Pe­ter Ray Blood

It is ex­act­ly 20 years ago; it's 7 pm on a Fri­day evening, and I'm at­tend­ing a cock­tail re­cep­tion at City Hall, in Nathan Phillip Square, in down­town Toron­to, Cana­da, to wel­come par­tic­i­pants in the 1990 Carib­ana Fes­ti­val. With a drink in hand, I am rem­i­nisc­ing about hav­ing missed that evening's CFU foot­ball fi­nal at Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Ja­maica; about my smooth flight aboard an Air Cana­da air­craft; and, gen­er­al­ly en­joy­ing the am­bi­ence of a beau­ti­ful sum­mer evening in North Amer­i­ca.

Sud­den­ly, there's a ruckus at the en­trance and the re­cep­tion is in­ter­rupt­ed by a noisy Cana­di­an tele­vi­sion film crew barg­ing in, en­quir­ing of the jour­nal­ist from Trinidad. Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly, af­ter be­ing point­ed out, I am blind­ed by the glare of spot­lights, a mic is shoved in my face, and I am asked: "So, what do you think of the coup in Trinidad?" Be­mused, speech­less ac­tu­al­ly, I spon­ta­neous­ly re­spond, "What coup? We don't have coups in Trinidad... some­one's mis­led you....you prob­a­bly mean Haiti? As a mat­ter of fact, the biggest thing in Trinidad right now is a soc­cer fi­nal at our na­tion­al sta­di­um."

"Where's the Reuter re­port?" queries the re­porter of his col­leagues, and I read in vis­i­ble as­ton­ish­ment and com­plete shock, "a group of armed men stormed the par­lia­ment of Trinidad at 6 pm East­ern..." And so start­ed the most top­sy turvy fort­night of my en­tire life. By now, you must have re­alised that I wasn't in Trinidad for the coup so I am yet to ex­pe­ri­ence the trau­ma suf­fered by my fam­i­ly and com­pa­tri­ots on that fate­ful day 20 years ago.

Pick­ing sense out of non­sense

The next worse thing to be­ing ac­tu­al­ly in any form of in­sur­rec­tion is be­ing in a for­eign land while there's one tak­ing place in your home­land. I was stay­ing at Ho­tel Le Front on Front Street, in the room next to David Rud­der's. That night was noth­ing short of a night­mare as we went with­out any sleep, try­ing to con­tact our fam­i­lies, a friend, a me­dia house, any­body who would an­swer a phone...but there was just no get­ting through to "home." I can­not be­gin to itemise the tor­rent of thoughts that raced through my mind that night–whether my fam­i­ly was safe or alive; ex­act­ly what was the state of af­fairs in Trinidad; and, whether T&T had beat­en Ja­maica in the foot­ball fi­nal.

Even be­fore David or I was able to get through to Trinidad by phone, the BBC and CNN be­gan keep­ing us up to date with their spin on what had hap­pened, and what a hor­ri­fy­ing spin it was. Re­peat­ed­ly, in much dis­be­lief I watched at im­ages on the tele­vi­sion of a burn­ing Po­lice head­quar­ters...the im­ages of loot­ing and the con­di­tion of the pop­u­la­tion came much lat­er. I did man­age to get through to a friend in Bar­ba­dos who in­formed me that "Trinidad gone through. The whole city on fire, and they (the in­sur­gents) have ex­e­cut­ed the en­tire par­lia­ment." She added: "You have no work to come back to as the Ex­press bu'n down, and the boss­es in jail."

Thus be­gan an­oth­er sleep­less night be­fore even­tu­al­ly I suc­ceed­ed in reach­ing my fam­i­ly in Di­a­mond Vale. My fi­ance� an­swered the phone and the mo­ment she heard my voice burst out in un­con­trol­lable cry­ing. My wor­ry and stress rose im­me­di­ate­ly and, not even when my moth­er took the phone from her, try­ing to re­as­sure me that they were all al­right, were my worse fears al­layed. Try­ing to main­tain a calm voice, my moth­er told me: "Pe­ter, go in­to the Em­bassy in Toron­to and ask for asy­lum. You could nev­er tell what you com­ing back here to, and you know how these peo­ple don't like the me­dia."

Pad­dling my own ca­noe

By the fourth day, and get­ting lots more "ac­cu­rate" news from home, I go to the Carib­ana peo­ple who brought me up to Toron­to in the first place, en­quir­ing when I could re­turn home. They call Air Cana­da and are told, quite curt­ly: "We are not go­ing back to that place (Trinidad)!" Re­al­is­ing my plight, my hosts told me that they'd ac­com­mo­date me un­til Pi­ar­co is re-opened, and I get to spend one of my best va­ca­tions ever.

I am moved to the new­ly opened Sky Dome (all ex­pens­es paid, thanks to Sam Lewis, Joan Pierre, Bon­nie Hec­tor) and, best of all, I get to watch the World Se­ries play­off fi­nals be­tween Toron­to Blue Jays and De­troit Tigers, learn­ing the game of base­ball as well. I al­so get to ac­quaint my­self thor­ough­ly with Toron­to, dis­cov­er­ing what a beau­ti­ful city it is, es­pe­cial­ly in sum­mer. I al­so suc­ceed to find a roti shop run by Tri­nis and ac­tu­al­ly sell­ing the old, heavy bot­tled So­lo, of every flavour, in­clud­ing or­ange and co­la.

Re­turn to par­adise

All good things must come to an end and, af­ter a fort­night, Air Cana­da re­turned me home safe and sound. Not on­ly had I missed the coup and, while I al­so missed the ar­rest of the in­sur­gents, I did not miss the cur­few. Re­turn­ing to work I re­alised that my work­place was un­touched, none of my boss­es had been in­car­cer­at­ed, my job was safe, and busi­ness was go­ing on as usu­al.

The cur­few though pro­vid­ed me with what seemed at the time to be an ex­tend­ed hol­i­day as I tried to at­tend every cur­few par­ty held. On top of that, the Mas Camp Pub was a base of sorts for the troops pa­trolling the city dur­ing the cur­few, so I spent many a night at this Wood­brook es­tab­lish­ment; its pro­pri­etors pro­vid­ing cooked food, souse and oth­er ed­i­ble, movies, and bev­er­ages of course, dur­ing the coup hours. My oth­er favourite haunts dur­ing the pe­ri­od were Fortress Dis­co, and Wood­brook's Crick­et Wick­et, where own­er John Hor­sham host­ed some of the best "cur­few limes."

Twen­ty years have passed and I've heard all the tales of the coup from both sides of the fence. While for me it might have been a time of fun, I am aware that it was a most trau­mat­ic time for the en­tire pop­u­la­tion, es­pe­cial­ly those res­i­dent in North Trinidad. It is why I wel­come the de­ci­sion by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last Thurs­day to com­mence a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (fi­nal­ly) on these dark days in T&T's his­to­ry.