Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

For the first time as Pres­i­dent, Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo fol­lowed the tra­di­tion start­ed by for­mer pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes, lay­ing a wreath at the ceno­taph on the north­ern end of the Red House flanked by the mem­bers of the De­fence Force, for those who died in the 1990 coup at­tempt.

Al­so lay­ing wreaths were Deputy Speak­er Es­mond Ford and for­mer speak­er Nizam Mo­hammed.

The new ceno­taph was cre­at­ed when the Red House was re­fur­bished a few years ago.

Kanglaoo didn’t speak at the cer­e­mo­ny but a prayer was read by Par­lia­ment staff mem­ber, David Ali who called for sup­port for those who lost a loved one dur­ing the 1990 coup and prayed for re­lief to all those who are still trau­ma­tised to­day.

“May the events of Ju­ly 27 1990 serve to re­mind us of our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic free­doms and help us to con­tin­ue to build a Trinidad and To­ba­go in which we as­pire to fos­ter peace, fair­ness, hope, and jus­tice for all,” Ali prayed.

Ear­li­er in the day, so­cial ac­tivist Wen­dell Ever­s­ley ad­mon­ished po­lit­i­cal lead­ers for not tak­ing a break from the cam­paign trail to pay re­spects to those who were af­fect­ed by the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup.

Ever­s­ley con­tin­ued his an­nu­al tra­di­tion ho­n­our­ing the vic­tims and sur­vivors of this day by walk­ing from Ari­ma to the Red House.

Af­ter lay­ing his wreath at the new lo­ca­tion he point­ed to the new ceno­taph which no longer has an eter­nal flame.

“Are they ashamed about the mean­ing of the eter­nal flame? It was light over dark­ness. I came her dur­ing the month of Ju­ly and it wasn’t lit,” he said.

Ever­s­ley com­plained that the Gov­ern­ment nor any po­lit­i­cal par­ty saw it fit to pay re­spect to those af­fect­ed by the vi­o­lence. He said all po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, in their thirst for Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions votes, have for­got­ten their hu­man­i­ty, lament­ing that some had utilised the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen in their cam­paigns through­out the years.

“I can count the num­ber of times the State had an of­fi­cial wreath lay­ing cer­e­mo­ny,”Ever­s­ley said.

He said the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, the hostages and oth­ers di­rect­ly in­volved were not in­vit­ed to the af­ter­noon cer­e­mo­ny with the Pres­i­dent.

“Where Kam­la to­day? And Jack Warn­er say she is the Nel­son Man­dela? If Nel­son Man­dela had a coup in his coun­try and peo­ple died, he would have been ab­sent? Ever­s­ley said an­gri­ly.

How­ev­er Ever­s­ley said he no longer need­ed to con­duct his an­nu­al walk in To­ba­go.

He said the Chief Sec­re­tary and the As­sem­bly have lob­bied to make sure that ANR Robin­son is of­fi­cial­ly recog­nised by mak­ing his grave site a tourist at­trac­tion, and the lessons of Robin­son’s life to be taught in schools.

Those who died

Leo Des Vi­gnes-Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral

Roger George-As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice

Lor­raine Ca­ballero-Cler­i­cal of­fi­cer, Red House

Mal­colm Bas­an­ta-Es­tate Po­lice­man

Mervyn Teague-Gov­ern­ment Broad­cast­ing Unit

Arthur Guisep­pi-For­mer po­lice of­fi­cer Red House|

George Fran­cis-Chauf­feur, Red House

Solomon McLeod-SRP Po­lice Head­quar­ters Sen­try