Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

"It was not my fam­i­ly that did that."

These were the words of 30-year-old Jo­ce­lyn Abidh-Waugh, grand­daugh­ter of trade union­ist Adri­an Co­la Rien­zi, as she yes­ter­day sought to clear the air on the sale of this coun­try's high­est award that was be­stowed on her grand­fa­ther.

The medal was put up for sale on eBay this week, prompt­ing a pub­lic out­cry, in­clud­ing from Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona. How­ev­er, the ANSA McAL Group was able to se­cure the medal with a US$25,000 bid and will soon bring the medal back home for place­ment in the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um.

Yes­ter­day, Abidh-Waugh said who­ev­er was re­spon­si­ble for sell­ing the award made a "self­ish," "hor­ri­ble" and "evil" move and that her im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly was shocked and an­gry.

"Why would any­one want to do some­thing like that? I'd re­al­ly like to get a rea­son out of the per­son who sold it," Abidh-Waugh said.

Rien­zi was posthu­mous­ly award­ed the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T in 2012 for his con­tri­bu­tion to the trade union move­ment. His son, Robert Waugh, vis­it­ed Trinidad and ac­cept­ed the award. But when Robert died in May 2013, the award was left in the pos­ses­sion of his wife, Cori. They mar­ried in Mex­i­co in No­vem­ber 2011.

Ef­forts to con­tact Cori have been un­suc­cess­ful.

In an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day from Van­cou­ver, British Co­lum­bia, Cana­da, how­ev­er, Abidh-Waugh said she and her un­cles Don­ald and Tony were in­fu­ri­at­ed when they saw the medal on sale on eBay ear­li­er this week.

Abidh-Waugh said "Adri­an" had two sons–Tony and Don­ald–with Stel­la Abidh out of wed­lock. Stel­la, she said, was the first fe­male In­do-Cana­di­an doc­tor in Trinidad.

Not want­i­ng any­one to link her sons to Rien­zi, she said Stel­la gave them her sur­name and ran­dom­ly chose Waugh.

Ac­cord­ing to Abidh-Waugh, Stel­la took her sons to Toron­to and paid some­one to raise them while she worked in Trinidad.

Of her de­ceased grand­fa­ther, she said, "He's a fa­mous guy. I am proud to know that he got a high­way named af­ter him and he re­al­ly took ini­tia­tive and made things hap­pen. I am ex­treme­ly proud and wish I got to meet him."

She said she had no clue when the medal was post­ed up on eBay for sale, but af­ter one rel­a­tive found out it spread through­out the fam­i­ly like wild­fire.

"We were all shocked and nev­er thought that some­one would sell it. And more­so sell it be­hind our backs," she said.

She said she and her cousin ini­tial­ly want­ed to plan a trip to Trinidad to do­nate the medal to a mu­se­um, but now it was just "re­al­ly sad". They want­ed to en­sure it was in a safe place and "def­i­nite­ly not on eBay", she added.

The Abidh-Waugh fam­i­ly, she said, had tried to con­tact the coin deal­er who put it up for sale on eBay but were un­suc­cess­ful in gath­er­ing in­for­ma­tion.

Asked why she de­cid­ed to come for­ward, Abidh-Waugh said, "It was not my fam­i­ly that did that at all. It was some­one else.

"I want­ed to clear the air and say we had no idea this was hap­pen­ing."