Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes has is­sued a call for a more per­ma­nent memo­r­i­al of the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup, apart from wreath-lay­ing cer­e­monies, to en­sure the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go nev­er for­get this “dark chap­ter” of this coun­try's his­to­ry.

Her Ex­cel­len­cy made the call in her spe­cial Mes­sage is­sued con­cern­ing the 31st An­niver­sary of the events of 27th Ju­ly 1990, in which she points out that this coun­try must do its ut­most to en­sure such an event nev­er oc­curs again.

The fol­low­ing is the full text of Her Ex­cel­len­cy’s mes­sage in ob­ser­vance of the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup…

Mes­sage from Her Ex­cel­len­cy Paula-Mae Weekes O.R.T.T.,
Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go
on the 31st An­niver­sary of the 1990 At­tempt­ed Coup d’Etat (27 Ju­ly 2021)

Fel­low Cit­i­zens,

On 27th Ju­ly 1990, a group of heav­i­ly armed in­sur­rec­tion­ists stormed its way in­to the seat of gov­ern­ment and at­tempt­ed to take for them­selves the reins of pow­er. The con­fu­sion of many cit­i­zens, who ini­tial­ly as­sumed the events un­fold­ing live on tele­vi­sion were part of a per­for­mance, soon turned in­to dis­be­lief, which gave way to hor­ror as the na­tion’s cap­i­tal burned and the grim re­al­i­ty of a six-day siege set in. In the har­row­ing af­ter­math, twen­ty-four cit­i­zens were dead, count­less peo­ple were phys­i­cal­ly, psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly scarred and hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars in prop­er­ty had gone up in smoke.

As a mem­ber of par­lia­ment, I will lat­er to­day lay a wreath in re­mem­brance of those who per­ished dur­ing the at­tempt­ed coup d’état, as well as those for­got­ten vic­tims who lost their busi­ness­es, sense of nor­mal­cy, dig­ni­ty and peace of mind. Thir­ty-one years have elapsed, but the painful mem­o­ries of the dread­ful events re­main seared in the minds of those who were front row wit­ness­es and ca­su­al­ties of one of the most brazen and sense­less as­saults in the his­to­ry of our na­tion’s democ­ra­cy.

It is im­por­tant to note, how­ev­er, that while the shock­ing im­ages of those six days will not be eas­i­ly for­got­ten by those alive at the time, there will soon be an en­tire gen­er­a­tion of peo­ple with lit­tle or no aware­ness or con­nec­tion to the events of 1990. Many young peo­ple to­day have nev­er ful­ly un­der­stood nor ap­pre­ci­at­ed the im­pact of those events on the land­scape and tra­jec­to­ry of the na­tion. 

Span­ish-Amer­i­can philoso­pher George San­tayana once said, “Those who can­not re­mem­ber the past are con­demned to re­peat it”. If we are to learn from our his­to­ry we must pre­serve and trans­mit it in a form that is mean­ing­ful, mem­o­rable, un­am­bigu­ous and po­tent.

In 2018, I called for a ‘prop­er and fit­ting an­nu­al na­tion­al ob­ser­vance’ to com­mem­o­rate the at­tempt­ed coup and to­day I re­new that ap­peal. While wreath lay­ing pays trib­ute to the dead, this dark chap­ter of our his­to­ry mer­its a per­ma­nent memo­r­i­al that would cap­ture the hor­ror and chaos of those six days with ap­pro­pri­ate im­ages, tes­ti­mo­ni­als and his­tor­i­cal in­for­ma­tion. Such a mu­se­um-qual­i­ty dis­play would re­li­ably im­part to present and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions, the events, caus­es and con­se­quences of the at­tempt­ed coup d’état. 

This com­mem­o­ra­tion would al­so help to avoid the ro­man­ti­ciza­tion of those events and paint them for what they were—an un­jus­ti­fied and heinous grab for pow­er which robbed the in­no­cent of their lives, rights, peace, and liveli­hoods.

We must pay heed to the lessons of the past and ho­n­our the mem­o­ries and ex­pe­ri­ences of those who died and suf­fered great loss. Among those who per­ished in the vi­o­lence: Mr. Leo des Vi­gnes, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral; SRP Solomon McLeod; ASP Roger George; Es­tate Con­sta­ble Mal­colm Bas­an­ta; George Fran­cis; Arthur Guisep­pi; He­len Lavia; Lor­raine Ca­ballero and Mervyn Teague.

The dis­tress­ing and bru­tal scenes of Ju­ly 27, 1990, un­der­mined the very foun­da­tions of our coun­try’s democ­ra­cy and sense of sov­er­eign­ty. Lest we for­get, dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions must take place and nec­es­sary steps be tak­en to en­sure that we nev­er again suf­fer such an egre­gious and au­da­cious vi­o­la­tion of our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and free­doms.