Mr Prime Minister we are approaching six years since the forested hills and clean rivers behind our homes were bulldozed…

The Right Honourable Prime Minister                                26th November, 2009

Of The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago,

Mr. Patrick Manning.

Dear Sir,

We have come here today to deliver this letter to you personally, to ask you to please kindly facilitate us with a speedy relocation process at least before the coming dry season in which we suffer.

We write on behalf of most of the residents of Square Deal Corner, Vessigny Village La-Brea, to seek your intervention in a matter of great discomfort to our families and our community with respect to the “buffer zone” at the Union Industrial Estate. Of the total number of residents to be relocated from the buffer zone, there are seven households in Sobo, and the majority resides at Square Deal, most of whom we represent.

The dry season is coming very soon, and each year we have suffered dust storms which run over the grass-less bulldozed surface of the Union Industrial Estate and stifle us daily. Many of our children are coughing all of the time. At most times our homes are dusty, with frequent equipment failure. Our lives are very uncomfortable.

Sir, our humble community of close neighbors’, our fruit trees and vegetable gardens and our homes are where we live, and have grown to love, and it is sad that we have been so completely neglected, and left to live downwind in daily dust storms year after year. Sir, there have been a rise of illnesses especially with children and the elderly such as rashes, emotional trauma and sleeplessness, respiratory illnesses all due to the excessive and unbearable dust, light and noise

Please help us by putting our relocation issue on the front burner with due consideration for the stress which we have endured. Mr Prime Minister we are approaching six years since the forested hills and clean rivers behind our homes were bulldozed. There are many families who complain daily about respiratory problems, and all we ask of you Sir is that you consider our discomfort and the insecure condition in which we have been left to live, without the clearance to improve our lives and residences while we await this fated relocation.

Why are we forgotten? Why is there this delay? There are many precedents of how the relocation issue can be handled. The community in the buffer zone in Point Ligoure and Beach Road Point Fortin are an example of how the relocation exercise could be conducted. Why are we being treated worse than them? Should we not at least expect to be treated equally?

Please be friendly to us and understand that we are in need of your kind favour. We ask that you please facilitate an urgent meeting between our lawyers so that we can be relieved of another year of living in the coming dry season dust clouds.

We respectfully await your urgent response, and remain

 

Forever yours in fair treatment,

………………………………………….

Leon and Abigail Modeste.

13 Square Deal Corner,

Vessigny Village,

La Brea.