Earlier we told you heard both political sides of the dispute about Creole Belizean Rupert Myles and the Mayas of Santa Cruz village. But earlier this week, a group of Garifuna residents turned up on our radar.
These are about 100 to 200 Garifuna living in the community of Punta Gorda Town known as the St. Vincent Block. It is being erroneously referred to as 960+ acres of Garifuna Communal Lands, but our research says that it is a private property being held in a trust by a few leaders of the community.
After a long struggle, in 1923, a group of Garinagu living in PG put together the required money to buy the land from the colonial government of the day. Since then, the ownership has been held in a trust, and, since then, their descendants have been living on the land.
That history is important because the community is complaining that Belize Water Services Limited has not been providing them with the service they need. A continuing dispute between the company and the community is that wells were dug in their in their property and the water from those wells is being used by BWS to supply water to the rest of PG and the surrounding communities for years. They believe that natural resources from their property are being exploited, but they receive no compensation for it. They are only provided with one community pipe which must supply 100+ persons. One of the members grabbed us shortly after the Arraignment of the Santa Cruz 13 in Punta Gorda. Here's how he explained it:
Glenn Logan Martinez, resident - St. Vincent Block
"For decades BWSL has been pumping out millions of dollars of water from the Garifuna communion, 960 acres where by that water is supporting Punta Gorda Town, Cattle Landing, Hopeville, Forest home and Elridgeville with water. What they did is that they suck all this natural resources from our community in St. Vincent Block and they use it to produce water for the different communities around and they are collecting millions of dollars. However, they refuse to give us in the community the small detention pipes. So there are 200 Garifuna people who are currently demonstrating against BWSL for this water issue. It saddens us as a Garifuna people because we realize that there are certain people in the Government whereby they can just pass an act and in 3 days' time it's a law, without any kind of participatory democracy from the Belizean people. Specifically speaking about the Petrocaribe. In 3 days' time that became law. It was just an act for 3 days. Now we have a law the ILO69 which supports the rights of indigenous people to prior and previous and free consent on whatever project take place within their community and for years and years the Government refuse to authorize this law in Belize for the indigenous people. So we feel like they are working to protect the state and to protect the capitalist investors and they are not working for the poor people and to support us as a poor people. We have been struggling for water. so what the community did was, we ran our pipes in the community our by ourselves even though for the past how many years Mr. Benga?, 'quite a number of years sir' - decades WASA have been pumping and giving everyone in this area water from out of our property. They refuse to give us water so we took out of our pockets and run pipes and connected it. Now they come to cut out this water. So there's a demonstration whereby some 50 or more Garifuna people from the community came out and stood around the pipes told the BWSL guy, you cannot cut out this pipe."
So, what's company's response to this claim for royalties for the water pumped from under the Garifuna community's land? Well, this evening the Public relations Manager says that they need to take that up with Government.
Haydon Brown – HR/PR Manager, BWSL
"BWSL would never deny anyone connections to their respective homes. what BWSL had done in 2012 was write the group when the request was made for connections and amount quoted was, 72k for the connections to be done and they also required to do and authenticated survey. These things were never completed at that point on time and so therefore, BWSL would not have been in a position to make those connections for the respective homes. the simple reason being that for BWSL to do connections, we needed to know for example; where streets are so that our connections are on the streets and not necessarily in personal properties because we had in the past where we do connections what we refer to as yard to yard that later on comes out and poses its own challenges to the company. So we try to move away from that kind of practice and that's the reason for us asking them to do an authenticated survey. Where the disconnection is concerned, BWSL, we provide services and where people do not pay their bills timely after duration especially when the cost is exorbitant, BWSL will look to disconnect such accounts. Certainly the St. Vincent Block came up as one of those account that were in a areas and it was at the time decided by the person in charge of the branch to disconnect the account. It was later decided by the manager in charge of the customer services section not to disconnect the account. A decision was taken by the manger not to disconnect the account but the account is in arrears and it does need to be attended."
And in relation to the inadequate service, and the attempts by the company to cut out the only water supply to the company, the PR manager told us that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation. They owe, and no payment is being made:
Haydon Brown - HR/PR Manager, BWSL
"Where the extraction is concerned, BWSL certainly gets its water from the St. Vincent Block. The thing is that is that we retrieved water with the understanding that this is done through the Government of Belize, who authorizes us to abstract water. Where that is concern, BWSL commits to paying the Government of Belize for such abstraction and it's a legal commitment that we have with the Government of Belize for any abstraction at all countrywide, where we draw water for our use. We note that for this specific case BWSL, at the time when we were presented with this by the group. We appointed them to Belize since that we pay the Government of Belize for such abstraction. The Government owns the land and where anything under the earth is related BWSL would have a direct relation with the Government and not necessarily with any individual entity or company or owner."
We're informed that the only living Trustee from the original agreement between the Colonial Government and the Garifuna who bought the St. Vincent Block is a gentleman known as Valentine "Ting Ting" Flores. When he passes away, the community should go through a democratic process to elect new trustees. That's how it's supposed to work theoretically, but right now, there is war for power and control over the community and the leadership positions. We're told that an election was held recently, but the old administration is refusing to vacate to allow the new leaders to take up their post.
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