Sascha Wil­son

The Spir­i­tu­al Shouter Bap­tist com­mu­ni­ty has come out in full force against last week's de­mo­li­tion of the Wa­ter of Life Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Taber­na­cle in Cou­va. They view it as an at­tack on their faith. "That is sac­ri­lege! I want the world to know that I am go­ing to fight this with every drop of my blood," an irate Arch­bish­op Bar­bara Burke de­clared in a tele­phone in­ter­view. Last week Wednes­day the church was torn down by a de­mo­li­tion crew led by bailiff Ramkar­ran Ram­paras. Ram­paras said he was act­ing on be­half of the fam­i­ly of a de­ceased at­tor­ney who has a deed for the land. How­ev­er, the church's Spir­i­tu­al Moth­er Yvette Adams said they had oc­cu­pied the land since 1985 and she had made sev­er­al ap­pli­ca­tions to the Land Set­tle­ment Agency for own­er­ship.

Yes­ter­day Bap­tist el­ders from var­i­ous or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing Grena­di­an Pa­tri­arch John Noel, at­tend­ed a press con­fer­ence at the site of ru­ins where they strong­ly con­demned the de­mo­li­tion. Rev Dr Hazel Ann Gibbs De Peza, prin­ci­pal of Her­man Par­ris Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist South­land School of The­ol­o­gy, said: "We see it as an at­tack on the faith, not just on a par­tic­u­lar church. So that all of the or­gan­i­sa­tions in the Bap­tist faith has come to­geth­er to get some kind of re­dress and to pre­vent this from hap­pen­ing again." She re­called that be­fore the Pro­hi­bi­tion Or­der was re­pealed in 1951 Bap­tists suf­fered that kind of treat­ment at the hands of po­lice. "Now 60 years lat­er we see this hap­pen­ing again as a way of start­ing back this per­se­cu­tion," she said.

Arch­bish­op Burke, who was ab­sent from the con­fer­ence due to flood mop up op­er­a­tions at her Suc­cess Vil­lage, Laven­tille church, ap­pealed to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan to in­ter­vene. The for­mer sen­a­tor said: "I am con­demn­ing that strong­ly be­cause if in 1917 the po­lice was break­ing down our church how come in 2011 a cit­i­zen is break­ing down our church. It is un­fair." As­sum­ing that the land is pri­vate­ly owned, she said, Adams was not giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to move out her things.

"I think she should be com­pen­sat­ed. I want the Prime Min­is­ter to give this la­dy an au­di­ence. I want the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to look in­to this. They have no right. He played judge and ju­ry and de­mol­ished the women church and that is sac­ri­lege." The press con­fer­ence was part of a strate­gic plan by el­ders of the faith to deal with the sit­u­a­tion, said Gibbs De Peza. She said they in­tend to write let­ters to gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, stake­hold­ers and oth­er re­li­gious bod­ies seek­ing as­sis­tance and sol­i­dar­i­ty.