Michelle Loubon

None of the in­tel­li­gence re­ports on the 1970 mutiny in­di­cat­ed there was po­lit­i­cal in­volve­ment in the events at Teteron Bar­racks. So said Ma­jor Gen­er­al Ralph Brown (Ret) as he re­count­ed the events that un­fold­ed more than 42 years ago dur­ing a pan­el dis­cus­sion on Rev­o­lu­tion 1970: The Mil­i­tary Speaks at NA­PA.

He was one of a group of re­tired mil­i­tary of­fi­cers who shared their rec­ol­lec­tions of April 22, 1970. Al­so par­tic­i­pat­ing were Rear Ad­mi­ral Richard Kelshall (Ret), Colonel Hugh Vi­dal (Ret) and Lt Col Wen­dell Sa­landy (Ret). Brown said,?"As far I was con­cerned, in terms of the Spe­cial Branch re­ports which I?saw every week, there was no con­nec­tion be­tween the mutiny that took place and politi­cians and the Black Pow­er move­ment. What we did have were re­ports of sol­diers at­tend­ing Black Pow­er march­es that were tak­ing place through­out T&T."

He said af­ter the mutiny was put down that Robin­son turned up. Brown said the re­al rea­son for the mutiny was that sol­diers were dis­sat­is­fied with their work­ing con­di­tions. He in­sists they were not in ca­hoots with the Black Pow­er move­ment. "In 1990, you knew the en­e­my was the Ja­maat. You knew who the en­e­my was. It was an eas­i­er propo­si­tion. In 1970, you did not know who the en­e­my was.

"There was dis­cord with­in the mil­i­tary and the army was try­ing to get out of Teteron. The rea­son was they were not sup­port­ing the prin­ci­pal el­e­ment. They were try­ing to get out of Teteron. They were dis­con­tent­ed with some of the con­di­tions un­der which they were work­ing in the army. There was re­al­ly no scope for of­fi­cers to progress. That was their main grouse," he said. Brown said sol­diers were work­ing for $19 a week and it was un­der those cir­cum­stances that a mutiny took place.

In­ti­mate ac­counts

Kelshall re­mem­bered sail­ing out to Char­lot­teville, To­ba­go, on board the Coast Guard ves­sel Trin­i­ty. He saw a large crowd gath­er­ing and de­ter­mined that it would be more than the army could han­dle. He said when he heard there had been a mutiny with­in the rank and file of the army, he felt "sheer ter­ror."

"We had al­ways con­sid­ered the army our broth­er. The fear of the army was ris­ing. I?can tell you I?had nev­er been so scared. The thought that the army had turned against us was scary. More hap­pened that we want to ad­mit. It is painful." On the flip side, he said, "There was no way we could con­done the ac­tions of of­fi­cers who take the law in­to their hands. And we had to do our du­ty."

Kelshall said one of the pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments com­ing out of the events of 1970 was a spir­it of na­tion­al­ism. "There was a big change in the coun­try," he said. Sa­landy said he took a stand for coun­try and for self. "I told Raf­fique Shah I?was not with the mu­ti­neers. I?moved to the left of Shah. They want­ed to leave Teteron and go in­to Port-of-Spain, and I?said I would not go."

Sa­landy said it took a long time for the army to re­gain the trust of the coun­try. "The army purged it­self of the muti­nous sol­diers. The army was dec­i­mat­ed lit­er­al­ly. The army re­gained the trust of the so­ci­ety in 1978. It took one year to purge it­self and eight years to re­gain the trust. We re­or­gan­ised our­selves."

Vi­dal spoke about an as­sault on the bunker in the guard room, with young of­fi­cers be­ing over­pow­ered and placed in the cells in the gun room. He es­caped, went home and changed in­to com­bat wear then went to Camp Og­den, at Long Cir­cu­lar Road, St James. "It turned broth­er against broth­er. We must not let that ever hap­pen again," he said.

His­to­ri­ans' com­ments

Chair­per­son/head of the de­part­ment of his­to­ry Dr Heather Cateau thanked the for­mer mil­i­tary of­fi­cers for shar­ing their ex­pe­ri­ences of the events in which they played a role. "It is im­por­tant to the his­to­ri­og­ra­phy. We had peo­ple who were will­ing to share their ideas and per­spec­tives and it has con­tributed to chang­ing the his­to­ri­og­ra­phy (sys­tem­at­ic re­view of writ­ten his­to­ry)," she said.

Com­ment­ing on the pre­sen­ta­tion, his­to­ri­an Prof Brid­get Bere­ton said, "We heard from the pan­el­lists a unique and frank ac­count of their in­volve­ment. We need much more of this. "It is im­por­tant for the coun­try to un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate the not so good as well as the good. I?think it has been a valu­able ex­er­cise."?