Gail Alexan­der

The De­fence Force and oth­er state agen­cies yes­ter­day con­fis­cat­ed cop­per and cleaned up Beetham Es­tate's scrap iron busi­ness­es fol­low­ing in­for­ma­tion that guns are be­ing hid­den in the scrap iron and are al­so be­ing man­u­fac­tured from the iron. How­ev­er, the se­cu­ri­ty forces' move in­to the Beetham at 6 am to un­der­take the ex­er­cise, brought loud com­plaints from the area's scrap met­al deal­ers and res­i­dents. Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Don­na Cox and PNM Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds were on the scene as­sist­ing the five-plus scrap iron busi­ness­men who claimed they had li­cences for their op­er­a­tions.

The busi­ness­men are claim­ing the loss of thou­sands of dol­lars worth of ma­te­r­i­al con­fis­cat­ed by sol­diers. Res­i­dents, in­clud­ing the busi­ness­men, stood around fum­ing about the ex­er­cise and their set­backs. MP Cox said: "A large con­tin­gent of sol­diers came to Beetham with Works Min­istry trucks around 6 am and cleared the scrap iron off the high­way verges. Cap­tain Hill, who was in charge, told me he was told he could al­so clear 20 feet in­side the dis­trict as it is state land." Cox said Hill told her he was in­struct­ed to do this. Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er and his ad­vis­er Fran­cis Joseph didn't re­spond to calls from T&T Guardian yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan at yes­ter­day's dai­ly me­dia brief­ing said the Gov­ern­ment had cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence on the scrap iron sit­u­a­tion. He said scrap iron deal­ers would be com­pen­sat­ed for their pos­ses­sions once they had valid li­cences for this. Ram­lo­gan said there were al­so oth­er ar­eas apart from Beetham where scrap iron piles would be cleared. Oth­er state se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials ex­plained that in­for­ma­tion re­ceived con­firmed the iron was be­ing used to make guns and that guns were of­ten hid­den in the piles of scrap iron to avoid de­tec­tion.

They said: "This is a high pri­or­i­ty sit­u­a­tion in the crime clean-up. There's al­so in­for­ma­tion that there are arrange­ments in league with ma­chine shops to make guns from this scrap iron." Kedell Mon­trose, one af­fect­ed Beetham scrap iron deal­er, told TG af­ter his scrap iron ma­te­r­i­al was lost: "Sol­diers come here min­utes to 6 am and start tak­ing every­thing with­out warn­ing. The cap­tain say Gov­ern­ment own 20 feet from the high­way so they clear­ing it. "They give we no warn­ing. I is 30 years old. I lose about $90,000 worth of ma­te­r­i­al."

John Ren­nie, who said he lost more than $30,000 worth of items, de­clared: "This just un­just! They say they try­ing to solve crime but this will add to crime be­cause peo­ple now out of work. We em­ploy peo­ple, too. Most of the youth men and dem mak­ing a lit­tle dol­lar. "What we go­ing to do? We can't leave we house af­ter cur­few. We look­ing for an hon­est liv­ing and they tak­ing it away. I can't un­der­stand how peo­ple in Ca­roni and every­where have con­tain­ers all round dem area but dem ent do­ing them noth­ing. This whole thing like it based on pol­i­tics. They know Beetham is PNM."

Ren­nie added: "Even if we sue, is a state of emer­gency and we have no rights, peo­ple say, so we have to take what they dish­ing out. But if you put peo­ple out of work they won't solve crime." De­bra Mon­trose, moth­er of busi­ness­man Mon­trose, added: "Every­thing gone down the drain! They could at least give us no­tice to sal­vage a few things, but since 6 am they here." "It re­al­ly too hard in truth! They don't want the boys and them to thief yet they can't do they busi­ness and they have peo­ple work­ing for them. Peo­ple on the bread­line...it re­al­ly hard for black peo­ple in this coun­try right now! I don't know what go­ing on."

Cox said: "It seems they're not on­ly clear­ing up crime, but the scrap iron al­so. But since peo­ple have le­git­i­mate busi­ness, we want­ed to know what will hap­pen to the con­fis­cat­ed ma­te­r­i­al. "Hill said it would be stored at Is­patt com­pound. I want to know if this ex­er­cise is be­ing done at sim­i­lar sites all over T&T or just here (Beetham)." PNM's Hinds said he had asked Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs for word on the ma­te­r­i­al re­moved from the busi­ness­men since they had le­git­i­mate busi­ness­es. Hinds said the CoP said he would ex­am­ine the sit­u­a­tion.

Hinds added: "Peo­ple feel dis­crim­i­nat­ed against ob­vi­ous­ly. I'd ad­vise res­i­dents to seek le­gal re­dress. Re­cent­ly Gov­ern­ment in­di­cat­ed scrap met­al sites were un­sight­ly, but we're amazed they'd use the state of emer­gency to tack­le this."