Letter of the Day | You won’t take away our home

THE EDITOR, Madam:

I was born and raised in Little Bay, a small fishing community 23 kilometres southeast of Negril. I’ve called one house my home for my entire life, and I am almost 40 years old. Four generations of us have lived in this house: my grandfather, my mother, myself, my children and my nieces and nephews. Many other families in our community have lived in the same house for several generations. We want the opportunity to purchase the land our homes are on.

On April 6, an excavator was hauled in to begin the process of demolishing hundreds of homes, including my own, in the name of “development”. This is the latest dilemma resulting from a land dispute that has been going on for over 20 years. In the early 2000s, a white man called a meeting to inform the residents of three beachfront communities, Little Bay, Brighton and Salmon Point, that he had purchased 1,000 acres of land on which our homes are located and we would have to find somewhere else to live.

There’s a principle of real estate law in Jamaica known as adverse possession or “squatters rights”. Anyone who has been living unmolested on private property for over 12 years has the legal right to own that land. We the people of Little Bay, Brighton, and Salmon Point have long surpassed the required years to acquire our properties through this law. Why, then, have the courts ruled against us on two occasions? Why have we been strategically barred from owning property? Why has our member of parliament, Morland Wilson, done absolutely nothing to assist us? Whose interests are our politicians defending?

PLAN FOR PROPERTY

The plan for the property is the construction of two five-star hotels and two PGA golf courses. How tragic! Jah know. Jamaica does not need more hotels or, worse yet, more environmentally hazardous golf courses. Jamaica does not need yet another development plan that does not benefit the citizens of our country. We need community tourism so that entire communities can, as Popcaan seh, level up.

We need a government that puts the rights of Jamaicans first, before anything or anyone else. Jamaicans need access to land to help create generational wealth.

We need to preserve and protect our homes, our land, and all the species that inhabit it. We the people of Little Bay, Brighton and Salmon Point will continue to fight the destructive energy of racism, classism and injustice that relentlessly attacks ambitious, hard-working Jamaicans. We will continue to protect our homes, families, culture, and lives. We will not give up. We will get up and stand up for our right to land.

WAYNE NEWLAND

Little Bay

Westmoreland