“… Now is the time to make de land their possession; but their sense of taste yuh just trace to all them fancy showcase...so the businessman he blow dey mind and his dollars they got to find....Trinidad is nice ...Trinidad is ah paradise...”—Valentino.
Bro Valentino’s mocking refrain was delivered in the early 1980s, when the consciousness in Afros, stimulated in the 1960s/70s, became soaked by the oil “bread” and underdevelopment from political patronage.
It is incredible but not surprising, that of a reported 12 investors in land at Chaguaramas, only one has a name that could suggest that he could be of Afro-Trini ethnicity, ancestry.
The names of the others, as listed in a story done more than a month ago by Asha Javeed, are of Trinis of Syrian, Chinese and Indian origins.
I have no contention with such persons acquiring state property, assuming it is done transparently, once they have paid competitive market prices to either lease or purchase the lands, and if the leases are part of an overarching plan to make the best possible economic and social use of the Chaguaramas lands.
I have, though, three major problems with the lease of portions of the land based on information made public. These are as follows:
One, that given the historic nature of the Chaguaramas peninsula, virtually the last large land frontier in the country, that the national community can learn after the fact of the distribution of hundreds of hectares and without a full-fledged national consultation and opportunity for all to bid for the lands.
Two, that people of Afro-Trini descent could be so disenfranchised, undoubtedly they being responsible, in part, for their own marginalisation, while others are busily acquiring prime real estate.
Three, that in Javeed’s story carried in the Express, the purposes to which the lands leased are supposed to be put seem to lack a compelling overarching plan and programme for the best economic and social use of this invaluable chunk of land resource.
Chaguaramas needs to be placed in historical perspective to give a sense of its importance to the national community and the pride involved in the reacquisition; and this is to make the point that the peninsula cannot be simply distributed in a clandestine manner to choice investors.
Before World War II, the area consisted of a number of villages in which families of Afro-Trini and the admixture of typical Trini families lived. During the period 1939-1945, the USA perceived of the need to have a base at Chaguaramas to guard against the possibility of German U boats sneaking through the American “backyard” to deliver telling blows on the US.
The colonial British Government, in charge of T&T, received an American donation of “50 rusty ships” (Williams) for a 99-year lease of Chaguaramas. The families were evicted, many with minimal compensation for the lands on which they had lived for generations.
Williams, in the “March in the Rain” from Woodford Square to the US Embassy around the Savannah, registered the demands for the return of the Chaguaramas peninsula to a soon-to-be independent nation.
American resistance to returning the lands in full lasted until 1977.
Readers, if they are not aware of it, should check a wonderful picture of those who marched in the rain behind Williams and see the likes of Learie Constantine.
Over the last couple decades the stridency and insistence (inclusive of taking legal action to the level of the Privy Council) of the late Augustine Noel, petitioning on his own behalf and that of the families of the original owners for a return of the lands, could not have been missed.
His spirit is somewhere on the peninsula stalking the land to “jumbie” those who would acquire his family’s property.
The Guave Road farmers and others who had been cultivating portions of land for decades were unceremoniously evicted and ridiculed as unreasonable squatters.
My information is that they have been allowed back onto the farming grounds by the new Chaguaramas Development Authority, but they remain without lease title and so, vulnerable to eviction.
When the lease of the Convention Centre was made public, concerns were raised about political connection, nepotism and the lack of transparency in the leasing process.
With regard to the clear imbalance and almost non-appearance of Afro-Trinis figuring in those who have received leases, apart from the lack of consultation and non-transparent dealings (a couple newspaper advertisements which the CDA said was done), the sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters of those who marched in the rain and the progeny of the original owners remain in the rain.
While I raise questions about the process, the insufficiency of consultation and a seeming lack of planned development for this invaluable portion of land, this column is directed to Afro-Trini business people, professionals and others with the capacity for “making the land their possession” that they are being left behind, and they possess the absolute responsibility for such marginal existence.
To the national community, this column is about awakening us all to the travail that multi-ethnic and multi-cultural states go through when one large element of the society gets left behind.
Afro-Trinis, first out of the gate after 1838, once led in education and scholarship, in agriculture, in business, in the professions and in political awareness. Today, through a mixture of institutional repression and self-inflicted underdevelopment, the Afro-Trini population is in desperate trouble.
