Shal­iza Has­sanali

Fear has gripped the com­mu­ni­ty of Waller­field as some res­i­dents claim they are now be­ing threat­ened, in­tim­i­dat­ed and ver­bal­ly abused by a serv­ing mem­ber of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) who has de­fied an or­der by the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands (COSL) to stop build­ing on State land.

The cor­po­ral, who is at­tached to the Cu­mu­to Camp base, has been deemed as an il­le­gal oc­cu­pi­er of a par­cel of State land at De­marara Heights, Waller­field, ac­cord­ing to doc­u­ments seen by Guardian Me­dia.

The con­tentious mat­ter was ini­tial­ly brought to the at­ten­tion of the TTDF last Sep­tem­ber by res­i­dents Dick­ie Lash­ley, 53, and his 42-year-old com­mon-law wife, an em­ploy­ee of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty who wrote to the TTDF.

The let­ter was sent af­ter they re­fused to re­move a bam­boo fence at the back of their home which bor­ders a par­cel of re­serve land. This led to them al­leged­ly be­ing threat­ened and in­tim­i­dat­ed by the sol­dier in ques­tion.

The em­ploy­ee, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, sobbed in her Stone Street home on Tues­day, plead­ing with the COSL and the Po­lice Ser­vice to look in­to the sol­dier, whom she claims has be­come a law un­to him­self.

On Au­gust 17 last year, Lash­ley said the con­tention be­gan when they were or­dered by a mem­ber of the TTDF to re­move a bam­boo fence be­hind their yard as the sol­dier claimed the land be­longed to him.

Lash­ley said sev­en oth­er Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) res­i­dents were al­so in­struct­ed not to tres­pass on the land by the sol­dier who cor­doned off the area with cau­tion tape and plant­ed pick­ets in the ground as mark­ers.

The cou­ple has been liv­ing in the HDC set­tle­ment for 16 years.

“He (sol­dier) al­so pro­duced doc­u­ments to mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty stat­ing he was grant­ed per­mis­sion by the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands to oc­cu­py the land and al­so iden­ti­fied him­self as an HDC con­trac­tor,” Lash­ley said.

The res­i­dents, af­ter do­ing some dig­ging of their own, dis­cov­ered that the sol­dier was “im­per­son­at­ing state of­fi­cials to ad­vance his per­son­al quest to ac­quire State lands. When we asked about the plan for the area he in­di­cat­ed that he want­ed to build a gas sta­tion be­cause the area was de­vel­op­ing for busi­ness,” Lash­ley said.

Jesse Reyes, one of the eight af­fect­ed res­i­dents, said he too was oc­cu­py­ing the land be­hind his home “and sol­dier man come and say he work­ing with State lands. I didn’t want any trou­ble. So I backed off. The kind of peo­ple deal­ing be­hind there is re­al crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties...is drugs. I don’t like it at all.”

Un­like Reyes, the de­ter­mined cou­ple stood their ground, stat­ing this is what led to the death threats be­ing is­sued against them.

“The sol­dier told me I would end up mur­dered like one of my neigh­bours. I had to re­quest a trans­fer to work in To­ba­go be­cause I was fear­ful for my life,” the em­ploy­ee re­called.

On Sep­tem­ber 7, the sol­dier, Lash­ley said, pulled up in front of his home telling him “I told you not to plant any­thing on my f------ prop­er­ty.”

An oc­cu­pant in their home was al­so threat­ened that same day by the sol­dier who told him “ah com­ing back for all yuh. This ain’t done yet.”

These threats were re­port­ed at the Pin­to and Scar­bor­ough Po­lice Sta­tions.

On Sep­tem­ber 8, the cou­ple claimed they were fol­lowed by the sol­dier to Port-of-Spain, where they de­liv­ered a let­ter to the TTDF com­plaint de­part­ment about his mis­con­duct.

Three days lat­er, men wear­ing ski masks alight­ed from an army ve­hi­cle and up­root­ed the cou­ple’s plants and crops be­hind her home val­ued hun­dreds of dol­lars.

On Sep­tem­ber 16, the af­fect­ed res­i­dents held a meet­ing with two cor­po­rals of the TTDF who took state­ments from them.

The cou­ple al­so vis­it­ed Camp Cu­mu­to last Oc­to­ber to re­port the threats and gave a state­ment to Cap­tain Carr about the sol­dier’s be­hav­iour.

“That’s when an in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­gan,” the em­ploy­ee ex­plained.

