Small crop farm­ers in Fa­cil­i­ty, among them cas­sa­va farm­ers, say they are frus­trat­ed by the con­stant at­tacks and theft of their crops by thieves.

Two weeks ago, the farm­ers said they were con­stant­ly be­ing at­tacked by ban­dits who pulled guns on them and ac­tu­al­ly beat them and their work­ers mer­ci­less­ly. They were forced to watch help­less­ly as the thieves moved out with their crops of cas­sa­va, hot pep­pers, ed­does, toma­toes etc.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at their farm­lands on Mon­day, the farm­ers said they were fed up shed­ding tears over their loss­es which ranged from $20,000 to $50,000.

The farm lands are Ca­roni Lands Phase 1 and Phase 2 in Fe­lic­i­ty and span over 600 two-acre plots. When Ca­roni 1975 Lim­it­ed closed down in 2003 the farm­ers, for­mer work­ers, were giv­en the lands for agri­cul­tur­al pur­pos­es but with lim­i­ta­tions such as no plant­i­ng of fruit crops and rear­ing of live­stock.

Cur­rent­ly, there are ap­prox­i­mate­ly 300 ac­tive farm­ers at the two lo­ca­tions.

Farmer Don­nie Ram­per­sad plants small crops such as sor­rel, ed­does, corn and sweet pota­toes.

He has been plant­i­ng for the last four years and in the past eight months thieves have struck his land five times.

“My most re­cent at­tack was four nights ago, where four men came up to my camp, kicked in the door and at­tacked my work­ers and tried to rob them. When they broke in­to the shed, there were about three of us and at the time we had cut­lass­es and when the ban­dits at­tacked us, we re­tal­i­at­ed and end up chop­ping two of them. I went to Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion and no po­lice reach to the site and that was it. They told me if the ban­dits died from any in­juries, they would lock me up. The po­lice said they had two peo­ple at the health cen­tre with chop wounds, but they didn’t know if they were the same peo­ple. Noth­ing came out of it, Ram­per­sad said.

He called on the po­lice to take them se­ri­ous­ly and despatch more pa­trols.

An­oth­er farmer, Nick Med­ford, al­so a Ch­agua­nas busi­ness­man, said two weeks ago thieves cut the wire fenc­ing and stole all his ir­ri­ga­tion ma­te­ri­als and small hand tools.

“I start­ed farm­ing since Feb­ru­ary and I’m hit by thieves on an av­er­age of once a month,” he said.

Med­ford called for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Unit in the area.

He said, “They have to ac­tu­al­ly be sta­tioned here be­cause most times when we go to them they claim they have no ve­hi­cles. The last time a farmer had to go to bring them here. When we go to the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion, they act like they don’t care.”

Farmer Sunil An­drew said the thieves stole all his ed­does that were plant­ed be­tween his sor­rel and pi­geon peas plants.

Farmer Ramdeo Bal­go­b­in claimed that there were sev­er­al Span­ish-speak­ing men seen fre­quent­ing the area and be­lieves that they are il­le­gal and hid­ing out in the lands.

Two nights ago, Bal­go­b­in’s camp was scorched in an at­tempt to burn it down.

Cas­sa­va farmer Khem­raj Singh, who sup­plies NAMDE­V­CO with cas­sa­va for the Gov­ern­ment’s ham­per dri­ve, said he went to his farm lands on Mon­day on­ly to see that 100 bags of cas­sa­va had been stolen.

“I lost about $50,000,” he said.

Ear­li­er this month, Head of the Cen­tral Po­lice Di­vi­sion Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Curt Si­mon de­nied hav­ing any knowl­edge that Fe­lic­i­ty farm­ers were un­der at­tack.

Si­mon was ques­tioned about the at­tacks dur­ing a Po­lice Ser­vice me­dia con­fer­ence.

“That has not come to our at­ten­tion. I look care­ful­ly at my morn­ing re­ports which is ba­si­cal­ly what is re­port­ing, what sort of crimes are re­port­ed and I have not seen any­thing loot­ed,” Si­mon said dur­ing the con­fer­ence.

He, how­ev­er, as­sured that he would look in­to it, in ad­di­tion to speak­ing with the Ch­agua­nas may­or Faaiq Mo­hammed on the mat­ter.