The Violence of Disavowing Indigenous Governance: Exposing the Colonial Politics of “Development” and FPIC in the Caribbean

Abstract

After decades of organising and a protracted legal battle, Maya communities of southern Belize won a watershed land rights victory in the Caribbean Court of Justice in 2015. Since then, the state has criminalised environmental defenders, violated communal land rights, and is argued by Maya activists and alcaldes (village leaders) from Toledo District to be operating in bad faith. This Grassroots article––which explicitly draws from the grounded knowledge of Indigenous resistance, an autonomous social movement, and engaged “accompliceship”––casts critical light on a recent flashpoint conflict between the Government of Belize and Maya communities related to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent. The analysis we offer from an anticolonial standpoint is instructive about broader social, political, and environmental challenges related to capitalist “development,” (postcolonial) state power, and struggles for Indigenous self-determination.