The 1990 coup in Trinidad and Tobago:

The first sound of the army on the attack was a stinging hail of machine-gun fire spattering off the outside walls of the Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT) building. Huddled together in the small room in which we had been placed by the Muslimeen gunmen, we all hit and hugged the floor as the army gunfire increased in tempo and ferocity.

This was Saturday, mid-afternoon, on July 28, 1990. At 6.15 the previous evening, TTT had been stormed by gun-toting Muslimeen, led by Abu Bakr, and taken some 24 staff members hostage. All the women staff members were allowed to leave the building. Bakr went on air at 7 that evening to announce that the government of Prime Minister ANR Robinson had been overthrown.

I had been in Parliament earlier that Friday evening but had left to return to TTT to begin compiling my Parliamentary report for the 7 pm 'Panorama' evening news. I was in a small recording studio putting my story together when I was interrupted by the shouts of angry men and was then accosted by two young men with huge guns in their hands. All the TTT staff were rounded up and made to lie face down on the floor. We were assured no harm would come to us but when it appeared as if the army would storm the television building, we were placed in a small room upstairs and were told the room was wired with explosives, which would be set off if the army attacked. So with the army guns blazing at TTT, we hugged the floor, praying for our lives, expecting at any moment to be blown sky high. The gunmen inside TTT fought back, opening fire on the army. But after a couple hours it was clear they were both outgunned and outnumbered. They began to retreat, falling back from the first defensive positions they had held. The insurgents had also taken over neighbouring Radio Trinidad and held staff there hostage but under the first army assault, they abandoned Radio Trinidad and joined their comrades inside TTT.

For five unrelenting hours the army gunfire raked that TV station. Then around 7.30 that evening, there was a sudden cessation of gunfire. Bakr came into our room and announced there was a ceasefire. Negotiations were underway. Little did we know that late that very Friday evening, the insurgents inside Parliament, realising they were trapped, decided to accept an offer by then attorney-general the late Selwyn Richardson for an "amnesty". But it was then UNC Opposition MP John Humphrey who told the gunmen: "Make sure and get it in writing." And that was what the insurgents were now negotiating. Neither then Opposition Leader Patrick Manning nor opposition MP Basdeo Panday were present in Parliament that Friday evening Panday's response to the coup was a flippant: "Wake me up when it's over." Manning's initial response was the coup had to do with a quarrel between the NAR government and the Muslimeen. Prime Minister Robinson had been roughed up, slapped around. But when a gunmen put a radio to his mouth and ordered him, at gunpoint, to call off the attacking army, Robinson had responded: "Murderers! Torturers! Attack with full force." For this act of bravery, he was shot in the leg by a gunman.

Negotiations on that amnesty dragged on for days, with NAR MP Winston Dookeran being released from the Red House to lead the negotiations. Inside TTT, we remained under the guns of the young insurgents, hopeful that the negotiations would bring an end to this nightmare. But early that Monday morning there was a loud explosion outside TTT followed once again by the deadly chatter of army machine-gun fire. It was clear the negotiations had gone nowhere and the army could be said to be following the battle cry uttered by Prime Minster Robinson. This time, the order went down from every nook and cranny inside that TV station: "Do not return fire!" For it was now clear to the gunmen that there were no match for the bristling army. An army missile struck a wooden annex at the back of TTT and the building was immediately consumed by flames.

Suddenly, once again, there was a cessation in the army gunfire. Once again, Bakr announced there was a ceasefire. Absolutely terrified, we remained huddled together as negotiations continued between the army and the gunmen. For six days, from the Friday evening to Monday afternoon, we remained under the gun. There was no food. Talking to Colonel Joseph Theodore over the phone one evening, I told him we had not eaten for several days. I made a joke: "We might die from starvation." There was a distinct pause at the other end of the phone. The Col. Theodore remarked: "Starvation might be a better option." The other option of course was being blown to bits by army guns or by the guns in the hands of the by now totally terrified gunmen. Finally, on the afternoon of August 1, 1990, observed as a public holiday to mark Emancipation Day in Trinidad and Tobago, the hostages were released, one by one, from inside TTT just as the other hostages were being released from the Red House. Bakr and all the other insurgents finally surrendered to the army - and the amnesty would then become a long drawn out court battle. When the local courts upheld the amnesty, the government appealed to the Privy Council, which ruled that the amnesty was invalid because the gunmen had continued to make demands even after agreeing to the amnesty. But, the Privy Councll ruled, it would not be in keeping with "due process" to have the gunmen all rounded up and tried four years after the event.

In early November a Commission of Enquiry into the 1990 coup, ordered by the new government of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, is expected to begin. It will find Abu Bakr behind bars, facing a charge of murder, an act allegedly committed some four years after the 1990 coup attempt. Like most people, I welcome that Commission of Enquiry in the hope that it will finally bring closure to one of the most horrendous periods in our post-Independence history.

© Raoul Pantin, Reporter/Author

FOR MORE INFO: CHECK DAYS O WRATH BY THIS AUTHOR

THE 1970 BLACK POWER REVOLUTION IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

On the morning of February 26, 1970 a small group of students from the St Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies, staged a protest demonstration outside the Canadian High Commission in Port of Spain. They were protesting against the arrest in Canada of several West Indian students who had launched their own protest against "racism" at Sir George Williams University in Canada. I happened upon this Port of Spain demonstration quite by accident that morning. The demonstration then shifted to the Royal Bank of Canada where security guards and several policemen barred the students from entering the bank. It was at that point that Geddes Granger (now Makandal Daaga, joined the demonstration, which spilled away from the bank and began moving along Independence Square. It's not certain to this day who suggested the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception at as the next target but to chants of "we going in the church!" the demonstrators spilled into the Cathedral, draping black cloth over the statues of "white" saints and ignoring the objections of a couple priests who were present. After several speeches declaiming the "racism" of the Church, the demonstrators continued their protest march throughout downtown Port of Spain.

Black power-courtesy Angelo Bissessarsingh

That very night several of the protestors were arrested in their homes by the police and charged with desecrating a place of worship. The next morning, when they were brought to court, the protest demonstrations had grown by leaps and bounds. This, then, was the start of 55 days of country-wide Black Power protest demonstrations which culminated on April 21, 1970 with the declaration of a state of emergency by the government of Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams.

Several of the protest leaders were detained by the police and carted off to detention at offshore Nelson Island. But that very morning, as the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment was being mustered to lend support to the police, a group of army officers -led by Lts Rex Lasalle and Raffique Shah, staged a mutinty, placing their senior officers under arrest. It would take days of tense negotiations before the mutinuos soldiers could be convinced (they later said they were "tricked") to surrender.

Those mutiny trials, presided over by a group of Commonwealth military officers, would later drag on for months until the soldiers were all convicted and sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment. But the mutinous officers eventually won their appeal before the Privy Council in London and were freed after about two years in prison. At which point the government decided to free the lower ranks as well. This is a capsule view of the dramatic events of 1970 which were to have a very profound impact on Trinidad and Tobago society as Black Power became a national rallying cry.

I can still recall a white Trinidad bank manager telling me at that time: "If you employ black people in banks, people's business will be all over the streets." But that was just one of the attitudes that Black Power eventually overwhelmed. Today, 40 years later, Makandal Daaga is a cultural ambassador in the newly-elected government of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. In many other ways -social, economic and political-Trinidad and Tobago has come a long way from those tumultous early days in 1970.

© Raoul Pantin, Reporter/Author

FOR MORE INFO, CHECK: BLACK POWER DAY BY THIS AUTHOR