On July 27, 1990, the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen invaded this country’s Parliament during a sitting, taking the then Prime Minister ANR Robinson and other Parliamentarians hostage in an attempt to overthrow the government.
The Jamaat’s leader, Yasin Abu Bakr and other Jamaat members simultaneously stormed state-owned television station Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT) and Radio Trinidad.
Abu Bakr would appear on TTT later that evening to inform the population that the government had been “arrested.” He urged the population to be calm and “not to loot.”
What followed was a six-day nightmare for the hostages.
Prime Minister Robinson was shot in the leg when he refused commands to order the army to stand down.
The Muslimeen faction in the Parliament demanded Robinson’s resignation and an assurance that fresh elections would be held in 60 days. The insurgents wanted to form a new government, with Abu Bakr as the National Security Minister.
Outside the Parliament and TTT, the capital city was looted and burnt. Businesses, livelihoods were destroyed, leaving a mark that is still evident today.
Acting as Prime Minister, then Minister of Planning Winston Dookeran and several others were able to negotiate an amnesty with the Muslimeen insurrectionists.
Six days after it began, the hostages were freed and the 113 Jamaat-al-Muslimeen members walked out of the Parliament, TTT and Radio Trinidad with their guns above their heads. They were all arrested and taken to jail. However, they were freed some 14 months later when the Privy Council upheld the amnesty.
July 27, 2021, marked 31 years since that violent, deadly and destructive attempt to destabilise T&T.
The following are accounts from those who lived through it and those whose lives were forever changed when their loved ones died during the coup attempt.
A generational curse
Afeisha Caballero believes her mother’s death during the 1990 attempted coup brought a generational curse on her family - which has seen her father become a drug addict, her brother killed by police and she practically homeless.
She was just a year and a half old when her mother, Lorraine Caballero, was killed during the coup attempt, sometime between July 27, when Jamaat-al-Muslimeen insurgents stormed the Parliament and August 1, when the group finally surrendered to security forces.
The six-day siege has been marked in history as one of the country’s darkest times - and has been cited by many as a turning point in society that triggered years of violent crime and uneasiness.
In an interview with Guardian Media, Afeisha said she has spoken about the incident many times before and now believes she will never get the closure she so desperately seeks.
Her most pressing question is who killed her mother.
“I was told she was shot…no one could tell us when she was shot, although Mr (Wendell) Eversley said he was there with her for her last, he remembered giving her water, trying to comfort her but up until now, no one can tell us who shot her and when she was killed,” Afeisha said.
Her mother’s death triggered an immediate separation of Afeisha and her two brothers - who were then nine and seven years old.
Afeisha was taken to live with her father Daniel Munzac and paternal grandmother Mary DuVerney and was not be reunited with her brothers until she was 13-years-old.
But by then, the pain of her mother’s death had already taken its toll on her family and her father had become an addict - turning to cocaine to numb the pain.
“Emotionally he was there but financially, he wasn’t able because of his addiction. Mentally it was hard on him, but he was always looking at the product of what was left behind. He used to say I am a constant reminder of her, the way I walk, the way I talk, the way I look..the only difference is I have his skin colour. For him, everything was about her, so it was kind of challenging for him to look after me,” Afeisha recalled.
Afeisha was raised by her paternal grandmother but said even as a child, she felt something was missing in her life. She said her grandmother had raised only sons and Afeisha felt that impacted her ability to teach her certain things about life.
“To me, there is something missing, although I had my grandmother, she didn’t really have the knowledge to look after a girl-child, because she only had boy-children. So certain changes, things that were happening to me, she couldn’t really guide me accordingly to be the one to teach me certain things…the basics in life, yes, but things I have learned now, if I had known about it back then, certain situations I got myself into, I probably would not have gotten into it,” she said frankly.
Afeisha said she has now come to realise she may have been somewhat of a burden on her elderly, spiritual grandmother, who died in 2014.
“Growing up over the years, I realised it was a strain on my grandmother to look after a young child at her age…the fighting up to go to school meetings, sports days…it was difficult for her,” she said.
As the years passed, death and disaster continued to haunt the family and Afeisha lost her eldest brother, Akee Caballero, in 2009 when he was shot dead by police in Morvant. Her father died two years later at the age of 52.
In 2013, the house where Afeisha grew up and was raising her two sons in, burnt to the ground. Since then, she has been living in her now-deceased grandmother’s church, along with other family members.
She said the strain of living with an extended family has taken a toll on her and with her meagre salary from her job as a CEPEP labourer, she cannot afford to do better for her sons.
And although she feels she will never get closure from her mother’s death, all she wants is a fresh start.
“I just need someone to give me that foundation, I will work and take care of the rest. I want a better life for my two boys, my sons are very bright and I feel like they can break the generational curse that has haunted my family since my mother died, but they can’t do it if we continue to live in this situation.”
Anyone who wants to help Afeisha can contact her at 274-4963.
SUBHEADING
Scars that never heal
Gideon Hanoomansingh was an anchor at state-owned Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT) on July 27, 1990, when Jamaat leader Imam Yasin Abu Bakr and his men stormed the building, announcing that the then National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) government had been “arrested” and overthrown.
