The Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) is calling on Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to halt work on the controversial Debe to Mon Desir Highway
In a release yesterday expressing solidarity with Highway Re-Route Movement leader Dr Wayne Kublalsingh in his second hunger strike, MSJ leader David Abdulah said: “We call on the UNC Government and Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar to immediately halt work on the Debe to Mon Desir Highway, implement the Armstrong Committee’s Report and await the court’s final decision.”
Accusing the Prime Minister and the Government of deliberately mis-informing the country on the issue, he said there are two highways being built, not one. The San Fernando to Point Fortin Highway and the Debe to Mon Desir Highway. The dispute is with the latter, he said, adding: “Citizens, particularly those from the deep south—La Brea, Point Fortin, Cedros—must not get caught by the Government’s mis-information: nobody is seeking to stop the construction of the San Fernando to Point Fortin Highway.”
He also took the Prime Minister to task for her recent statement on the issue. “The Prime Minister issues a statement in which she seeks to mis-inform the public. She states that since the matter is before the Court there can be no other outcome but to wait for the Court to decide. This is false. Everyone knows that two parties in dispute can settle a matter outside the Court and then have the Court informed of their mutual agreement.”
“In addition, when the Prime Minister suggests that the HRM should take no action until the court decides, she is pushing double standards: one for the residents and the HRM and the other for the Government.
“A level and fair playing field is one where both parties agree to take no action and wait on the Court to decide. That is, while the process is going through the Courts, the Government should halt all work on the Debe to Mon Desir Highway. By refusing to meet with Dr Kublalsingh; by refusing to halt work on the Debe to Mon Desir Highway while the matter is before the court is in our view an act of contempt by the UNC Government—maybe not contempt of court; but contempt for justice. And that is why we say that law and justice are not necessarily the same.”
Abdulah said MSJ is deeply concerned about this injustice which has placed the HRM in a no-win situation. “Even if they were to eventually win their case in the courts by that time the residents would have lost their land and their communities would have been destroyed.”
In the face of such injustice, he said, Kublalsingh has now embarked on a second hunger strike. “Who can condemn him for that? What other option does he have, if all other mechanisms have been effectively frustrated by the UNC Government intent on proceeding with a project that is 200 times more expensive and potentially hundreds of times more environmentally dangerous than the Las Alturas buildings that were built on shifting land?”
By not abiding to the Armstrong report, which recommended that work be halted and crucial studies be conducted, Abdulah said the Government is saying to the country that there is no justice in T&T. The MSJ said “where there is no justice there will be no peace.”
