by Vivian Tyson -SUN Senior Editor

Cries of anguish from especially women, permeated the air on Tuesday, November 10, as the sound of bulldozers got louder, signaling the approach of the Physical Planning Department’s demolition crew into the illegal settlement at Five Cays, located behind the Williams Auditorium, Providenciales.

Approximately a dozen unfinished houses and structures such as foundations, captured by Haitian migrants and locals alike were destroyed during the exercise.

After putting the residents, the majority of them Haitians, on notice for over two months that structures in their community would be flattened since land on which they built their concrete houses was Government owned, the Physical Planning Department – the agency responsible for structural development in the country – made good on its promise. 

Accompanied by a strong detachment of police personnel, some of whom were armed with pistols, the Planning Department targeted unfinished houses, some of them in advanced states of development. 

Walls crumbled and foundation hacked into rubble as the caterpillar rummaged through structures as if a hot knife slicing butter. The destruction was hard to watch by some of the squatters. An apparently single mother with three children, the oldest appeared to be about six years old, wept uncontrollably and inconsolably as she helplessly and heart-wrenchingly watched as the wrecking crew flattened her unfinished house which was built up to the belt coast.  

A few of the houses destroyed had actual roofs on them, but no windows and doors. Not even building blocks packed nearby some of the structures were spared, as the tractor scattered them before making powder out of them. 
A local male appeared to be in his late 50’s or early 60’s, watched in horror with his wife and young female daughter as the Caterpillar mowed down his structure. And when asked by The SUN to described how he felt, his reply was: “Why asking me how I feel, you know how I feel.”

But when pressed to put those feelings into words, his reply was: “I feel like killing somebody right now, because I invested more than twenty-thousand dollars in that house and everything is gone. I agree that I am a squatter, I squat like anybody else, but they don’t have to do us this, that’s all I have to say.”

The police had their hands full for as long as the day was, as both home owners and curious onlookers jockeyed to acquire bird’s eye view of the action. There were a few verbal clashes between police and onlookers, as well as Haitians and locals, but those exchanges did not boil over into any physical discourse. 

There were mixed reactions from the throng of bystanders, some expressing regret at the day’s events, while for others the destruction could not have come soon enough. 

A local Rastafarian man, who voiced his objection to the demolition said: “How they are going about this problem is wrong, man, trust me. You all got to deal with these people who instigated this problem and allowed this to happen.” 

A Haitian man who lives at the settlement said many of the people living there had pumped all their lifesavings into the houses. “When you work almost five, seven years to save some money and to do something, and one day somebody came in and break it down, man that’s hard.”  

Toussaint, a Haitian resident of Five Cays, who weighed in on the day’s activities said: “I feel bad about it. First of all, we are wrong to do that, but the Bible tells you, what you made you don’t destroy. You see how they (some bystanders) laughing and thing, like how they destroy the houses now, in two more years hurricane will destroy this entire island”

A local man, Ariel Gray, was relieved that the exercise was being carried out, saying that he had fallen victim to squatting. He said a piece of land approved by Government for his acquisition was captured by a Dominican man, who claimed the spot was his.

“A piece of this land was approved for me and my wife right here, and we went down and paid the survey fee and everything. And we met some guy who done built a house on it. Those kinds of things not right. They build these houses without permits and there is sanitation stuff and all, so it has got to stop. I sympathize with these people, but we can’t go to Haiti and do this,” Gray said.

Contractor Wellington Robinson blamed the Planning Department for allowing the illegal settlement to mushroom in the community, saying: “It should have been done long time ago. They let it went on too long, and I think they should never allowed it to run as far as it is now, it should have been taken care of some years ago.” 

Many of the residents at the settlement told the media that they were sold the land by persons in the area, some of whom this newspaper understand were among the bystanders. But it is not clear as to when investigation into such allegations would launch, as the authorities said such process was necessary. 

Meanwhile, the authorities, speaking through the Government Information Service (GIS), stated that attempts were made in the past to regularize the squatters, but realized that such a move would not be sustainable, since it encouraged more of the practice which has blurred the line between residential and commercial squatting. 
“In the past, the Ministry of Environment and District Administration attempted to address the problem by regularizing the illegal developments and granting Freehold Title over the property if the development met planning standard. This approach proved to be unsustainable as it seemed to have encouraged more and more persons to squat. 

“The situation has now reached a pinnacle, where persons are not just squatting to meet personal housing needs but are doing so for commercial gain, through the construction rental units, and some have even gone as far as to sell government land to unsuspecting migrants.

The report noted that the Crown has no intention to leave persons homeless, but to deal with the problem in a sympathetic manner, especially in genuine need cases, such as persons being left with little alternative, but those constructed for commercial gain will receive the fullest measure of the law.

The process, according to the report, will be tackled through a multi-agency Informal Settlement Task Force, which will take a three-phase approach. Phase 1 – to contain squatting, which involves the demolition of unoccupied and those currently under construction; Phase 2 – The investigation of any fraud surrounding the sale of crown land; and prosecution of the perpetrators; and Phase 3 – The development of a comprehensive strategy to attend to persons who have constructed their homes on crown land without proper authorization.

This strategy, according the authorities, will so be developed through consultation with the affected persons and the general public.