The two seminars are part of a pilot program for the preparation of a 25 module training that under the auspices of VIVAT International has been prepared by the North American province of Justice and Peace team and that in a few months will be available on line.

The seminar held in the Guatemalan Petén region has added two specific contributions to the initiative: it has highlighted the various situations that serious land grabbing issues might create, and the Maya people’s express their feelings towards Mother Nature.

To understand the Petén's specific problem with land, we have to step back a bit.

Over  a Guatemala’s  global extension of about 108,000 square kilometers –just about  37.000 km2 - 1/3 of it- is occupied by Petén with a population of scarcely 800,000, a fraction of the 16-20 million of the country’s total. Data should be viewed with caution. The local media complain about the absence of a recent census, the last one perhaps dating from 2002.

The visit to Tikal -the main city of old Maya- has revealed surprising information. In the so called “classic” period, the moment of splendor of the Maya’s dominance, Tikal was a city of 150,000 inhabitants with hundreds of temples, pyramids, ritual altars, all built with local materials: the massive local extraction – the highest pyramid is a compact 76m ensemble- and the necessity of giving room for  subsistence products led to an unforeseen damage of the sorrounding forest.

Maize, the staple of the Maya diet, needs abundant water. The deforestation triggered  a progressive shortage of rainfall, the only source of drinking water and of irrigation in that area. To this situation the Maya‘s religious mindset responded with more temples and votive altars to the god of rain:  the necessity of more building materials and the resulting destruction of the forest triggered a vicious circle that caused a period of about 30 years of drought. Little by little, beginning from the rich and the nobility with their servitude, followed by the priest and the common people, the town became deserted.  At the end the poor people too left, after ritually decapitating the god of the rain, as it is witnessed by the bas-relief of the latest altar in town. Tikal‘s town was sucked up by the forest –only through the satellite pictures could it be spotted again– and the area of Peten abandoned: remained on the Mopan Maya, a minority group among the last of the last.

The overpopulated western region of the country and capital, Ciudad de Guatemala –counting today about 7-8 million  people– convinced the recent governments to promote the repopulation of the immense Petén area.  The Q’eqchi, representing the Tikal‘s social classes of servants, slaves and poor people having always been the peasants– responded en mass: I met a lot of families that moved over from the same village 25-30 years ago. In Petén they bought areas of fertile soil very cheaply. Only San Louis Parish numbers about 180 rural communities, little villages and hamlets of 20-30 families, besides more populated centers, that came to life because of internal immigration.

This is the historical basis of one of the most serious occurrences happening in the Petén area: the trade of plots of land. The peasants mesmerised by the money of the animal breeders and the new brand of landowners accept the offer to sell their lands at a price 20-30 or even 40 times above their purchase price, squander the money quickly and fall back into poverty. It is sick at heart to listen to the peasants faithful to their land and their work, every day more surrounded by landowners: those landowners now close the access to their land or to the water in order to convince them to sell their plots in between the large expanses of grazing grounds or of commercial products destined to towns or abroad.

Land still remains the dream horizon of the Q’eqchi and of the Mopan culture and now has become the soul of the so called “castellanos”. It is a mistake to think the Maya disappeared into the forest. The Tikal Maya empire came to a bad end and did fade away. The same that happened to the imperial capitals like Babylon and Rome, Greece and Assyria, Paris and London. Not the Maya and not their culture, living in in the 22 different Maya ethnic groups that cherish their interest for the care and the benefit of Mother Earth. After every session of the seminar the participants came up with many questions about how is it possible to tackle the squalor of forest and the villages, of the water, air and soil pollution; how to get rid of plastic bags without burning them and, by so doing, contaminating the atmosphere, and of the burned oil without spilling it into the soil and the rivers. Those are the preoccupations we find going through the decisions of the seminars.

They were decisions that answered three questions:

What do we suggest: We suggest to  form a committee  to develop an ACTION PLAN articulated  by a Vision on Life, a Mission to implement, the objectives and the strategies capable to stop the selling off of further land. This committee should become the real expression of an Association of the indigenous communities of Maya Q’eqchi’ and Mopan.

What do we ask: We ask that Christians may be "formed" in the ecclesial ministry of social justice, involving all religious faiths, state bodies and all organizations fighting for the protection of life and nature. We have to speak and make people aware on these issues. We have to work for reaching unanimity and for working together in order to stop the loss of more lands. One idea is to send an open letter to the communities –better if it is signed by a bishop– urging all not to give away any more plots of land. We have to put forward simple initiatives, such as the cleaning of ditches and of roads, the planting of trees, and enhancing solidarity among all the people and make communities more aware of the problem of water pollution. The parish should become the organizer of these and other initiatives.

The participation and the determination of dozens of indigenous leaders and of peasants has been the best proof that the intuition of promoting this training is well-founded: the only people with the right and the strength to raise constantly their voice against these injustices are the peasants, the small farmworkers and the very indigenous people themselves because they are the victims!