7 News Belize

Land Dispute Leads To Mass Fire In Trio Village
posted (November 18, 2016)
Tonight, 6 families in the village of Trio, in the Toledo District are homeless after 5 of their homes were intentionally burnt down by a group of arsonists, who then hauled down a 6th home.

It's believed to be the result of a property dispute, which we told you about back in February. That's when a large number of villagers who were at risk of losing their homes and their farms because they had settled on large tracts of land which formerly belonged to the Thurton Estate, but which had been acquired by a Chinese business man.

They claimed that they lived there for decades, cultivating the land and building their homes on it. They say that successive governments had promised to regularize the situation by acquiring it from the private landowners, and giving them the opportunity to own it legally, but that never happened. The Chinese businessman showed up, reportedly demanding 20 thousand dollars as payment in compensation, or they would have to move.

That dispute simmered, and last night, sometime after 9 o'clock., a truck full of still unknown men showed up and started lighting homes on fire. Today, our colleagues from PGTV News went into the village to survey the destruction, and spoke to the arson victims about the horrifying experience:

Glenn Turcios - Helping Fire Victims
"Well right now at the moment we just came to do a freight for them, those workers that have their houses here, according to what they told me this morning, yesterday around 10 o'clock, a vehicle came and burned some houses here at the back of Trio here. I came this morning and the man came and rushed to take out the things because according to him he was lucky he didn't burn up in his house because it looks like they pulled it with some rope to try and break it down and light fire in the house. This house had like a tart on top that couldn't catch fire, it's not pimento. This house is built of the thing they take out of the pan by those shrimp farm and they couldn't burn it that's why they pulled it out and tried to burn it. They ran away and went to hide because they saw."

Reporter
"Did you see the people?"

Glenn Turcios - Helping Fire Victims
"Two of them saw the people and go the license plate number of the vehicle that came yesterday. They burnt like 6 other houses."

Fire Victim - Trio Village
"We are pleading to the Government to respond. What do they want, people working, or people stealing? If they want people stealing, that is something easy to do. They left us without support. We have kids; it's not only us. We have families. If they don't help us, the kids will stop studying, and start stealing. We won't be able to control them, and neither will the law. So, the government needs to decide today, people stealing, or people working."

Glenn Turcios - Helping Fire Victims
"This morning we came to take the lumber and whatever left but you can go and see right now because you almost reach the spot and you'll see how the people broke it up as they were trying to light the fire in it."

Reporter
"And you have the license plate from the vehicle that came and did it?"

Glenn Turcios - Helping Fire Victims
"Yes they have the license plate of the vehicle that came and did it. Those kinds of things we have to try and report."

Reporter
"And did you tell the police?"

Glenn Turcios - Helping Fire Victims
"Yes the police were here yesterday."

Reporter
"And what did the police say and do?"

Glenn Turcios - Helping Fire Victims
"They said their working on it, because they met the vehicle going that way. They reported it and when they were coming they met the vehicle going that way because it was the same license plate they reported. They met the vehicle by Trio junction going out."

As you heard, the residents claim to have seen the license plates of the vehicle that the men used. They passed that information on to police, who they are criticizing for moving very slowly in tracking down the vehicle.

This afternoon, we spoke via telephone with Superintendent Reymundo Reyes, the Commander of the Intermediate Southern Formation, about incident and what they know so far.

Supt. Reymundo Reyes, Commander - ISF
"It was confirmed that five wooden structures belonging to different farmers were destroyed by fire. One of them was just broken up. Information is that there were five persons in the area who allegedly were the ones who destroyed the structures that were in the same farms. But there's an allegation being made that the land where the structures are belongs to a Chinese businessman. It is said that there's a case in front of the court where the Chinese owner is alleging that that this is his property. But the persons are saying that they have been living in these premises for the last 30 years and odd. So there's a back and forth in court. So at this moment police they're in the process of recording statements and we're trying to establish as to who were the persons that went back there and destroyed those structures, ahm, belonging to these gentleman."

"They believe that maybe it was the same owner of the land now, the Chinese man sent someone to destroy the buildings, but we cannot ascertain that at this moment. It would be 6 houses damaged. But five destroyed by fire and one of them was just demolished."

Courtney Weatherburne, 7News
"So how did they demolish the building? They got a bulldozer of something?"

Supt. Reymundo Reyes, Commander - ISF
"No apparently they used chain and so forth. They tied it up around the corners of the building, and with a vehicle that they had which, it is being said that it was a Mahindra, they just 5:40 pulled down the structure."

Courtney Weatherburne
"But he was able to run out, I guess, when he saw..."

Supt. Reymundo Reyes, Commander - ISF
"He was asked, he was given, allegedly, he was, the people spoke to him, they gave him five minutes to remove properties that he has out of his house and then they demolished the building."

Courtney Weatherburne
"And people are saying that they saw five persons run away from the scene, right?"

Supt. Reymundo Reyes, Commander - ISF
"Five male persons on board a Mahindra."

Courtney Weatherburne
"Do you guys have any idea who these men are? Or leads to find out where they are?"

Supt. Reymundo Reyes, Commander - ISF
"Not at the moment. But we are working to try and see if we can get the license plate of the vehicle."

Some of the residents claim that they have been living on these private lands for upwards of 30 years.

Home | Archives | Downloads/Podcasts | Advertise | Contact Us

7 News Belize