Prince William and Kate Middleton Cancel Belize Stop on Royal Tour Amid Protests

Even before Prince William and Kate Middleton’s royal jubilee tour of the Caribbean and Central America has officially started, their visit is already causing controversy. This morning, the Cambridges canceled one of their stops in Belize, a tour of a cacao farm in the Maya Mountains, following protests by the local community.

Residents in the Indian Creek area are reportedly in dispute with Flora and Fauna International, a conservation organization William supports as royal patron. People categorized the protests as being “about colonialism and the use of a football field by the royals for landing their helicopter.”

Per the Daily Mail, which first reported on the protests, the indigenous people in the area, the Q’eqchi Maya people, “say they were not consulted about William and Kate’s visit and this week held a community meeting that was followed by yesterday’s protest.”

The Mail also quotes Sebastian Shol, the chairman of Indian Creek village, as saying, “We don’t want them to land on our land, that’s the message that we want to send. They could land anywhere but not on our land.”

Today, the Government of Belize released a statement confirming that Will and Kate will see another site related to “Maya family entrepreneurship in the cacao industry.”

It reads: “Indian Creek was one of several sites being considered. Due to issues in the village, the Government of Belize activated its contingency planning and another venue has been selected to showcase Maya family entrepreneurship in the cacao industry.”

The cancelation is an inauspicious beginning to a tour, which had previously been described as a “charm offensive” by Will and Kate to “shore up support” for the monarchy in Central American and the Caribbean following Barbados’s recent decision to forge a new republic. Barbados was the first country to replace the Queen as head of state since 1992, and their decision has sparked conversation around whether other nations in the region will follow suit.

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