Resh­ma Ra­goonath

High­way Re-route Move­ment pro­test­ers plan to con­struct more camps, this time on pri­vate lands, in their bid to stop con­struc­tion of the Debe/Mon De­sir leg of the Point Fortin to San Fer­nan­do high­way. Eliz­a­beth Ram­barose, speak­ing on be­half of the pro­test­ers, made that de­c­la­ra­tion yes­ter­day from the move­ment's new camp­site near the Namde­v­co Mar­ket, Debe.

She said con­struc­tion work on the high­way is near­ing pri­vate lands, in­clud­ing hers, and she has no in­ten­tion of al­low­ing the high­way to pass through. "That is my land and I am not giv­ing them per­mis­sion to pass," she said. "They moved us, they say it was the state lands. Well now they go­ing to pri­vate lands and we will block them."

Last Wednes­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er led sol­diers and po­lice to the pro­test­ers' orig­i­nal camp­site and de­mol­ished the struc­ture. Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh, the group's leader, was ar­rest­ed and an army camp was erect­ed on the site. On Sat­ur­day, the pro­test­ers erect­ed a new camp near the Namde­v­co Mar­ket. When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the site yes­ter­day, Ramb­harose and sev­er­al oth­er pro­test­ers were clean­ing up the area.

Ramb­harose said the pro­test­ers will be set­ting up more camps along the route to stop the con­struc­tion. "We plan to build a big­ger camp on my prop­er­ty to block the con­struc­tion. I did not give them per­mis­sion. I want to see how Gov­ern­ment is go­ing to build this high­way," she said.

An­oth­er pro­test­er, Seenath Trib­any, 71, said the group will not give up. He said he spent Sat­ur­day night sleep­ing at the new camp. "We had one of the safest nights...The sol­diers were pa­trolling last night they kept us safe," he said. Ramb­harose said the pro­test­ers are op­er­at­ing a shift sys­tem at the camp­site. Yes­ter­day, sev­er­al ban­ners in sup­port of the high­way were put up a short dis­tance away from the protest camp­site at Pic­ton Junc­tion.