Heavily-armed Guard and Emergency officers at the site.
A thin line separates Spring Village residents and officers blocking them from entering land being developed by the HDC
Photo: Shirley Bahadur.

St Augustine MP Vasant Bharath said the Spring Village incident showed that the Government was only paying lip service to improving agriculture.

“The bulldozing of farmers’ crops and the wrecking of arable lands illustrate the Government’s arrogance, recklessness and callous disregard for the people who toil ceaselessly to put food on the table for all of T&T,” Bharath said in a release yesterday.

“These humble farmers have been producing food crops on the land for almost 20 years.”

Bharath said the Government was guilty of persecuting and abusing a group of lawful, hardworking and, thus far, docile nationals whose only crime was producing food.

By Yvonne Baboolal

Armed police officers from the Guard and Emergency Branch (GEB), soldiers and security personnel from the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) were called out yesterday to protect an HDC contractor who was threatened by angry residents of Spring Village, Valsayn.

This was disclosed by HDC communications officer, Leslie John, in response to questions about the heavy presence of the officers on Caroni (1975) Ltd lands on Bassie Extension Street which was being developed by the corporation as a squatter relocation site.

Residents are resisting the move, claiming they were legally given the same land in 1991 for a recreation ground. They said while waiting on infrastructure to be put in, some residents planted the land.

They claimed the HDC moved in last Wednesday without telling them anything and began bulldozing the land with crops on it.

Contractor threatened

John said: “We received reports that certain individuals threatened the contractor’s person and equipment. The officers were there to provide security for him.”

UNC councillor for Valsayn South/Carapo, Khadijah Ameen, who urged residents yesterday to continue protesting said: “The police stopped us from going into the land.”

Dozens of agitated residents converged at the entrance to the site, instead, and shouted at the officers and HDC security guards blocking it.

“Rambo!” they shouted as two armed GEB officers and soldiers walked into the site.

No crops destroyed

While members of the media last week said residents showed them coconut trees and dasheen plants destroyed by the contractor, John said “absolutely no crops were destroyed.”

She said the contractor cleared only two acres of land to do soil testing.

“The contractors has pictures of the land before he cleared it and after and HDC personnel also visited the site to check it.

“There was even a small patch of cauliflower and the contractor made sure he went around it.

“There was some murky, contaminated water with some crops growing in it, however, and he cleared some of that,” John said. “But the rest of the land he cleared was under natural vegetation. Who would you believe?” she asked.

Cabinet decision

It was a Cabinet decision taken a few years ago that identified 22 hectares (over 132 acres) of land in Spring Village as one of several possible squatter relocation sites, John said.

She said squatter relocation fell under the Land Settlement Agency, another division of the HDC.

John said as far as they were aware, no one held any lease for the Spring Village land.

“All checks were made with the Ministry of Agriculture to see if anyone held any lease. There is no one,” she said.

However, former president of the Spring Village Council, Seeram Mahabir claimed residents had legal rights to the land.

His proof was a letter written in July 1991 by former Caroni Ltd chairman, Dr Ranjit Singh, to the chief administrative officer of the St George East County Council (now the Tunapuna/Piarco Regional Corporation.)

A part of it states: “We wish to advise that, in 1972, the company established a recreation ground on the parcel of land to be used by the villagers.

“Pending the legal transfer of the land to the State, which will be vested thereafter in your council, Caroni Ltd authorises your council to undertake any improvement works on the parcel of land having regard to the importance of the recreational facilities.”

Mahabir said numerous attempts to get the ground developed were ignored, however, and residents occupied it in the meantime by planting it.