THE ANCESTRAL MAYAN CITY EL MIRADOR IS NOT FOR NEGOTIATION, IS NOT FOR SALE, IT IS RESPECTED
Ajq’ija’, Ajme’s, Ajaq’omanela’, Aj Ilonel, Ajchinamitali’ e K’amaltab’ey Illoma and other specimens of Mayan culture, inherited from the ancestral wisdom of Mayan civilization, of our roots and our trunk which orient us to reconstruct Good Living, organized in distinct Councils of Mayan territory, we pronounce against the project of archeologist Richard Hansen and his associates, both in Guatemala and in the exterior, to construct a “Touristic Route in the Birthplace of Mayan civilization, in the ancient Mayan city named El Mirador, located in the Mayan Biosphere Reserve, in the department of Petén”.
For several years information has circulated that North American universities and some Guatemalan archeologists were performing archeological studies. When the State is permissive it is because those who administer it are partners with transnational businesses, which are only interested in converting what they have in their sight into merchandise, and generating business opportunities for themselves.
It has become public knowledge that Mr. Hansen, a US archeologist, receives financing from the United States government and the Mormon Church to conduct his excavations. It is also evident that, of some 27 years of the residence of Mr. Hansen in El Mirador, little or nothing is known of his findings; these supposed scientific investigations could contribute to history or to deepen knowledge about Mayan culture.
Since 2002, it is known that Hansen has sought to have control over more than 3,000 square km of the Mayan Biosphere Reserve (cf. Teena Clipston). We affirm that the Mayan Biosphere Reserve and archeological centers “are not for sale or rent”. For us, they are centers that give us information about biological diversity; the constructions inform us about engineering, astronomy, agriculture, mathematics, systems of governance, food systems and their ways of thinking. Thus we ask: where is the information from 27 years of exploration and research projects? Has he achieved the scientific objectives proposed in his completed research projects? Surely the university that sustains him can and should reply to this question. Furthermore, questions occur to us concerning his studies: where was he educated and what was his graduating thesis? This information could explain to us the reason for so much avarice and disrespect toward Mayan heritage. Hansen, you yourself know that your project has benefitted us in little or nothing. Several questions have arisen concerning your curriculum vitae, your business connections and relations; we need answers about these matters.
Now we know that Mr. Hansen has political and investment allies. Amongst the politicians are Senators Jim Inhofe (R., Oklahoma), Tom Udall (D., New Mexico) and Jim Risch (R., Idaho). These Senators presented Proposal 3131 on December 19, 2019. The Proposal is known as “The Mirador-Calakmul Basin Maya Security & Conservation Partnership Act”. The Senators in their imperialist vision as promoters of the law in question are violating the peoples’ sovereignty. They take decisions over the territorial, historic and cultural patrimony of the Mayan people without “free, prior and informed” consultation, as established by Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (Article 6). It is another violation of the collective and historic rights of the Mayan people concerning their historic and cultural millennial patrimony.
Archeological investigations conducted with transparency, scientific rigor, committed to the historic rights of the Mayan people, have contributed to the understanding and reconstruction of history and Mayan culture. This is not so with the extractivist, mercantilist work and piracy of Mr. Hansen and his associates. We are indignant that, in his mercantilist projects, he uses us as objects of study and merchandise for tourism. It is not true that that these projects will lift us Mayans out of poverty, but instead it is the investors who see great returns, in detriment to the Mayan Biosphere Reserve (biodiversity) and the millennial Mayan legacy.
We know that many Mayan archeological artifacts are in private collections and public museums in the United States and Europe. With these artifacts not only do they expropriate the object but also ancestral Mayan knowledge. Will this project be the continuation of the piracy into the twenty-first century? They have expropriated unique historical and cultural treasures, just as in the period of the [Spanish] invasion and colonization. Mr. Hansen is an inheritor of the piracy and colonialism, and is an agent of imperialist neocolonialism. We do not want him any longer in the Mayan Biosphere Reserve, nor his diseased mercantilist projects.
In the ancient constructions, Mayan sages have found several paintings, engravings and sculptures which show us distinct designs, use of colors and media, historical writings, geometry and links to the constellations, visions of the dimensions of the world and the universe, and the permanent dialog with them, amongst other things; it is all those dimensions that bring us close to the basis and form of the scientific labor of our peoples, who inter-related all knowledge rather than dividing it, as the dominant Eurocentric science does.
Some years ago, archeologist Hansen took a few Mayan guides to conduct ceremonies in El Mirador. Conducting these activities was to show that he is an ally of the Mayan spiritual guides, a falsehood sold as truth. We do not know if there was dishonesty on the part of the spiritual guides or if they were betrayed in conducting ceremonies in El Mirador with said person; they will have to explain this.
The tangible and intangible cultural patrimony related to the ancestral Mayan city, El Mirador, is merchandized by Mr. Hansen, seeking to appropriate the line of commerce called spiritual tourism, in the context of the spiritual crisis of the consumerist society. Hansen and his associates intend that people sated with a society of consumption should come to El Mirador to nourish themselves on Mayan spiritual wealth, and he, as an intermediary, only visualizes exploitation of the Mayans by assuring returns for the investors and himself personally. One of the archeologists who gave back information to the Mayan People has left this phrase: The Eternal Mayans. We can confirm this after having survived the genocide of the invasion, slavery and indoctrination of the period of Spanish colonization, then the alienation, assimilation and integration of indigenismo of the republic. To that is added the land theft, impoverishment and lately interculturalism with the policy of “the permitted Indian”. We original peoples have confronted so many attempts at annihilation,but have resisted and are alive to be able to say: if we are eternal, we will return to resurface.
Many archeologists have denied the historical continuity of the Mayan people, separating the ancient from the present; it is their pseudoscientific formula that attempts to break the link between antiquity and the present. The historic and cultural resistance of the Mayan and other peoples was able to guard the unquestionable linkage between the Mayans of yesterday and those of today.
During the period of the colonization and resistance, our ancestors did not go to the official school, because they did not have access, and because their parents resisted sending them because it was an institution charged with formatting the thought of the new generations. In the oral tradition, various types of knowledge were preserved, which in parallel were registered in books of great significance, such as the sacred book, El Popol Wuj. What we said is confirmed, in Izapa we find chapters from the creation; in Takalik Ab’aj, the passage about Ixq’anil, who accompanied Ixkik’ when they left Xibalba; in Tonima we find the passage in which Jun Ajpu and Ixb’alamke played ball in Xib’alb’a; and in Ceibal we find Tojil with his hand of fire. Thus, various Mayan constructions confirm what our sacred book says. The content of Popol Wuj does not date from only four hundred years ago, it comes from thousands of years. It is certain that they developed it together with Tikal, Yaxja, and El Mirador, amongst others.
Mayan scientific knowledge related to the health-illness system is linked to astronomical, herbal and psychological knowledge, and the practice of spirituality itself, a legacy of our ancestors that has no expiration because it arises from life and is for life.
We Mayan sages are part of a great project of life based in the hope for Good Living for the Peoples, this great project that confronts greed and the risk of destruction by extractivist projects such as that of El Mirador by the Pirate archeologist and his national and international associates.
In light of the above, we demand:
- That Senators Jim Inhofe (R., Oklahoma), Tom Udall (D., New Mexico) and Jim Risch (R., Idaho) withdraw Proposal 3131, known as “The Mirador-Calakmul Basin Maya Security & Conservation Partnership Act”. That it not be approved, because there are several Mayan and non-Mayan communities, organizations, institutions and professionals that are against it.
- That Mr. Hansen leave; they need you in your university and Mormon Church. Leave El Mirador. Based on our right to free self-determination, we demand the results of your investigations, which might eventually be of use to us. It is certain that you have been well paid during all those years that you were in El Mirador. We demand the return of the Mayan artifacts which are in private and public museums outside our borders.
- Mr. Hansen, calling on your ethics, we demand that you turn over to the Mayan People, represented by its Ancestral Authorities organized in Councils, all of the information obtained during your stay in our territory, since it is our historical patrimony, and that you do not commercialize said information obtained in the excavations; time and its generations will attest to the fulfilment of this commitment.
- Our position absolutely does not support those economically and politically powerful groups that, in Guatemala, are also vying for the El Mirador project for their business. With the same force with which we criticize the expropriation that Mr. Hansen intends, we also criticize expropriation by groups that operate in Guatemala which, as we know, have co-opted the Guatemalan State.
- No project behind the backs of the living forces of the Mayan People, of the communities that inhabit the locations that are being explored, particularly their representative organizations at the local and national level. To all of the forces of the Mayan People, Spiritual Authorities, Ancestral Authorities, Indigenous Governments, organizations of every type, intellectuals and professionals, we make a call for vigilance of our territory and of our possessions. To ally ourselves with power signifies a defeat for our Peoples and for our individual lives.
THE MAYAN CITY, EL MIRADOR,
IS NOT FOR NEGOTIATION, IS NOT FOR SALE, IT IS RESPECTED
Ixim Ulew New B’aqtun, June 28, 2020
MAYAN COUNCILS OF SAGES
AJKEMAB RECH KASLEMAL, WALKERS FOR LIFE AND WORLD PEACE,
KOMON MAYAB’ COLLECTIVE OF MAYAN ORGANIZATIONS,
WUKUB’ AJPU MAYAN COUNCIL
