In an overnight trans­for­ma­tion, the High­way Re-Route Move­ment camp at Debe has be­come a base for the T&T De­fence Force and Brazil­ian road-build­ing con­trac­tor, OAS. Ear­ly Thurs­day morn­ing, army troops set up a white tent along the M2 Ring Road on the west­ern side of the dis­man­tled site. More than a dozen loads of ma­te­r­i­al for the high­way con­struc­tion al­so were trans­port­ed to the site from the OAS stock­pile yard. Three ex­ca­va­tors, two ex­tra heavy trucks and an army ve­hi­cle were sta­tioned at the site while work con­tin­ued at a fast pace. Two High­way Re-Route Move­ment mem­bers stood vig­il near­by.

One of the pro­tes­tors, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said the heavy sol­dier pres­ence would not stop them. "They will have to pass through en­tire vil­lages. Let us see what the army will do then. The peo­ple will stop them. The Gov­ern­ment has to show us proof that it is less cost­ly to put the high­way through the com­mu­ni­ty," he said. Lead ac­tivist for the group, Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh, said the camp would be re­built and the pro­test­ers would en­gage in two days of fast­ing and prayers out­side the Prime Min­is­ter's of­fice, St Clair. He added: "We will not back down. We can­not say yet where the camp will be re­built but it will." He re­newed his call for the new Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, Em­manuel George, to es­tab­lish a com­mit­tee of eco-ac­tivists, en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists, econ­o­mists, hy­drol­o­gists and ge­ol­o­gists to do an in­de­pen­dent cost ben­e­fit analy­sis of the seg­ment of the high­way from Debe to Mon De­sir.

Mean­while, the Pe­nal/Debe Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce al­so crit­i­cised Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er for su­per­vis­ing the de­mo­li­tion of the camp. "While the cham­ber stands firm­ly in sup­port of the high­way from Re­trench to Point Fortin, there must be re­spect for an­ces­tral and his­tor­i­cal val­ues," a cham­ber of­fi­cial said. Ex­press­ing alarm at Wednes­day's de­mo­li­tion, the of­fi­cial added: "We at the cham­ber view it as a di­rect at­tack on due process and the Con­sti­tu­tion. "The cham­ber al­so finds it high­ly ir­reg­u­lar that both Warn­er and ju­nior min­is­ter, Collin Par­tap, were present, giv­ing the im­pres­sion they were di­rect­ly su­per­vis­ing the op­er­a­tion." He said the State could have used le­gal av­enues to re­solve the prob­lem.