RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Pro­test­ers de­stroyed pub­lic in­fra­struc­tureon Wednes­day, as fiery protests con­tin­ued in Pa­lo Seco over a lack of jobs, high food prices, ris­ing pover­ty and in­creas­es in the price of fu­el.

Sev­er­al ar­eas along the SS Erin Road, from Siparia to Erin, were blocked with burn­ing bar­ri­cades for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive day.

And al­though two pro­test­ers were ar­rest­ed on Tues­day, the demon­stra­tors showed their anger yes­ter­day by chop­ping down sprawl­ing trees with pow­er saws and pulling down elec­tri­cal wires. The protest fires al­so de­stroyed wa­ter lines at Bryan Trace.

Al­though rains lashed the South West­ern penin­su­la, the vil­lagers con­tin­ued to heap tyres and house­hold de­bris which they set ablaze.

At Bryan Trace, one res­i­dent chas­tised the po­lice, say­ing: “Why are all you do­ing this? That is stu­pid­ness all you do there. How all you could throw that on the wa­ter line?”

A se­nior of­fi­cer, who as­sist­ed in clear­ing up the de­bris, re­spond­ed: “Ask them why they burn the wa­ter line.”

A pro­test­er, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, told Guardian Me­dia that youths were fed-up.

“The young peo­ple here have no op­por­tu­ni­ties. Gas prices ris­ing and food prices ris­ing. The youths have noth­ing to do and no jobs. It’s ridicu­lous now. It is over­bear­ing. If the youths have a trade or some­thing, do you think they will be out here? It has noth­ing for them to do. They fed-up now,” she said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Frank Con­nell, said the area had be­come de­pressed since the clo­sure of Petrotrin. Con­nell said the state of the na­tion’s roads was an em­bar­rass­ment to the coun­try.

“The high price of gaso­line is ridicu­lous and we are call­ing on the au­thor­i­ties to drop the price. The dri­vers in this coun­try are un­der re­al strain. Al­so, a lot of poor peo­ple in this area can­not af­ford food. The un­em­ploy­ment rate here is very high. School chil­dren can­not go to school, be­cause their par­ents can­not pay taxi fares for them to go to school,” Con­nell said.

He not­ed that al­though pover­ty was in­creas­ing in T&T, the Gov­ern­ment had cut var­i­ous grants, in­clud­ing food sup­port. Say­ing the protests in the penin­su­lar were peace­ful and non-vi­o­lent, Con­nell said this was the on­ly way to get their con­cerns aired.

Mean­while, the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment is­sued a state­ment ex­press­ing con­cerns about re­ports of protests and “ev­i­dence of wil­ful sab­o­tage by the cut­ting of trees which are staged to fall on ca­bles and lines.”

“These wil­ful crim­i­nal ac­tions are re­sult­ing in un­war­rant­ed flood­ing and de­lays in the de­liv­ery of re­lief for af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties. Per­sons are asked to con­tact their rel­e­vant DMU for “See Some­thing, Say Some­thing,” to pre­vent fur­ther risk to life and prop­er­ty,” the min­istry said.

Min­is­ter warns pro­test­ers

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds has sound­ed a warn­ing to pro­test­ers, say­ing those who de­stroy pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture dur­ing protests are com­mit­ting acts of ter­ror­ism.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Hinds said those who break the law will be charged. He said ev­i­dence gath­ered at the protest sites are in the hands of the po­lice.

“I am aware that trees have been cut, wa­ter­lines have been dis­rupt­ed and ma­jor pumps stolen from wa­ter fa­cil­i­ties. The Min­is­ter of Works has re­port­ed this and po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing,” Hinds said.

He said protest­ing was part of every cit­i­zen’s con­sti­tu­tion­al right.

“How­ev­er, for my part, if you are go­ing to dis­rupt pub­lic util­i­ties, that bor­ders on ter­ror­ist ac­tiv­i­ty and I am hop­ing that the po­lice will get to the bot­tom of that which has be­come known to the State,” Hinds said.

Say­ing it is a se­ri­ous thing to de­stroy in­fra­struc­ture, Hinds said: “I hope the po­lice can find those re­spon­si­ble. I will al­so take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to urge cit­i­zens to un­der­stand that while we have the right to protest and the Con­sti­tu­tion al­lows that, to go be­yond and dis­rupt the pub­lic util­i­ty sys­tem is quite a dif­fer­ent busi­ness. I urge cit­i­zens to please cease and de­sist from do­ing that.”

Hinds said he un­der­stood many peo­ple were frus­trat­ed.

“What­ev­er your mo­ti­va­tion, there are ways we can legal­ly, civil­ly and po­lit­i­cal­ly re­solve your sit­u­a­tion. There is no need to go there. I urge the po­lice to re­main com­plete­ly vig­i­lant and see when these sit­u­a­tions arise, they must take ac­tion,” Hinds said.

He re­mind­ed the pop­u­la­tion that Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob had al­ready in­formed his team to ar­rest any­one who breaks the law.

“The po­lice can take ac­tion be­cause dam­age is be­ing done and if we get to the point where wa­ter lines and elec­tri­cal lines, trees cut down de­lib­er­ate­ly, then that takes us in­to an­oth­er realm so the po­lice must han­dle these mat­ters with the se­ri­ous­ness that they de­serve,” Hinds said.