Since last week we've been reporting on the mass arson in Trio Village, Toledo, in which 5 homes were intentionally burnt down, and another was hauled down in a deliberate act of destruction. It happened on Thursday, and reports to police are that 5 men showed up in a Mahindra pickup truck, and started to set fire to the farmers' homes. We're reliably informed that a BDF retiree's name has been called by one of the alleged arsonists who was caught by police in Belize District.
Police continue to put the pieces together, but for those families living in Trio, they are absolutely convinced that the culprits acted on behalf of a Chinese landowner who had purchased the land they are squatting on. Having seen the destruction visited on these 5 families, the rest of the community is taking no more chances. They are actively trying to regularize the land ownership situation, which they say successive Government administrations promised, but never delivered on.
Today, a group of those residents, who are members of the Trio Farmers Committee travelled from their Toledo Village to Belmopan to seek an audience with the Prime Minister. They say that they wrote a letter to him in September a few months after they received lawyer letters from the Chinese landowner's attorneys, which demanded that they vacate the land by the end of that month. Seems that letter never reached the Prime Minister's desk, and so today, they showed up hoping that he would be able to make time for them. But he was unavailable since it was Cabinet day.
We spoke with them outside the Cabinet building, and they told us that they hope that someone in power will try to help them:
David Hernandez, Trio Village Resident
"We have some villagers here from Trio Village. They are here because in the past week some of their houses were burnt down. They are here trying to get the assistance of the government, trying to get the people on our side. This is not a last week thing, this is our whole lives. I'm 20 years old and since then I've been living in Trio Village on the land you are talking about and knowing that we have some people on our land who have gotten authorization from the Ministry of Lands for them to survey some land and now this man comes and say we should flee from his land. So now, we can't just believe him that this his land in just a few months and he has bought the land. What we are trying to do is trying to get the assistance from the government. How have people received permission to survey land and now it has been sold. What has happened to this land now? So that's what we are trying to find out."
Francis Sanchez, Rep., Agriculture Sector - Toledo
"I am representing the agriculture sector there. I've been dealing with several groups of farmers who are farming in these villages coming from Trio, Bella Vista, San Isidro and all the other surrounding villages. We are there as a group of people in one working together hand in hand producing and shipping pineapple to the Pomona factory, shipping plantains to the markets in Belize and Belmopan cities. All of these productions have been coming out from that same land these people are working on. So I said for 30 years now, these people are living there. Fruits trees are there. Coconuts and oranges and all different types of crops are there. We did have a correspondence from the Ministry of Lands, the commissioner Mr. Vallejos when we went and present this farming lands to him. They come together with Minister Gaspar Vega about this same problems here with the lands. Finally we came together and we brought this into the office and then the commissioner Vallejos write us a paper to go to the ministry of lands in Toledo Mr. Ferguson and the inspector of police Alvarez. He was there present there also when we went to recognize the linings that separate Trio from Bladen."
"So the government was aware of it, because we were there representing these things for these farmers. But apparently it was behind and nothing has gotten resolved and it reach to this point now that these people are suffering the consequence now. What can be done to help these farmers into their needs at the present moments, especially the ones whose houses got burnt down, we need to find shelter for these people."
Julio Solarez, Trio Village Resident
"I would appreciate if the government would solve our problem. We are in agriculture and we want to work to maintain our families, doing an honest living."
Those villagers told us that the victims of the arson were waiting on the officials from the NEMO Ministry to make a visit to the site of their destroyed home to make assessments. That visit was to have happened today.
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