Ira Math­ur

Ju­ly 27, 1990. It was an or­di­nary day at NBS Ra­dio 610. I was one of four "Pro­gramme As­sis­tants", along with Eliz­a­beth Solomon, Den­nis Mc­Comie and Sharon Pitt–a print jour­nal­ist fresh from uni­ver­si­ty, green to ra­dio, in my first job. I learned on the job. Not just about ra­dio but about this coun­try and our peo­ple. Led by Wes­ley Gib­bings, we were man­dat­ed to pro­duce sev­er­al hours of cur­rent af­fairs pro­grammes dai­ly. All the con­tent was lo­cal ex­cept for the BBC Caribbean Ser­vice. When we were not clat­ter­ing with the news team on a row of type­writ­ers (copied thrice on car­bon pa­per) for news bul­letins, we were out there in Ca­roni talk­ing to the sug­ar work­ers, on the streets, in­ter­view­ing protest­ing trade union­ists.

Then, in­con­gru­ous­ly, on the same day, in­ter­view­ing the inim­itable, cen­tral bank gov­er­nor, the late William De­mas, (a Cam­bridge man) who af­ter sum­ming up the state of our fi­nances in a few pithy sen­tences spent hours ru­mi­nat­ing over es­o­teric and ob­scure ideas of phi­los­o­phy and lit­er­a­ture, roar­ing with de­light when he caught me bluff­ing. The first mid­day news­cast I read, guid­ed by the dul­cet voice of Bren­da de Sil­va felt like com­ing home. In the chilly sound proof stu­dio where every breath is mag­ni­fied and tech­ni­cal peo­ple ges­tic­u­late through the sep­a­rat­ed glass. There is a kind of in­ti­ma­cy nev­er achieved in any oth­er form of me­dia. We were one of two ra­dio sta­tions, both state owned. Peo­ple were al­ways lis­ten­ing–in cars, of­fices, at the port, homes, re­mote rur­al ar­eas, gov­ern­ment min­istries.

There were some hi­lar­i­ous mo­ments like the an­nounc­er who read a long and in­volved sto­ry on sci­ence tak­en straight from As­so­ci­at­ed Press. She re­peat­ed­ly read an un­for­tu­nate ty­po re­plac­ing or­gan­ism with or­gasm. The crew was rock­ing and news­room clat­ter went still with in­creduli­ty. When we had our NBS in-house ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion, Wes­ley hap­pened to be in a traf­fic jam. He glee­ful­ly re­port­ed that he saw car af­ter car of peo­ple laugh­ing up­roar­i­ous­ly at my at­tempts to ex­tem­pore. Sans Hu­man­ite. Den­nis Mc­Comie and Sharon Pitt were sea­soned ra­dio broad­cast­ers. They were in­tim­i­dat­ing. Tall, ar­tic­u­late and el­e­gant–they nev­er need­ed scripts. Pitt threw me in­to the den of live cov­er­age when then pres­i­dent of Venezuela, Car­los An­dres Perez ar­rived in the coun­try.

What do I say? "He is walk­ing down the stairs of the plane, he is on the red car­pet, he is still walk­ing? Still on the red car­pet, still walk­ing." As for my first car­ni­val broad­cast "I see blue, I see se­quins, I see yel­low, I see pink, I see danc­ing girls." Then there was the hu­mil­i­at­ing in­ter­view with VS Naipaul record­ed in a col­umn by Judy Ray­mond, who called me the "girl from 610." Af­ter a three hour wait to see him at the air­port he barked in­to my tape recorder. On pol­i­tics: "the pol­i­tics of a coun­try of 1.2 mil­lion peo­ple doesn't in­ter­est me." On trib­al vot­ing: "In­di­ans, I don't know any In­di­ans, do you?" The late Pres­i­dent Noor Has­sanali called me at home to tell me how much amuse­ment I af­ford­ed him at break­fast.

