Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin

In this plur­al so­ci­ety, we have to op­er­ate in a pro­fes­sion­al, con­sis­tent and ma­ture fash­ion. The prin­ci­ple of The Gold­en Rule must dic­tate the pace. There­fore we must do noth­ing that will give the im­pres­sion to any per­son or group that they are be­ing mar­gin­alised. Those who per­ceive that they are vic­tims of un­fair treat­ment will cry dis­crim­i­na­tion. Many times we are in a state of de­nial and there­fore we lack the ca­pac­i­ty to cor­rect an act of in­jus­tice. Let us al­so has­ten to recog­nise that jus­tice de­layed is jus­tice de­nied. With­in the con­text of wor­ship, there is a com­mod­i­ty called re­li­gious lib­er­ty. Since there is a pro­found re­la­tion­ship be­tween race, re­li­gion and pol­i­tics in this twin-is­land re­pub­lic; we have to make an ex­tra­or­di­nary ef­fort to en­sure that there is re­spect for hu­man dig­ni­ty. Let us pro­ceed to look at the is­sue that sur­faced last year in Cou­va when the Bap­tist church was de­mol­ished. It has reached the courts, and one ex­pects that jus­tice will not on­ly be done but it will al­so ap­pear to be done. On Feb­ru­ary 26, there was a spe­cial ser­vice on the same spot. It was called the Prayer Pil­grim­age. It was a very touch­ing ex­pe­ri­ence and the church lead­ers dis­trib­uted a doc­u­ment which gave a con­cise ac­count of the project and the in­ter­ven­tion by sev­er­al groups and promi­nent in­di­vid­u­als. This list in­clud­ed two for­mer Prime Min­is­ters, Bas­deo Pan­day and Patrick

Man­ning. Let us ex­am­ine the his­to­ry of the Wa­ter of Life Bap­tist church of Church Street, Cou­va:

1985-Moth­er ap­proach­es MP Bas­deo Pan­day for as­sis­tance in se­cur­ing land for church build­ing.

1986-MP Bas­deo Pan­day re­ceives per­mis­sion from Ca­roni Ltd for lands for church and gives the church let­ter of per­mis­sion from Ca­roni to oc­cu­py the land.

1991-PM Patrick Man­ning ap­proached for reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of land-ver­bal ap­proval giv­en to con­tin­ue oc­cu­py­ing.

2004-Min­istry of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, through Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme, opens ten­der with scope of works and in­struc­tions for project: Wa­ter of Life Taber­na­cle spe­cial con­struc­tion. Lo­ca­tion: Church Street, Cou­va.

2005-Ten­der process com­plet­ed and con­trac­tor se­lect­ed for "the con­struc­tion of Wa­ter of Life Taber­na­cle build­ing and up­per floor, sit­u­at­ed at Church Street, Cou­va."

2006-Check with min­istry while URP projects are on hold-giv­en as­sur­ance by Fe­lix Rao of fi­nal­i­sa­tion of land doc­u­ments up­on di­vest­ment of Ca­roni lands.

2008-Cou­va Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion as­sists with dig­ging of foun­da­tion trench­es for church build­ing. Erec­tion of wood­en struc­ture around tent frame.

2011 (Ju­ly)-Re­sub­mis­sion of ap­pli­ca­tion for land set­tle­ment process to new gov­ern­ment. Com­mence­ment of erec­tion of con­crete struc­ture around wood­en struc­ture un­der tent cov­er.

2011 (Au­gust)-Set­tle­ment process com­plet­ed; let­ter of rec­om­men­da­tion sent to head of­fice/line min­is­ter.

2011 (Sep­tem­ber)-Nalis in­struct­ed that half of the par­cel of land oc­cu­pied by the church was as­signed to it for the build­ing of the Cou­va li­brary; iden­ti­fies bound­aries and start­ed prepar­ing land for con­struc­tion.

2011 (Oc­to­ber 11, 2.30 pm)-Mr Ram­paras vis­its the church and claims own­er­ship of the land oc­cu­pied by the church.

2011 (Oc­to­ber 12, 5.30 am)-Mr Ram­paras re­turns with truck and back­hoe and pro­ceeds to de­mol­ish build­ing and trans­port some of the rub­ble.

2011 (Oc­to­ber 14)-Emer­gency meet­ing of el­ders of the faith re: des­e­cra­tion of church and at­tack on the faith-meet­ing named Unit­ed Voice of the Spir­i­tu­al/ Shouter Bap­tist faith by unan­i­mous con­sent.

2011 (Oc­to­ber 17)-Press con­fer­ence on de­mo­li­tion site at­tend­ed by Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty and one news me­dia house-the Tri­ni-dad Guardian.

2011 (Oc­to­ber 27)-First hear­ing re­sult­ing from in­junc­tion filed by Wa­ter of Life. Court gives de­fen­dant time to pre­pare and pro­vide doc­u­ments to prove claim.

2011 (No­vem­ber 1)-Re­ceipt of let­ter from Nalis dat­ed 10/10/11 claim­ing church tres­pass of lo­ca­tion of foun­da­tion trench and blocks.

2011 (No­vem­ber 6)-Church mem­bers meet Prime Min­is­ter at Pi­ar­co Air­port and present prob­lem to her.

2011 (No­vem­ber 11)-Mem­bers at­tend sit­ting of Par­lia­ment; hold au­di­ence with the Prime Min­is­ter; are promised at­ten­tion and as­sis­tance.

2011 (No­vem­ber 25)-Prayer meet­ing in Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain.

2011 (No­vem­ber 30)-Meet­ing with Min­is­ter Roger Samuel as di­rect­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter; re­ceives more promis­es for at­ten- tion and as­sis­tance.

2012 (Jan­u­ary 6)-Sec­ond court hear­ing; mat­ter post­poned to April 4; doc­u­ments on both sides to be sub­mit­ted-proof of own­er­ship of de­fen­dant/of­fi­cial cadas­tral sheet from Gov­ern­ment to the plain­tiff.

2012 (Jan­u­ary 13)-Let­ter to Min­is­ter Roger Samuel re: ur­gent need for of­fi­cial cadas­tral sheet from Land Set­tle­ment Di­vi­sion.

2012 (Feb­ru­ary 26)-Prayer Pil­grim­age on de­mo­li­tion site for speedy res­o­lu­tion and jus­tice.

At the end of the ser­vice there was a very com­fort­ing thought: "Fo­cus not on what you are go­ing through, but set your sight on what you are go­ing to." This sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing the Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist church has reached a very sen­si­tive stage. We await the de­ci­sion of the court which will re­flect on the ju­di­cial sys­tem in T&T. The pic­tures tak­en af­ter the de­mo­li­tion of the build­ing were shock­ing. Dr Hazel Ann De Peiza, Arch­bish­op Dorothy Her­cules, Bish­op Earl Hy­po­lite, Arch­bish­op Win­ston Iron­side treat­ed the is­sue with class and dig­ni­ty and de­clared their abid­ing faith and com­mit­ment to God. Dr Vic­tor Phillip ex­hib­it­ed an enor­mous amount of courage and he ad­mon­ished the con­gre­ga­tion to stand firm and see the sal­va­tion of God. This is their vow: "We col­lec­tive­ly vow that with the grace of our God, we will not cow­er, we shall refuse to run for cov­er, we will not be in­tim­i­dat­ed, side-tracked, nor al­low our­selves to be pushed aside but we shall stand firm with the knowl­edge that God is on our side and we shall pre­vail. We vow not to give up nor give in, not un­til vic­to­ry is ours. God with jus­tice is on our side. In the name of Je­sus we have the vic­to­ry."