Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get has said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar and her Gov­ern­ment have turned their backs on the peo­ple who put her in of­fice. He said so yes­ter­day in con­nec­tion with Per­sad-Bisses­sar's ap­par­ent snub of High­way Re-Route Move­ment pro­test­ers who were phys­i­cal­ly re­moved by po­lice from the en­trance of the Par­vati Girls' Hin­du Col­lege, Debe, on Wednes­day. Ro­get, speak­ing with re­porters at Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd (TCL), Clax­ton Bay, yes­ter­day, said: "It is wrong. It is il­le­gal and, of course, it is im­moral for the Gov­ern­ment and the Prime Min­is­ter to have turned their backs on those who on­ly yes­ter­day sup­port­ed them in­to of­fice.

"We have to give our over­whelm­ing sup­port to all of the Re-Route Move­ment and every­body who are in­volved in that. They should be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly." More than 300 homes are ex­pect­ed to be moved, along with nine mosques, church­es and mandirs, to make way for the Debe/Mon De­sir leg. Ro­get said the res­i­dents had a "le­git­i­mate and le­gal right to oc­cu­py their lands and the State must not bull­doze its way in­to oc­cu­pa­tion of that land for the sake of busi­ness and for the sake of a few peo­ple. He likened Per­sad-Bisses­sar's ac­tions to those of for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning when ob­jec­tions were raised against the con­struc­tion of a smelter plant at La Brea.