The Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA) in­tends to de­fend the evic­tion of the Ch­aguara­mas Mil­i­tary His­to­ry and Aero­space Mu­se­um (CMHAM) in court.

This fol­lows a judge grant­i­ng an in­junc­tion al­low­ing its op­er­a­tors to re­turn to the premis­es af­ter they were locked out by the CDA on Car­ni­val Mon­day morn­ing.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the CDA said it “is con­fi­dent that when the full facts are placed be­fore the court, the CDA’s le­gal po­si­tion will be ful­ly vin­di­cat­ed.”

Among those sup­port­ing the mu­se­um’s case are CMHAM pres­i­dent Lin­da Kelshall, vice pres­i­dent Bri­an Mitchell, and deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance Lor­raine Pouchet, rep­re­sent­ing Gary Grif­fith.

The Ch­aguara­mas Mil­i­tary His­to­ry and Aero­space Mu­se­um said it has been try­ing to se­cure a lease from the CDA for 30 years.

How­ev­er, the CDA said yes­ter­day, “This is a tem­po­rary or­der is­sued with­out any no­tice to the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA) and with­out the Court hear­ing the CDA. It does not de­ter­mine the le­gal po­si­tion of the CDA or of the Ch­aguara­mas Mil­i­tary His­to­ry and Aero­space Mu­se­um.”

It added, “The CDA con­tin­ues to dis­charge its statu­to­ry oblig­a­tions in ac­cor­dance with law and with a view to en­sur­ing that prop­er rev­enue is ob­tained from the pub­lic lands with­in its re­mit.”

Re­spond­ing to the CDA state­ment yes­ter­day, vice pres­i­dent of the mu­se­um Mitchell said, “I read the state­ment, and in the PR world, that is called dam­age con­trol. They are aware of it as well as we are that the mat­ter will be com­ing up in court on Mon­day, and from there, there will be a de­ci­sion, hope­ful­ly.”

Mitchell said the mu­se­um had full con­fi­dence in the ju­di­cial sys­tem to hear this mat­ter.

Along with vol­un­teers, mem­bers of the mu­se­um spent yes­ter­day comb­ing through its his­tor­i­cal pieces to see if any­thing was dam­aged or miss­ing.

In a let­ter dat­ed Oc­to­ber 1, 2024, the CDA with­drew its 30-year lease, which Kelshall said places the mu­se­um and its more than 500 years of his­to­ry in jeop­ardy.

The CDA said it made sev­er­al at­tempts to reg­u­larise the mu­se­um as a lessee, but in the last four years, it did not re­ceive a sub­stan­tive re­sponse from the pro­pri­etors, who con­tin­ued to op­er­ate on the land with­out pay­ing rent.