Sascha Wil­son

Mem­bers of the High­way Re-Route Move­ment yes­ter­day marched to the pri­vate Phillip­ine res­i­dence of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar where they de­liv­ered a let­ter to her se­cu­ri­ty de­tail seek­ing an ur­gent meet­ing. Their ac­tion came af­ter work re­sumed on the Mon De­sir to Debe seg­ment de­spite as­sur­ances by the Prime Min­is­ter and oth­er of­fi­cials that that seg­ment had been put on hold pend­ing a re­view.

Last month the mem­bers filed a con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion to stop the con­struc­tion of that sec­tion, which is still pend­ing be­fore the High Court. Their at­tor­ney Anil Maraj on Fri­day sent a let­ter to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan call­ing up­on him "to pro­tect the in­tergri­ty of the pend­ing pro­ceed­ings by giv­ing the un­der­tak­ing to cease all works pend­ing the hear­ing and de­ter­mi­na­tion of our mo­tion." Ram­lo­gan was giv­en sev­en days to re­spond.

Re-Route move­ment de­liv­er an­oth­er let­ter to PMs of­fice

Yes­ter­day, march­ing in sin­gle file hold­ing the na­tion­al flag, the male mem­bers of the group stood op­po­site the PM's house while the women and the chil­dren stood at the front gate at SS Erin Road. They were greet­ed by two sol­diers who re­fused to ac­cept the let­ter. Af­ter wait­ing about 30 min­utes, the PM's se­cu­ri­ty de­tail ar­rived and ac­cept­ed the let­ter from Eliz­a­beth Ram­barose. Ram­barose told re­porters: "Ba­si­cal­ly we came to hand de­liv­er a let­ter. Cpl Gafoor as­sured us that the Prime Min­is­ter will get the let­ter."

She said they did not know whether the Prime Min­is­ter was there since her se­cu­ri­ty de­tail said they were not at lib­er­ty to dis­close that in­for­ma­tion. Ram­barose said she was very dis­ap­point­ed in the Prime Min­is­ter. "We have been mak­ing nu­mer­ous at­tempts to talk to her con­cern­ing this. I would say she don't care for us. She don't care for the promis­es she made to us....I hope she has a con­science."

She said they in­tend to take more ac­tion on the ground. "We do not want the Mon De­sir to Debe seg­ment to start. It is be­fore the court, our mem­bers have no in­ten­tion of back­ing down they have to lis­ten to us. We are cit­i­zens, we put the Gov­ern­ment there and they have to lis­ten to us."

In the let­ter to the Prime Min­is­ter, Ram­barose re­mind­ed her that on March 16 she had as­sured them that work on that seg­ment had been put on hold, and would be re­viewed. How­ev­er, she said work­ers of the OAS com­pa­ny have be­gun con­struc­tion of what ap­peared to be the foun­da­tion for a bridge. She said they were al­so aware of plans to es­tab­lish a lay-down yard at San Fran­cique Recre­ation Ground off Mur­ray Trace, and for earth and veg­e­ta­tion re­moval to be­gin short­ly in the area.