Last month, res­i­dents were sur­prised to see a con­crete struc­ture be­ing built be­hind their homes, and when­ev­er it rained, the road­way and their prop­er­ties flood­ed.

The em­ploy­ee said to com­pound mat­ters, they ob­served a man known to be in­volved in il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties had been pro­tect­ing the land.

In a let­ter dat­ed Oc­to­ber 5, 2022, ad­dressed to act­ing COSL Bhan­mati Seecha­ran, the em­ploy­ee raised con­cerns about the con­struc­tion of the il­le­gal struc­ture in the com­mu­ni­ty and queried if the land be­longed to the State.

She al­so in­quired from Seecha­ran in a Sep­tem­ber 4 let­ter, to in­ves­ti­gate if the sol­dier was an em­ploy­ee of her di­vi­sion.

Of­fi­cials of the Land Set­tle­ment Agency(LSA), HDC and the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion were al­so in­formed about the il­le­gal struc­ture and the ten­sion it has been caus­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Act­ing on the of­fi­cer’s re­port, a quit no­tice signed by Seecha­ran and seen by Sun­day Guardian was served to the sol­dier on Oc­to­ber 19 “to de­liv­er up pos­ses­sion of the par­cel of state land” at Red Gran­ite Street, “which you are now un­law­ful­ly in pos­ses­sion of with­out any prob­a­ble claim or pre­tence of ti­tle.”

The no­tice gave him “sev­en days to cease il­le­gal” oc­cu­pa­tion of the land and “a 40 feet by 20 feet con­crete foun­da­tion.”

It al­so ad­vised that le­gal ac­tion will be tak­en against him if he re­fus­es to com­ply with the or­der.

When the Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed the HDC com­mu­ni­ty six days af­ter the no­tice was served, three men were seen work­ing fever­ish­ly on the struc­ture which can be seen from the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way.

Frus­trat­ed by the state’s lack of ac­tion, the em­ploy­ee said, “A year lat­er, I am still await­ing the out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the De­fence Force. I can­not un­der­stand how this sol­dier who claimed to work for State lands and HDC with­out show­ing any form of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion can forcibly re­move res­i­dents from the re­serve land and be al­lowed to break the law.”

The Sun­day Guardian sent a list of ques­tions via What­sApp to Seecha­ran on Thurs­day re­gard­ing the quit no­tice served on the sol­dier and her next plan of ac­tion.

“I am out of the coun­try. My staff will re­spond. I al­ready sent it to her,” Seecha­ran wrote.

On Fri­day, Seecha­ran promised to pro­vide re­spons­es to the ques­tions but they were not forth­com­ing.

What Carr said

Con­tact­ed on Fri­day, Cap­tain Carr ad­mit­ted he was in­struct­ed to in­ves­ti­gate the cou­ple’s mat­ter. A re­port was sub­mit­ted last No­vem­ber, Carr re­called.

“The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was com­plet­ed by my­self and sub­mit­ted.”

Pressed if the sol­dier was ex­on­er­at­ed from the com­plaints levied against him, Carr replied , “I can’t dis­close that in­for­ma­tion.”

He said if the cou­ple wants fur­ther in­for­ma­tion they can send cor­re­spon­dence to the of­fice of the Chief of the De­fence Staff “for an up­date on the mat­ter.”

Asked if he was aware that the act­ing COSL had re­cent­ly served a quit no­tice on the sol­dier for il­le­gal­ly oc­cu­py­ing State land Carr replied, “I am not aware of that be­cause he (sol­dier) pre­sent­ed doc­u­men­ta­tion from the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands of­fice where he got au­thor­i­ty from the com­mis­sion­er to oc­cu­py said land.”

Asked if the sol­dier had pre­sent­ed doc­u­men­ta­tion from the COSL to oc­cu­py lands at Red Gran­ite Street, Carr said, “I can’t re­call the spe­cif­ic par­cel num­ber, ma’am. But he pre­sent­ed doc­u­men­ta­tion with re­spect to a prop­er­ty that was un­der dis­pute. And that was part of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. But if you are telling me that he was served a no­tice to quit, I can on­ly ver­i­fy once I see the doc­u­ment (no­tice) and cross-ref­er­ence it with my doc­u­ment I have in my pos­ses­sion.”

Carr asked for the no­tice to be What­sApped to him. He lat­er sent a What­sApp mes­sage which read, “I am not au­tho­rised to speak on this mat­ter.”