‘We need help’ - Cooper’s Pen residents return to the streets, plead for relocation as demolition threat hangs over community

WESTERN BUREAU:

“Where are you, Mr Prime Minister? Where are you? We need help.”

It was the anguished cry from Cooper’s Pen, on Saturday morning as residents, some already homeless and others fearful that their houses could be next, returned to the streets demanding intervention and relocation in the wake of a demolition exercise that has shaken the Trelawny community.

Dressed in white and armed with placards, the residents gathered along the North Coast Highway from early morning, insisting that they are no longer looking merely for temporary assistance.

They want somewhere to live.

“We need somebody to come talk to us and relocate us. We need that,” pleaded Junior Cummings, one of the demonstrators.

Cummings appealed directly to Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness to put himself in the position of families now confronting the possibility of losing everything they have spent decades building.

“Mr Prime Minister, if you were in our position, what would you do?” he asked.

“If you say you are here for the people, why don’t you stand up for the people? ... Where are you, Mr Prime Minister? Where are you? We need help.”

The demonstration came 11 days after an early-morning operation on August 11 demolished approximately 20 squatter houses, displacing scores of residents in the community.

Some of those affected have since been living in tents provided as part of the Government’s emergency response.

But amid fears that more squatters could lose their homes, residents on Saturday said they want dialogue and a permanent solution.

For long-time resident Gladstone Palmer, the controversy cannot be understood simply by looking at the houses now standing on the disputed property.

Much of the area

was “bush”

Its roots, he said, stretch back decades. Palmer recalled arriving in Cooper’s Pen when much of the area was “bush” and said residents gradually transformed the property into a community.

He said he initially raised pigs on the land before putting up a modest one-room structure.

“We were not earning money. We are not rich people who can just buy a piece of land and build a home. We cannot do that. We start from scratch,” he said.

According to Palmer, what began with small structures grew over the years as families established themselves.

“We build one house to two house to three. That’s how the land was developing,” he said.

Palmer acknowledged the long-running dispute over ownership of the property and the court proceedings that followed, but questioned why the occupation was allowed to continue for so many years while residents invested in their homes.

“How can a man come now? You own the land and you see what is going on, and you didn’t come in at those times to stop the people?” he argued.

Palmer said the residents had previously organised themselves and had hoped that an arrangement could eventually be reached allowing them to purchase the lots they occupied.

“We are willing to pay. We are decent citizens in this community,” he declared.

For him, the label “squatter” also fails to capture the lives behind the dispute.

“We are Jamaicans,” Palmer said.

“We are the ones who develop this community. We are the ones who develop this community, and now we are hearing that it is resorts and all those things. What happened to the people?”

Holness has already described the aftermath of the demolition as a “humanitarian crisis” and said neither he, his ministers nor Trelawny Northern Member of Parliament Tova Hamilton had prior knowledge that the operation would take place.

Speaking last week, the prime minister said images of displaced residents, particularly a mother with a newborn baby, were disturbing and that state resources were immediately mobilised to assist the families.

Longer-term intervention

He nevertheless made it clear that the Government could not endorse the illegal occupation of land, declaring that “squatting is wrong” while acknowledging that a longer-term intervention would be necessary.

Holness also said he wanted to be fully advised on the court rulings surrounding the long-running property dispute before speaking specifically to the circumstances of the demolition.

However, the controversy has since widened. Nine Cooper’s Pen men have filed a lawsuit against the Government, claiming they were detained by police for approximately 13 hours while the demolition took place. They are seeking damages for alleged false imprisonment and assault.

Opposition Leader Mark Golding has also called for permanent housing for the displaced residents and an inquiry into how private property rights are enforced against vulnerable communities, while Opposition Spokesman on Land Lothan Cousins has urged the Government to use existing legislation to prevent further demolitions.

On Saturday, however, the political and legal arguments appeared secondary to residents whose concern was much more immediate. They want to know where they will live.

Palmer said what has happened to families who have spent decades in Cooper’s Pen is deeply unfair.

What happened to the people?” he asked. “We are poor, innocent citizens, and I feel that’s very unjust to us.”

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com