Joel Julien

Thir­ty-two years ago , Mar­lene An­drews went to work as nor­mal.

She was a par­lia­men­tary at­ten­dant at that time and part of her du­ties in­clud­ed as­sist­ing Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment in the Cham­ber.

“A short while in­to Min­is­ter (Joseph) Toney’s con­tri­bu­tion, the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter, Mr ANR Robin­son, seat­ed on Min­is­ter Toney’s left, mo­tioned to me to take a note from him to an Op­po­si­tion mem­ber,” she re­called.

Just as An­drews was about to take the note, she heard loud nois­es.

“Al­though not un­der­stand­ing what was hap­pen­ing, I head­ed for the front door and was al­most knocked down by mem­bers of the Prime Min­is­ter’s se­cu­ri­ty de­tail who were rush­ing in­to the Cham­ber to­wards him, while per­sons from the pub­lic gallery were scam­per­ing, ob­vi­ous­ly try­ing to get out of the Cham­ber as well,” An­drews stat­ed.

She too made a run for it.

“On­ly God kept me go­ing and I found refuge in the Ac­counts De­part­ment, where I met my co-work­er, Gertrude James, a few po­lice of­fi­cers and a man, whom I lat­er learned was in the pub­lic gallery,” she said.

They all hud­dled to­geth­er.

“We re­mained there won­der­ing what was hap­pen­ing and when it would be over, as we con­tin­ued to pray for res­cue,” An­drews re­count­ed.

Around 4 am, An­drews said they heard foot­steps in the cor­ri­dor and it ap­peared as though who­ev­er they be­longed to were kick­ing doors and pre­sum­ably check­ing the of­fices.

“But luck­i­ly, we had locked the door,” she said.

An­drews said af­ter some time elapsed, and the foot­steps re­ced­ed, one of the of­fi­cers in­di­cat­ed that they would have to make a move while it was still dark and ad­vised that they roll down the cor­ri­dor and then run down the stairs which led to the Reg­is­ter Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment.

“As we made it down the stairs, Mr Bas­an­ta, an es­tate con­sta­ble, recog­nised me and quick­ly un­locked the gate which al­lowed us to ac­cess that area. A burst of gun­fire erupt­ed and we scam­pered in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions, with me end­ing up in a toi­let stall by my­self. When the gun­fire stopped, I could hear a voice call­ing for help and re­alised it was Mr Bas­an­ta,” she re­count­ed.

“I stood on the toi­let seat and was able to see him with blood ooz­ing from his body. I was pet­ri­fied. I con­tin­ued to pray for God’s in­ter­ven­tion which would bring safe­ty to me,” she added.

At 5 am, she heard the Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral clock chime and de­cid­ed to get out of the Red House.

“With that de­ci­sion made, I now had to jump over the body of Mr Bas­an­ta, the man who re­al­ly made it pos­si­ble for me to get away from the Par­lia­ment lev­el of the build­ing. I made a dash for the win­dow, jumped out and as I hit the ground, it was speed, run­ning east­bound to­wards Fred­er­ick Street,” she stat­ed.

“Again, there was the sound of rapid gun fire, which seemed to give me more speed as I ran past the church, across Hart Street, look­ing for some­where to hide. I spot­ted a door which I thought would lead to some­where, any­where, from the Red House and soon re­alised it was the hold­ing area for garbage just be­fore what we now know as Sub­way,” An­drews stat­ed.

An­drews said she re­mained there, bare­foot­ed, amongst the mag­gots and what­ev­er else might have been there un­til the door was opened at around 6.15 am by a man.

“I lat­er learnt that he was a loot­er look­ing for emp­ty box­es to car­ry away his loot­ed items. The man asked me if I was a Red House staff mem­ber and I nod­ded as I could not speak, I just con­tin­ued cry­ing. He then held my hand and took me over to sol­diers who were on Fred­er­ick Street,” she stat­ed.

“Still not quite aware of what was tak­ing place, I could on­ly tell them of my ex­pe­ri­ence in an­swer to their ques­tions. It was on­ly then I knew what had hap­pened and ap­par­ent­ly was still hap­pen­ing,” An­drews said.

While the sol­diers want­ed to take her to the army base, she begged them to al­low her to go to her home, where her hus­band and three chil­dren were all trau­ma­tised as they were aware of what was tak­ing place in the Par­lia­ment Cham­ber.

“Thank God they agreed and when asked to give a con­tact num­ber for my hus­band, it took me three at­tempts to fi­nal­ly give the cor­rect one. When they con­tact­ed my hus­band, they di­rect­ed him to come in­to Port-of-Spain via Broad­way to the cor­ner of Fred­er­ick Street, fac­ing north, with his head­lights on and blink­ing,” she said.

“The sol­diers were kind and want­ed to lift me as I was bare­foot­ed and the street was lit­tered with glass but feel­ing safer and know­ing that God was with me, I opt­ed to walk, I was just anx­ious to get to my hus­band. Af­ter about half an hour, I was es­cort­ed by the sol­diers to my hus­band’s car. I re­mem­ber see­ing tears in his eyes watch­ing me as I en­tered the car. It is on­ly then I re­al­ly felt safe,” she stat­ed.

An­drews said they drove straight to the Holy Trin­i­ty Church in Arou­ca, where the priest prayed with and for her.

“We thanked God for my safe re­turn to my fam­i­ly and prayed for the safe­ty of those who were trapped in the Red House. Then it was home to my chil­dren. To date, that was the worst ex­pe­ri­ence of my life,” she stat­ed.

An­drews said she of­ten re­flects on those who lost their lives.

“I pray that their souls rest in peace. I thank God every day for spar­ing my life and try to live my pur­pose for which I be­lieve he caused me to es­cape death,” she stat­ed.

An­drews’ ac­count of that fate­ful day was re­count­ed and pro­vid­ed to Guardian Me­dia by the Of­fice of the Par­lia­ment with her con­sent.

Her rec­ol­lec­tion of that day can be seen at the Par­lia­ment’s Ro­tun­da Gallery, along with oth­er art­work and mem­o­ra­bil­ia com­mem­o­rat­ing the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup.