Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Mem­bers of the High­way Re-route Move­ment smashed a tent be­long­ing to Con­struc­to­ra OAS Ltd on Wednes­day night, as the Brazil­ian con­trac­tors moved heavy ma­chin­ery in­to the San Fran­cique area to be­gin work on a dis­put­ed seg­ment of the $7.1 bil­lion San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way.

The ac­tivists, who are op­posed to the Debe to Mon De­sir stage, spent the night pa­trolling the San Fran­cique Road, de­ter­mined not to al­low OAS to be­gin land-clear­ing works. The work crew ar­rived around 8 pm and with­in two hours had set up a tent with lights and run­ning wa­ter. How­ev­er, when the ex­ca­va­tors rolled in at 10 pm, the res­i­dents moved in and pushed down the tent.

Some of the pro­test­ers sat on the road, while oth­ers used a mas­ter key to dri­ve the ex­ca­va­tors off the land. Po­lice ar­rived a short while lat­er but the ex­ca­va­tors re­mained in the mid­dle of the road overnight. By morn­ing, hun­dreds of dri­vers were caught in a mas­sive traf­fic jam. Many had to use al­ter­na­tive routes and by 9 am, po­lice led by In­sp Ro­han Par­dassie ar­rived. They cleared the road and drove the ex­ca­va­tors aside.

De­o­raj Boodai, whose fam­i­ly owns a ten-acre plot of land in San Fran­cique, said they will not al­low their lands to be seized by the State. "This is bla­tant tres­pass­ing. They have dam­aged our fix­tures and they have not paid a cent to us," Boodai said. He added that since 2005, the Gov­ern­ment had done soil tests on the land.

"No per­mis­sion was sought from us and they put down pick­ets on our land. This is not right," Bood­hai fumed. An­oth­er res­i­dent, Randy Bood­hai, said his fore­fa­thers paid 20 cents per square foot for land in San Fran­cique. "This is pri­vate prop­er­ty," Bood­hai de­clared. "I can­not go in the Prime Min­is­ter's house and pick up her TV. Why are they com­ing in­to our prop­er­ty?"

He al­so said the San Fran­cique Road was paved just two weeks ago and the heavy ma­chin­ery was de­stroy­ing it. Busi­ness­woman Dowatie De­o­lal said she was not will­ing to give up her land to fa­cil­i­tate the high­way. "We are well set­tled here. We are a com­mu­ni­ty and if we are moved to Pe­tit Morne (Ste Madeleine), how will we sell our dou­bles in Pe­nal? Our chil­dren go to school in this com­mu­ni­ty and we are not leav­ing here," De­o­lal said.

Ac­tivist Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh said the State had vi­o­lat­ed the rights of the peo­ple. He said the high­way re-route is­sue is now be­fore the High Court, so OAS had no au­thor­i­ty to pro­ceed with the Mon De­sir route. He al­so said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar promised six months ago to re­view the high­way project.

In a no­tice is­sued to res­i­dents, OAS said con­struc­tion be­tween Siparia and Mon De­sir was ex­pect­ed to start from No­vem­ber 1. The com­pa­ny said con­struc­tion would go on be­tween 7 am to 6 pm from Mon­day to Sat­ur­day. In a sep­a­rate fly­er, the com­pa­ny said the high­way would im­prove safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, re­duce trav­el time, en­hance con­nec­tiv­i­ty, boost in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment, im­prove move­ment for peo­ple, goods and ser­vices and cre­ate sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

How­ev­er, the re-routers be­lieve the Debe to Mon De­sir seg­ment will de­stroy 300 homes, flat­ten 13 com­mu­ni­ties, de­stroy 20 streets, 13 busi­ness­es, 65 oil wells, up­root gas pipelines in the Oropouche La­goon and cause per­ma­nent flood­ing.

The move­ment is propos­ing that Gov­ern­ment add a new high­way sec­tion be­tween Debe and Mos­qui­to Creek, re­pair and widen by­pass and con­nec­tor roads and then feed them in­to the new high­way sec­tions from San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin.