Monday, May 29 2006

American civil rights activist, Rev Jesse Jackson, has been invited to attend a human rights rally on June 4 to discuss a number of human rights violations including the proposed aluminum smelter plants at La Brea and Chatham.

Chairman of the TT Civil Rights Association, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, at a public meeting with residents of La Brea, Point Fortin and Cap-de-Ville, Chatham and Cedros residents at Point Fortin yesterday.

Maharaj told residents that discharges emitted by smelter plants had been deemed poisonous to human beings as the discharges could cause either immediate or slow deaths.

He said Prime Minister Manning had “disobeyed and disregarded” the laws of TT when he agreed to the establishment of the plants at La Brea and Chatham before approval was received from both the EMA and Planning authorities.

Meanwhile, president of the Chatham/Cap-de-ville Environmental Protection Company, Fitzroy Beache, has vowed to chain himself to the tree at the proposed site for the aluminum smelter plant if Government failed to heed residents’ objections to the project.

However he said the action would only be used as a last resort if both legal actions and persuasion failed to get the Manning Administration to reconsider its decision to locate the plant at the South West peninsula. “If I alone have to chain myself to a tree and use myself as a human barricade, I will do it,” he said to the small group of residents who had turned out at the meeting.

Beache also dismissed attempts to divide the communities along political lines saying the pollution produced by the plant would affect everyone regardless of political affiliation.