Double speak on Caroni lands

THE EDITOR: The seemingly harsh move by Caroni’s Land Management Agency to remove squatter farmers and other squatters could be the first golden opportunity to begin to sort out the disorder this country has been in since Christopher Columbus landed here and named it La Trinidad for Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain.

Since the announced closure of Caroni (1975) Ltd, a babble of voices has been claiming the lands for Indians, for Africans, big business, a credit union, wealthy expatriate Trinidadians and others. Caroni lands are State lands and so belong to all the people of Trinidad and Tobago. If we are a true rainbow nation, then to say that the lands belong to Indians and Africans shatters this image as the other groups are left out if they do not belong. At the end of slavery and indentureship both Indians and Africans got lands from the plantation. The Africans were allowed small plots of land for a house and a small kitchen garden. Despite this they left the plantation by the thousands. The wounds of slavery were too deep for them to retain any attachment to the cruel plantation system. Africans went to the cities and became civil servants, craftsmen, teachers, artisans, vendors. Some Africans who fought in the American civil war were given plots in south Trinidad which still bear the names of their military units, names as First Company, Second Company and so on. Many Indians were given lands in lieu of their passage back to India.

When the Africans abandoned sugar, Chinese were tried before the Indians. Their journey proved to be too long and expensive and those who came soon abandoned sugar to set up shops and laundry services. Other people came too, some from the Middle East all joining to form this nation Trinidad and Tobago. The idea to give ex-Caroni workers and cane farmers first preference to the lands is more than generous; considering the golden enhanced VSEP package most of them got. To extend the programme to all nationals interested in agriculture must be commended. Here is a chance for Afro Trinidadians who fled the plantation in the wake of the dreadful experience of slavery to return to the land to build themselves and their country. In principle, the offer is also open to Europeans and others a promise of utopian approach to agriculture with all sections of the society contributing to growing our own food.

Alas this grand plan which holds so much promise is fraught with danger, a danger engineered by the very ones who conceived it. The land distribution plan can turn out to be a poisoned chalice. The threat comes from the Government’s massive housing plans. The first warning shot came in Curepe some months ago when food crop farmers were put off fertile lands to make way for housing. The same fate awaits the rich lands in Orange Grove.  The opposition’s claims of house padding can have credence here. So far no one in Government circles can explain this bizarre development. Agriculture Minister John Rahael feigns ignorance of what is happening. How can this be? To which Cabinet does he belong? Two factors are driving this foolishness, the ruling party’s need to increase its presence in marginal areas and the promise of mega dollars from the oil and gas reserves. We are borrowing from the future to ruin ourselves with so called development. As a nation, all should unite and voice strong opposition to the Government locking away fertile lands under housing. Apparently the present administration is living for now, 2020 is a sham as far as food security is concerned. Future generations will curse us when the oil and gas runs out and they have to deal with hardships of not having food security. The nation should not allow this great sin to be perpetrated on generations to come.

MC DONALD JAMES
Couva