The remnants of a bridge that was used by squatters to access properties at Success, on the East Coast of Demerara, were removed yesterday. (Orlando Charles photo)
October 3 ,2020
Persons who have been squatting at Success, on the East Coast of Demerara, have been given up to Monday to remove from the area.
As authorities continue to try get the squatters to give up the land, government contracted workers yesterday visited the area to remove the remaining vestiges of a bridge, which had been dismantled on Wednesday evening.
Chairman of the Region Four Regional Democratic Council (RDC) Daniel Seeram and a team met with government officials yesterday and he later told Stabroek News that the authorities are maintaining that the land belongs to the government holding company, the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL).
Some of the protesting squatters at Success with their placards yesterday (Orlando Charles photo)
Seeram, who said he and his team remain committed to the people, noted that the government’s position remained that the settlers need to vacate and that they would be given up to Monday to do so. He said the land will be subsequently handed over to Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) for further development.
Seeram also mentioned that the government will provide two trucks from today to help the settlers to remove from the area.
It is unclear what action will be taken if the squatters do not vacate the land.
Stabroek News yesterday observed an excavator removing the supporting beams that were behind in a canal. Some of the squatters stood on the opposite side of the canal and voiced their disappointment at the development, while others looked on in silence. Police officers were also present and observed the work.
As a result of the action taken yesterday, some of the squatters staged a peaceful protest and many of them stressed that as poor people they needed the land to build and to improve their lives.
Eversley Brown, who recently started preparing a plot of land, said he was among those who did a lot of work in the area, in the hope of bettering their lives.
Another, who gave her name as Joy, told this newspaper that the men at work where tearing apart the last of the bridge.
She said she and others were there peacefully and struggling to acquire a piece of land after suffering from the struggles of the pandemic.
“Lots of persons are homeless and jobless,” she said as she maintained that it was an injustice for Guyanese to be disenfranchised from “our beautiful land that we call Guyana.”
The woman continued to reiterate that it was a painful sight to look at both women and men crying because of the tension and the stress that have come from knowing that the small amount of funds they had invested to have peaceful and normal lives had come to naught.
Hundreds of persons who have been squatting at Success, Vryheid’s Lust and Chateau Margot, on the East Coast of Demerara, met with officials from the Central Housing and Planning Authority on Thursday in order to legally access house lots. There were lines outside of the school compound as many waited their turn to make an application for a house lot or to have their names recorded on the priority list if they already had an application in the system.
Seeram yesterday said on an online programme that he was told by government officials that of some 700 persons who turned up, it discovered that almost 350 of them had standing applications for house lots and as a result they would be given some priority.
The engagement at the school followed a confrontation on Wednesday that saw police fire pellets and teargas at some protesting squatters.
Police had said in a statement on Wednesday that they resorted to firing pellets and teargas after NICIL/GuySuCo officials visited the Success Squatting Area to speak with squatters, who became “aggressive” and “hostile”. “During this engagement persons became aggressive and hostile towards the officials and the police ranks and began throwing a bombardment of missiles at them,” the statement said.
On Thursday, GuySuCo’s acting Chief Executive Officer Sasenarine Singh told the Department of Public Information (DPI) that GuySuCo has seen a destruction of almost $2 billion in future cash flow because of the destruction of sugar cane varieties through the actions of squatters. The occupied land was used to cultivate cane for the Enmore Sugar Estate, which is one of three that the government intends to reopen. (Readawne Henery)
A section of the squatting settlement at Success, East Coast Demerara [Photo: News Room/September 30, 2020]