Land is such an issue of deep passions that many brutal wars have been fought over it

Oct 18, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The Constitution of Guyana protects land owners from thievery and from the Government of the day. If someone owns “titled” lands, those in charge of Lands & Survey or those in government cannot give another person a lease on someone else’s titled lands. Only the owner of that land can do this. Otherwise, this would be illegal. This would be criminal. This would be an act of pure premeditated malice.
Growing up in Mahaicony with my father who was a Pharmacist, and with my grandmother who was a Nurse Midwife, I was often amazed at the extreme acts of violence between family members and strangers over land. I could never understand it, especially when some people drank poison in these disputes. Today, much has not changed in land disputes as I see the same passion in many of these situations.
Over the last several years, in reaches out to different parts of Guyana, ACDA has been exposed to through complaints about family land disputes, ancestral lands and the barefaced encroachment of people’s lands in a conspiracy to obtain prescriptive rights.
Land has done this to people since time immemorial. The mess the United States has faced in the Middle East started with Iraq invading and claiming Kuwaiti lands.
Land is such an issue of deep passions that many brutal wars have been fought over it.
In Guyana, and especially over the last 15 years, some “connected” and often rich Guyanese have barefacedly been trying to steal lands owned by others. Through gangsterism, bullyism, rank corruption and a rip-van-winkle court…. “Malice and arrogance” have replaced the Rule of Law.
In many cases, persons of all ethnic persuasions have joined to outright assist in this gross immorality and pure thievery. They conspire to “steal” from the innocent and “titled”.
They, the upholders of the Law…..abuse their position of legal privilege and stamp on the human rights of poor Guyanese of all races. Often, these people suck their clients dry, thereby forcing them to settle and give in to these modern day thugs who prey on the innocent, often in the name of God. The police, citing ignorance of the Law and under the influence of paymasters and political fear, continue this chain of constitutional brigandry; having become willing participants in this mockery of the Law and outright criminality.
Insatiable greed, ‘runnings’, fake leases, bullyism , gangsterism, an overburdened court system, corruption most high and people without courage to do what is right, make this ‘carnival’ of thieving of lands, a stark reality . This situation of outright criminality in land disputes in Guyana has been barely stemmed on the other hand by the defatigable will of the targeted “disenfranchised” and their willingness to die for what is rightly theirs.
On 25 March this year, ACDA was approached by Mrs. Joan Straughn and her husband Gerald for help with a land dispute with a gentleman who owns many businesses across Guyana. Mr. and Mrs. Straughn showed us documents that established they are the legal and rightful owners of Parcel 917 on the Essequibo River. This parcel along with nine other parcels of land is inherited ancestral lands which Mrs. Straughn legally obtained from her father Mark Levy in 1954 and was titled in 1983. These official documents were verified by ACDA. The Straughns also provided another official document that showed their taxes have been paid up fully and continuously until December 2010. In essence, these lands never fell into default.
An individual has been after Parcel 917 for over 10 years. He was taken to court and found in contempt after a restraining order was ignored by him since 1994. Yet he has continued to build on Parcel 917 without permission from the Straughns.
It seems as if this individual is bigger than the law (an untouchable) as he has refused to stop building. He has had a crane on the Straughn’s land since 1994. He has built fences and other impediments on Parcel 917 and every time they are broken down, regardless of the law and the fact that he does not own the land, has continued to build because he is “connected” and rich. He completely ignores the court. He is the “boss man” in that area.
On 1 March 2000, the individual, having not been able to occupy Parcel 917 and having not succeeded with his unlawful behaviour, came up with a new conspiratorial strategy. He arrived with a lease from the Government of Guyana for Parcel 917 and other nearby juicy land sections, including land belonging to the Parika Baptist Church. The lease did not have an end date nor was it signed or notarised by a surveyor. The number assigned to the lease “A12158 “cannot be found at Lands & Survey and apparently is not recorded anywhere. Since this time, the individual has used this “lease” of land belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Straughn to fight them in Court. This case has reached the Chief Justice who just recently asked the individual whether he would want to continue with a case when the title is in the name of the Straughns. The individual, through his lawyers said they wanted to. (This of course, is to keep the matter in court and to prevent the Straughns from using their own land).
To add insult to injury, the individual has filed a court case against the Straughns for trespassing on his land even though he knows the land belongs to them. In essence he is trying to drain their financial resources so that they will give in to him.
Over the last two months, the individual has fenced the Straughns out of their own lands and has placed a huge tank on their land. He intends to expand his business regardless of the illegality of his occupation of someone else’s titled lands.
Mr. Editor, this situation is at a boiling point and needs to be carefully watched.
The time for this gangsterism to stop is now.
Eric Phillips

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