Even though the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty's (CDA) Feb­ru­ary 28 dead­line for the Mil­i­tary His­to­ry and Aero­space Mu­se­um to va­cate its par­cel of land along the West­ern Main Road has passed, the CDA says it re­mains stead­fast in en­forc­ing the quit no­tice which was first is­sued last Oc­to­ber. 

In a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, the CDA said it is com­mit­ted to ex­e­cut­ing its statu­to­ry man­date in re­spect of the de­vel­op­ment of lands on the North West Penin­su­la and dis­charg­ing its func­tion to reg­u­late the oc­cu­pa­tion of such lands. 

"The Au­thor­i­ty has made ex­ten­sive ef­forts over a pe­ri­od of more than 30 years to reg­u­larise the oc­cu­pa­tion of the Ch­aguara­mas Mil­i­tary His­to­ry and Aero­space Mu­se­um, how­ev­er, all such ef­forts have been re­ject­ed by the man­age­ment of the Mu­se­um," the re­lease said. 

The CDA added that it was left with no op­tion but to take the steps nec­es­sary to man­age and pro­tect the lands un­der its ju­ris­dic­tion in the pub­lic in­ter­est, en­sur­ing eq­ui­table and law­ful use of state re­sources.

In re­sponse, the at­tor­ney rep­re­sent­ing the pro­pri­etors of Ch­aguara­mas Mil­i­tary His­to­ry and Aero­space Mu­se­um (CMHAM) re­fut­ed the CDA's claims that they've been try­ing to get in con­tact with the op­er­a­tors of the mu­se­um in the last 30 years. 

"The CDA by way of their lat­est re­lease con­tin­ue to try to fool the Trinidad and To­ba­go pub­lic," the state­ment said.  

At­tor­ney at law Glen Bhag­wans­ingh said his client has re­peat­ed­ly re­quest­ed a lease over the years but the CDA did not even of­fer a draft copy for the Mu­se­um for con­sid­er­a­tion and re­view.

"We at the Mil­i­tary Mu­se­um be­lieve that the CDA man­age­ment is not fa­mil­iar with the en­tire is­sue and is been wrong­ly ad­vised," the re­lease said. 

The sub­jects of the re­lease were "The Mil­i­tary Mu­se­um is not Mov­ing and En­ter­tain­ment be­fore Ed­u­ca­tion," sig­nalling the pro­pri­etors' de­ter­mi­na­tion to put up a fight to pro­tect the over 500 years of his­to­ry at the mu­se­um. 

The pro­pri­etors said this mat­ter is now in "our le­gal ad­vi­sors' hands and we will sit and await the out­come."

Mean­while, the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) strong­ly con­demned the CDA's move to evict the Mu­se­um from the prop­er­ty.