By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

LINCOLN Bain and several of his supporters were stopped by police on Saturday when they went to a shanty town off Bacardi Road and tried to tear down illegal structures in the unregulated community.

Mr Bain, who is also leader of the Coalition of Independents, went live on Facebook from the shanty town on Saturday.

In the video, Mr Bain and his supporters could be seen walking from home to home through the community, knocking on doors and instructing residents to leave the property.

Homes that did not appear to be occupied were marked by the group.

“You have 15 minutes to take what you want out,” Mr Bain told one shanty town dweller.

Many of them appeared to be shocked and perplexed when approached by Mr Bain and his supporters, with some alleging they were paying rent to live there.

 But Mr Bain and his group dismissed their claims and continued to make their rounds in the community.

 They were eventually stopped from demolishing the homes after police intervened.

 In an interview with The Tribune yesterday, Mr Bain insisted the group’s actions were lawful and police had no right to stop them.

 He claimed the shanty town dwellers were squatting on Crown land given to a retired civil servant named Justina Curry for farming. He said Ms Curry had pleaded with the government to help her reclaim the land, adding they had papers to prove she had the legal right to the property.

 Mr Bain said while the former administration sought to assist Ms Curry and even issued eviction notices, the situation was still not properly dealt with and eventually prompted her to seek his help.

 He accused residents of threatening Ms Curry, destroying her crops and home, which he said was not acceptable.

 “We went there in September and served notices on them in Creole. We also went there three weeks ago with police and the police actually served the notices on those persons in Creole and they were given one week to leave. They had received four notices before,” the former Pinewood candidate told this newspaper.

 “We gave them an extra two weeks to leave and we went there yesterday (Saturday) and we told them that we had come to carry out the mission and when I said we, I meant her because it was her property and she was really doing it and we were just assisting her.

 “Basically, what she wanted to do at the time was remove the vacated buildings so some of the buildings, persons might have moved out or persons were occupying it, so she wanted to demolish buildings that were not occupied.

 “If you look at the live (video), we started out by saying that’s what we really doing.”

 The Tribune pointed out to Mr Bain that some of the homes seen in the video were occupied by residents who they questioned and instructed to leave.

 To this, he said: “There were some (homes) that people were living in but we would not have demolished any that people were living in at the time. That was not the plan but there were persons who were willing to voluntarily move on that day and so we were asking them to move.”

 He also claimed that some residents, including a Haitian pastor, even admitted to wrongfully building on the property and then went on to describe the situation as “sad” and worrying. Mr Bain insisted Ms Curry had every right to evict residents off the land.

 Mr Bain also insisted the group would have proceeded with the demolition process if a high-ranking police officer did not stop them and escort him off the property. He said officers told him he was not under arrest.

 “We started the process, but we couldn’t complete it and again, I want to make it clear that before we went there, we went to Carmichael Police Station and we got the assistance of police and this time, we went there and they assigned police officers to us and they were there with us the whole time while we were doing what we had to do, but then there was interference that came in from this assistant commissioner of police,” he alleged.

 Mr Bain said they had tractors, heavy trucks and other equipment to carry out the exercise, though he stopped short from saying who funded the effort and only told The Tribune: “It’s the effort of concerned Bahamians that did this to help make it happen.

 “We are terrified that the government would step in and interfere with the constitutional rights of a Bahamian, Ms Curry, who was violated, to throw this woman off this land and trespass on her land is a criminal offence,” Mr Bain continued.

 “These people did several major felonies against this woman, and she got no justice, and they could send an assistant commissioner of police to tell us that we can’t demolish.”

 Mr Bain and his supporters have repeatedly spoken out on the issue of shanty towns and have even held several protests over what they term to be an “immigration crisis” in the country.

 This comes as the Davis administration has reconvened a shanty town task force following the lifting of a Supreme Court injunction that had previously banned government from demolishing shanty town homes.

 Works and Utilities Minister Alfred Sears recently said the Bahamian public will soon be given a road map which the government will use to address the issue of illegal structures.