Crim­i­nal el­e­ments con­tin­ue to ter­rorise the farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty of Waller­field as they threat­en, as­sault and chase farm­ers out of their prop­er­ties to car­ry out il­le­gal min­ing. This prob­lem has been plagu­ing the area for sev­er­al years with al­le­ga­tions of po­lice of­fi­cers and crim­i­nals work­ing hand in hand to seize con­trol of state lands oc­cu­pied by farm­ers.

The lat­est episode has the Balkissoon fam­i­ly gripped in fear. They have re­fused to give in to the crim­i­nals and walk away from the nine acres of land they cur­rent­ly farm. Strug­gling farmer Don­nie Balkis­sion, who can nei­ther read nor write, along with his com­mon-law wife, Pri­matie Williams and their four chil­dren have be­come pris­on­ers in their Lal­la Street home. They claimed that they are fac­ing es­ca­lat­ing lev­els of in­tim­i­da­tion–from be­ing shot at to be­ing beat­en and at times chased by armed gang mem­bers who con­tin­ue to make every at­tempt to oust them from the agri­cul­tur­al land.

Balkissoon, an­gry and frus­trat­ed, be­lieves the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and work­ers at the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands have turned a blind eye to the il­le­gal min­ing that has be­come a cash cow for crim­i­nals and their as­so­ciates in the Waller­field area.

The area has an abun­dance of grav­el, red sand, sharp sand, and boul­ders. The ag­gre­gate and min­er­als are be­ing ex­tract­ed il­le­gal­ly by un­li­cenced op­er­a­tors and sold for con­struc­tion, in­dus­tri­al and man­u­fac­tur­ing pur­pos­es, re­sult­ing in the State los­ing mil­lions of dol­lars in po­ten­tial earn­ings.

Balkissoon claimed that gang mem­bers from Ja­cob Hill, Waller­field, work at the be­hest of one man who con­trols the il­le­gal op­er­a­tions in the area.

The il­le­gal op­er­a­tor, Balkissoon said, would in­struct the gang mem­bers to ap­ply pres­sure on farm­ers to sell their land for "small mon­ey".

If the farm­ers do not com­ply many are ter­rorised and pres­sured in­to leav­ing.

"They have been threat­en­ing to kill me and my fam­i­ly. I feel one of these days this mat­ter will not end nice. I am go­ing to re­tal­i­ate. Is ei­ther I end up dead or some­body gets killed be­cause of this land," Balkissoon told Guardian Me­dia in an in­ter­view re­cent­ly.

A draft of a Cab­i­net note dat­ed June 28, 1977, showed Balkissoon's moth­er (Dol­ly Balkissoon) ap­plied for five acres of land at Smith Lands, Waller­field, which was rent­ed to her at $6 per acre per an­num, pend­ing the prepa­ra­tion of a stan­dard agri­cul­tur­al lease.

Farmer Donnie Balkissoon relates his ordeal during an intervew at his Wallerfield home.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

In 2014, Dol­ly al­so re­quest­ed an agri­cul­tur­al lease for 1.62 hectares of state land in joint ten­an­cy with her three sons, Rooplal, Dook­ie, and Ku­mar at Lal­la Trace, Waller­field.

This par­cel of land was ini­tial­ly oc­cu­pied in 1966 by Balkissoon's fa­ther, Bata­lal Ram­sawak who died. Balkissoon's moth­er al­so passed away af­ter work­ing the two parcels of land with her three sons for decades.

An Agri­cul­ture Min­istry let­ter dat­ed Au­gust 8, 2018, in­formed Balkissoon and his broth­er Ku­mar that the State was con­sid­er­ing grant­i­ng them an agri­cul­tur­al lease for the lands at Lal­la Trace.

The let­ter stat­ed that an in­spec­tion con­duct­ed in 2017 showed the land was un­der 75 per cent cul­ti­va­tion and gave the two broth­ers three months to cor­rect this breach if they were to be reg­u­larised on the land.

They were al­so warned that fail­ure to cor­rect this short­com­ing, the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands (COSL) would serve le­gal no­tice. The broth­ers sub­se­quent­ly reached the re­quired cul­ti­va­tion.