I was in awe of the smooth as silk Den­nis Mc­Comie, who in clipped tones took charge as soon as the on air sign came on. What I didn't know is he could do it when the sign went off. Den­nis was gen­er­ous. He en­tered my ra­dio com­men­tary "Tianan­men Square" to the RBTT Me­dia Awards. I won. I didn't know he en­tered me.' On Ju­ly 27 1990, I got a call around 3 pm. It was an Imshah Mo­hammed, (Eliz­a­beth Solomon in­tro­duced us) who asked me to come to his of­fice ur­gent­ly for a cup of tea. There was no tea but as his fa­ther was out of the of­fice, he was sit­ting at "the old man's" desk with his feet on the ta­ble. "What are you do­ing next Au­gust?" He asked with­out any pre­lim­i­nar­ies. "I don't know" I said, "I don't know what I'm do­ing this evening."

"Want to get mar­ried or what? Af­ter some lev­el of chival­ry was forcibly in­ject­ed in­to the oc­ca­sion, I ac­cept­ed his hand. Elat­ed, we drove to his par­ents. Be­fore they could take it in, we heard shots. Ratatatat! We thought we saw bul­lets fly through trees in St Claire. We glanced at the TV and lis­tened. Imam Yasin Abu Bakr was say­ing "The gov­ern­ment has been ar­rest­ed." Sit­ting to Bakr's left was Jones P Madeira, the then Head of News at TTT. The "Imam" ex­plained it was a coup on be­half of peo­ple suf­fer­ing from aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures, adding "Don't loot." The rest of the week is a segue, a sin­gle night's dream. Every­one has their pri­vate mem­o­ry of that time. (Doc­u­ment­ed by Raoul Pan­tin in "Days of Wrath" and Den­nis Mc­Comie's "1990.")

Mine was of a cross­fire be­tween the Mus­limeen on rooftops, and sol­diers walk­ing down a de­sert­ed street dur­ing the cur­few with an­oth­er jour­nal­ist yelling "Me­dia, don't shoot" to sol­diers point­ing their guns at us dur­ing the emer­gency. I re­mem­ber be­ing hus­tled out of the sta­tion by my new and wor­ried fi­anc� as we were stub­born­ly mak­ing our way back in with oth­er jour­nal­ists with a po­lice es­cort. I re­call crawl­ing in com­man­do style while the bul­lets flew past us, fires and loot­ing in Port-of-Spain. For six days and nights, un­der the stew­ard­ship of Den­nis Mc­Comie, who gave the first re­port from the roof of the sta­tion of the ex­plo­sions and burn­ing Po­lice Head Quar­ters, we barred the doors to the sta­tion and kept it go­ing.

Jour­nal­ists, an­nounc­ers, took turns on the FM sta­tion to stay on the air. It was the on­ly link be­tween gov­ern­ment and the peo­ple. We did in­ter­views with in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia,( I told the BBC "mad" men who didn't have the sup­port of the coun­try and got a threat­en­ing call from Bi­laal Ab­dul­lah), played mu­sic, called TTT and the Red House spoke to the hostages, in­sur­gents, pieced to­geth­er the news and passed it on. The coun­try did not sup­port the at­tempt­ed coup and pre­ferred cur­few par­ties. Even with a gun in his mouth, Arthur NR Robin­son, the then PM, urged the army to "at­tack with full force." An amnesty was be­ing ne­go­ti­at­ed. By scold­ing the in­sur­gents on the air, Mc­Comie set the bar for pa­tri­o­tism and hero­ism.

Starved for sleep, harsh ru­mours jolt­ed us pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly: That the PM and all the hostages were shot, that many cit­i­zens were shot which was un­true. Fi­nal­ly, there was the dra­mat­ic sur­ren­der the re­lease of hostages. 20 years on, as the de­noue­ment con­tin­ues, we know this. Our peo­ple will not sup­port law­less­ness. But we nev­er signed off on it. 24 peo­ple were killed. 30 mil­lion dol­lars worth of dam­age took place. 114 in­sur­gents were re­spon­si­ble. They went free. The pow­er be­tween the gun and the law went askew, breed­ing crime. We need that pow­er back. It's why the in­quiry an­nounced by the Prime Min­is­ter, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is so nec­es­sary. All an­niver­saries have their rit­u­als. This is mine–a mixed bag of re­mem­brance. I taste blood, salt, and tears, as mem­o­ry stirs up the love, death, brav­ery, and bru­tal­i­ty that is sweet T&T.