WESTMORELAND, Jamaica — A bitter and long running land dispute in Little Bay and Brighton in Westmoreland escalated on Wednesday with informal settlers, (gasoline in hand and roads blocked), ready to take their protest up a notch after what they say was an attempt to bulldoze their dwellings.

The police intervened, no buildings were razed and a full scale riot was averted. At the heart of the issue is more than 800 acres of prime beachfront real estate.

On Wednesday, residents told OBSERVER ONLINE, that an open bed truck drove up to the gates of their community leader and president of the Violet Communities Association, Jess Beach, and offloaded a bulldozer. An alarm was raised and residents came to the rescue. Beach’s son, George Rose, said they had been ready to fight.

“You see if any white man, blue man, green man, black man, any one of them cause my mother fi dead, them a go live inna the sky. Them have to go kill mi too. Mi nuh run joke. A one mother mi got and mi nuh… wan nobody stress her out,” he said.

Rose said the workmen who came with the bulldozer are not from the parish, and were not in the mood to have a conversation, claiming they we just doing their jobs. The efforts of the crew were foiled by the police.

In March, former Government lawmaker and attorney-at-law, Reverend Ronald Thwaites, who represented some of the defendants in the matter that has been drawn out in the courts for over a decade, suggested in an Observer interview that the Government should act as a broker between the parties.

Pointing out that hundreds of people have been living on and investing in the property for more than 30 years, Thwaites argued that “to try to evict them would cause civil unrest of the sort that would be very dangerous to contemplate and therefore, I believe that no doubt, the owner has his rights and so do the people who settled there over many years.”

In 2011, the court granted writs of possession to an individual living overseas and the eviction of at least 37 squatters.

However, Thwaites argued that since the 2011 declaration, the laws of the country have been developed in such a way that gives strength to people who have occupied land, undisturbed, for a certain period.

The current law gives squatters the right to claim legal ownership by adverse possession of private lands if they can prove they have acted, undisturbed, as an owner for 12 years or more or 60 years in the case of Crown [Government] property.

Thwaites had also disclosed that offers of purchase were made to the owner but were flatly rejected.

 On Wednesday, Beach — who over the years has helped maintained peace in the area as president of the association — renewed a call she made in March for the intervention of Prime Minister Andrew Holness.

“Mr Prime Minister, we cannot go on like this. We need your help and support. Right now Sir, I don’t know where we stand. So, we need your help and support,” she pleaded.

She and other residents told OBSERVER ONLINE that workmen had been in the area doing land surveys on Tuesday. Drones were also reportedly used.

In March, several residents came out in their numbers and staged a peaceful demonstration in the community. They also chained the gates to the Little Bay All Age and Infant School but the chains were later removed with the help of the police. The residents’ dispute was linked to eviction notices that were made possible under a Supreme Court order dated October 21, 2021. They were told that they would be “evicted without further notice” if they failed to “immediately vacate premises you now occupy as a squatter in Little Bay and Brighton.”

An article posted by Yahoo! Finance on January 18, 2022 said United States-based investors were facing delays with a proposed $8 billion development of two five-star resorts, each fitted with PGA- style golf courses. The article blamed the delay on the lands being occupied by squatters while the Government remained silent on the issue.

The article also said Karl Samuda, then Minister of Economic Growth and Job Creation, intervened in June 2018, indicating that the squatters would be resettled. Yahoo! Finance also said that, since then, several meetings had been held and timetables scheduled with the last meeting held in April 2021. That was attended by Minister Pearnel Charles Jr, Minister of Housing, Urban Renewal, Environment, and Climate Change who promised a swift and decisive response and follow up, said Yahoo! Finance.