Cherisse Moe

Hear­ing about a tragedy and liv­ing it are two dif­fer­ent things. For the me­dia work­ers trapped in­side Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT) and the NBS Ra­dio sta­tion (Ra­dio 610) in Port-of-Spain, the trau­ma re­mains as re­al as ever.

Fri­day, Ju­ly 27, 1990, be­gan like any oth­er day un­til Ja­maat Al Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr and his men stormed the build­ings.

Thir­ty-six years lat­er, three for­mer hostages and one staff mem­ber out­side the com­pound re­flect on the day guns si­lenced the news and changed their lives for­ev­er.

Ash­ford Jack­man, for­mer TTT sports ed­i­tor/an­chor: The View From Out­side

“Men­tion of the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup al­ways re­vives painful trau­ma that my col­leagues suf­fered. I was among a group for­tu­nate to be out on as­sign­ment. I be­lieve an act of God saved me from be­com­ing one of the hostages.

Trinidad and To­ba­go, de­fend­ing the Shell Caribbean Cup, had their se­mi-fi­nal against Ja­maica shift­ed to Fri­day due to a storm warn­ing. As TTT’s com­men­ta­tor, I drove to the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um. Why an act of God? Not a drop of rain fell in Port-of-Spain that week!

Af­ter a goal­less open­ing half, I kept my head­set/mic on as was my habit, and au­dio op­er­a­tor Ed­ward Camps asked if I could see smoke or fire in town. I replied that the Jean Pierre Com­plex roof was block­ing my view. A minute in­to com­men­tary, I re­alised all the cam­eras were un­manned. I called out to di­rec­tor Li­nus Pitt. Si­lence. Some­thing out of the or­di­nary was afoot. Down­stairs in the O.B. van, the crew was in heat­ed de­bate. Some want­ed to go to Cum­ber­land Hill and shut down the trans­mit­ters; oth­ers said that would be risk­ing life and were de­ter­mined to go home.

On the off-air mon­i­tor was an im­age my brain could not process: news an­chor Do­minic Kaliper­sad and Head of News Jones P. Madeira on the Panora­ma set with Yasin Abu Bakr and an armed gun­man.

Amid ru­mours that the Mus­limeen con­trolled Pi­ar­co and ma­jor roads, we head­ed home. My wife was as re­lieved to hear my car as I was to see our in­fant first­born.

News spread that women had been sent home by Bakr, but the males in a Chris­t­ian group, due to record a pro­gramme, were kept in. As I pon­dered the men trapped in­side, one name stood out. Cur­tis Wil­son, my for­mer tech­ni­cal crew­mate, had a med­ical con­di­tion and on­ly took a day’s sup­ply of med­ica­tion to work.

Then, lin­ing up for gro­ceries, I felt a tap on my shoul­der. It was Cur­tis, re­leased by Bakr up­on learn­ing the se­ri­ous­ness of his con­di­tion. I gave thanks to God. And thanks to Jones’ men­tal for­ti­tude and ne­go­ti­at­ing skills, our peo­ple came out alive—men­tal­ly scarred, but alive.”

Richard Pur­cell, for­mer TTT Tech­ni­cal Op­er­a­tor: In­side the VTR Room

“We were about to be­gin the pro­duc­tion of a Hazel Ward pro­gramme when a cam­era op­er­a­tor sig­nalled to us in the con­trol room that there was a man with a gun who had every­one on the floor. I ran in­to the VTR room to hide with Cur­tis Wil­son, now de­ceased, un­til the shoot­ing sub­sided.

Af­ter 30 min­utes, I came out and saw Abu Bakr and his men “march­ing” staff in­to the stu­dio. He then made his in­fa­mous tele­vi­sion ap­pear­ance with Do­minic Kaliper­sad and Jones Madeira, right in front of his “au­di­ence” of trau­ma­tised staff.

We ran pro­grammes un­til the trans­mit­ter sig­nal was cut by the crew at the sta­di­um do­ing the foot­ball game. Bakr be­came a dif­fer­ent per­son. I will nev­er for­get his words: “These peo­ple are play­ing with your lives!” We were herd­ed back in­to the stu­dio where we stayed un­til the next day, and moved to dif­fer­ent lo­ca­tions with­in the build­ing over the next five days, fac­ing threats to blow us up and throw our bod­ies out­side.

There was no food af­ter Sat­ur­day morn­ing, and sleep was im­pos­si­ble amid the army’s in­ter­mit­tent bom­bard­ments.

I had night­mares for months. In one, I would be op­po­site TTT with a man build­ing a pi­ano that even­tu­al­ly turns in­to a cof­fin. Loud nois­es sent me scam­per­ing, and I cried at the slight­est dis­play of emo­tion. But I took the fact that I sur­vived and re­cov­ered men­tal­ly to move on with my life and my love—Me­dia.”

