An ap­peal is be­ing made by Ram­jat­tan Trace, La Hor­quet­ta res­i­dents for the im­me­di­ate in­ter­ven­tion of La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro MP Fos­ter Cum­mings, af­ter they faced off against heav­i­ly armed po­lice and de­mo­li­tion crews yes­ter­day.

Crews from the Land Set­tle­ment Agency, the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands and the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion de­mol­ished 12 hous­es af­ter evic­tion no­tices were is­sued to res­i­dents in Oc­to­ber last year.

The Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) said it had re­ports that in­di­vid­u­als were il­le­gal­ly sell­ing the state-owned land. Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the neigh­bour­hood just be­fore 8 am yes­ter­day, as of­fi­cers from the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion and Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB) kept watch as crews be­gan knock­ing down sev­er­al wood­en and con­crete struc­tures.

Sev­er­al heat­ed con­fronta­tions be­tween res­i­dents and po­lice of­fi­cers erupt­ed, lead­ing to the ar­rest of two men, who re­mained in cus­tody up to late yes­ter­day.

Of­fi­cials vis­it­ed the area last Oc­to­ber and de­mol­ished 20 struc­tures. They al­so is­sued let­ters to oth­er res­i­dents urg­ing them to va­cate and end their il­le­gal oc­cu­pa­tion of the land by Jan­u­ary.

One res­i­dent said some of her neigh­bours who worked as fruit ven­dors on the near­by Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way were walk­ing to the in­ter­sec­tion at 7 am, when they no­ticed the con­voy of po­lice ve­hi­cles and an ex­ca­va­tor.

Ani­ka Leera re­called hear­ing shouts from neigh­bours when the work­men en­tered the com­mu­ni­ty, as res­i­dents protest­ed the de­struc­tion of their homes.

“Where are poor peo­ple go­ing to sleep tonight? What are we sup­posed to do, go and rob peo­ple?”

An­gry res­i­dents con­tin­ued to shout at work­men, even as the ex­ca­va­tor be­gan de­stroy­ing the struc­tures.

With­in min­utes, all that re­mained were heaps of de­bris, with a few ap­pli­ances and fur­ni­ture sal­vaged by the res­i­dents.

Res­i­dent Ann Marie Dalips­ingh said her home was one of the 12 struc­tures de­mol­ished, adding she felt help­less as she and her six chil­dren had nowhere else to turn.

An emo­tion­al Dalips­ingh said while she was a life­long res­i­dent, her home was built eight years ago.

“Where they want us to come in the streets and live? That’s why our chil­dren can’t see bet­ter­ment in this coun­tr,y be­cause we’re try­ing as poor peo­ple,” Dalips­ingh said.

“By do­ing this, they’re mak­ing us turn and we’re push­ing a lot of hate in our heads.”

The res­i­dents claimed they cut the dirt tracks which con­nect­ed the com­mu­ni­ty and felt they should have at least been con­sult­ed be­fore the evic­tion no­tices were is­sued. They claimed they did not re­ceive ad­e­quate no­tice or prop­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

How­ev­er, a me­dia re­lease from the HDC yes­ter­day said the own­ers of the 12 struc­tures were served with no­tices and even giv­en an ad­di­tion­al nine days af­ter their Jan­u­ary 27 dead­line to va­cate the land, to al­low for a “hu­mane tran­si­tion.” The re­lease satel­lite im­agery showed many of the struc­tures were new­ly built or still un­der con­struc­tion, dis­miss­ing claims that some struc­tures were the homes of life­long res­i­dents.

“No­tably, five struc­tures marked for re­moval were built be­tween 2018 and 2023, one was con­struct­ed be­tween 2014 and 2018 and six were erect­ed be­tween 2018 and 2023,” the re­lease stat­ed.

The HDC said au­thor­i­ties were al­so aware of fraud­u­lent ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing peo­ple sell­ing por­tions of state land, and in­ves­ti­ga­tions were un­der­way to find the per­pe­tra­tors.

Res­i­dents de­nied these al­le­ga­tions, not­ing that such crim­i­nal­i­ty would mean they could af­ford bet­ter liv­ing con­di­tions.

But, the HDC main­tained the de­struc­tion of il­le­gal struc­tures was nec­es­sary in ad­vanc­ing the de­vel­op­ment of hous­ing fa­cil­i­ties for cit­i­zens in need.

‘Fos­ter must help’

Min­utes af­ter the work­men and po­lice of­fi­cers left the site, res­i­dents be­gan col­lect­ing de­bris and tools to re­build, as they vowed to con­tin­ue liv­ing on the site.

Res­i­dent Daniel Car­dinez said he and oth­er res­i­dents were pre­pared to con­tin­ue re­build­ing their homes no mat­ter how many times they were de­stroyed.

“Look the rain driz­zling and peo­ple fur­ni­ture and mat­tress­es out­side get­ting wet up. That’s why I am or­gan­is­ing to get oth­ers to come and cut up the gal­vanise and re­build these struc­tures. As fast as they mash it up, we will build it back,” he said.

The volatile sit­u­a­tion showed lit­tle sign of abat­ing and a group of irate res­i­dents lat­er vis­it­ed Cum­mings’ con­stituen­cy of­fice on Sel Dun­can Av­enue, La Hor­quet­ta, where they de­mand­ed to see him to voice their con­cerns.

Em­ploy­ees locked the of­fice doors and team of of­fi­cers from the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion was called in to dis­perse the res­i­dents.

Dur­ing the vis­it, one of­fi­cer told Guardian Me­dia’s cam­era­man to stop record­ing and used his hand to low­er the phone, de­spite it be­ing a pub­lic space.

The of­fi­cers agreed to al­low three res­i­dents to meet briefly with the su­per­vi­sor of the con­stituen­cy of­fice. Res­i­dent Ayan­na Mo­hammed said their names and con­tact num­bers were tak­en and the su­per­vi­sor promised to call them “with­in a few days” to or­gan­ise a meet­ing where their con­cerns would be heard.

Still, res­i­dents said they were not op­ti­mistic this would hap­pen.

“It’s not the first time we’ve heard promis­es from them, so as far as I’m con­cerned this is just lip ser­vice,” one res­i­dent said.

Guardian Me­dia tried to con­tact Cum­mings via phone and What­sApp but did not re­ceive a re­sponse.

MP calls for ‘hu­mane so­lu­tion’

Com­ment­ing on the sit­u­a­tion in a me­dia re­lease, Oropouche East MP Roodal Mooni­lal called on the HDC to seek a “hu­mane so­lu­tion” to the im­passe on Ram­jat­tan Trace by work­ing with the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands to pro­vide emer­gency shel­ter for those af­fect­ed.

He warned that not show­ing some flex­i­bil­i­ty to the squat­ters could lead to fur­ther so­cial prob­lems.

“Evict­ing fam­i­lies amid the cur­rent eco­nom­ic col­lapse would on­ly place them on the streets, vul­ner­a­ble to crime and at risk of fur­ther so­cial chal­lenges.

“In fact, crime will es­ca­late as the pover­ty rid­den and the un­em­ployed are thrown on­to the streets.”

But, in a voice note sent to Guardian Me­dia late yes­ter­day, HDC’s cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er, Kim­ber­ly De Souza re­mind­ed the res­i­dents that squat­ting was still il­le­gal. She urged those af­fect­ed that hous­es and land could be ac­quired via the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment or the LSA, which in­cludes the gov­ern­ment-aid­ed self help pro­gramme and the Hous­ing and Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme (HVIP).