Thir­ty-five years af­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go en­dured one of the dark­est and most defin­ing chap­ters of its post-in­de­pen­dence his­to­ry, the an­niver­sary of the Ju­ly 27, 1990, at­tempt­ed coup is be­ing ob­served to­mor­row, un­der the shad­ow of yet an­oth­er State of Emer­gency (SoE)—a grim re­minder that na­tion­al crises con­tin­ue to test our democ­ra­cy.

What be­gan as an or­di­nary Fri­day af­ter­noon quick­ly de­scend­ed in­to chaos when mem­bers of the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen, led by Yasin Abu Bakr, now de­ceased, stormed the Par­lia­ment, Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT), and Ra­dio 610 that year. Then Prime Min­is­ter ANR Robin­son and mem­bers of his Cab­i­net were tak­en hostage, and the na­tion was plunged in­to a six-day siege.

The shock­ing and trau­mat­ic events left 24 peo­ple dead, scores in­jured, and ex­ten­sive dam­age to prop­er­ty in the cap­i­tal city. More sig­nif­i­cant­ly, the Mus­limeen ex­posed deep vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties in the na­tion’s po­lit­i­cal and se­cu­ri­ty in­fra­struc­ture—wounds that re­main un­healed more than three decades lat­er.

Sur­vivors con­tin­ue to car­ry emo­tion­al scars, and many fam­i­lies still await jus­tice. One of those voic­es is for­mer hostage Wen­dell Ever­s­ley, who has spent years cam­paign­ing for ac­count­abil­i­ty and re­mem­brance. At a me­dia brief­ing out­side the Red House—the very seat of Par­lia­ment—this week, he made a poignant ap­peal:

“Do not for­get 1990. Do not for­get our democ­ra­cy was at­tacked.”

The na­tion can­not af­ford to for­get, es­pe­cial­ly when so many ques­tions re­main unan­swered. What were the true mo­ti­va­tions be­hind the at­tempt­ed coup? Who fi­nanced it? Were there deep­er con­spir­a­cies that re­main hid­den?

Ju­ly 27 must serve as more than just a date for an­nu­al memo­ri­als. It must be a na­tion­al reck­on­ing. That day in 1990 ex­posed not on­ly the fragili­ty of our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions but al­so the ur­gent need for vig­i­lance, trans­paren­cy, and civic en­gage­ment.

Democ­ra­cy is not mere­ly the pe­ri­od­ic cast­ing of votes; it re­quires the con­stant strength­en­ing of in­sti­tu­tions, the up­hold­ing of jus­tice, and the nur­tur­ing of pub­lic trust.

This year’s an­niver­sary ar­rives at a par­tic­u­lar­ly sober­ing time. An­oth­er SoE is in ef­fect—trig­gered by a new cri­sis that once again rais­es fears about pub­lic safe­ty and gov­er­nance. It is a re­minder that while the weapons and ac­tors may dif­fer, the con­se­quences of weak in­sti­tu­tions and un­re­solved so­ci­etal frac­tures re­main the same.

T&T must con­front dif­fi­cult truths. How did ex­trem­ism gain a foothold? How have long­stand­ing so­cial and eco­nom­ic in­equities con­tributed to both the 1990 in­sur­rec­tion and to­day’s in­sta­bil­i­ty? True na­tion­al heal­ing de­mands that we ex­am­ine these un­com­fort­able re­al­i­ties.

A per­func­to­ry wreath-lay­ing cer­e­mo­ny is not enough. Com­mem­o­ra­tion must evolve in­to mean­ing­ful ac­tion. Let this an­niver­sary be a turn­ing point—a mo­ment for re­al com­mit­ment to trans­paren­cy, in­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, and in­clu­sion.

On Mon­day, when par­lia­men­tar­i­ans con­vene in the very cham­ber where elect­ed of­fi­cials were once held hostage, they must rise above par­ti­san­ship. Their de­bate on ex­tend­ing the SoE should be con­duct­ed in the spir­it of na­tion­al in­ter­est—not po­lit­i­cal games­man­ship.

The at­tempt­ed coup may have failed to top­ple the gov­ern­ment then, but it suc­ceed­ed in shak­ing our democ­ra­cy to its core. Thir­ty-five years lat­er, the ques­tion re­mains: Has enough been done to strength­en those de­mo­c­ra­t­ic foun­da­tions?

It is, there­fore, not enough to sim­ply re­mem­ber Ju­ly 27, 1990. It must be­come an an­nu­al call to re­build—not with con­crete and steel but with trust, jus­tice, and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic re­new­al.