The 1990 coup attempt remains one of the most significant traumas in Trinidad and Tobago’s history.
The siege of Trinidad and Tobago Television, as the sole television station at the time, was a defining component of the attempt.
Today, July 27th, is the anniversary of the event, and TTT remembers.
The youngest hostage at TTT on that fateful Friday, Noel ‘Syo’ Simeon, recalled the terrifying experience at the station.
“Three other guys, Jimmy Kissoon, Jamaladeen Samad and Ricardo James – four of us hide for some hours, about two to three hours then a voice came calling us out by name. That was Buddy Andrews so we answer. We wasn’t answering all the time, you know, but then James decide to answer “Eh Buddy, what going on outside there, boy?” He say “All yuh come out now, all yuh come out.” So when we come out we just seeing Buddy standing up in the doorway. Buddy say nah, all yuh come out now. Boy the Muslimeen and them they take over the country. But we ain’t seeing the gunman so we just walking. Next thing the gunman come from behind the door. That’s the only time that we tell we self, hey, this thing serious.”
Head of the Morvant Laventille Improvement Organisation, Lennox Smith, said his organisation helped with the clean-up of the capital after the attempted coup.
However, after listening to Mr Simeon’s account, he realised the extent of the attack.
“Whilst at the time I was thinking that only the one aspect of our democracy would have been attacked, really it was the entire, except of course to a lesser degree, but nonetheless I am sure traumatised the Judiciary but certainly the Executive was under attack, the legislature, obviously was under attack. The media, clearly, having regard to what my good friend would have explained, was under attack as well, the fourth pillar of democracy.”
Mr Smith said his recollection of the clean-up efforts is etched in his memory.
“It became a national agenda, clean out the Red House and so on and the stench of death and stale urine and all of that and then the blood stains on the carpet and the bullet hole, that, of course, would have been a bullet that passed through the then Prime Minister, ANR Robinson. I mean, it was horrendous. And to me it is as if it was yesterday, now having to recall it here.”
The 1990 attempted coup saw armed members of the Jamaat-ul-Muslimeen enter the Parliament Building, taking then Prime Minister ANR Robinson hostage along with several other government ministers and members of staff. Insurgents also seized the Trinidad and Tobago Television building and detonated a car bomb at the Police Headquarters in Port of Spain.
Twenty-four people died as a result, and there was widespread destruction in Port of Spain.