Ac­tivist and for­mer hostage Wen­dell Ever­s­ley is re­new­ing his call for jus­tice and re­mem­brance as the na­tion nears the 35th an­niver­sary of the 1990 coup at­tempt.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence out­side the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day morn­ing, just days away from the Ju­ly 27 an­niver­sary, Ever­s­ley made a heart­felt plea to both the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion: “Do not for­get 1990. Do not for­get our democ­ra­cy was at­tacked.”

Ever­s­ley, who was among those held hostage in the Red House dur­ing the six-day in­sur­rec­tion, re­vealed he has em­barked on an­oth­er fast and prayer in ob­ser­vance of the event, a prac­tice he has main­tained for over three decades. Yes­ter­day he was on the 22nd day of his fast. 

Re­call­ing the trau­mat­ic day, Ever­s­ley de­scribed how his first vis­it to Par­lia­ment end­ed with him be­ing tak­en hostage at gun­point.

“I was used as a hu­man shield,” he said. “Lor­raine Ca­ballero, a par­lia­men­tary clerk, was shot in the stom­ach and dragged in front of me. I watched her bleed to death. I thought I was go­ing to die,” he re­called.

He crit­i­cised suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions for fail­ing to take three key ac­tions: of­fi­cial­ly ho­n­our­ing the vic­tims, sup­port­ing sur­vivors, and ed­u­cat­ing younger gen­er­a­tions about the coup’s sig­nif­i­cance.

“This coun­try re­mem­bers 9/11 in Amer­i­ca. I went to Man­hat­tan last year and saw how they ho­n­our every life lost. But here in Trinidad and To­ba­go, 24 of our own died, and we say noth­ing,” Ever­s­ley lament­ed.

He said for 34 years, he has writ­ten to every sit­ting pres­i­dent, prime min­is­ter, and speak­er of the house ask­ing for an of­fi­cial State com­mem­o­ra­tion and sup­port for hostages and fam­i­lies but has re­ceived no sub­stan­tial re­sponse.

He said that most re­cent­ly, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s of­fice re­spond­ed by stat­ing that the mat­ter must be tak­en up with the Cab­i­net. But Ever­s­ley ar­gued the Pres­i­dent, as head of the De­fence Force and a for­mer Sen­ate pres­i­dent, has both moral au­thor­i­ty and in­flu­ence to ini­ti­ate ac­tion.

“This was an at­tack on Par­lia­ment, and the Speak­er’s Cham­ber is still scarred by bul­lets. A clerk was killed do­ing her job. Why is there no na­tion­al re­mem­brance?” he asked.

The for­mer hostage al­so linked the un­re­solved trau­ma of 1990 to the coun­try’s cur­rent wave of vi­o­lence and law­less­ness.

“To­day, gangs are in con­trol of en­tire com­mu­ni­ties. Judges and po­lice of­fi­cers are un­der threat. Cor­rup­tion is ram­pant. And no one wants to say how it all start­ed, on Ju­ly 27, 1990,” he claimed. 

Ever­s­ley called on the State to prompt­ly im­ple­ment Chap­ter 11 of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup, stress­ing that it specif­i­cal­ly rec­om­mends both fi­nan­cial com­pen­sa­tion and pub­lic ac­knowl­edge­ment for vic­tims and sur­vivors, as well as recog­ni­tion of the on­go­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal im­pact.

He an­nounced that he will be mark­ing the 35th an­niver­sary with sym­bol­ic walks in both To­ba­go and Trinidad. In To­ba­go, he will walk from the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port to the late prime min­is­ter’s grave. In Trinidad, he will walk from the Ari­ma Di­al to a cer­e­mo­ni­al site, fol­lowed by wreath-lay­ing cer­e­monies.

He urged all Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment and Sen­a­tors, past and present, to at­tend this year’s com­mem­o­ra­tion and stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with vic­tims and sur­vivors.

“This is not about UNC or PNM. This is about Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said. “Our chil­dren must know what hap­pened. They must know their his­to­ry. If we bury 1990, we bury the truth. Jus­tice de­layed is jus­tice de­nied. And si­lence, af­ter 35 years, is no longer an op­tion.”

On Ju­ly 29, 1990, armed mem­bers of the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen stormed the Red House and state tele­vi­sion TTT. The Po­lice Head­quar­ters was al­so bombed and set on fire. Twen­ty-four peo­ple were killed, and an es­ti­mat­ed $450 mil­lion in loss­es, in­clud­ing loot­ing and ar­son, was record­ed.