Sascha?Wil­son

High­way Reroute Move­ment (HRM) leader Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh says he will be­gin an­oth­er hunger strike in 12 days if Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar does not abide by rec­om­men­da­tions of the Arm­strong Re­port.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at HRM's camp at Gopie Trace, Pe­nal, yes­ter­day, Kublals­ingh said the restart of work last week on the Pe­nal In­ter­change "is the beast that has come to dig a dag­ger in our heart." He said on Wednes­day he would hold an­oth­er press con­fer­ence at the gates of the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and de­liv­er a let­ter to her out­lin­ing the HRM's po­si­tion and the terms of the hunger strike.

Asked if his mem­bers and fam­i­ly were sup­port­ing the hunger strike, Kublals­ingh said, "No­body wants it. Every­body is re­luc­tant. I think some mem­bers will be there and some mem­bers will not be there."He added, "When I go on the hunger strike I wish the Prime Min­is­ter to re­spect my body. To not come and touch it, to not ar­rest it, to not put it in prison, or in hos­pi­tal. They must re­spect what we are do­ing and re­spect my body.

"I ask the na­tion to re­spect what I am do­ing and re­spect the prin­ci­ples we are fight­ing for and do not in­ter­fere with my body at all. That will take its course and I think God will take over at a cer­tain point when he wants."Kublals­ingh said Per­sad-Bisses­sar had promised him in March 2012 to put the Mon De­sir-to-Debe leg of the high­way on hold and con­duct a re­view

"That's what she told us but what hap­pened? It's not the promise of a sweet­ie. It's not the promise of a fan­cy hat, or a bot­tle of wa­ter. It's a promise to pro­tect rich eco­log­i­cal so­cial­ly val­ued eco­nom­ic as­sets. What hap­pened?"We've been sit­ting in front of the PM's of­fice for 175 days now be­tween the hours of 7 am and 2 pm. They have not met with us. They have start­ed works and they have con­tin­ued works."

Just be­fore the start of Kublals­ingh's press con­fer­ence, sup­port­ers of the Mon De­sir-to-Debe leg of the $7.5 bil­lion Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion to Point Fortin protest­ed with plac­ards near the camp. Kublals­ingh said he held no an­i­mos­i­ty to­wards them as they too were cit­i­zens and had a right to ex­press their views.