Al­most a week af­ter the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty (CDA) sent an evic­tion no­tice to the Mil­i­tary Mu­se­um, of­fi­cials locked the cu­ra­tor out of the premis­es on J’Ou­vert morn­ing. 

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side the mu­se­um yes­ter­day, the di­rec­tor of the Mil­i­tary His­to­ry and Avi­a­tion Mu­se­um, Lin­da Kelshall said that some­time just af­ter 6 am she was alert­ed to the ac­tions of the CDA. 

In a let­ter dat­ed Oc­to­ber 1, 2024, the CDA with­drew its 30-year lease, which Kelshall said places the mu­se­um and its more than 500 years of his­to­ry in jeop­ardy. 

“When I come, I saw the gate locked and a CDA man was right there. I asked him, I said I’m not well. I came home re­al­ly to take it and he didn’t let me in,” the di­a­bet­ic and hy­per­ten­sive pa­tient said. 

She added that the evic­tion let­ter which gave the mu­se­um up to last Fri­day to va­cate was chal­lenged by their at­tor­neys, but the CDA has yet to re­spond to the let­ter.  

The CDA said it made sev­er­al at­tempts to reg­u­larise the mu­se­um as a lessee, but in the last four years did not re­ceive a sub­stan­tive re­sponse from the pro­pri­etors who con­tin­ue to op­er­ate on the land with­out pay­ing rent. 

Kelshall, who lives on the com­pound, was on Ari­api­ta Av­enue sell­ing drinks in an ef­fort to raise funds for the mu­se­um when the CDA locked her out of her home. She planned to stay with rel­a­tives last night as CDA of­fi­cials re­fused her en­try to col­lect her med­ica­tion and feed her pets. 

When Guardian Me­dia ar­rived a CDA of­fi­cial was locked in the com­pound while two oth­ers were out­side. 

Join­ing Kelshall was for­mer reg­i­ment cap­tain, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ad­vi­sor and min­is­ter and com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Gary Grif­fith.

Tak­ing time out from play­ing mas for what he said was a more im­por­tant is­sue, Grif­fith ac­cused the CDA of mov­ing high­hand­ed­ly and called on the MP for the area and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to in­ter­vene. 

“This is to­tal­ly un­ac­cept­able. Me be­ing in the mil­i­tary, I was a mil­i­tary of­fi­cer for 17 years and what I am see­ing here is to­tal­ly un­ac­cept­able. It is a slap in the face to all per­sons who have been in the mil­i­tary, to per­sons whose fam­i­ly have been in the mil­i­tary.” 

Grif­fith added that the mu­se­um is “ar­guably one of the most sig­nif­i­cant mil­i­tary mu­se­ums in the Amer­i­c­as.” 

“This has his­to­ry dat­ing back past World War I. So we are speak­ing about his­to­ry that is go­ing back to over 120 odd years of things that in­volves per­sons whose fam­i­lies would have ded­i­cat­ed their lives and made the ul­ti­mate sac­ri­fice for their coun­try, not just in Trinidad and To­ba­go, but through­out the Caribbean and the type of his­tor­i­cal arte­facts that we have here, and the CDA with the au­dac­i­ty, the ar­ro­gance and the high hand­ed­ness to just shut it down.” 

Grif­fith said the en­tire in­ci­dent could have been avoid­ed with di­a­logue be­tween both par­ties as the arte­facts at the mu­se­um are ir­re­place­able. 

“There is noth­ing, noth­ing in the West­ern Penin­su­la more sig­nif­i­cant than this mil­i­tary mu­se­um. Not Five Is­lands, not amuse­ment parks, but the his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance here. And the CDA, they so want to get that land grab, that re­al es­tate that is so sig­nif­i­cant, they have de­cid­ed to kick them out. What I think is al­so ap­palling is the fact that this la­dy, she’s not as young as me, and she has se­ri­ous is­sues where she has med­ical is­sues and med­ica­tion. And to kick her out, she could have died this morn­ing.” 

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the Ch­aguara­mas De­vel­op­ment Au­thor­i­ty said it had tak­en pos­ses­sion of the premis­es pre­vi­ous­ly oc­cu­pied by the Ch­aguara­mas Mil­i­tary His­to­ry and Aero­space Mu­se­um.

It said, “It is re­gret­table that such ac­tion was nec­es­sary.  The man­age­ment of the Mu­se­um was of­fered nu­mer­ous op­por­tu­ni­ties over the years to reg­u­larise their oc­cu­pa­tion and stout­ly re­fused to do so.

“The ex­er­cise was con­duct­ed in a peace­able man­ner in ac­cor­dance with the Laws of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”