THE EDITOR, Sir:
THE JAMAICA National Heritage Trust (JNHT) wishes to clarify a number of issues that have arisen regarding the preservation and maintenance of heritage sites across the island. Recently, your sister publication The Star, carried an article in which it cried shame on the fact that the homes of three of our National Heroes Paul Bogle, Marcus Garvey and Nanny of the Maroons were in ruins and that nothing is being done about two of them.
Of the three sites mentioned the organisation only has total control of one and that is Stony Gut, the home of National Hero Paul Bogle. As your reporter noted, the JNHT has development plans for this site, the first phase of which is almost complete. Since October, workmen have been constructing an Information Centre and bridge at the site. This should be completed by January 2004. Other plans for the site include the rebuilding of a chapel where Bogle, as a Baptist preached, and which was burnt to the ground during the 1865 Morant Bay revolt.
With regards to the birthplace of the Rt. Excellent Marcus Garvey in St. Ann's Bay, the JNHT, like your reporter, recognises that the site is in a poor condition. However, we do not own the site and we do not have the authority to go in and take over the site when there is an owner/occupier.
THE SITE
The site is currently owned by one Mrs. Miller Moore who resides in the United States. Her ex-husband is the person who occupies the site and around whom it is falling apart. The St. Ann Heritage Foundation, a community-based affiliate of the JNHT, has been trying to get control of the property through power of attorney from the owner. The JNHT has been assisting the Foundation, through the use of its legal officer, in the process of acquiring the site. We have written several letters to the lawyers of the owner of the site on behalf of the foundation over the past two years. To date there has been no reply.
One financial institution in St. Ann has pledged its commitment to assist with funding towards restoration of the property on the condition that registered title can be produced.
What the public needs to understand is that the JNHT owns and leases less than 10 per cent of heritage sites across the island. The others are in private ownership. Whereas the JNHT can place a preservation order on the site to protect it, we cannot forcibly acquire the property from the owners. What the law provides is for us to notify the owners if the property is in need of maintenance, to provide some form of assistance, or we can maintain the protected heritage or monument, while leaving it in the care of the owner since we cannot take it from them.
BENEFITS
What we have tried to do over the years is to persuade the owners of national monuments and protected sites of the benefits that can be accrued from maintaining the site.
In the meantime, the JNHT is working towards the establishment of a heritage fund and a system of providing grants and loans, to owners of heritage sites to make it easier to maintain these sites.
We at the JNHT are doing our best to record, restore, develop and maintain our protected heritage sites, but we need the support of the public in this venture, especially from persons owning these sites.
I am, etc.,
SUSANNE LYON
Executive Director
JNHT
