JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Pas­tor Clive Dot­tin says Trinidad and To­ba­go needs jus­tice if it is to avoid de­scend­ing in­to chaos.

Dot­tin made the re­marks at the con­clu­sion of ac­tivist Wen­dell Ever­s­ley’s walk from Ari­ma to Port-of-Spain and a wreath-lay­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the Red House yes­ter­day. Ever­s­ley un­der­took the jour­ney to com­mem­o­rate the an­niver­sary of the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup, dur­ing which he was held hostage af­ter in­sur­rec­tion­ists stormed Par­lia­ment.

Warn­ing that the coun­try could face sim­i­lar un­rest if long­stand­ing is­sues re­main un­re­solved, Dot­tin said, “It is high­ly pos­si­ble that 1990 could re­peat it­self in this coun­try...a so­ci­ety with­out jus­tice is a so­ci­ety that will go to an­ar­chy.”

His com­ments echoed those of Ever­s­ley, who spoke with Guardian Me­dia be­fore be­gin­ning the walk.

“To­day, what we are see­ing, what we are wit­ness­ing, we have to ask our­selves if our democ­ra­cy is un­der threat. In 1990, they tried to steal our democ­ra­cy with guns. Are they try­ing to steal our democ­ra­cy by si­lence now?”

While both men ex­pressed con­cern that the coun­try could re­live what they de­scribed as one of its dark­est chap­ters, for­mer House Speak­er Nizam Mo­hammed, who was in Par­lia­ment dur­ing the at­tack, be­came emo­tion­al as he re­flect­ed on the events of Ju­ly 27, 1990.

His voice trem­bling and crack­ing, Mo­hammed re­called: “On Ju­ly 27, 1990, the guns spoke in this place. It was fire; gun­fire, lives were lost, bod­ies were bro­ken, a na­tion was shak­en to its core. We re­mem­ber the po­lice of­fi­cers, the civil­ians, the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and staff.”

He added that change in Trinidad and To­ba­go should come through bal­lots, not bul­lets.

Ever­s­ley al­so called for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of rec­om­men­da­tions made by the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the at­tempt­ed coup 12 years ago. Among them is com­pen­sa­tion for vic­tims of the at­tack, which claimed the lives of 24 peo­ple.

Afeisha Ca­bellero, whose moth­er Lo­raine was killed dur­ing the at­tempt­ed coup, said com­pen­sa­tion would be es­pe­cial­ly mean­ing­ful giv­en her cur­rent fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties.

“I think I need it most of all, yes. They snatched she away from me and it was hard and it still is hard. They say how you make your bed you lie in it, but nah, some­times the cards you are dealt.... I love my chil­dren and be­lieve you me, if I didn’t have them, I think I would have gone AWOL al­ready.”

Ca­bellero al­so sup­port­ed Dot­tin’s call for the State to pro­vide coun­selling and trau­ma treat­ment for sur­vivors and their fam­i­lies.

Dot­tin said: “I don’t think we have ever had a prop­er trau­ma pro­gramme and coun­selling pro­gramme for those who are still sur­vivors and the rel­a­tives of those sur­vivors from 1990. As broth­er Nizam said, 1990 was a dis­turb­ing act; I mean it was just crazy. I re­mem­ber the Fri­day night in a big way, and peo­ple were trau­ma­tised.”

For­mer PNM sen­a­tor Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal al­so re­flect­ed on the an­niver­sary, re­call­ing that her fa­ther, Sur­ren­dra Sagram­s­ingh, was a po­lice of­fi­cer work­ing in Port-of-Spain dur­ing the at­tempt­ed coup.

Asked about the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s fail­ure to im­ple­ment the rec­om­men­da­tions made in the 2014 Com­mis­sion of En­quiry re­port, she ac­knowl­edged that suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments had op­por­tu­ni­ties to act, but said it was now the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion to move for­ward.

She added that on April 28, Trinidad and To­ba­go elect­ed a new Gov­ern­ment and said it should now ful­fil the man­date it was giv­en by im­ple­ment­ing the com­mis­sion’s rec­om­men­da­tions rather than con­tin­u­ing to blame pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tions.