Squatters Warned of “Bloody Civil War.” A School and a Church Were Quietly Spared Anyway

• A five-year-old court order finally reached its eviction deadline
• Squatters warned of violent resistance if forcibly removed
• The property owner exempted a primary school from the eviction
• A 20-acre resettlement gift remained on the table, unanswered

As a five-year-old court order neared enforcement in the long-running Little Bay and Brighton land dispute in Westmoreland, squatters warned of a bloody civil war if forceful eviction went ahead, even as the property’s American owner, Kathleen Eugster, had already carved out specific exceptions to the demolition her own attorney confirmed was still coming.

Attorney-at-law Alimi Banjoko said it was not his client’s intention to disrupt the operations of the Little Bay Primary and Infant School, a government-run institution sitting on the disputed land that would remain undisturbed regardless of what happened to the named defendants and other occupants evicted by opportunity elsewhere on the property. Lease arrangements were also being considered specifically for a church on the site, so that building would not be demolished either, a deliberate carve-out for two community institutions even as the broader eviction proceeded.

A substantial olive branch remained formally on the table throughout: a 20-acre gift to government for the resettlement of the squatters, an offer Banjoko confirmed was still available, but which had received no government communication or response as of the interview, years after the underlying court order had first been issued. Business owner Suzan McKenzie displayed her own eviction notice, first erected on her property in 2022, while resident Jess Beach said she had lived in the area for more than a decade.

Banjoko said his client was determined to take possession of the properties within six months, a firm private timeline running in parallel with an unanswered public offer that could have resettled the same residents on genuinely different terms, illustrating a pattern this publication has documented in other Jamaican land disputes: a legally available, generous resolution sitting unused not because either side rejected it outright, but because government simply never formally responded to it.

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