Hanoomansingh, now 72, remembers the incident clearly, especially the fear he felt as gunmen stood over him and 27 of his colleagues.
In an interview with Guardian Media this week, Hanoomansingh was brought to tears by the memories and their effects on him even today.
“There is a lingering fear, I continue to get these spasms, and I was using the example earlier today, that if a bottle of wine opens to my back, I have the tendency to jump. I used to love to go to the Divali Nagar and the Queen’s Park Oval and Savannah for the fireworks display, I can no longer do that,” he said.
During the six days of siege, Hanoomansingh and his colleagues were threatened with death several times every time Abu Bakr felt the government and armed forces were not taking his threats seriously.
On one occasion, they were forced into a room and told they would be “blown up” to show the security forces surrounding the Maraval Road building that the insurrectionists were serious.
“I remember being told to go to the room upstairs and when my feet hit the first stair, my knees buckled on me. All I could think was ‘God, give me the strength to go to my destiny’.”
He later found out his elder brother, Hans Hanoomansingh, was told to prepare for the worst as the security forces were planning to storm TTT at midnight on July 28.
Luckily for the hostages, that action was never taken.
Hanoomansingh said although he was in constant fear for his life, he took on the role of the comedian in the situation, trying to lighten the mood among the hostages.
When an amnesty was signed days later and the hostages were finally freed after six days, they were taken to the Trinidad Hilton hotel, where they were reunited with their families. The reunion was emotional all around, Hanoomansingh recalled.
“When my brother (Hans) came, it was no different and because my brother represented the head of our family, I became exceedingly emotional because I thought of my mother, who had passed, and how she would have reacted to me, as her last child, being a hostage,” Hanoomansingh said, his eyes welling with tears.
He also recalled calling on his mother for protection during the ordeal and being told afterwards that a cousin had dreamt about his mother on the day of his release. The cousin told Hanoomansingh’s sister she had asked about him in the dream and was told by his mother that he would be freed later that day.
“I believe she was my guardian angel during the entire ordeal,” Hanoomansingh said.
He admits freely that he has never gotten over the incident and said he has written a book to memorialise the incident and others he faced during his journalistic career. The book, titled “Shattered Dreams,” is expected to be released later this year or early 2022.
Aside from his coup trauma, Hanoomansingh does not think the country has ever recovered from the coup attempt and said there remains a fear among the population that the incident could be repeated.
He said Police Commissioner Gary Griffith has expressed a readiness to treat with any such incidents but he believes if it is ever repeated, the would-be perpetrators may also be better prepared.
“The experience of 1990 taught the Muslimeen that it is not a walkover, but I think whoever is coming after the Muslimeen will be better prepared. I am hoping that doesn’t happen because this country cannot go through that a second time.”
Hanoomansingh said the political managers of the country also need to ensure their actions do not prompt another uprising.
He still waits for the day when the recommendations of the Commission of Enquiry into the attempted coup will be implemented.
“The former prime minister (Kamla Persad-Bissessar), in a previous incantation, said commissions of enquiry were a waste of time and money and it seems she was right because none of the recommendations of the commissioners have been implemented, even the one that says you must consider giving some kind of compensation to those who were affected the most, such as hostages. I have been advocating to that for the longest while and it seems as though that is falling on deaf ears.”
Hanoomansingh does not believe he will ever find closure on the events of July 1990 and said he now only wishes that T&T’s society could evolve into one where his children can grow without fear.
SUBHEADING
PoS businesses never recovered
Head of the Downtown Owners and Merchants Association (DOMA) Gregory Aboud says Port-of-Spain has never recovered from the looting and lawlessness that pervaded it during the 1990 attempted coup.
In an interview, Aboud said the trauma of 1990 is still fresh to those who faced it.
“We know thousands of stories of people who would have lost their businesses and because their homes were used as a mortgage for the business, they lost their homes as well. We know of many businesses that folded up and never came back, we know of many businesses that only paid off their coup loans five years ago,” Aboud told Guardian Media.
He said the evidence of the attempted coup’s effect on the capital is still clear today, as attempts are still being made to revitalise the city.
Aboud said he supports the call of President Paula-Mae Weekes for a museum-type display to commemorate the events of 1990 and the impacts it has had on T&T.
“Thirty years later, we have a sizeable part of our citizenry that knows nothing about it and may only have heard about it without understanding the nature of what took place and I certainly would support the idea of trying to create some sort of historical record, particularly to memorialise innocent people who lost their lives as a way of protecting lives in the future.”
Aboud said he believes the President herself should lead a committee to create that display but said it should only be open to citizens and not to tourists or visitors.
“I would not want to suggest that it become a place for visitors or tourists because it really is nothing to be proud about. Until we could make ourselves a more lawful, law-abiding society, I think that it would betray a certain weakness or soft spot in our flank that was used to try to derail our democracy.”
On the evening of July 27, 1990, when word was just beginning to spread that insurrectionists from the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen had stormed the Parliament in an attempt to overthrow the-then NAR government, Jamaat’s leader Abu Bakr, appeared on state-owned TTT to announce the Government had been overthrown. He also advised citizens to remain calm and not to loot.
