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The headland in Richmond where the quarry will operate.
The headland in Richmond where the quarry will operate.
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By Yet Another Concerned Vincy

My Fellow Vincentians,

“Upon this Rock”… Our sovereign soil, the desecration of the creation, of our nation, of our homeland, for generations eternal, lost land, lost lives, lost livelihood, solid stone, “our mountains HIGH, SO clear and green”, and valleys serene, literally shipped off-shore, gone forever.

Our Land — bone of our bone, blood of our blood, the building blocks, pure, indigenous volcanic rock — carted away from our shores, never to return, landscape raped and scarred forever.

Where will this sacred land of our birth be shipped off to? How on God’s green earth can this be allowed? The foundation from beneath our feet, pulled from under us. We will not sell off our sovereignty by selling our St. Vincent and the Grenadines passports, and rightly so, how can we then sell off the very sovereign soil on which we stand? Ours to have and to hold ’til death do us part, our legacy for generations upon generations, the very soil that makes us Vincentian.

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“Anything allowed increases”. Where will the jaws of excavators extend to next? Bequia? Union Island? the Windward Coast, wild and free and full of Volcanic boulders, bracing and buttressing our island home? desolate, gaping canyons, erosion untold. “Anything allowed, Increases”.

Our “Zone of Peace”, these true words, one of my most-treasured quotations from our VERY OWN Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, it is this “Zone of Peace”, our tranquility and purity as a nation, that others seek to take away, and we sleep, and allow our birthright to be stripped, blasted to smithereens, never to return to our shores — our precious St. Vincent and the Grenadines sold off-shore, our country shaken and shackled, sacrificed, and we let our land go, just so.

Topography, changed forever, the contours erased from our map, forever, the collapse of the eco-systems and the ensuing  collateral damage to this pristine environment, a massacre, the soul of our soil,  depleted and dragged off, a massive wound  to our nation, that will never, can never, heal. Unfathomable value, intrinsic, unique — devastation that can never be reversed.

Some things are worth more than money… “And God bless and keep us true.”

Saint Vincent! Land so beautiful,

With joyful hearts we pledge to thee

Our loyalty and love, and vow

To keep you ever free.

Whate’er the future brings,

Our faith will see us through.

May peace reign from shore to shore,

And God bless and keep us true.

Hairoun! Our fair and blessed Isle,

Your mountains high, so clear and green,

Are home to me, though I may stray,

A haven, calm, serene.

Our little sister islands are

Those gems, the lovely Grenadines,

Upon their seas and golden sands

The sunshine ever beams.

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One reply on “Rock-solid slaughter ”

  1. The company is from Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia would never allow such a project in Saint Lucia, it just cannot happen They would not let rape of the soil to take place. There is no greater degradation of an area than to quarry it. It will look dreadful during workings and dreadful afterwards. This is a lose lose matter and the culprits are the Gonsalves dynasty allowing a quarter inch of their inch to be raped.

    I doubt the people of any other island would allow such a thing to take place. There is a quarry in Bequia and it is a scar on that island and created a nasty area visually unappealing and moonlike. Selling land at silly low prices for export is a trait that we have seen before. But if you the Vincentian people allow it to happen so be it.

    Since the ULP increased the mix of peasants on the island there are fewer with un-addled minds able to protest.

    The truth is this project is of no benefit whatsoever to SVG. So who benefits? I do not know, think about it and then tell us through this media what you think. After all the island belongs to the people and not the world boss, he is just a servant of the people, a carrier of water, time to get rid of him and all the rest of what Peter Binose used to describe as scum, I would not like to be quite that rude, but it would not be difficult to be.

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