Chatham protesters vow to stop smelter

This was the promise of Fitzroy Beache, president of the Chatham/Cap-de-Ville Environmental Protection Group after the final day of the eight-day walk from Cedros to Port-of-Spain yesterday.

“If blood have to shed, we going down marching against injustice,” he said. A promise to which his counterparts gave a lusty applause.

Hundreds of marchers joined president of the TT Civil Rights Association, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, in the walk against the construction of the plants, rising food prices, poor health care, inequality and the threatened demolition of homes in east Port-of-Spain.

The march, which started at about 10 am from the Churchill Roosevelt Highway, Curepe, down Southern Main Road, along the Eastern Main Road into Port-of-Spain, ended at 2.15 pm when supporters gathered at Tamarind Square. Overcast skies provided cool weather, duly appreciated by the crowd which was, at the end of the walk, greeted with tassa drumming and a few more supporters at Tamarind Square.

Maharaj and his entourage were, however, taunted by a handful of rowdy PNM supporters who had to be calmed before Maharaj delivered his speech.

Maharaj said the refusal of the Prime Minister and Housing Minister Keith Rowley to speak with them on social issues, was an indication that “all institutions of democracy had collapsed.”

He said the Government had acted in fear and had put pressure on Speaker Barry Sinanan and the Port-of-Spain Corporation to prevent them from meeting in Woodford Square, as initially planned. However, Sinanan told Newsday he had advised Port-of-Spain Mayor Murchison Brown that as long as Maharaj’s Woodford Square rally did not disrupt the proceedings of Parliament, it could take place at that venue.

Sinanan said his letter to Brown was the typical reply to requests to Parliament when any group wants to stage a rally at the square opposite the Red House.

“I can’t request the closure of the square. It’s not under my jurisdiction. I did not request it, nor did I refuse permission for anybody to assemble in Woodford Square.”

Even so, Maharaj indicated to supporters that the eight-day march was the first of three major protests and would be followed by another march from Mayaro to San Fernando then the third from Manzanilla to Port-of-Spain, which he said would be within the next month.