Older people, and even relatively young residents of this country, are well aware that the discomforting happenings at the informal (squatter) community in Cooper’s Pen, Trelawny, over recent days, are not new.

Demolition of houses and other structures built by individuals and groups on land which does not belong to them have happened time and again for generations.

And just as has been the case at Cooper’s Pen, the evicted — victims of demolition — have protested loudly that they have been unjustly treated.

There are always those who blame the victims for illegally occupying land that is not theirs, even after the judiciary had ruled against them.

But, there are always others who support the victims on the basis that they are poor people with no place to live and that proper arrangements should have been made for them before eviction and demolition.

Regardless, there is always the necessity for people — no matter how down-pressed and impoverished — to retain their dignity and humanity. That clearly wasn’t a consideration when the bulldozers moved into Cooper’s Pen earlier this week.

It’s important, we think, to summarise what many of us already know to be the root cause of informal settlements — in which we are told about 20 per cent of Jamaicans still live.

Like so much else in Jamaica, it goes back to slavery. When that abominable system ended just under 200 years ago, slave owners — land owners all — were richly rewarded by the British Colonial Government for loss of their human property.

Experts suggest that the compensation to slave owners would amount to many billions of US dollars in today’s currency.

The newly freed slaves got nothing. They were free to starve, in fact.

Many ended up on property owned by private owners as well as the State. Today, people living precariously on the banks of gullies and water courses — at great risk during floods and hurricanes — fall within those categories.

The indisputable fact is that the socio-economic conditions of many descendants of slaves are well nigh as bad as existed 190 years ago.

But is it okay to simply blame frustrated land owners such as those who initiated the seemingly heartless eviction and demolition at Coopers Pen? We must never forget: land owners too, have rights.

It seems to us that given the nature and history of land capturing which, as we have said goes back generations, governments should have long ago put proactive systems in place to prevent occurrences such as Cooper’s Pen.

It’s not enough, we believe, for our leaders to tell us that action is being taken to put an end to informal settlements. After nearly 200 years, we all know that won’t happen overnight.

However, what if those at the local authority level with eyes and ears to the ground were required to proactively and consistently work with landowners and illegal occupiers?

The aim being to try to ensure that challenges are resolved and that all parties are treated — and treat one with the other — with a degree of equity and fairness.

Had there been such a system in place would Cooper’s Pen have come to this?