An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Five days af­ter ris­ing ten­sions among Sea Lots res­i­dents thrust the com­mu­ni­ty in­to the me­dia head­lines, MP Kei­th Scot­land vis­it­ed the area yes­ter­day to help re­store calm.

Con­firm­ing this was achieved fol­low­ing a “peace meet­ing” at Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, Sea Lots, on Sat­ur­day evening, the Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty said he was heart­ened by the move, which saw res­i­dents from all ar­eas of the com­mu­ni­ty talk­ing out their is­sues and ul­ti­mate­ly mak­ing the de­ci­sion to set side what­ev­er dif­fer­ences they had.

Dur­ing his vis­it, Scot­land ques­tioned a res­i­dent in a sar­cas­tic way ask­ing, “I heard it has three Sea Lots?”

The res­i­dent re­spond­ed by say­ing the me­dia was try­ing to blow the sit­u­a­tion out of pro­por­tion, put Sea Lots un­der pres­sure and give a bad im­pres­sion.

Scot­land said, “I ex­pect you all to act as we have agreed, okay gen­tle­men?”

Speak­ing to a group of res­i­dents, he said, “The same Guardian that put me on the front page with bad news has to put me on the front page with good news. That’s not fair?”

He added, “My un­der­stand­ing is that there was a lit­tle mis­un­der­stand­ing with some youth men, so let me tell you how it is com­ing now. It is com­ing now that we can’t have a lit­tle fight. If we get away that is front page. That is how they look­ing to put we up be­cause that is how peo­ple does get away.

“Even in your own house you does get away some­times. So we get away with a lit­tle fisty cuffs, right? That made front page. Sea Lots in war. Con­tracts. CEPEP. And it was a lit­tle thing with chil­dren. I just want to put you all on alert that is how per­cep­tion is. We ain’t use no gun, just fel­las had a lit­tle fisty cuff, so we have to be ex­tra care­ful be­cause they ran with it un­til I can’t take it any­more, I had to come and deal with it.”

He end­ed by ask­ing, “All is well in Sea Lots, gen­tle­men?” To which the group re­spond­ed with a hes­i­tant af­fir­ma­tive.

Speak­ing to a sep­a­rate group of res­i­dents a short walk away, Scot­land asked a group of men, “Can I tell the coun­try that it was blown out of pro­por­tion?”

The group of men re­spond­ed with a “yes.”

Scot­land said Sea Lots was too small for the “in fight­ing” that was al­leged to have been oc­cur­ring, adding he had been hurt by the neg­a­tive nar­ra­tive that was be­ing played out in the me­dia.

In an ear­li­er in­ter­view, Scot­land said he had a plan for the com­mu­ni­ty.

“We have a plan and we will not be side-tracked. We are back on fo­cus now.”

Scot­land sound­ed a warn­ing to any per­sons or fac­tions want­i­ng to cre­ate strife and un­rest in Sea Lots, say­ing, “There will be no ar­ti­fi­cial di­vi­sions.”

A fe­male res­i­dent of Sea Lots West con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that fol­low­ing the last flare-up of ten­sions on Sat­ur­day, in which it was al­leged that po­lice of­fi­cers in an un­marked truck had fired on them from across the riv­er – the sit­u­a­tion had been left to rest.

Con­firm­ing the in­ci­dent had not been al­lowed to dis­rupt their planned 3 pm peace meet­ing on Sat­ur­day, she said, “We went ahead and held talks with the whole com­mu­ni­ty.”

Res­i­dents from all fac­tions of Sea Lots re­port­ed­ly at­tend­ed the meet­ing, which was held at the cor­ner of Pi­o­neer Dri­ve and Wright­son Road/Beetham High­way.

The woman hap­pi­ly re­vealed, “It went re­al nice.”

She said mem­bers from all over Sea Lots were present in­clud­ing “all them young boys.”

Pressed on what had been dis­cussed, she said, “Every­body talked ... they had a chance to talk about what might have both­ered them cause it had old­er per­sons there too, in­clud­ing po­lice of­fi­cers.

“They got to voice their opin­ions and then at the end of it all, every­body just agreed to dis­agree and leave every­thing in the past. What hap­pened, hap­pened and we all agreed to make peace.”

Com­ment­ing on this lat­er on, Scot­land said qui­et di­a­logue was all that had been need­ed to bring back a sense of calm and peace to the area.

De­spite the new­ly found peace, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials yes­ter­day said they would con­tin­ue to main­tain a pres­ence in the area.