Yvonne?Ba­boolal

The scent of vi­o­lence and fear hung thick in the air on the "Gaza Strip" in En­ter­prise last Fri­day."They does call here the Gaza Strip. Here have Tal­iban," a res­i­dent said, hur­ry­ing to get off En­ter­prise Street.War­fare be­tween ri­vals gangs, Ras­ta City and the Mus­lims, had reignit­ed in the area. Gun­shots have been ring­ing through the neigh­bour­hood day and night, heard by fear­ful res­i­dents even in the near­by up­scale Lange Park com­mu­ni­ty.

The few res­i­dents on the streets quick­ly con­duct­ing their busi­ness were afraid to talk.A woman, busy strip­ping the husks off corn in a shed at the front of her house, did not look up once as she spoke."I don't have noth­ing to say. It hap­pen­ing over so, in Crown Trace and Bha­ga­loo Street."I don't have time with them and they crime. At the end of the day, I look­ing for a dol­lar.

"I have over 30 grand­chil­dren. I does sell roast and boil corn by Busy Cor­ner (Ch­agua­nas)."I pray to God to reach back safe and I lock up my gate and I in­side."I liv­ing here 33 years and is on­ly good morn­ing, good evening and I gone by way."They cre­at­ing they own mon­sters."An Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) work­er on the "Gaza Strip" said she and oth­er work­ers could not go to work on sites in Crown Trace and Bha­ga­loo Street.

"Yes­ter­day, we had to run. Is gun­shots, morn­ing, evening and lunch time. It have no spe­cial time."Is like a lock­down. It af­fect­ing every­body."The of­fice of En­ter­prise South coun­cil­lor, Ronald Heera was closed.A res­i­dent of John Street said the area was nor­mal at one time and claimed she did not know what start­ed the war.

An el­der­ly woman, who iden­ti­fied her­self as on­ly Mar­garet, preached a judg­ment ser­mon on the street when asked for a com­ment on the gang war in the area."Be­fore God de­stroy a city, He does send a warn­ing. What go­ing on here is God work."Peo­ple not hear­ing God voice. Is on­ly sin­ning and fet­ing and God want right­eous­ness. This is God judg­ment com­ing."

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Gov­ern­ment PROJECTS, DRUGS

Fight­ing for Gov­ern­ment projects may be one of the rea­sons be­hind the gang ri­val­ry in En­ter­prise.Sources said gangs in Cen­tral are fight­ing for Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (Cepep) and URP projects, run­ning work­ers off sites and de­mand­ing jobs.Fight­ing for con­trol of drugs turf is an­oth­er rea­son.

Po­lice said the Beetham-based Ras­ta City, with con­nec­tions in En­ter­prise, moved in­to the area last year.A war be­gan be­tween the Mus­lims in En­ter­prise and Ras­ta City.The con­flict be­gan when the Mus­lims moved in on a ri­val gang deal­ing in drugs in the area de­mand­ing they hand over their goods. The ri­val gang wants to con­trol En­ter­prise, the source said.

In June last year, gang war­fare erupt­ed in En­ter­prise with sev­er­al shoot­ings but no fa­tal­i­ties.Cen­tral po­lice ar­rest­ed two key play­ers and slapped 34 charges on them, con­fi­dent that would have kept them in jail for a long time and end the war.The war re­sumed around April this year. Nikhail Dy­er, 24, and his 18-month old daugh­ter were shot dead at his Ea­gle Av­enue, En­ter­prise. home. Po­lice be­lieved the killing was re­lat­ed to gang war­fare in the area.

There were two gang re­lat­ed killings and sev­er­al shoot­ing in­juries from night­ly gun­fire in the area.The gangs have been dis­play­ing pho­tos of them­selves on so­cial me­dia with high-pow­ered weapons.Ras­ta City and the Mus­lims each made videos of their own "an­them" which they have al­so post­ed on so­cial me­dia.

Se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras for Lisas Gar­dens

The up­surge in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in the Lisas Gar­dens and Cal­i­for­nia ar­eas is di­rect­ly re­lat­ed to a fight for Gov­ern­ment projects, the Guardian was told.An of­fi­cial with the area's URP pro­gramme said gang lead­ers have been claim­ing turf on job sites."If any work is about to take place they move in and threat­en work­ers, say­ing they need jobs."

Be­tween Cou­va and Ch­agua­nas ar­eas like "The Wall" on the Or­ange Field Road, Wyabi, Wa­ter­loo and Brick­field have been iden­ti­fied as oth­er cen­tral hot spots.Cou­va North MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al had ear­li­er said crim­i­nals mi­grate from north ar­eas to these spots to cool out.There was a shootout in "The Wall" in May last year but the area has since been qui­et.Last week, a 19-year-old Ak­ile Tal­lan of La Brea was shot and killed in Cal­i­for­nia.

The same night two broth­ers from Lisas Gar­dens, An­war Young, 24, and Ja­mal Young, 20, were shot and in­jured at their home.Res­i­dents of the area said apart from June and Annabelle Streets, the rest of the area is rel­a­tive­ly qui­et.Mary Pelti­er, who said she was a Gov­ern­ment ac­tivist in the area, said while there are some turf wars, Lisas Gar­dens was "not like Laven­tille".

There are plen­ty un­em­ployed youths in the area who need good jobs, she said.Pelti­er said "its fel­las from out­side" who are re­spon­si­ble for most of the crime in the area.Pres­i­dent of the Cou­va Cham­ber of Com­merce Li­aquat Ali has called for the ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion of the armed forces in the area.

Ali said the busi­ness peo­ple in the area, fre­quent vic­tims of rob­beries, are fear­ful, es­pe­cial­ly as the Sep­tem­ber 7 gen­er­al elec­tion ap­proach­es.He said the cham­ber has asked the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry for a meet­ing to dis­cuss the set­ting up of se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras in var­i­ous hot spots in Lisas Gar­dens and oth­er parts of Cou­va.The cam­eras cost an es­ti­mat­ed $1 mil­lion.