NARIS­SA FRAS­ER

Fear is a com­plex emo­tion. It can make us shy away from chal­lenges but can al­so push us to do things we nev­er imag­ined. And for Mush­taq Ali and his fam­i­ly, the fear of their busi­ness be­ing loot­ed and de­stroyed dur­ing the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup was so strong that they opt­ed to stake out and pro­tect it.

On Ju­ly 27, 1990, the Ja­maat Al Mus­limeen at­tempt­ed to over­throw the gov­ern­ment of T&T. Many were glued to their TVs with fear as the group’s late leader Imam Yasin Abu Bakr and his men seized State me­dia house TTT to make the an­nounce­ment. He urged the pop­u­la­tion to re­main calm, but what fol­lowed was six days of chaos, ar­son and blood­shed. Sev­er­al build­ings were burnt down, busi­ness­es loot­ed, 24 killed and many oth­ers in­jured.

Mush­taq and his then wife Nafisa Ali—now both 70—were the own­ers of Em­dad’s Ltd at 105 Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain. They main­ly sold school uni­forms, sta­tionery and items for ba­bies.

He said the store was near a spot com­mon­ly called Hell Yard, adding that the mod­ern-day stig­ma of Char­lotte Street was sim­i­lar then.

“It was known for be­ing that part of Port-of-Spain where you’re more like­ly to be robbed. (We ex­pe­ri­enced) pet­ty crimes like peo­ple com­ing to steal stuff, threat­en­ing you… (We had to) run down thieves and that kind of thing.”

But since the busi­ness was pre­vi­ous­ly at the cor­ner of Park and Char­lotte Streets, he said the peo­ple at Hell Yard knew them well and would not typ­i­cal­ly cause them any trou­ble.

Fri­day, Ju­ly 27, 1990 was a reg­u­lar work day. But as they be­gan to wrap up ahead of their 6 pm clos­ing time, one of Mush­taq’s broth­ers came run­ning fran­ti­cal­ly to the store. “He was shout­ing, ‘Abu Bakr take over town! Abu Bakr take over town!’” Mush­taq re­called. But he was not quick to be­lieve it.

With a chuck­le, he ad­mit­ted, “We used to drink on Fri­day evening and he does drink plen­ty. He al­so told a lot of tall tales. So when he come, I halfway be­lieved him.”

But when he be­gan see­ing peo­ple scam­per­ing by the dozens and cars in­ten­tion­al­ly dri­ving in the wrong di­rec­tion, he knew this was no Nan­cy sto­ry. They im­me­di­ate­ly closed the store to face grid­lock traf­fic to get to their Diego Mar­tin home.

Nafisa said as soon as they got in, they put on the TV “and we saw Abu Bakr say­ing he and his men were in charge. We (then) ful­ly re­alised this was a coup.” She added, “I be­came even more scared and con­cerned (about) what was go­ing to hap­pen to us and T&T.”

She said it was a sleep­less night, and at the time they had three young chil­dren. “(There was the) feel­ing of fear, anx­i­ety and no hope for the fu­ture of T&T and my fam­i­ly. We were think­ing that Trinidad had gone through.”

Abu Bakr plead­ed with the pop­u­la­tion not to loot, but they knew it was in­evitable. So 34-year-old Mush­taq de­cid­ed that he, his fa­ther, two broth­ers and an un­cle would go to the busi­ness the next morn­ing to pro­tect it, while Nafisa stayed home with the chil­dren. They did not have a de­tailed plan, but at 6 am on Ju­ly 28, the stake­out be­gan.

“You’re just see­ing mobs of peo­ple walk­ing up and down telling you, ‘We com­ing back for al­lyuh just now.’” Mush­taq said. “We were damn scared and I could tell you I was damn scared.”

But even while in­doors, he wit­nessed a lot— like po­lice flog­ging a man with a bullpis­tle as he tried to loot, and peo­ple car­ry­ing fridges and com­put­er mon­i­tors on their backs. “I re­mem­ber see­ing an old la­dy, about 60, walk­ing with a roll of vinyl (floor­ing) on her shoul­der, walk­ing with it com­fort­able.”

With no signs of loot­ing slow­ing down, they be­gan to hide items in the ceil­ing and AC unit.

“We were so des­per­ate that we had a room in the back of the build­ing where T&TEC does put trans­form­ers for (busi­ness­es). We had two in there, but it was locked up. We buss the lock, re­moved the cur­rent of course, and (hid things in there too). He added, “If by chance, they had turned on the cur­rent when we were in there, you don’t know what would have hap­pened. But you so tiz­ic and want to pro­tect your­self.”

Around mid­day, he said they saw De­fence Force mem­bers pa­trolling and be­came more at ease. They were told there would be a cur­few so they should go home.

But when they ar­rived, they got a call from a neigh­bour­ing busi­ness whose own­ers lived up­stairs. Their night­mare was hap­pen­ing—loot­ers were try­ing to break in­to Em­dad’s.

One of his broth­ers, whom he said was the on­ly one “crazy enough to do this,” stuck a knife in the waist of his pants and broke the cur­few to head back. There were sledge­ham­mer marks on the walls and gate but po­lice ar­rived in time.

“What worked out in our favour was one of the po­lice of­fi­cers was a lim­ing bud­dy of ours. He used to come (when off du­ty) and take a few drinks with us,” Mush­taq added.

They con­tin­ued go­ing to the store dai­ly, not to make sales but to save fu­ture ones.

But what was hap­pen­ing at home? Nafisa said they were wor­ried they may run out of gro­ceries, so Mush­taq was sent to a fam­i­ly busi­ness in cen­tral Trinidad to buy in bulk. He said the trip was filled with anx­i­ety. “I kept hop­ing no­body would stop me or that I would have to stop for any­thing. Luck­i­ly, I didn’t have to.”

And when he fi­nal­ly reached, much to his sur­prise,“There was a man stand­ing up by the build­ing with a gun be­cause they didn’t want peo­ple to break in.”

He bought $4,000 worth of gro­ceries with which he made pack­ages for sev­er­al fam­i­ly mem­bers.

As the days went by and Nafisa learnt peo­ple were killed, she be­came more afraid. “(I thought) Abu Bakr and his gang would kill any­one who op­posed them. (I won­dered), ‘How long will this sit­u­a­tion last? Why is it hap­pen­ing?’”

But on Au­gust 1, 1990, Abu Bakr and his men were held and the ter­ror came to an end. Cleanup ef­forts were un­der­way and peo­ple tried to re­turn to nor­mal life, or some sem­blance there­of.

Nafisa said her first sight of the store af­ter all the chaos brought her to tears. “Mush­taq made a mess to make it look like we were loot­ed al­ready, so we had to re­or­gan­ise the store, which took some time.” And al­though it was “back-to-school” time, she said busi­ness that year was hor­ri­ble. “Why would any­one shop? They stole so much and loot­ed so much they didn’t need to.”

They both said it took weeks for nor­mal­cy to re­turn to the cap­i­tal, but Nafisa con­clud­ed, “We sur­vived and slow­ly we got back on our feet… Em­dad’s lived on.”