Derek Achong

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has of­fered le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion to res­i­dents of a Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) apart­ment com­plex at the cor­ner of Dun­can Street and low­er In­de­pen­dence Square in Port-of-Spain who have been forced to re­lo­cate. 

Speak­ing at the par­ty’s press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day morn­ing, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark sought to show sol­i­dar­i­ty with the res­i­dents who clashed with po­lice of­fi­cers and HDC of­fi­cials as they were be­ing forcibly evict­ed on Sat­ur­day. 

Stat­ing that the res­i­dents were be­ing treat­ed like “dogs and slaves”, Mark said: “They brought the po­lice to en­sure that these peo­ple va­cate these places which they have oc­cu­pied for 60 years. What a shame­less episode Trinidad and To­ba­go wit­nessed.

“We would not sit idly by and al­low the PNM to sim­ply ride roughshod over the cit­i­zens of this coun­try. Even though they are from east Port-of-Spain and they vot­ed for the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), they are cit­i­zens of our re­pub­lic and they have rights.”

Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, who is an at­tor­ney, vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty yes­ter­day morn­ing well be­fore Mark made the an­nounce­ment. 

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty yes­ter­day, res­i­dents said they were thank­ful for the as­sis­tance but ex­pressed lit­tle hope it would change their plight. 

“What dif­fer­ence would it make? We still have to move out right now,” said res­i­dent Michelle Lamaitire, a long-stand­ing HDC em­ploy­ee. 

While Lamaitire ad­mit­ted she was as­signed a new apart­ment in Port-of-Spain, she claimed she could not move in by the dead­line set by the HDC as work­ers were still do­ing re­pairs. 

She claimed that af­ter HDC of­fi­cials re­moved doors and win­dows from most of the apart­ments on Sat­ur­day, she and a hand­ful of her neigh­bours who had not yet moved out re­mained. 

“I had to sleep with one eye open be­cause any­one could just walk in­to the place,” she said. 

El­der­ly res­i­dent Collen Men­doza, who has been liv­ing in the apart­ment com­plex since she was 16-years-old, vowed to con­tin­ue to re­sist the move. “I pay my rent Fri­day and get­ting evict­ed on Sat­ur­day. I will fight for my rights,” the 73-year-old said. 

Sev­er­al res­i­dents, who asked to re­main anony­mous, said they were not op­posed to be­ing re­lo­cat­ed but were con­cerned about the lack of mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion be­fore the de­ci­sion was tak­en. 

They said while some res­i­dents were re­lo­cat­ed to oth­er ar­eas of Port-of-Spain, oth­ers were re­lo­cat­ed to east, cen­tral and south Trinidad. That shift meant high­er trans­porta­tion costs and al­so af­fect­ed their chil­dren, whose ed­u­ca­tion will be in lim­bo un­til they are trans­ferred to schools near­er to their new homes. 

“Some peo­ple get their keys last week and they ex­pect them to move out overnight. How they ex­pect us to find schools for our chil­dren so quick­ly?” one res­i­dent asked. 

The UNC’s over­ture was firm­ly re­ject­ed by Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke, who be­gan ad­vo­cat­ing on the is­sue last week and was present yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.  He ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of us­ing the is­sue to score po­lit­i­cal points. 

“This is Port-of-Spain busi­ness. This is be­tween the burgess­es and their fu­ture may­or. Stay out,” Duke said. 

He claimed he was al­ready se­cur­ing le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for the res­i­dents and had as­sist­ed in sourc­ing trans­port to fa­cil­i­tate their move in the in­ter­im. “We are han­dling and fight­ing this here,” Duke said.