Anti-road protestors hit streets

Organisers said the message came through clearly on Saturday as more than 100 demonstrators joined a loud, enthusiastic and colourful dozen-mile motorcade protesting closure of part of the West Bay Road.

While estimates of the turnout varied between 60 cars and more than 100 cars, organisers declared the demonstration a popular success.

“It was an exceedingly good turnout, more than we had expected. It was a great success,” said Capt Bryan Ebanks, head of the Save Cayman group, among the community organisations opposing the close of 4,300 feet of West Bay Road to make way for hotel development.

“We’re very happy, and while it might have been more, this was very satisfying,” he said.

While confusion initially reigned as protestors gathered at the George Town cricket pitch on Saturday afternoon, leaders ultimately created an orderly parade of honking cars, trucks and buses, adorned with red and white protest signs, as drivers and passengers acknowledged shouts of support from bystanders.

Setting off at 3:00pm from the George Town cricket pitch, police led the motorcade along the 13-mile route, moving down Elgin Avenue past the George Town Police Station, turning left through the town centre past the George Town Post Office, the courthouse and Legislative Assembly, and then through the Fort Street stoplight onto North Church Street.

Turning onto Lawrence Boulevard, the motorcade looped through Camana Bay, then turned onto Seven Mile Beach by the Fidelity Bank building, and moved straight through to West Bay, traversing Town Hall Road to the playing fields.

Circling past the West Bay Police Station on Church Street, the group re-entered West Bay Road at the four-way stop, travelling back to Public Beach, terminating at Calico Jack’s, where vehicles parked along the southbound shoulder.

Crossing the street, hundreds of demonstrators lined the highway for at least an hour, spreading from the beachfront bar, past the old Marriott Courtyard Hotel, to Tiki Beach, showing placards and soliciting support from motorists.

While observers counted between 55 cars and 60 cars, organisers said more had participated, many joining en route.

“To me, it was over 100 cars,” Capt. Bryan Ebanks said.

“Caymanians are getting more educated and more aware. We are gathering our forces, building up to a master meeting in the very near future,” he said.
He declined to reveal plans by the three West Bay groups leading the road-closure protests, although they have previously discussed gathering at the Legislative Assembly. Organisers continue to wait for Premier McKeeva Bush to announce a formal sitting of the legislature.

Initially called for 3 March, the demonstration was postponed to accommodate two West Bay funerals, which Capt. Ebanks feared may have depressed the numbers.

“We may not have done enough advertising, and we had to put it off from the week before, so there may have been some confusion.

”I think many others would have been there, but I think many joined us along the way. People were very impressed as we went through West Bay,” he said.

The protest was the latest demonstration against proposals to close the road between Trafalgar Square and Yacht Drive, enabling the Dart-government ForCayman Investment Alliance (FCIA) to rebuild the now-vacant Marriott Courtyard Hotel as a four-star beachfront property.

“People do not want this relationship,” Capt. Ebanks told iNews Cayman yesterday, referring to the FCIA’s $1.5 billion, 30-year programme of infrastructure and community development, fearing the economic and political influence the agreement will give Dart companies, owner of the Camana Bay residential-business development. “It’s gone too far, and it is an individual with a record of having his own interests here,” he said about company founder and owner Kenneth Dart. “We don’t need more Dart.”