Port-of-Spain: Works and Tranport Minister and chairman of the United National Congress, Jack Warner, has condemned farmers who attempted to mob Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar on Wednesday, over the ongoing conflict that started with the bulldozing of farmers' crops on Easter Monday by a state agency to make way for housing projects.
The protesting farmers converged on the prime minister as she left the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) Wednesday, where she had gone to distribute keys for new homeowners. The HDC is the organisation that mandated the bulldozing of the crops..
Minister Warner says the unprovoked behaviour disregards the empathy shown towards this group by the prime minister and reflects a lack of reason in seeing the broader picture.
"Clearly, theirs is a selfish motive and their intention to bully their way to achieve their own ends and agitate and incite each other to what end I cannot tell, will not be applauded," he said.
"Their attempts to block the Prime Minister manifest the type of hooliganism that is resident within the group. They have the right to protest but the decorum and the respect to which we have grown accustomed are no longer among us especially when this type of hooliganism is directed at a leader seeking justice and equity for all," Warner added.
The Minister says that to think that this is coming from a group which illegally squatted on state lands and received all the instruments for removal and yet resisted the law is incomprehensible.
He added, "This is a strange country where people with no rights of tenure can attempt to bully those in authority and threaten them with a vote. But this government will not be held hostage. This cannot be allowed to happen and the farmers must understand that their presence on State lands is at the mercy of the government and under no circumstances will this government allow its leader to be bullied and harassed in the manner our Prime Minister was bombarded yesterday."
The minister said that there is a better way and "I am urging the farmers to seek that path and feed this country not only with physical food but also with moral and socially amenable behaviour. This thuggery must stop. We must now demand an apology from its leadership as we seek to put these unfortunate events behind us".
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