Just a week ago, Rupert Myles was seized by a group of men in the tiny village of Santa Cruz in the Toledo district of southern Belize, tied up, handcuffed, led to his house, and forced to watch as his assailants–led by the village chairman–started to take it to pieces.
Rupert Myles is a black Belizean. He is married to a Mayan woman from Santa Cruz, and went to live there last October. He applied formally to the village chairman, and paid a fee.
He says his application was rejected because he is black. He says he was told that if a woman from the village marries an outsider, the couple cannot live there; she must "go and live at her man village."
As always, there are two sides to this story. Villagers say that Myles built a house without permission on land he does not own. Worse: to get road access, he bulldozed a hill which forms part of the sacred Maya site of Uxbenka. They say Myles threatened them with his (licenced) firearm. They say they took action last Sunday as a last resort, when all else had failed.
For us, Belize is a long way off. Few outsiders even begin to understand its ethnic complexities. Indeed, few Belizeans have a clear grasp of every perspective.
At the most recent census, five years ago, just over half the population were Hispanic. Black "creoles," historically the dominant group, were slightly more than one-quarter. The Maya groups made up a little more than 11 per cent; the southern district of Toledo was two-thirds Maya.
After the Rupert Myles incident, the prime minister Dean Barrow felt it necessary to react quickly. He said on Monday that the villagers' actions were "outrageous." They were "indefensible."
At around four on Wednesday morning, a police squad moved in on the village. Ten men were arrested, and taken to the Toledo district capital, Punta Gorda, around 25 miles away. They say there were not given time to get dressed, even to put on shoes and a shirt.
A few hours later, police arrested Cristina Coc of the Maya Leaders' Alliance.
The men were charged with assault and unlawful imprisonment. Cristina Coc was charged with conspiracy to commit unlawful imprisonment. All were released on bail. The case goes back to court on July 29.
In January, another non-Maya Joseph Estephan had a stand-off with Coc. He argued that he had a right to enter any village–he might ask permission, he said, but that was just an act of courtesy. She said that if he went in unannounced, he could be arrested for trespass.
Two months ago, the Caribbean Court of Justice sat for the first time in Belize, where it has replaced the Privy Council as final court of appeal.
Along with other business, it dealt with a long-running land dispute between Maya community organisations and the Government. The two sides agreed before the hearing that 33 Mayan villages in the Toledo district did have land rights, though there were important differences of opinion.
The Government–represented by the prime minister's brother, Denys–held that these were essentially squatters' rights, based on a long period of undisputed occupation. The Mayas' representatives argued that the rights derived from their status as indigenous people, whose occupation of the land long predated European (and Afro-Belizean) settlement.
The Government also disputed Mayan claims for damages in partial compensation for past wrongs. It said individuals should be responsible for settling limited claims, for example those stemming from wrongly awarded logging permits; historic injustices should be paid for by Britain, along with reparations for slavery.
The Opposition People's United Party, which holds the two Toledo seats, has generally backed Mayan community groups against the Government.
Meanwhile, not all Mayans see eye to eye. The Maya Leaders' Alliance and Toledo Alcalde Association want communal land rights, with each village holding its surrounding lands as a shared unit. The National Mopan Maya Council instead wants individual land rights.
And that's not the end of it. The small Spanish Lookout oilfield in central Belize is rapidly depleting. One of the areas which may have more oil is the mainly Mayan Toledo district in the south. A small oil company, US Capital Energy, has an oil concession which runs into a national park; it has a long-running dispute with some Mayan and environmental groups. But the oil boys claim the backing of the Toledo Alcaldes' Association.
It all looks more than messy.
A year ago, the courts ordered mediation in the oil dispute. To date, there has been no clear settlement.
After the CCJ's April ruling, the Government said that it plans to set up a commission to look at these and other vexed questions, reporting back to the court in 2016.
So far, there's no commission in place.
When it finally starts work, disputes like the one in Santa Cruz won't make its task any easier.