Ajq'ijab Organizations' (Mayan spiritual guides) represented on the Commission for Definition of Sacred Places, attached to the Peace Secretariat SEPAZ today urged Congress of the Republic prompt approval of the Holy Places Law, which seeks to ensure the recognition, respect, dignity, use, preservation, management and access to holy sites and the preservation of natural resources to indigenous peoples the effects of climate change.
"The passage of the law of holy places will take an important step in building a truly multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual. It is also based on the Constitution of the Republic of Guatemala, the Framework Law of the Peace Accords, in Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization and the Convention for the Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage, "said Felipe Gómez, coordinator of the committee referred.
The petition was supported by the Roving Ambassador of Indigenous Peoples, Cirilo Pérez Oxlaj who recalled other religious expressions in Guatemala have their own autonomous spaces, so that support for the bill from the parliament would become a historical memory and recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples of Guatemala. Rep. Walter
Felix, chairman of the Committee for Peace and Demining regretted that his parliamentary colleagues have not passed one bill that benefit indigenous peoples, as called for greater commitment to the initiative Act 3835 Sacred Sites of Indigenous Peoples, since from the legislative palace is little support, except for some members with a social conscience and country.
addition, officials from the Ministry of Culture and Sports, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food, Department of Peace, Office of Indigenous Women and Women's Presidential Secretariat joined the demand for Mayan spiritual leaders, stating that Members must pass the speech in favor of indigenous peoples to legislative actions on behalf of the Maya, Garifuna and Xinca, otherwise it would violate the rights of indigenous peoples and would be back in building peace.
