It has been said that a man's home is his cas­tle. A state­ment which I tru­ly be­lieve. As I see the vil­lagers of Debe protest­ing about the in­tend­ed de­mo­li­tion of their homes in which their fam­i­lies have lived on for gen­er­a­tions, I feel their pain and un­der­stand their re­luc­tance to just sim­ply give in to de­mands to va­cate.

The vil­lagers are say­ing they are not against de­vel­op­ment but rather they wish to have the Debe to Mon De­sir part of the high­way rerout­ed. They are al­so say­ing this can be ac­com­mo­dat­ed at a much cheap­er cost. It will al­so pre­vent flood­ing since the Oropouche La­goon will not be di­vid­ed in two.

Is it so wrong to want to hold on to what you know, love and cher­ish? These peo­ple can­not stand up for them­selves and have sought the as­sis­tance Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh, who I urge to con­tin­ue the fight and to ig­nore the loud and mean­ing­less din be­ing cre­at­ed by those in au­thor­i­ty. As for the claim that the vil­lagers in­volved in the protest are out­siders, this is sim­ply not true. But what can we ex­pect from politi­cians with their own agen­das?

Seema John

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