How­ev­er, five years lat­er, Balkissoon said, he has no idea of the sta­tus of the land, as no one from the COSL had vis­it­ed or pro­vid­ed him with an up­date.

Of­fered $20,000 by gang mem­bers

As he awaits word, Balkissoon said his fam­i­ly has had to bat­tle con­stant ha­rass­ment and tor­ment by the gang mem­bers.

In Feb­ru­ary, Balkissoon said while walk­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty with his 19-year-old son, gun­shots were fired at them.

Weeks lat­er, his 19-year-old son was kid­napped and beat­en but man­aged to es­cape.

"Since then, the sit­u­a­tion on­ly gets from bad to worst."

Balkissoon, 49, claimed he was of­fered $20,000 by the gang mem­bers to va­cate the land he has been cul­ti­vat­ing and oc­cu­py­ing for over 40 years.

"They told me they want to start min­ing on the land and I was in their way. You see un­der the top lay­er of the land is valu­able grav­el which they want to il­le­gal­ly mine so they could make their for­tune. But my re­fusal to sell or leave has me in this po­si­tion to­day. I am be­ing tar­get­ed and ter­rorised."

The con­stant ha­rass­ment and threats, Balkissoon said, have been dri­ving him to the edge.

Filled with frus­tra­tion, he said that he al­ready told his wife that one of these days he will end his own life. "How much a man and his fam­i­ly could take? They keep telling us they know we can't read and write and we are stu­pid and duncey and is bet­ter we take the mon­ey and leave the prop­er­ty. How could I sell state land? That is fraud!"

An excavator operator loads a truck with gravel in Wallerfield.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Liv­ing in a law­less so­ci­ety

Balkissoon said the crim­i­nals have al­so been de­stroy­ing his farm and crops.

"First, they start­ed rip­ping down my fence and mash­ing down my crops. They bring in heavy ma­chin­ery and be­gan bang­ing the buck­et of a back­hoe on the ground to scare my an­i­mals."

The noise from the back­hoe, Balkissoon said, fright­ened a two-month-old calf that fell in­to a ditch and broke its neck. Balkissoon had to sell his pigs, ducks, and most of his cat­tle to avoid his an­i­mals be­ing poi­soned.

Ear­li­er this month, Balkissoon said 14 men showed up at his door or­der­ing him to leave.

When Balkissoon re­sist­ed, the men ran down his two daugh­ters ages nine and 14 with guns.

"They told us they don't want no­body to plant here. They say they will shoot me and burn the house down with my wife and chil­dren in­side if we didn't leave."

The il­le­gal op­er­a­tor has al­ready ex­ca­vat­ed about four acres of Balkissoon's land. "Every day they quar­ry clos­er to where we live." Balkissoon said the en­croach­ment has him un­easy.

Hav­ing made nu­mer­ous re­ports at the Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion, Balkissoon said he has got­ten no sat­is­fac­tion from the law.

"Farm­ing is my liveli­hood. This is what I have been do­ing for years and I had to stop to pro­tect my fam­i­ly from be­ing harmed be­cause they are com­ing here with guns and threat­en­ing meh. We are liv­ing in a law­less so­ci­ety where crim­i­nals have more rights than law-abid­ing cit­i­zens," he said.

Every night Balkissoon and his el­dest son would take turns guard­ing their premis­es.

Three years ago, the men fire­bombed a farmer's home to get him out. Balkissoon fears he would suf­fer the same fate or even worse.

"I know what they are ca­pa­ble of do­ing. It's on­ly a mat­ter of time be­fore things es­ca­late."

From op­er­at­ing a suc­cess­ful farm, Balkissoon had to give up his liveli­hood, as he was warned if he con­tin­ues to cul­ti­vate the land he will feel the con­se­quences.

He now works on oth­er farms in the com­mu­ni­ty to sur­vive.

"Some­times I would get $100 for a half-day of work. I would work two days for the week so I have to stretch that mon­ey like elas­tic."

Primatie Williams shows the condition of their Wallerfield home.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Daugh­ters lag­ging in school­work

The lit­tle he earns can bare­ly feed his fam­i­ly much less send his daugh­ters to school.

