My Republic Day was well spent. I went to Debe to see what all the hullaballoo was all about. Here is what I found.Most people didn't really care and had no opinion at all.Those people who were against [the Highway Re-route Movement proposals] were all intimately connected to the UNC!
Then there was this small group of people whose lives were being brutally interrupted by what I could see was an ill-conceived plan, and who, even so, believed that the traffic congestion could be solved using alternative routes.What the rest of Trinidad needs to know is that what started brutally with the destruction of the camp by the armed forces is sure to end brutally.
If good sense does not prevail, it will end brutally for those villagers whose fate will be sealed when the highway runs through their village and their existing roads end abruptly at the highway–excommunicating one section of their village from the other. It has already ended brutally for the species of wildlife that inhabit the lagoon.It will end brutally for the Southlands whose ecosystem will be forever altered.
It will end brutally for the areas of the Northern Range which have been raped and indiscriminately quarried to provide the fill for the highway.It will end brutally for those villages at the foothills of the Northern Range– villages which will be washed away by the deluge which will follow the rains.It will end brutally when that same Northern Range cannot provide water for all, because its watershed has been reduced by this wanton destruction.
To say that this process of building the highway started brutally and will end brutally is no small understatement.If good sense does not prevail, it will end brutally for Dr Wayne Kublalsingh, whose ravaged and emaciated body will not last much longer.
Satu-Ann Ramcharan
via e-mail