GUIANA ISLAND, Antigua and Barbuda — Taffy and Bonnie Bufton don't live here anymore.
Until a few months ago, the aging Welsh couple were the only residents of tiny Guiana Island--447 acres of cactus, thorn bush, mangrove and rocks. Their realm: two ramshackle houses, a 36-volt generator, 70 sheep, about 50 fallow deer, an ancient tractor and Taffy's rusty 1953 British sedan.
For more than 30 years, the Buftons drank rainwater filtered through socks. The couple, now in their 70s, tended the deer and the sheep. And they reveled in the simplicity of their quirky isolation on a scruffy little island that no one else wanted.
Until last year.
Enter: Malaysian billionaire Dato Tan Kay Hock and his vision of Guiana, just 50 yards from the main island of Antigua, as the heart of Asian Village--one of the Caribbean's biggest and most ambitious proposed tourism projects.
In what has become emblematic of the confrontation between small island states' desperation for investment and the rich peculiarities that lurk in the islands' histories, the controversial development plan has polarized this nation of 64,000.
Approved by the government of Antigua and Barbuda last year, the project calls for $600 million in private investment in at least two luxury Asian-style hotels, a casino, villas, marinas, a golf course, a shopping center and a conference facility on 1,500 acres that include Guiana Island and a small chunk of Antigua.
But the Buftons stood in the project's way, and the government said they had to go.
Taffy and Bonnie said they'd die first. And then, police say, Taffy went and shot the prime minister's brother. In a fit of desperation and fury in December, police say, the burly Taffy, 74, strode into Vere Bird Jr.'s office and ended up shooting himself in the hand and Bird in the mouth during a confrontation over the Guiana dispute.
At issue is not just the fate of the Buftons, who recently were resettled at government expense in a five-room, seafront home on four acres on Antigua. Their claim to Guiana Island, whose true ownership is in dispute, is pending in court, but the government, in what it calls a "humanitarian gesture," is paying their rent, utilities and a $567-a-month stipend under a 1997 parliamentary act known as the Taffy and Bonnie Bufton Bill.
For most Antiguans, a larger issue is the land itself. Many challenge the government's decision to sell an entire island to a little-known developer from half a world away for just $5 million.
