Remembering hostages at Radio T’dad

THE EDITOR: My father McDonald Holder worked at Radio Trinidad at Maraval Road, Port of Spain, for over 40 years until his death in 2006, but at six o’clock on the evening of July 27, 1990, his girlfriend Cheryl Yearwood went to pick him up, just when the Jamaat al Muslimeen stormed the station and the shooting started at TTT.

He was held hostage along with several of his co-workers for four nights and three days. Two of his co-workers were shot on that first evening but survived.

Yearwood's little red car is immortalised in images of TTT at that time as it was abandoned in front of the television station after she was forced at gunpoint by the Muslimeen to take one of the injured staff members to the Port of Spain General Hospital and ordered to return to Radio Trinidad and held with the other hostages.

When the Muslimeen abandoned the radio station days later as the army moved in, the hostages all made their escape. Yearwood later left Trinidad. My dad did not share many details about those traumatic days, except that they were not ill-treated but it was not a bed of roses either.

Another co-worker recently told me he was standing outside the radio station when the Muslimeen arrived with their guns that evening and he was lucky to escape before they stormed the building.

We know the names of those who were held hostage at the Red House and TTT, but those who were held against their will at Radio Trinidad have all but been forgotten. They are:

Arthur Green, Cheryl Yearwood, Darwin Watson, Edison Carr, Emmett Hennessy (shot), Harold Thompson, McDonald Holder, Michael London, Patrick Goodridge, Pius Mason (shot), Sookram Ali, and Steve Sutherland.

And even though Mac and his colleagues were sent for counselling by the company, he never fully recovered. I am sure the same can be said for many of the others. Justice has never been served for those who died or were impacted in some way during the insurrection of 1990.

COLLEEN HOLDER

Piarco