Yvonne Ba­boolal

Army of­fi­cers did not loot Tru Valu Su­per­mar­ket dur­ing the at­tempt­ed coup in Ju­ly 1990, they got per­mis­sion from the man­ag­er to take gro­cery sup­plies. Ma­jor Gen­er­al Ralph Brown, giv­ing ev­i­dence be­fore the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the 1990 in­sur­rec­tion, de­nied ear­li­er claims by Brigadier Carl Al­fon­so that army of­fi­cers from Camp Og­den went in­to Tru Valu in Long Cir­cu­lar Mall and took every­thing they could.

Mem­bers of the First Bat­tal­ion were sta­tioned at Camp Og­den in Long Cir­cu­lar un­der Colonel Hugh Vi­dale. Brown was al­so based there. Giv­ing his ver­sion of what re­al­ly hap­pened, Brown, who was com­mand­ing of­fi­cer of the T&T Reg­i­ment at the time, told the com­mis­sion at the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, "Al­fon­so was not to­tal­ly cor­rect in say­ing army of­fi­cers loot­ed Tru Valu." Quot­ing from an army log of Au­gust 11, 1990, he dis­closed: "When we re­alised that the thing was like­ly to go on, that the coup might be pro­tract­ed, we felt we would run out of ra­tions.

"We had about two weeks of per­ish­able items and the main ra­tions store was in Teteron. Brown read­i­ly ac­knowl­edged, how­ev­er, that two for­mer army of­fi­cers, Cap­tain Wal­lace and Cap­tain King, loot­ed in Port-of-Spain. "Yes, the of­fi­cer's (Cap­tain King) home was like a ware­house,' Brown told the com­mis­sion. (YB)