Caught in a fiery road­block yes­ter­day, a mo­torist threat­ened to shoot pro­test­ers if they con­tin­ued to burn tyres along Her­mitage Road, one of sev­er­al ar­eas blocked in South Trinidad this week.

Al­though some parts of Her­mitage Road were di­lap­i­dat­ed, the area where the block­ade was set up ap­peared to be in good con­di­tion. Heav­i­ly armed po­lice stood watch as the mo­torist jumped out of a black pan­el van and ac­cused the pro­test­ers of be­ing ir­re­spon­si­ble.

“If you want to burn tyre, go and burn it in your yard,” he shout­ed, hold­ing a shov­el in his hand.

One of the taxi dri­vers ap­proached him say­ing: “We burn­ing tyres all week.”

The po­lice then cau­tioned both men and the mo­torist drove off, on­ly to re­turn af­ter the van’s path was blocked by burn­ing de­bris. He spun his van around and came back out shout­ing: “If I see all yuh here, I will *sic* shoot all yuh.”

How­ev­er, the own­er of the pan­el van, who con­tact­ed Guardian Me­dia last night, dis­tanced him­self from the dri­ver’s con­duct, say­ing his com­pa­ny had noth­ing to do with what tran­spired.

No one was ar­rest­ed dur­ing the protests. How­ev­er, po­lice of­fi­cers as­sist­ed by fire­fight­ers had to shov­el up the de­bris to clear the roads while the pro­test­ers looked on.

The protests start­ed on Mon­day at Macaulay Road but then es­ca­lat­ed to Her­mitage and Cedar Hill.

Clax­ton Bay Taxi Dri­vers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Nizam Ali said they were fed up with the pot­holes. He said there was no co-or­di­na­tion be­tween WASA and the Min­istry of Works.

“WASA dig up this road in three places and come back to dig again and again, leav­ing the road in this con­di­tion. The ce­ment trucks al­so mash­ing up the road,” he shout­ed.

While parts of Her­mitage Road were in good con­di­tion, there were oth­er pot­holed ar­eas where steel sheets were placed over gap­ing holes. In the up­per re­gions, sev­er­al homes were on the brink of col­lapse where the road had caved in.

Mean­while, in Moru­ga, huge heaps of tyres were set on fire at Cachipe, La Lune and Gran Chemin.

Moru­ga/St Mary’s to Princes Town Taxi Dri­vers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Athanas said the roads are so bad that gas trucks and gro­cery vans can­not get in­to the area.

Mes­si­ah Bap­tiste called on Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan to en­gage with res­i­dents.

“We want to have a stake­hold­er meet­ing here. You can­not stay in town and see what is hap­pen­ing in Moru­ga. We want Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan to come here and sit with us and let us chart a way for­ward,” Bap­tiste said.

At Cachipe Vil­lage, elec­tric­i­ty wires caught fire as the mound of tyres sent thick black smoke bil­low­ing up­wards. Traf­fic backed up for miles. One woman was heard beg­ging the pro­test­ers to let her pass be­fore they set an­oth­er heap of tyres ablaze.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Min­is­ter of Works Ro­han Sinanan said 300 roads have been paved for this year. He said paving will con­tin­ue based on the avail­abil­i­ty of funds. He al­so said some protests seem to be po­lit­i­cal­ly in­sti­gat­ed.

Po­lice re­sponse

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer at the TTPS, Joanne Archie, said she could not say why the po­lice did not ar­rest pro­test­ers or the vil­lager who made the threats yes­ter­day. A video was shared with Archie.

She said: “We recog­nise a per­son’s rights to protest. How­ev­er, burn­ing de­bris and block­ing the road­way is un­law­ful.”

She added: “Once the po­lice can iden­ti­fy the per­son or per­sons who are per­pe­trat­ing these of­fences, they can be ar­rest­ed and charged.”