and Mobilization Minister Ruben Campos; his Minister of State and Toledo West area representative, Hon. Dennis Usher; Hon. Joseph Cayetano, Minister of Science, Technology and Transportation, and Toledo East area representative; former T.A.A. chairman Acal and three executive members of the association; and Juan Ack, newly-elected chairman of the Toledo Alcaldes Association.
Campos, Usher, Cayetano and their supporters, reports are, all expressed support for the Southern Highway Project, citing its development potential for the people of the Toledo District. Campos told the meeting that he had lived in South Florida for ten years and had watched bulldozers clearing swamplands, “so that high rises and swimming pools” could be constructed. "This is how America solved its poverty crisis in Southern Florida,” Campos reportedly told the alcaldes, “and now it’s Toledo’s turn.”
Keynote speaker Prime Minister Esquivel, in referring to Guatemala’s non-recognition of Belize’s borders, expressed “disappointment” with the new Maya Atlas for referring to the Belize-Guatemala border as an “imaginary line.”
The previous day, Saturday, the Toledo Alcaldes Association had held an emergency meeting at the San Miguel Community Center to settle an internal dispute with the then chairman, Leonardo Acal. Thirty-eight alcaldes in attendance, of a possible sixty-eight, voted “unanimously ” to expel Acal through a vote of no confidence.
Acal’s rift with his association occurred because, members say, he was not properly presenting the association’s view to Government: the Alcaldes Association supported the Southern Highway Project, but insisted that Government guarantee the Mayans security of , and documentation for, their ancestral lands, through which passed the Southern Highway.
The land along the Highway, which included Maya reserve land as well as unreserved land which by right should belong to the Mayan villages, was being sold or leased to non-Mayans and other foreign business interests, charged the alcaldes, and they wanted Acal to demand documentation for all these lands as a pre-condition for their support for the Southern Highway Project.
Acal, apparently, in his meetings with Hon. Usher, insisted on none of these conditions, and simply pledged his association’s unconditional support for the highway.
Prime Minister Esquivel, in response to these demands, emphasized that, “nothing could be done concerning land distribution until proper surveys are done.” He also determined that the (ten) Maya reservations consisted of only 77,000 acres, which the Mayas say are insufficient, because only half of the 34 Mayan villages are within the reservations.
The alcaldes’ distrust of Acal also stems from charges that not only did he fail to hold association meetings and otherwise keep the association informed about his activities, but that he had become “too close to Government,” and had registered the T.A.A. as a non-governmental organization, on October 17, 1997, without their knowledge or permission.
In fact, it was the T.A.A.’s Articles of Association as an NGO which allowed the Solicitor General, Gian Gandhi, to advise the alcaldes of the T.A.A. that their actions in ousting Acal was “illegal.” Acal, it seems, had crafted a section of the Articles of Association which gave him sole power to call association meetings. Since he had not convened the meeting at which the vote of no confidence on him was called, ruled the Solicitor General, that meeting and all subsequent matters arising therefrom were illegal.
The alcaldes, for their part, maintain that no minutes of meetings held, empowered Acal to register the association as an NGO, so the Articles of Association were themselves illegal.
During the meeting, Juan Ack, elected T.A.A. chairman at Saturday’s meeting after Acal’s ouster, “jumped ship.” Instead of championing the cause of the T.A.A., he “recognized the continued chairmanship of Mr. Acal,” and declared that the T.A.A. Saturday meeting “was a setup.”
Reports are that consequently, Ack, elected at approximately 3:00 p.m. on the previous day, Saturday, was “fired” from his chairmanship the next day, Sunday, at approximately 10:00 p.m. The association is now reportedly without a chairman.
During the course of the meeting, T.A.A. representatives were refused the opportunity to speak. In fact, relations between the ruling United Democratic Party and the Toledo Alcaldes Association are so strained that on Tuesday, December 16, the T.A.A. wrote Enrique Iglesias, president of the Inter-American Development Bank, which is funding the Highway, saying that no security was given for their indigenous land, “because we are not recognized as indigenous people by Government.”
The letter to the IDB also criticized Government for “logging concessions in progress on Maya reservations without the consent of the Maya people,” and for “dragging its feet in addressing the lawsuit filed by the Toledo Maya Cultural Council and the Toledo Alcaldes Association.”
After his meeting with the alcaldes in Punta Gorda on Sunday, two letters were delivered to Prime Minister Esquivel by the Southern Alliance for Grassroots Empowerment (SAGE).
SAGE’s members are the Belize Audubon Society, the Kek’chi Council of Belize, the National Garifuna Council, the Society for the Promotion of Education and Research, the Toledo Alcaldes Association, the Toledo Maya Cultural Council, and the Toledo Maya Women Council, and they did not support Mr. Esquivel.
SAGE supported, “with slight modifications”, the position of the Maya Forum held on Thursday, December 4, 1997, which endorses the paving of the Southern Highway, provided that the Government complies with the five specific conditions as outlined in the letter addressed to Mr. Esquivel, of the same date.
These conditions require Government, inter alia, to, “seriously negotiate with indigenous people about land issues;” and that “a moratorium be implemented on the lease or sale of public lands or the issuing of concessions on those lands in the area covered in the Environmental, Social, Technical Assistance Project (ESTAP) area until six months after GOB has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with indigenous people on the land issue, and concrete steps have been taken to implement it.”
Among other proposals, SAGE wants the Project Steering committee of ESTAP be expanded to include TMCC, KCB, TMWC, NGC, and the East Indian Council and the Creole Council.
Our concrete recommendation is for accountability and transparency, said SAGE. ESTAP is a loan which must be paid back by the citizens of Belize, “who have a right to know how and for what the moneys are being used.”
Late reports to AMANDALA are that Science and Technology Minister Joseph Cayetano has signed a petroleum exploration lease in Block 12 near Toledo, which includes 749,022.36 acres, to Compania Petrolera de Atlantico, S.A, a Guatemalan company. Our sources could not, at this time, say whether Block 12 is in, or includes, a part of the Mayan reservations. </text>
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