Santa Cruz, St Elizabeth – Former colonel of the Accompong Maroons in northern St Elizabeth, Meridie Rowe, says he and a group of supporters will be staging a demonstration in Accompong today to protest, among other things, what he describes as the “illegal sale of Maroon land”.

Rowe is charging that Sydney Peddie, current colonel of Accompong, breached Maroon laws when he approved the sale of about one-and-a-half squares of land.

“Maroon law clearly states that Maroon land must be held communally and must not be sold,” Rowe told the Observer. “We believe that the act of selling Maroon land is treachery,” Rowe added.

But Peddie and Maroon Council member Melville Currie told the Observer yesterday that while no Maroon land should be sold to an outsider, it was a well established practice that one Maroon could sell land to another Maroon, which they said was what happened in the specific case.

The land issue was actually tested in the Black River Resident Magistrate’s Court earlier this year with the Court upholding the sale. But Rowe said he and other Maroons intend to appeal the court ruling.

Rowe also alleged yesterday that there was much discontent among Maroons because of a belief that there had been misallocation of funds earned from the annual Maroon celebrations last January, as well as other sources including tourist visits to the historic community, located high up in the Cockpit Country, close to the St Elizabeth/Trelawny border.

He charged that the shortage of money had forced the Maroon Council to be “begging” funds from various government agencies, including the St Elizabeth Parish Council, in order to fund the next annual celebrations which climax on January 6, with thousands of people converging on Accompong.

Peddie dismissed Rowe’s charge as “nonsense” and an attempt to be disruptive.

“All that happened was that we approached the St Elizabeth Parish Council about ‘bushing’ the roadway from White Hall to Accompong. This is something that traditionally happens, but this time the parish council said they have no money,” said Peddie.

Rowe, who unsuccessfully challenged Peddie for leadership of the Accompong Maroons in elections early last year, suggested yesterday that he and his supporters were contemplating another demonstration on January 5 during the annual celebrations to further publicise their grouses.

Next month’s celebrations will mark the 268th anniversary of the signing of a peace treaty between British colonisers and the maroons in 1738.

The Maroons are the descendants of runaway slaves who sporadically fought the British from their mountain enclaves stretching from Portland and St Mary in the east to St James, St Elizabeth and Trelawny in the west for close to 150 years, in the case of some communities.

Accompong is the only surviving Maroon village in western Jamaica; the others are Charles Town and Moore Town in Portland and Scott’s Hall in St Mary.

myersg@jamaicaobserver.com