Twenty-four years later, when a Commission of Enquiry into the attempted coup delivered its findings, the commissioners found Abu Bakr’s statements about not looting was “a signal to the population to engage in that type of criminality.”
“It is passing strange that he did not warn the population against going into the streets in what was a tense and dangerous situation. On the contrary, he earnestly wished people to throng the streets in a mistaken belief that they would support his actions and create bedlam in the country,” the commissioners found.
Over the six days that the Muslimeen’s siege lasted, businesses in Port-of-Spain and along the East/West corridor were looted by thousands of citizens. Several business places were also set on fire.
Testifying before the CoE was businessman Clive Nunez, who said on July 27, 1990, he saw men dressed in Muslim garb walking along Frederick Street in Port-of-Spain with sticks in their hands. Nunez said these men were using the sticks to hit and point at certain buildings, where crowds of people would then break in.
Based on his testimony, the commission found, “… we have concluded that Abu Bakr’s purported admonition not to loot was, in fact, a coded message to his brethren in the Jamaat to encourage looting of business places. The looting, which began in downtown Port-of-Spain, was not spontaneous. But once it had started, it had a domino effect in other parts of Trinidad and was accompanied by wanton acts of arson.”
SUBHEADING
Remember the real heroes
Thirty-one years after he and other Parliamentarians were held hostage inside the Parliament by armed insurrectionists who were a part of the Jamaat-al- Muslimeen, Winston Dookeran believes he has been placed in the footnotes of that historical day.
In a rare interview about the events of 1990, Dookeran, who acted as prime minister when the insurgents shot then Prime Minister ANR Robinson in the leg, said the perpetrators of the horrific event have been hailed by some as heroes.
“I believe that those of us who were on the frontline at the time and played significant roles to resolve it, which incidentally was called in an editorial in the Times of London as an act of humility by a small country, are now placed in the footnotes of the history of our country, as opposed to those who perpetrated the crime are seen as the heroes in the eyes of many people. I think that is a very dangerous perception that has developed,” Dookeran said.
He said there are critics who say this country’s armed forces should have invaded the Parliament to retake control from the insurgents.
If this had been done, Dookeran said the death toll from the attempted coup would have been much higher.
“I found out during that time that if they would have done that at the time, the minimum amount of people who would have lost their lives in that venture would have been 300 people. I resisted moving in that direction and employed the more traditional role of diplomacy and hostage management crisis techniques and that worked in the end. Not only did it work, in my view it saved hundreds of people from dying,” Dookeran told Guardian Media.
Dookeran said he does not believe this country would have been able to deal with an event where hundreds of people were killed. He said most citizens also do not seem to understand what T&T would have been like today had the Muslimeen been successful in their attempt to overthrow the then government.
“We were on the verge of moving in different directions and if that event had succeeded, this country’s direction would have been quite different and that was long before terrorism became a global phenomenon. When people look at it, they look at it from a human point of view and rightly so, they look at it that damages were done, lives were lost - but it’s much more than that.”
He slammed those who romanticise the coup attempt, saying there can never be any justification for the violent overthrow of a duly elected government.
He said the roles played by himself and others in diffusing the situation and bringing about an eventual surrender by the Muslimeen has largely been ignored and institutions that teach political history have not acknowledged their actions.
He also believes this country’s crime rate has increased dramatically since 1990 because the attempted coup created a sense of permissiveness for law-breaking in T&T.
“That sense of permissiveness means people can do major wrongs like attempt treason and get away with it using instruments of violence, it would have had a very negative impact on the psyche of this society and over the last 30 years, that psyche has more or less been natured and developed to a greater extent,” Dookeran said.
He believes the current freedom introduced by social media platforms has also assisted in perpetuating this state of lawlessness because people have been allowed to largely practice free speech without any levels of accountability or consequences.
As for a repeat of the events of July 1990, Dookeran does not believe this is possible.
“As a political historian, you cannot discount any event in the future that will attack our democratic institutions and our democracy, but as a contemporary commentator, I would be very surprised if such an event were to take place in the present era. I believe the support, tactically and otherwise for it, will not be available or readily available and I certainly don’t think that there is a conducive environment that supports it,” he said.
Dookeran said T&T needs to learn from the events of 1990 to grow and survive.
“Eternal vigilance is the price we pay for freedom,” he said.
However, he wants the true accounts of the attempted coup to be included in the curriculum of tertiary-level institutions that teach political science so future generations can be educated on the event.
“I think we should convert this to support for our institutions of governance and our political institutions for political democracy and that should become something that is known to all. Our young people do not understand the system of governance, I am not talking about the politics but the system of governance, which is on the basis of the defence of democracy and democratic life way of life.”
He commended the efforts of Wendell Eversley, who was also taken hostage in the Parliament, saying Eversley has been a single voice who has strived to memorialise those who lost their lives in 1990. Eversley recognises the event every year and encourages others who were involved and their relatives to do the same. In memory of those who died in the coup, Eversley, alongside House Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George and Senate President Christine Kangaloo laid a wreath at the Cenotaph outside the Red House on Tuesday (July 27).
