Richard Lord

Head of the High­way Re-route Move­ment Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh is ex­pect­ed to stage the third day of his hunger strike out­side the home of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Phillip­ine this morn­ing. Kublals­ingh and about 35 oth­er mem­bers of the group, main­ly women, as­sem­bled out­side the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter in St Clair yes­ter­day to present a let­ter to her and sup­port Kublals­ingh on the sec­ond day of his hunger strike.

Pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) An­cel Ro­get and the pres­i­dent of the Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union (BIG­WU), Vin­cent Cabr­era, al­so joined the protest. The group is in­sist­ing the Debe to Mon De­sir sec­tion of the Point Fortin High­way should not be built, pend­ing an in­de­pen­dent tech­ni­cal re­view to de­ter­mine its fea­si­bil­i­ty.

Short­ly af­ter 10 am, the group was vis­it­ed by po­lice from the St Clair sta­tion, who asked about the pur­pose of their ac­tion. Kublals­ingh, who was seat­ed on a chair on the side­walk, iden­ti­fied him­self and told the po­lice the rea­sons for the protest ac­tion. Min­utes lat­er the po­lice left and the group re­mained but were drenched by heavy show­ers.

The let­ter, signed by Eliz­a­beth Ramb­harose, said Per­sad-Bisses­sar had re­neged on a March 16 promise to have the tech­ni­cal re­view done be­fore re­sump­tion of work on that por­tion of the high­way. It was re­ceived by Den­nis Mc Comie, di­rec­tor of in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

Ramb­harose told Per­sad-Bisses­sar: "Since your promise of hold and re­view, sur­vey­ing works be­tween Debe and Mon De­sir have con­tin­ued un­abat­ed." She said in the let­ter that last month trac­tors from OAS con­trac­tors be­gan bull­doz­ing in near­by Fyz­abad, and ap­pealed to the PM to stop the work pend­ing the tech­ni­cal re­view.

Kublals­ingh told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day that his hunger strike was se­ri­ous. "It's a per­ma­nent hunger strike and I will not re­lent un­til we get some kind of ra­tio­nal word from the Prime Min­is­ter say­ing she will re­view or that she'll halt this project," he said. His hunger strike be­gan at 9.05 am on Thurs­day. He said he was feel­ing weak but had the re­sources to con­tin­ue for an­oth­er two days.

"I?as­sume at some point, if the Prime Min­is­ter doesn't an­swer, the State will have to take me in its care," he said. He said if his health failed and he was tak­en to a pub­lic hos­pi­tal for med­ical at­ten­tion, he would com­ply, but would not ac­cept any­thing to eat or drink while there.

An­oth­er mem­ber of the group, Gi­tana Bood­hai, said they were de­mand­ing an­swers from the PM. "We are here to stay un­til the Prime Min­is­ter gives us this re­sponse and we don't in­tend to move and we are not giv­ing up. Noth­ing is go­ing to stop us, we are fight­ing for what is ours," she stressed.