Shal­iza Has­sanali

Five days af­ter the army, po­lice and for­est rangers de­mol­ished 175 homes in Ve­ga De Oropouche, San­gre Grande–a squat­ting set­tle­ment–res­i­dents have start­ed to re­build.Yes­ter­day, over 200 res­i­dents who were af­fect­ed by last Mon­day's de­mo­li­tion re-en­tered the for­est re­serve lands, armed with ham­mers, saws, gal­vanise sheet­ings, nails and pieces of lum­ber to con­struct new homes, claim­ing that they had nowhere to go.

How­ev­er, while To­co/San­gre Grande MP Dr Ru­pert Grif­fith said he would not con­done the re­build­ing ex­er­cise, the res­i­dents ar­gued that the de­mo­li­tion was not done with­in the con­fines of the law, as they were not served no­tices of evic­tion.An­gered by the turn of events, the res­i­dents on Tues­day con­verged at Grif­fith's of­fice in San­gre Grande, seek­ing a meet­ing with him.

Some threat­ened to take le­gal ac­tion, while oth­ers say they will leave every­thing in the hands of God.The res­i­dents said homes that were num­bered by the Land Set­tle­ment Agency last year to be reg­u­larised were al­so flat­tened by sledge ham­mers.Pieces of wood that res­i­dents tried to sal­vage were shred­ded to bits by chain­saws. Res­i­dent Patrick Phillip said for sev­er­al nights, chil­dren and moth­ers slept un­der card­board box­es.

Some were res­cued by rel­a­tives, oth­ers have start­ed to put up crude­ly built wood­en struc­tures on the lands they once oc­cu­pied.Lu­ci­ta Gibbs con­demned the State's ac­tion."Is things like this that have the coun­try in the crime sit­u­a­tion to­day. Look how much land they have up here! The Gov­ern­ment can't give out hous­es fast enough and they don't want you to live any­where. This is ridicu­lous."Her friend and neigh­bour Mer­le Liv­er­pool looked on help­less­ly.

Hav­ing no clue about con­struc­tion, both women tried to help each oth­er re­build, but failed mis­er­ably.They were even­tu­al­ly as­sist­ed by a group of men from the com­mu­ni­ty.Miguel Tran­cosco said he lost his $15,000 home and his world­ly pos­ses­sions."I can't study them, I have to live. They (Gov­ern­ment) have de­stroyed us," said Tran­cosco, who was busy nail­ing pieces of ply­wood on the frame of his house.

Er­rol Bruce, 54, and his com­mon-law wife Don­na Cas­tle, 29, tried hard to con­tain their tears, stat­ing that since the in­ci­dent their lives have turned top­sy-turvy.Ter­ry Paba­roo said Bruce has been walk­ing aim­less­ly up and down the To­co Road every day."The man can't catch him­self," said Paba­roo.Paba­roo said he feels the State should re­im­burse those af­fect­ed.Bruce, who is un­em­ployed, said he had no mon­ey to restart his life.

He has been forced to sleep un­der a sheet of gal­vanise erect­ed on four short stilts, which is cov­ered by plas­tic at nights.Bruce's "new" home has on­ly a dingy piece of sponge, a buck­et filled with tools and wares in a box.Man­ag­ing with­out food, wa­ter, elec­tric­i­ty and a toi­let, Bruce said the phrase "every home is a cas­tle" means noth­ing to them."Our lives have been shat­tered."

Grif­fith: Peo­ple need to­do the right thing

Yes­ter­day, Grif­fith ad­mit­ted to meet­ing with a small group of res­i­dents."I told them that the is­sue of squat­ting was re­ceiv­ing much con­cern by the Gov­ern­ment and some­thing had to be done."Asked if the squat­ters were giv­en per­mis­sion to re­build, Grif­fith said, "I don't know. If the Gov­ern­ment should de­mol­ish the il­le­gal homes and they are re­build­ing, I don't know any­thing about this."

Grif­fith said the de­ci­sion to re­build would have to come from two agen­cies, the En­vi­ron­ment Min­istry and Forestry Di­vi­sion and not the squat­ters."I told them there was noth­ing I can do, but of­fered to as­sist through the land for the land­less pro­gramme. We gave them forms and ad­vised them to fill it out and we would dis­patch it to the Min­istry of Hous­ing. I can­not con­done an il­le­gal sit­u­a­tion. Peo­ple need to do the right thing."

Asked what would be­come of the dis­placed, Grif­fith replied: "I won­der where they were be­fore they came there."

Ma­haraj: They are play­ing cat and mouse

Chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Kesh­war Ma­haraj said the area was a re­strict­ed for­est re­serve.Ma­haraj said the squat­ters were play­ing a cat-and-mouse game with the law."But from next week there will be more pa­trols in the area. More for­est rangers will be on du­ty."

Ma­haraj could not say if the State would de­mol­ish the homes again."If it is un­law­ful and il­le­gal I ex­pect that it should be done."