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alexk
Guest
Twenty-eight years ago on Friday, July 27, 1990, the country experienced what to this day many described as its darkest hour, when armed insurrectionists stormed he country’s seat of democracy, the Parliament at the Red House, shot the then prime minister and held several people including a number of parliamentarians hostage.
By the time the insurrection ended on August 1, 1990, with an amnesty granting the insurrectionists their freedom, 24 people including Member of Parliament Leo Des Vignes was killed and Port-of-Spain was reduced to rubble and destruction as buildings were set fire and many business places were looted.
The attempted coup was led by the Jamaat al Muslimeen under leader Yasin Abu Bakr. Just before 6 pm on a busy Friday evening, 42 insurgents stormed Parliament, taking Prime Minister ANR Robinson and most of his cabinet hostage in the parliamentary chamber at the Red House.
Simultaneously, 72 other rebels attacked the lone television station TTT.
At 6 pm, Bakr appeared on television and announced that the government had been overthrown and that he was negotiating with the army. He called for calm and said that there should be no looting.
That request had the reverse affect prompting widespread looting in the capital city.
As the army moved to restore order and started shooting at the Red House, Prime Minister Robinson instructed them to “attack with full force.” He was shot in the leg.
An eternal flame which was set up in remembrance of those killed burns no more and is now according to Parliament sources, in storage as the renovations at the Red House are yet to be completed.
Whenever those repairs are completed the eternal flame which once stood on the Abercromby Street side of the Parliament will be moved to the Knox Street side of the Parliament, where the remains of the first people will also be interred.
Knox Street is a pedestrian walk-in and the thinking is that more people will stop to look and reflect.
The anniversary of the attempted coup has been a low-keyed one, with one man— Wendell Eversley—annually making the trek to the Red House to lay a wreath in memory of those killed and a reminder to anyone who would listen about the day the seat of democracy was overthrown by armed insurgents.
That is done on the pavement outside the Red House which remains encased in red galvanise while renovation work continues.
Eversley said, “We are a bunch of hypocrites when it comes to remembering July 27, 1990, and is a shame to know that this is probably the only country in the Western Hemisphere where we had a terrorist attack on an elected government and up to today they have not seen it fit to even have a wreath laying ceremony to remember those who lost their lives.”
JOSEPH TONEY ON ATTEMPTED COUP
Joseph Toney, who was minister of National Security, was making his contribution to the debate on a matter in which a US Court had said that high officials of the Peoples National Movement had taken bribes in the sale of Tesoro to the government of T&T.
His famous last words before the Jamaat al Muslimeen stormed the Parliament were, “Who is your leader.”
It was, he said, “picong” which he was throwing at Oropouche MP Trevor Sudama, “because at that time the UNC had just been formed and they were getting themselves together and we had information there was bickering in the party between Mr Sudama, Kelvin Ramnath and Basdeo Panday as to who was the leader of the UNC, and of course Mr Sudama was heckling me a bit when I was speaking about the corrupt practices and so on and I asked him ‘who is your leader.’”
Toney said he was “shocked when the men walked in with guns, it was the last thing on the mind of anyone that individuals would arm themselves and storm the Parliament and claim the government.”
The debate came to an “abrupt end,” and videos of the event show some MPs including Toney hiding under their desks while others were seen running.
The Jamaat al Muslimeen, which led the insurrection, claimed they did it because of social conditions after IMF conditionalities were imposed by the then NAR government led by Prime Minister ANR Robinson.
Toney said, “When we came into government the treasury was virtually empty after 30 years of continuous PNM rule and after we had an oil boom in the 1970’s. We had no other alternative but to go to the IMF to get sustenance and programmes to take the country forward.”
He admitted that the IMF programmes were “harsh, there is no doubt about that.” But he said the then government shared in the burden. “People did make sacrifices and lost part of their salaries and cost of living allowances (COLA) but government ministers also took cuts in their salaries and gave up COLA,” he said.
Toney said while many saw the programmes as “tough and caused much pain,” they had the required effect “they stabilised the country and led us to a path of growth.”
Toney described the insurrection as “senseless, unwarranted, it solved no problems but created many, many more problems for the country. Many people needlessly lost their lives and many people lost their property.”
Twenty-eight years later Toney said he believes that the country is “reaping what was sown in the events of 1990.”
He said, “The use of guns became more prevalent after those events and certain individuals because they wore the Muslim garb, the headpiece, the gown and army boots, they felt emboldened and they felt they were untouchable.”
Based on police reports about a proliferation of guns in the country used to commit crimes, Toney said, “I am submitting it all stems from the events of 1990.”
Toney defended the amnesty which led to the freedom of the insurgents and which led to the end of the insurrection four days later on August 1 saying, “I don’t know what would have happened had they not had the amnesty because that of course brought all the happenings at both the Red House and TTT to a halt. Now I don’t know if it was a turn of events that also saved the Muslimeen but I daresay I welcome it. It saved my life.”
Toney said the anniversary of the coup is another working day for him, “apart from that journalists call on me to reflect on the events.”
He is however peeved that there has been no official remembrance of the day. “It was a direct attack on the seat of democracy and I do hope that when they are redoing the Red House, some monument, some recognition of those who lost their lives will be set up so that people will remember that this is the seat of democracy where people meet to discuss matters, to argue, to thrash out difficult issues and it must now be shot down or closed down or attacked in any form or fashion by individuals.” (See Page A7)