He vowed to put up a fight, but tonight Port Loyola resident Terryl Godoy has not got much to fight for apart from the roof over his head.
As we've reported, Terryl has been squatting in the Port Area for nearly two decades, and now with the privatization of the port, he's fighting to keep his "blessed spot" between the Esso Terminal and the Port of Belize. But it is a losing fight. Today we visited to find that they're closing in on Terryl and a 7NEWS investigation shows that he's in the crosshairs of a heedless developer.
Terryl Godoy, Man at War
“It’s a serious loss”
That’s all Terryl Godoy has to say after bulldozers and chainsaws flattened the mangrove forest that thrived behind his house. In September, when Godoy was fighting to save it we visited the area and found a natural marvel, with wildlife in abundance. But today that wetland is a wasteland, flattened and denuded, what was once thriving and green is now barren and brown. Birds that once perched on mangrove bushes, now wander aimlessly and cluelessly on the few splotches of dry ground encircled by fetid, stagnant water.
Terryl Godoy,
“We still have a lot of birds that are totally confused. They used to be mostly in the trees in the back but now you can find them on my verandah. All different sort of birds. It’s not just the galiloos but you find the tri-heron and even the iguanas. Everything comes here now. As you can see water took over the entire backyard and its very ugly.”
And that ugliness is literally at his doorstep. The water, trapped by the dead mangrove is now under his front stair. The decimation of this area he once loved and nurtured has fostered an attitude of raw hostility to the Port’s private owner Luke Espat.
Terryl Godoy,
“I am totally ashamed that Luke Espat…I met with him and the way that all of this happened. He could have at least preserved a portion of it. That is what you would say is mean and greedy.”
And indeed that’s what Belize Ports Limited did. Documents obtained by 7NEWS show that all this mangrove clearing was without an Environmental Impact Assessment, which is required by law under the Environmental Protection Act. Owner of the Ports Luke Espat has been requested by the port to complete the plan from February 18 2004, but he never complied. On September 23rd., after repeated warnings and cautions, environmental technician Albert Roches went out there and physically stopped the clearing work.
With work halted Espat had to get it started again so he sought the intercession of the minister of ports, Vildo Marin who called for a meeting with the Chief Environment Officer, Ismael Fabro and Luke Espat. A record of that meeting which took place at the Corozal constituency office of Ports Minister Vildo Marin shows Espat saying that he never followed up because Fabro has a personal vendetta against him.
According to the record of the meeting, Espat then went on to warn Fabro that he will make sure he is removed as Chief Environment Officer. The report then quotes Minister Mike Espat, who was also there, as saying that if he were in a similar situation as his brother Luke, he would pay someone to kill him; him being Fabro. Still a resolution came out of that bitter exchange when Luke Espat told Fabro that if the stoppage continues, within 90 days the port will be closed down because it failed to meet international shipping codes. With that Fabro gave in and granted conditional clearance, noting that most of the damage had already been done, and there was no use in having an EIA at this time anyway. But Fabro noted that he cannot allow such disregard for the EPA to go unattended and stated that the department still plans to charge and fine Belize Ports Limited for laying waste to the area. And that brings us back to Terryl Godoy, the man at work, who watches all these power plays unfold from a powerless distance.
Terryl Godoy,
“It shows that we can do anything we want in Belize. People can do anything especially to poor people or anybody. They just do as they wish and that is totally wrong. We don’t have any control over these people anymore. They just do as they wish.”
Jules Vasquez,
The Port Authority told the Department of Environment that if we don’t have a parking lot within 90 days of lets sat October we will be shut down. The international port will be shut down and under that pressure the Department of Environment gave them the green light and said ‘okay go ahead although you don’t have environmental clearance.’
Terryl Godoy,
“Its so easy to answer that: the Port have from the Western road right down to here. So how much more land they want? Its total greediness again; total greediness. The Port has from the Western Road and they can’t find a parking lot? This is total chancey.”
And now as he looks at the displaced exotic birds, this bitter and retreating artist now has to wonder if he is next.
Terryl Godoy,
“And I tell you what: I stand for my stand. I am going to stay right here. I am going to stay right here if it even means death I will stay right here. I will stand right here because it is totally chancey. Those people can give me this place. In fact you know? This place is mines. This is mines.”
Fighting words from a man not beaten by the bulldozer’s crushing advance.
He is now the only resident in the way of the Port, as the other squatter on the disputed land Molly Geban has moved. Terryl says that after out last story Minister of Natural Resources Johnny Briceno promised to secure for him a 100 by 85 plot of land.
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. Terryl Godoy: Man at War