Amicus Curiae in support of the right of the Union of Residents of Chablekal to guard the mountain
Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico, December 13, 2022Researchers who are part of the CLACSO Working Group Bodies, Territories, Resistances presented a amicus curiae (friend of the court), This document can be submitted to the appropriate court due to a group's interest in a particular situation or issue, in this case, so that the agrarian judge can consider it in their ruling. Specifically, the document was submitted last Friday to the Unitary Agrarian Court (TUA) Number 34, located in the city of Mérida.
La Union of Residents of Chablekal It is a group, as its name indicates, of residents who formed in 2014 in response to the excessive sale of their land by ejido members to real estate developers. These sales began in 2000, and since then, this town has sold 80% of its territory. For this reason, the residents question why a group of 300 people should decide the future of the entire town's land.
The discontent intensified when they began selling off the communal lands, those intended for the use and enjoyment of the entire community, not just the ejido members. “Chablekal is an Indigenous community, and the ancestral lands have been, and continue to be, part of our territory,” the document states. This realization spurred them to take possession in 2014, when their struggle began, of the Misnebalam forest, which comprises 286 hectares and which the residents have described as “the last corner of Chablekal’s ancestral territory.”
The importance of this mountain is that it is considered a sacred space due to the presence of cenotes and pre-Hispanic mounds; in 2018 a ceremony was held at its foot. nojoch muul or main mound for giving thanks for the struggle; the description of the ceremony is found in the document. Likewise, Misnebalam is also important because its young custodians consider it a kind of ecological reserve with a diversity of native plants (medicinal, forestry, timber, etc. uses) and animals (such as the Yuya, the deer, the wild turkey, among others).
These are some of the elements that the signatory researchers considered when preparing the amicus In their document, they argue, from the perspective of Mayan culture and worldview, their right to be custodians of these forests. Additionally, since November 2016, they have obtained a court order from the Agrarian Tribunal (TUA) to prevent these forests from being affected by the ejido commissioner; that is, they cannot be sold, rented, usurped, subdivided, or subjected to any other action while the legal proceedings are underway. The message of the Union of Residents is that the land belongs not only to those who work it, but also to those who care for it, protect it, and defend it.
El CLACSO Working Group Bodies, Territories, Resistances It is an interdisciplinary network made up of 45 researchers from 15 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. One of the pillars of this Working Group is to contribute, through socially engaged research, to the struggles resisting dispossession: structural, historical, symbolic, epistemic, and systemic, in order to support their demands for the recognition—in practice and not just on paper—of their rights and freedoms.
December 13th 2022
CLACSO Working Group
Bodies, territories, resistances
This statement expresses the position of CLACSO Working Group Bodies, Territories, Resistances and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.
