The Working People’s Alliance (WPA) says it strongly opposes any development that sacrifices the dignity and rights of people. The comment follows the government-sanctioned demolition of “squatter” homes in an “unregularised” area at Mocha, East Bank Demerara, to make way for a multimillion-dollar alternative road.
Tensions flared at Mocha earlier this week after heavy-duty equipment turned up at the location to demolish several structures said to be on lands reserved for the thoroughfare. More than 28 families have since been relocated after the government opted to offer “compensation” despite its claims that the residents were there illegally. The Opposition has claimed that the lands are ancestral, noting that with the placement of the road, spaces in the disputed area could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the future.
The claim has led to at least seven families standing their ground and refusing free homes and arable lands from the government. Concurring with and supported by the opposition, the remaining residents began demanding hundreds of millions of dollars in “settlements”. The government has refused, contending that the lands are state reserves and were not procured by Afro-Guyanese ancestors.
Further, the administration noted that the presence of the “squatters” stymies developmental works geared at the de-escalation of traffic woes along the East Bank Demerara corridor. The proposed road is expected to bring relief to tens of thousands of residents who daily traverse the bottleneck-rife thoroughfare.
However, the removal has now been branded by the opposition and its affiliates as an ethnically discriminatory act. The WPA holds the same view.
In a statement on Saturday, the party noted: “The issue here cannot be resistance to ‘development’, as the government seeks to cast it. WPA wishes to make it abundantly clear that it is strongly opposed to any development at the expense of the dignity and rights of people. It is patently clear that the land in question is not an obstruction to the proposed new roadway. WPA thinks this is naked land-grabbing on the part of a government which has already been accused of transferring State and Ancestral Lands to its friends and cronies.”
The WPA added that the removal of the residents is reminiscent of South Africa’s apartheid era. It noted also that the events at Mocha open the government to charges of racial profiling and racial discrimination in the process of governance.
“Bulldozing people’s homes against their will is a human rights violation, but worse, it is an act that reeks of disdain, and disrespect for citizens who have not offended the law or the government. The images broadcast to the world from that village bring back memories of South Africa’s apartheid era and justifies [sic] the charges by sections of the African Guyanese community that Guyana is an emerging Apartheid State.”
