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Wednesday, July 30, 2025

No sight of Hinds in Beetham

by

2803 days ago
20171126

CHARLES KONG SOO

The protest that oc­curred in the Beetham on Thurs­day was done by a mi­nor­i­ty and their ac­tions are not rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the ma­jor­i­ty of res­i­dents who are law-abid­ing, hard-work­ing cit­i­zens that have been stereo­typed and ma­ligned. The res­i­dents want jobs in­stead of ri­ots, they say.

A blocko was in full swing on Rum Street with youths par­ty­ing “nor­mal nor­mal” yes­ter­day.

Sev­er­al youths gath­ered at Fifth Street to show their sol­i­dar­i­ty with res­i­dents that not every­thing that comes out of the Beetham is bad.

Res­i­dent Dave Har­ra­gin said “If some min­is­ter or some­one could come and talk with these youths and cre­ate em­ploy­ment, these things wouldn't go on. It was pub­lished that they hold some gang mem­ber, but that's not why they protest­ed.

“These fel­las need jobs in the com­mu­ni­ty. The Gov­ern­ment is ne­glect­ing the peo­ple in the area. We have a rep­re­sen­ta­tive down here and he doesn't even come through the area, which is (Laven­tille West MP) Fitzger­ald Hinds.”

He said res­i­dents were call­ing for rep­re­sen­ta­tion from Hinds a year ago when a 40-foot sink­hole opened up two streets away but he nev­er came and al­so nev­er showed up to ad­dress the flood­ing and clogged drains.

Har­ra­gin said he did not con­done such ac­tions as throw­ing de­bris to block the road, there were many dif­fer­ent ways to protest but the res­i­dents felt they were not get­ting any at­ten­tion and thought that was their on­ly so­lu­tion.

He said some of the com­ments on so­cial me­dia to wipe out the area were se­vere.

Har­ra­gin said there were good peo­ple liv­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty that go to work on a dai­ly ba­sis and not every­body was a crim­i­nal. When asked about how the ma­jor­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion felt about a mi­nor­i­ty from the Beetham could in­con­ve­nience and hold a na­tion to ran­som, he said if the Gov­ern­ment de­cid­ed to help res­i­dents with work, these in­ci­dents don't have to go on.

Busi­ness­man Kevin King said he was see­ing the com­mu­ni­ty and na­tion de­te­ri­o­rat­ing. He said grass roots places like the Beetham felt the heat more as a back­lash with what was oc­cur­ring in so­ci­ety and jobs were im­per­a­tive for res­i­dents.

Fix­in T&T calls on busi­ness­es to pro­vide jobs for res­i­dents

Head of Fix­in T&T Kirk Wait­he called on cor­po­rate T&T to pro­vide jobs for the res­i­dents. He said what hap­pened on Thurs­day on the Beetham was rep­re­hen­si­ble, can­not be con­doned. He said Fri­day's false in­for­ma­tion and fake events shared on so­cial me­dia about the area was just as dis­gust­ing and con­tributed to the stigma­ti­za­tion of the peo­ple in the Beetham.


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