Gideon Hanoomans­ingh, for­mer TV jour­nal­ist: Un­der Guard and Prayer

“I was on an af­ter­noon shift prepar­ing for Panora­ma and an in­ter­view with Sir Shri­dath Ram­phal. About 5.42 pm, a hys­ter­i­cal fe­male caller said, “Mis­ter, I just hear a loud ex­plo­sion near the Po­lice head­quar­ters.” Then a male caller: “Tell Madeira the Po­lice are un­der at­tack.”

Sud­den­ly, I heard rapid gun­fire. I peeped through the door and saw a gun­man head­ed our way. I cau­tioned Do­minic and Verne Bur­nette and ran un­der a desk. I heard a loud ex­plo­sion in the room next door. I went to the news­room - Kaliper­sad and Bur­nette were al­ready face down on the floor. In graph­ic lan­guage, the gun­man said “get your tail on the ground!” I com­plied. An­oth­er gun-tot­ing in­sur­gent de­mand­ed we sit up against the wall. Well, Bur­nette got a fit.

We were tak­en to the main stu­dio with Abu Bakr and his heav­i­ly armed dis­ci­ples—save for Lor­ris Bal­lack, who wield­ed a cut­lass. We sur­vived the next few days on wa­ter shared from a dis­penser mug.

Per­haps the most trau­mat­ic of the ear­ly days was when Ja­maat mem­ber Kali-Aki Bua said in a most irate pos­ture: “This gov­ern­ment is not se­ri­ous, we will show them how se­ri­ous we are. You, you, you, (me) come, we’ll put you in a room up­stairs and blow it up! Then they will ac­cede to our de­mands.” My knees buck­led. I called out in si­lence to God. “Lord Je­sus, give me the courage and strength to face this mo­ment.”

Madeira act­ed as a con­duit be­tween Abu and Chief of De­fense Staff Joe Theodore. When Raoul Pan­tin re­quest­ed food, Theodore mem­o­rably replied: ‘Boy, hunger is a bet­ter op­tion than what is be­ing planned for you guys.’ Up­on re­lease, my broth­er Hans re­lat­ed that some­one in the mil­i­tary known to him vis­it­ed his home say­ing, ‘We are raid­ing TTT tonight and every­one, in­clud­ing your broth­er, will per­ish.’

In our most fright­ened hours, no one of­fered so­lace ex­cept a card to all hostages from Op­po­si­tion leader Patrick Man­ning.”

Sharon Hamil­ton Cud­joe - For­mer se­nior ed­i­tor/re­porter: Trapped in Ra­dio

“I worked the 5am to 12 noon shift at NBS Ra­dio 610. The col­league ros­tered to re­lieve me called to say she was com­ing in ear­ly. How­ev­er, 45 min­utes lat­er she said a sit­u­a­tion arose and wouldn’t be com­ing in, so I got stuck with the 12 pm to 7 pm shift.

My desk was sit­u­at­ed along a wall of glass to the back of the news­room, re­lo­cat­ed to the rooftop with a view of Po­lice Head­quar­ters.

Around 6 pm, I saw a ball of fire go up in the air and Abu Bakr ap­peared on the tele­vi­sion. While po­lice head­quar­ters burned, we tried call­ing the Fire Ser­vice with­out suc­cess. A Tech­ni­cal Op­er­a­tor then in­formed us that the Mus­limeen had set fire to the sec­ond floor.

Col­leagues tried to ac­cess the fire es­cape but dis­cov­ered it had been dis­man­tled un­be­knownst to staff! I con­tem­plat­ed go­ing to the bal­cony and jump­ing. Luck­i­ly, a se­cu­ri­ty guard and a tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tor got hold of fire ex­tin­guish­ers and put out the fire. Around 8 pm, se­cu­ri­ty said it was safe to try to es­cape. I stepped on­to the pave­ment amidst gun­shots and ex­plo­sions all around.

See­ing a man with a big gun in a po­lice uni­form, I ran to him, say­ing: “thank God the Po­lice reach.” He shoved me aside: “Run and don’t look back!” I com­plied. Over the next six days, staff kept the sta­tion on the air. To get in, we had to en­ter a po­lice jeep loaded with sand­bags. We were in­struct­ed to keep our heads down. What still haunts me was a ca­su­al con­ver­sa­tion months af­ter when my col­league who did not take up her shift, non­cha­lant­ly blurt­ed out that she was get­ting ready for work when “Abu” called and told her not to come in­to Port-of-Spain.

Should she have said some­thing to us? Up to to­day, I can’t an­swer that ques­tion.”