Dear Editor,
Politicians and ordinary folk have different interests: The interests of the PNC Opposition politicians are to attack the Government by calling it racist, uncaring, to prevent the development of EBD and to use their followers in achieving their ends. The interests of the squatters are quite different from theirs.
The interests of the squatters was to force the Government to give them as lucrative a financial package as possible and they were able to achieve a once in a lifetime package without any PNC Opposition help since the Opposition politicians did not wish a settlement. This remarkable settlement they forced the Government to make consisted of free new house, free transported house lot, millions of dollars in hard cash, free agricultural land of 5 acres. This incredible achievement of the squatters was taken up by 80% of them, but seven of them were misled by the Opposition politicians.
These 7 squatters were told by the politicians that they should turn down the Government’s concession and demand $100 million to $150 million which is far above the market price of the best properties in Queenstown or Subryanville. The 7 squatters became a laughing stock. Two of them decided to take up the Government’s offer before it was withdrawn.
The politicians panicked that the five remaining squatters would accept the Government’s generous offer and desperately fabricated some nancy stories to keep them misled. These fanciful stories were that the reserve land on which they were squatting really belonged to them since their grandfather had a transport for it but that the transport document had gotten soaked in floods and was then lost. The other fairytale was that the reserve land on which they were squatting was not in the line of the new road. A third nancy story was that the Government’s Indian supporters would buy up the land if they vacated it. They reiterated the $100 million demand though it had made the squatters a laughing stock.
The Road Contractor was mulling suing the Government for delaying their work and causing them loss. The Government then had to assert their rights and demolish the five small wooden structures on the Reserve.
The five squatters now have nothing to get since the Government’s offer could no longer stand and the PNC Opposition politicians who were leading them up the garden path have left them high and dry.
We understand that the lady Minister of Housing, out of the goodness of her heart, would still give them the financial package she was offering. I hope they would do what the vast majority of squatters did and demand the package which was on offer, a package which would now be finally withdrawn.
Yours sincerely,
Paul Validum Ramlochan
