Coup survivors welcome President's call for memorial

PEOPLE directly affected by the July 27, 1990 attempted coup have generally welcomed President Paula-Mae Weekes' renewed call on Monday for an annual memorial to commemorate the event, which took place 31 years ago on Tuesday.

In a statement, Weekes said, “If we are to learn from our history we must preserve and transmit it in a form that is meaningful, memorable, unambiguous and potent.”

She renewed the call she made in 2018 for "a proper and fitting annual national observance’ to commemorate the attempted coup."

Weekes said, "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."

Speaking to Newsday on his annual walk from Arima to Port of Spain, coup survivor Wendell Eversley thanked Weekes for suggesting the memorial, but felt she could do more than that.

"I want to ask the President, when she meets with the Prime Minister every Wednesday to discuss matters of governance, ask the Prime Minister what he is doing about the ( July 27, 1990 Commission of Inquiry [COI] report that was laid in the Parliament (by his predecessor Kamla Persad-Bissessar in 2014)?"

Eversely called for the implementation of the report's recommendations.

"Now is a time for action."

Eversley said he wrote Dr Rowley six letters about implementing the recommendations of the 1990 COI report but got no response. He added that despite having the COI and laying its report in Parliament in 2014, Persad-Bissessar and her former administration did nothing about it either.

"Enough time for talk. Time to walk the walk. What we see in this country is that all our leaders failed. More needs to be done."

But Eversely thanked Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Chief Secretary Ancil Dennis for recognising the signifiance of the attempted coup by personally going to the grave of former prime minister Arthur NR Robinson to lay wreaths there.

He also welcomed Dennis';s promise to ensure that July 27, 1990 will be taught in Tobago's schools.

Former Newsday editor in chief Jones P Madeira, who as TTT's head of news was among the hostages at the station's Maraval Road studios, supported the President's call.

"I think it appropriate that 27th July (1990) should be remembered. Remembered as something that's literally embedded into what happened to us in TT...where we are allowed to remember that we are part of the global community and whatever is happening out there in the world, can happen here."

He said Trinbagonians "mask our vulnerability with things like 'God is a Trini,' and, 'We've not been touched by a hurricane,' and 'Nobody could take over the country.'"

He said there could never be any justification for what happened, "given the fabric of our society."

Madeira said the memorial should be "a kind of rememberance that does not mamaguy the people who are involved."

He added that he found it amazing that young people he has spoken to about July 27 don't know what he's talking about.

He hoped any memorial is national in scope, not caught up in the politics of the day, and allows an education to take place.

Former NAR government minister Winston Dookeran, who was a hostage in the Red House when it was stormed by the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen, said initially he believed the memorial for July 27 should be the Eternal Flame at the Red House. He lamented that it was moved from the front of the Red House on Abercromby Street "into an obscure corner of the parliamentary premises."

It now stands on the pedestrianised Knox Street.

Dookeran said, 'I do believe the best memorial would be a living memorial of an Eternal Flame, properly constructed at a place that generations of today can remember the defence of democracy, that so many citizens of this country rallied in support of 31 years ago."

He also believed that July 27 "should become an important piece of scholarly work to be taught in the literature of the politics of the country, and should not be left as a footnote." This has not happened, he said.

"The scholars of political history, in my view, have failed to put it in the calendar of the agenda for students."

Dookeran said in 50 years' time July 27 should be remembered by the students of the time.

Political scientist Dr Bishnu Ragoonath said July 27 should be commemorated, but added, "I am not sure whether something more permanent than what we have right now is necessary."

Apart from the Eternal Flame, Ragoonath said there have been written documents about the attempted coup and a COI.

However, he said he had no difficulty if a part of the Red House was devoted to commemorating July 27.