‘Clear the Land’ Castro tries to take privately owned land

He is known as “Clear the Land,” that’s Minister of State Edmund Castro who is the area representative for Belize Rural North. And true to his name, one family that has been residing in Sandhill, is claiming the minister is attempting to do just that, clear their land to give to his constituents. In this instance, however, the land is duly owned by the Thurston family even before 1981 and they have no intention of sitting back while Castro parcels it off. News Five Jose Sanchez traveled to Sandhill where the most recent land dispute erupted today.

Jose Sanchez, Reporting
The land dispute involves the owners of Baker’s Ranch and Edmund “Clear the Land” Castro. According to the landowners, Castro is trying to take away acres of land that they have bought from before Belize became independent.

Armead Logan Thurston, Landowner
“A couple months ago, maybe a year ago, we were told that Mister Castro was looking at our land to take away. It went away; we didn’t hear so much about it. It came up again. People keep saying Mister Castro is saying he will take away some your land to give to his constituents. But the land is in dispute and it’s in the courts and after the courts finalize everything, land it’s going to be distributed. And it finally—the icing on the cake was yesterday. Over the weekend my grand niece came and told their mothers that the teachers told them that they must come to a meeting on Sunday because land will be distributed to them. And that is finally we found out that a meeting is going to be held. Yesterday, we finally found out that Mister Edmund Castro was going to be taking away a couple acres of land to give to his constituents.”

Arthur Saldivar, Attorney for the Thurstons
“Mr. Byron Thurston and Mrs. Armead Thurston have had this property since 1978 and now it had come to their attention that there was a move by the area representative to seize a portion of the land. I use the word seize because outside of going through the legal process to acquire land under the Land Acquisition Act, it can only be seizure, since that process was not used in this particular case. There was no letter or notice of intended acquisition given to the land owner. There was no publishing of government’s intent in the gazette. But as we were made aware, Mister Castro has gone ahead to inform persons within the village and outside the village that for three hundred dollars they can get their portion of land surveyed and for a thousand dollars they will get their lease. This is all payable to him.”

Victoria Wade, a Sandhill resident, wanted a parcel of land but was equally surprised to find out that the area rep. would collect cash.

Victoria Wade, Sandhill Resident
“Find the three hundred dollars, come in for it, get the thousand dollars and pay it and then you get a receipt from him.”

Jose Sanchez
“Did you know that an area rep does not collect on the behalf of the Ministry of National Resources?”

Victoria Wade
“Well, I know when you’re dealing with land an area rep does not deal with money. At some point you should take it to the Department of Lands and, to my knowledge, you should deal with professional people. I know Mister Castro is an area rep, he doesn’t have anything to do with lands so I was a bit in a state where I questioned it. I went home and questioned it and said well, if he’s an area rep then why do I have to take the three hundred dollars in to him? I don’t know if he will deal with the land. I know he deals with people and their problems in the area that you’re representing.”

Armead Logan Thurston
“They are attempting to take at least a hundred acres on the east side of Baker’s Ranch.”

Jose Sanchez
“Have you paid for this land? Do you have title for it?”

Armead Logan Thurton
“We have absolute title for this land from British Honduras Days; from 1975 my husband has had title for this land.”

Armead’s husband Byron has lived in Belize for at least thirty-five years. Thurston says he has never even met the man who is attempting to take his land.

Byron Thurston, Landowner
“Forty-five years, I was here two years before, I got in the hospital and then I come and finish and buying it when I got out of the hospital and it was put in my name. I come down here in the 1970’s; late seventy’s.”

Jose Sanchez
“Tell me about the problems you’ve been having with Mister Castro.”

Byron Thurston
“Castro I never talked to the man. I’ve never seen him.”

The irony of the situation is that Thurston has donated land that the police station, the community center and the catholic school have all been constructed on. The Thurston’s have not been approached with an offer to sell the land. But to add to the tale, the couple’s farm has been raided this morning by the police.

Armead Logan Thurston
“If Mister Castro had come to us as area representative and tell us his plan we could have sit down and talked.”

Jose Sanchez
“If he asked you to sell some of the land would that have been an option?”

Armead Logan Thurston
“You never know. You never know if it would be an option. But it never happened, did it? This morning about couple minutes to twelve, I was in here getting lunch. All of a sudden I hear the dogs barking. I looked out there and a couple of officers in a vehicle drove through this ranch like something was either getting them or they wanted to get somebody, I mean really hard. They didn’t even stop; they went to the other house, they looked down there, they turned around. My family member was down there, he came out to talk with them and they just waved away and came back. I went out to try and stop them to find out what was going on and they just passed me, they didn’t even look.”

Arthur Saldivar
“I met with the area rep or at least I tried to have a discussion with him. I informed him that we were made aware of this situation and I asked for his clarification. He was not forthcoming with any such clarification. In fact he proceeded to call his body guard for whatever reason.”

Armead Logan Thurston
“A lot of things go through my head but the one that really bothers me is where is our rights. That you can have something for so long and all of a sudden by the stroke of a pen somebody can tell you ‘you don’t own it anymore’ or ‘you don’t have rights to it anymore’. I don’t think so. I think it’s power. I think it’s abuse of power and I think it ought to stop.”

This issue won’t die soon and for certain, the Thurston’s intend to legally clear Castro off their land. Reporting for News Five, Jose Sanchez.