Murder victim’s wife speaks on past land rights case

Earlier we promised you details about the late Francis Johnston. He was the man who held a lease to farmland in Golden Stream Village which members of the Maya Leaders Alliance were contesting in court. This is because a Maya farmer, Alfonso Cal, had planted cacao on the land that Johnston had leased. Johnston bulldozed the cacao trees, which Cal planted according to Mayan tradition that the lands they use and occupy are communal lands. Today his wife, Amelia, told us why it was important for her and her husband to fight for the land they believed was theirs.

Amelia Johnston, Widow, Francis Johnston
“The Indians wanted to claim our piece of land that we use to plant rice from ever since and my brother had this land and he turn it over to us. My brother had over twelve acres or fifteen acres of citrus and the Indians just burn it all down, they took his house piece by piece until they took the whole thing. My brother got discouraged so he pass over the land to we.”

Marion Ali
“You’ve been planting on it for how long?”

Amelia Johnston
“I noh quite remember but for over – many years we’ve been using that said piece of land. My husband is a born Belizean, I am a born Belizean. My husband people were the ones that came here and started out the whole Toledo District. If you talk to Ms. Leela Vernon she could give you a history to my husband people.”

Amelia says she and her family intend to continue farming the land.