U.D.P. protests house building near BelChina Bridge

If you passed by the BelChina Bridge on Saturday you couldn’t help but notice the crowd gathered near the United Democratic Party Headquarters. The onlookers weren’t there for a political rally, but to watch a confrontation between members of the U.D.P. including former Prime Minister Manuel Esquivel and Rufus X, housing consultant from the government. On the orders of the Minister of Housing Dickie Bradley, Rufus X arrived with a truckload of sand and steel bars to be used for the construction of houses on the land adjacent to the headquarters. The U.D.P. members who say the entire strip of land is theirs, protested the arrival of the building materials. Both the U.D.P. and the Ministry of Housing held emergency meetings this morning to discuss the issue. This afternoon the U.D.P. issued a statement saying the government filed a court application today seeking to declare their title to the land issued in June of 1997 null and void. The U.D.P. says it is confident that the government’s case had no legal merit but asks that the government allow the matter to be settled in the court without in their words “government interference and any further bulldozing of our rights as was displayed by Dickie Bradley on Saturday”. Minister Bradley was unavailable for comment this afternoon, but stated on a radio program this morning that the government maintains the U.D.P. obtained the land illegally during the last administration and that houses will be built on the site.