The youngest daugh­ter is a Stan­dard One pupil of Cu­mu­to Low­er Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School. The old­est is a Form Two stu­dent of John­son's Fin­ish­ing School.

Both girls are lag­ging in their school­work and had not seen in­side a class­room in weeks be­fore schools closed for the Ju­ly-Au­gust va­ca­tion.

The youngest daugh­ter ad­mit­ted she can­not read and write prop­er­ly, while the el­der daugh­ter has learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties.

Balkissoon spends ap­prox­i­mate­ly $100 a day to trans­port his daugh­ters to school.

"That is mon­ey I don't have. Food and our sur­vival come first."

Balkissoon showed the poor con­di­tions in which his fam­i­ly lives.

The makeshift one-bed­room gal­vanise hut has no pipe-borne wa­ter, while he is ow­ing on his elec­tric­i­ty bill.

The fam­i­ly de­pends on rain­wa­ter dur­ing the rainy sea­son.

In the dry sea­son, Balkissoon would fetch wa­ter about a mile from his home.

In the mid­dle of Balkisson's bed and on the dirt floor were con­tain­ers that col­lect­ed wa­ter from sev­er­al leaks in his roof.

All he had in his kitchen was a hand­ful of flour in a dis­coloured buck­et.

"Them chil­dren ain't eat a thing for the day. Miss, we have no food...noth­ing. My heart does pain me to watch the chil­dren suf­fer and not get an ed­u­ca­tion," Balkissoon said, try­ing hard to con­tain his tears.

A mere 20 feet away, Balkissoon point­ed to an in­com­plete con­crete struc­ture.

"I was try­ing to build a bet­ter house for us but every­thing has been put on hold."

As Balkissoon re­lat­ed his plight, his 16-month-old son be­gan grab­bing Williams' breasts for milk. Williams al­lowed the tod­dler to suck­le, as she cra­dled him in her arms.

Balkissoon said he al­so had is­sues to deal with con­cern­ing his 14-year-old daugh­ter and has sought po­lice in­ter­ven­tion. He said the in­ci­dent with his daugh­ter now has the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit (CPU) of the po­lice ser­vice not on­ly threat­en­ing to take his daugh­ter but oth­er chil­dren as well. "My whole life is falling apart," Balkissoon said.

Farmer Donnie Balkissoon points to the spot where he recently replanted some crops after an excavator operator plowed through his garden.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

TTPS and Ari­ma MP to in­ter­vene

On June 29, Guardian Me­dia reached out to act­ing COSL Bhan­mati Seecha­ran query­ing the sta­tus of the land oc­cu­pied by Balkissoon.

Seecha­ran in­di­cat­ed that she was on va­ca­tion un­til Au­gust and ad­vised that we di­rect our ques­tions to Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary at the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture Coomarie Goolab­s­ingh, who ac­knowl­edged re­ceipt of the ques­tions on June 30, stat­ing she would "pro­vide feed­back" at the ear­li­est pos­si­ble time.

Al­most two weeks lat­er, a sec­ond What­sApp mes­sage was sent to Goolab­s­ingh ask­ing if a re­sponse was forth­com­ing, but she failed to re­spond.

Head of the North­ern Po­lice Di­vi­sion, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Christo­pher Pa­ponette said he would get a se­nior of­fi­cer to com­mu­ni­cate with Balkissoon "so we would have a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of his sit­u­a­tion".

Pa­ponette gave a com­mit­ment to look in­to Balkissoon's mat­ter.

Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son al­so promised to vis­it Balkissoon and pro­vide an up­date.

BOX

Last May, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said that based on his find­ings as a for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, il­le­gal quar­ry­ing was tied up with crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob ad­mit­ted that il­le­gal min­ing has been de­stroy­ing lives and the en­vi­ron­ment.

In a state­ment is­sued by the TTPS last Oc­to­ber, Ja­cob said a Mul­ti-Agency Task Force, com­pris­ing the COSL, En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty, Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty, Forestry Di­vi­sion and Min­istry of En­er­gy, has been deal­ing with il­le­gal quar­ry­ing, and steps are be­ing tak­en to ad­dress the is­sue, es­pe­cial­ly those breach­ing the law.