- 5 days ago
The images of the 1990 attempted coup remain etched in the minds of many Trinidad and Tobago citizens. The Parliament was under siege. The nation was being held hostage.
But inside the television station, the journalists and staff who were taken hostage were experiencing a reality most people on the outside could never see. For some, the trauma lasted for years. For others, it took time to even recognize that they had been affected.
Rochelle Edwards takes us inside those untold moments.
But inside the television station, the journalists and staff who were taken hostage were experiencing a reality most people on the outside could never see. For some, the trauma lasted for years. For others, it took time to even recognize that they had been affected.
Rochelle Edwards takes us inside those untold moments.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:01Trauma doesn't always look the same.
00:04Sometimes it brings tears, sometimes silence, sometimes even laughter.
00:09After the attempted coup, these three survivors still carry that day with them.
00:15At 6 p.m. this afternoon, the government of Trinidad and Tobago was overthrown.
00:24The prime minister and members of the cabinet are under arrest.
00:29We are asking everybody to remain calm.
00:32It began like any other day, people leaving home heading to work
00:37and one heading to a first-time opportunity,
00:40not knowing that before the day was over, their lives would be changed forever.
00:45So I woke up and it was a normal day.
00:49Oh, it was a day like any other day in the newsroom.
00:52We were busy compiling the stories.
00:54I was excited because I was going to the parliament for the first time
00:58to witness how our parliamentarians operate.
01:04Wendell Eversley was just a young 20-year-old man heading to parliament when it all happened.
01:10Richard Purcell was at TTT when the attempted coup unfolded.
01:14So was Dominic Alipassad.
01:16Both were among those held hostage inside the station.
01:20And while the country watched events unfold from the outside,
01:24they were living through a reality that was far more personal.
01:27Same day, same event, but a totally different experience.
01:33When I went to the parliament, it was a free fall.
01:38There was no police.
01:39I was asked to do credits for his awards program which we were recording.
01:45Well, we were about to record.
01:48And so I was sitting there and one of the cameramen came in from the studio
01:54and told the director that there's a man in the lobby with a gun
01:59and everybody's on the floor.
02:02Now he could look into the lobby from the studio and nobody took him seriously.
02:09So the director sent him back to the studio and said,
02:12look, you're not ready to record the program and so on.
02:14And did he take time?
02:17Well, sort of.
02:18But you know, he was always a sort of prankster kind of guy.
02:22But then when he came back in the second time, I took him seriously.
02:26I'm like, okay.
02:28Although the director sent him back.
02:29I immediately got up and I went to what I had identified before as a safe room.
02:35But I wasn't thinking about an all-out attack like that.
02:38I was thinking if somebody came in with a gun and wanted to go on the air,
02:42you know, to make a statement or something like that,
02:44yeah, I said I would just hide out until it was over.
02:48Little did I know.
02:49And very interestingly, when I came out into the technical area,
02:53there was this guy, maybe about 30 years old, playing close.
02:56I thought it was a policeman, playing close.
03:00But I noticed he had a little thing on his head, so he was Muslim.
03:05And he was just looking in awe at all our wonderful equipment, you know.
03:10And I'm like, what's going on?
03:11And he was so calm.
03:12He said, yeah, don't worry.
03:14It's just a coup.
03:15We take over the country.
03:16I think we were in the newsroom, which was in a building adjacent to the main TTT building on the
03:25same compound.
03:28One did hear a bit of a ruckus, but we were too busy, as far as I can recall,
03:34getting this newscast together, which would have been about an hour or so away,
03:40that we didn't really pay more attention.
03:43So the newsroom were not aware that something was up until gunmen entered the studio.
03:50Well, as any human being, one would have been startled.
03:53I didn't think one had much time to react as much as do what they said.
04:00Of course, one was scared, one was startled.
04:03There were guns you'd never seen before.
04:06I'd never seen a gun before.
04:08And I think they herded us off to a corner somewhere on the ground.
04:14And that's where we stood, and still we didn't know who they were.
04:18They were just gunmen.
04:20They didn't identify themselves.
04:22Well, after some time passed, we were all herded out of that building into the studio.
04:28And in the corridor approaching the studio, we saw Abu Bakr,
04:33and then we realized what was going on.
04:36While gunmen stormed TTT, another attack was unfolding just minutes away at the Red House.
04:42I remember that Joseph Toney was speaking, and he used a famous word,
04:50who is your leader?
04:52And then we hear another attack, attack, attack, like a cap's gun.
04:56And then I thought it was firecrackers, not knowing that it was actually men running into the parliament
05:04and busting in the door shooting up in the ambulance.
05:07Who is your leader?
05:08No, no, who is your leader?
05:08Ray Robinson, Ray Robinson.
05:10And at this point, can you imagine what was going through their thoughts?
05:15That was the most horrifying day in my life.
05:21And what did you do?
05:22I went underneath a chair, and people were stamping on top of me.
05:26And it was a whole commercial.
05:28I just started to shake, you know.
05:31I was no hero.
05:34I was like everybody else, really, just scared, you know.
05:40And I was still concerned that I would not meet the deadline for the news program.
05:55For years, the public has heard the broad outlines of what happened on July 27th.
06:00But what about the details that never made it into the headlines?
06:04The moments that those inside remember, and that the rest of the country never knew about?
06:09They brought in a box, this guy with clubs and so on, very carefully brought in a box and put
06:16inside of us.
06:17We couldn't get it because they had a burglar-proof door separating the two areas.
06:24So we put it on the other side and so on and started to run wires from this box and
06:29so on.
06:29And we were told it was explosives and that the army had surrounded the place,
06:35and if the army had attacked, they would have blown us up.
06:37Well, you didn't see the staff at TTT sitting around a box that we were told was a bomb.
06:49You didn't see when Jones P. Madera came to me while we were sitting in the room with a bomb,
06:59that the offer had been made to exchange me for food.
07:06You would not have seen my surprise and unexpected response where I said I would not leave unless everyone leaves,
07:16and then immediately grabbed their colleagues sharply and started to pray right away.
07:21You would not have seen an instance where while there were gunshots coming through the glass panes along a corridor,
07:36Abu Bakr walked chest high along the corridor, was not struck by a bullet,
07:45and so impressed as the young followers who said, you see, that's why we follow him.
07:51But their memories of that day are not defined only by fear.
07:56They also remember the people who held them hostage.
07:59Some were aggressive, others, they say, were unexpectedly kind.
08:05In part two of the 1990 coup untold stories, we explore the emotional scars, the lasting trauma,
08:12and how survivors have spent decades trying to heal.
08:16Rochelle Edwards, TV6 News.
08:18.
08:18.
08:18.
08:18.
08:19.
08:19You
Comments