A Near Showdown for Belama Phase Four Lands

Several families in Belama Phase Four were ordered, via letters on Monday, to vacate their houses.  Earlier in the month, the residents of this area were told that they were illegally occupying the piece of land which is owned by Asian businessman, Alex Chang of Fen Lan Development. The letter tells the residents that they are to provide copies of their Belizean passports and/or nationality papers in two weeks. The documents will be reviewed and according to the letter, Chang reserves the right to determine whether he shall allow the residents to enter into a lease agreement or have them ejected from the property where it will be requested that they dismantle their houses and vacate the premises within one month of January twenty-eight. So today, the residents were shocked when they found persons dismantling their houses this evening. News Five spoke to one of the residents, Marvin Estrada.

Marvin Estrada

Marvin Estrada, Resident

“The just come and broke in and start broke down the house without any papers that they have the rights to come in and just do it.”

Hipolito Novelo

“This was not the only house though?”

Marvin Estrada

“No, this is not the only house. They were doing it to the other house but then the owner came and stopped them and so they just went away. We are hoping for someone to come right now and say what they could help us with.”

Hipolito Novelo

“The letter that you got on January twenty-eight says that you have one month to try to vacate the premises so I guess you are wondering why they came here today and try to dismantle the house.”

Marvin Estrada

“That’s the thing that I do not understand because some of the people that got the notice that they should move within a month. The month hasn’t passed yet and they are already breaking into the house. I believe that it is just a dirty work happening right now. I would really like that all of the governments even Dean Barrow see what is happening with this politics right now. She is one of the victims. As you can see they just came and break down her house. We really do not appreciate this. She got her letter and they gave her a month and the month hasn’t passed yet. Why are they doing this if the month is not here yet? Something is very fishy here. They are not doing this the right way.”

Hipolito Novelo

“The back wall has been taken down.”

Marvin Estrada

“Yes. They took down the whole back wall. OJ posted that he came to, supposedly help and I was there for the meeting and he didn’t say anything about helping. All he came for is to make sure that everyone sign a contract so we can pay fifty dollars every month for being on this land. But why will we pay fifty dollars for this land when we cleaned this land and we worked to build the house. One other things that OJ said is that he was going to put streets and make everyone have their own current and water.”

Hipolito Novelo

“He said this during the meeting?”

Marvin Estrada

“Yes he said that in the meeting and I believe that is crap. He is not going to do nothing. He just want to try look like he is going to help us but he is not going to help us. Then he said that they are only going to give us two years. We have someone who is already tying to help us and he says that we can take this to the court and so that is our hope right now. We won’t move until the case goes to the court.”