Tonight there is a land dispute in Santa Familia village - and the man in the middle of it is Minister Orlando Habet's driver. That's Floyd Moro, who was looking for a few acres of land for some supporters - which is when he allegedly cut the fence of the Quewell property. That happened yesterday and the man who says he is the sole landowner, Felix Quewell captured and posted it. Here's a clip from that exchange with Moro and his associates:
Felix Quewell
"So these are the guys that are squatting land, private land from the Quewells, Quewells native to the Belizean people here. You can see this is the corruption, injustice of these people. You guys removed this fence sah? Why you guys removed this fence? This is for private land sah. This is private land."
Floyd Moro: "You got papers?"
Felix Quewell
"We got the papers."
Floyd Moro: "Talk to the man before you post what you wah post."
Felix Quewell
"I wah post anything mein, because this is private mein."
Floyd Moro: "Post it then, then you gwen have wah whole… Before you go post something that you will regret."
Felix Quewell
"I will never regret. I know my land. We da Yucatec Maya, we have been here native. (Speaks in Maya). This da fi we mein."
But the area rep, Orlando Habet of Cayo Northeast says it's not actually for them. We spoke to him via Zoom this evening where he conceded that his driver was wrong in cutting the fence:
Orlando Habet, Cayo Northeast Representative
"And it the land does not belong to the Quewells. It's not the Quewell land that they were in. I think what they did was that they tried to find access to this to the land beside the wells, and for them to have access, my understanding is that they cut the wire and put out a post so that they could go in. So that's, that's that's an error. That's their mistake. They should never have done that. That's private property, you can't touch it."
"What Floyd did and the other young men did, that was wrong, was to cut the wire from the Quewell farm to access the other side so that they could do the survey. So I blame them for that. It is unfortunate that the argument, went up to that level. I've brought them in and scolded them as much as I could."
Reporter:
Well, I know Floyd, I believe is a relative of yours, but also your driver. He more or less acts implicitly with your authority, even though you may not have explicitly given that authority.
Orlando Habet, Cayo Northeast Representative
"Well, they need to have some experience. They're young people. They try to help. And I think there are two young men who he was trying to get the land for are voters of ours and the his friends also. And so he was trying to get them the parcel of land, and nothing is wrong with that. If the land is available, and it is available if you look at it legally because it's not applied for. But his behavior wasn't good. And I have reprimanded him for that. And I said, you can't, you can't be doing that because you look bad. For me as a politician, well, I know I will get criticized anyway. And so last night when I said it, it doesn't say, oh, my goodness. And then you have my own supporters hitting me hard. And then the whole issue comes up about, the Yucatecan Mayas that have right to land? And I don't want to get there at all, at all, at all."
which the resident claims squatters' right for - a further complication on the situation.
But, Habet gave us an insight into how his driver and others look for available lands:
Orlando Habet, Cayo Northeast Representative
"I think 2 or 3 young men who were asking for a, small parcel of land, it's like 5 or 6 acres."
"I think what they do is they try to do, like a satellite image, and if they find a spot that's green and not occupied amongst other areas that are already identified as being, in process because maybe they have an application. So they already have an NES number. So they put it. So in this case, this particular plot of land didn't have anything. So it appeared to be vacant. What the young man told me was that when they saw it on the satellite image was that a portion looks like it was like regrowth, secondary forest. And then there was a small portion that showed that there was like almost primary forest, high bush. So that was a portion that they were trying to apply for."