Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Days be­fore the 36th an­niver­sary of the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup, DCP in charge of Ad­min­is­tra­tion Ju­nior Ben­jamin says he is con­fi­dent in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s abil­i­ty to ef­fec­tive­ly counter and re­spond to any large-scale ter­ror threat, sim­i­lar to what was ob­served decades ear­li­er.

Speak­ing with re­porters dur­ing a tour of the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup ex­hib­it at the TTPS Mu­se­um on St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Ben­jamin said dif­fer­ent as­pects of the po­lice op­er­a­tions have grown sig­nif­i­cant­ly, with spe­cif­ic fo­cus on pre­vent­ing sim­i­lar up­heavals from tak­ing place.

“We in the po­lice ser­vice con­tin­ue to put things in place in terms of the num­ber of of­fi­cers we have in the Par­lia­ment and of­fi­cers we have all around.

“Our in­tel­li­gence has in­creased, and we are in a much bet­ter po­si­tion now than we were then. Even with the qual­i­ty of the train­ing we have for our of­fi­cers, some­thing of that na­ture I think would be some­thing of the past

“We don’t ever keep our guard down.”

While speak­ing on his own ex­pe­ri­ences dur­ing the six-day-long in­sur­rec­tion, Ben­jamin said he was still a trainee at the Po­lice Train­ing Acad­e­my at the time of the in­ci­dent and was ex­pect­ed to for­mal­ly “pass out” as a ful­ly fledged po­lice of­fi­cer on Ju­ly 28, 1990.

How­ev­er, the emer­gency led to him and oth­er trainees in his batch be­ing thrust on­to the front­lines as he was de­ployed to the Traf­fic Branch to sup­ple­ment the man­pow­er at the post.

Re­call­ing the sound of gun­fire and chaot­ic scenes ob­served on the streets, Ben­jamin, who was 19-years-old at the time, said the dan­ger faced was some­thing he would nev­er for­get.

“I re­mem­ber one night we had a stir where peo­ple said we were about to be at­tacked, and I felt that my life was go­ing to end that day, and in the mid­dle of the night we heard just a bar­rage of gun­shots.

“I just stood there... I had on­ly one pis­tol at the time, and I was in the dark, and I said, ‘God, if my life has to end to­day, I just want to make sure my life was right,’ and liv­ing through that ex­pe­ri­ence I have learned to grow stronger with my po­lice of­fi­cers.

“We have grown, and we’re here to tell the sto­ry that the po­lice ser­vice is a strong or­gan­i­sa­tion that will de­fend this na­tion.”

While at the mu­se­um, Ben­jamin met and briefly in­ter­act­ed with chil­dren and care­givers from a va­ca­tion camp un­der the Va­len­cia Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist Church who vis­it­ed the ex­hib­it as part of a field trip.

Cu­ra­tor of the TTPS Mu­se­um Kara Roops­ingh told Guardian Me­dia that at­tempts to bet­ter en­gage with the pub­lic while high­light­ing the sac­ri­fices made by of­fi­cers dur­ing the in­sur­rec­tion led to guid­ed tours be­ing con­duct­ed twice dai­ly from Ju­ly 20 to Ju­ly 31.

As part of this cam­paign, Roops­ingh said a doc­u­men­tary on the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup from the per­spec­tives of po­lice of­fi­cers on du­ty at the time of the in­ci­dent was pro­duced ti­tled Code 727.

“The next gen­er­a­tion of po­lice of­fi­cers, the next gen­er­a­tion of cit­i­zens do not know about the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup, and they are able to ex­pe­ri­ence it through our tour guides, through the ex­hibits, through the film and get a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of what hap­pened and learn the lessons from it as well.”

One care­tak­er with the vis­it­ing sum­mer camp, Vilis­cia To­bias-Young, told Guardian Me­dia that while she heard the sto­ry of the at­tempt­ed coup, she was par­tic­u­lar­ly moved by see­ing the scenes where the chaos un­fold­ed decades ear­li­er.

To­bias-Young said the tour was im­por­tant for chil­dren, not­ing that while the at­tempt­ed coup was a dif­fi­cult chap­ter of T&T’s his­to­ry, it raised aware­ness of the im­por­tance of pro­tect­ing de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples.