The child victims of 1990

However, it seems very little consideration is given to those left behind.

Sunday Newsday recently spoke to the children of Lorraine Caballero, a clerk at the Red House, who was killed during the insurrection, and discussed how their mothers’ death affected their lives.

Kalamo Caballero was tenyears- old and Afeisha Caballero one year and seven months when their mother was taken from them.

Their brother, Akee, who was shot and killed by the police six years ago, was 12 at the time.

Kalamo, 35, recalled that when the coup was instigated on July 27, 1990, he was on his way to spend the weekend with his father. He was on St Paul Street in Port-of- Spain when he saw the looting.

However, it was almost a week later, after everything had calmed down, when he returned to the El Socorro home he shared with his mother, older brother and baby sister, that his grandmother, Theresa Theodora Caballero, or Titi, told him his mother had died.

“When we reached home my grandmother and aunt was there to tell us the news, that mammy died. She went to work that Friday and we never got to see her again because they said her body was already decomposing. They said she got multiple gunshots,” he said.

“That broke me down. We were really close. I couldn’t function too good. Since that day I never went back to school. That affected my whole life.” He said he would cry every day for weeks, that sometimes he could not get out of bed, and that, for a while he did not care about anything.

When he eventually recovered sufficiently, he began to work in the groceries, selling flowers, and any job people would give him.

“When my mother died I became a man. I had to work. It was unfair for a ten-year-old boy. She would have made sure I went to school.

I remember once I skipped school for a week and when she found out I get good licks,” he laughed, “I would have had a different life.” He said when it happened, Akee changed. He would not smile anymore and had no close friends although he still attended school.

After that Kalamo and Akee, moved to Morvant with Titi, their mother’s mother, while Afeisha, who had a different father to her brothers, was taken by her father, Daniel Mulzac, to live with him, his four brothers and his mother in Champ Fleurs.

“Growing up I didn’t know I had brothers. I didn’t even know my mom died because I would call my grandmother “mummy”,” she said.

One day, when she was eightyears- old, her grandmother, Mary Du Verney, sent her to a nearby shop. A neighbour asked her who had sent her and when she replied that her mother did, the neighbour told her that her mother had died at the Red House in the 1990 insurrection.

She noted that her father had always struggled with substance abuse, and so was often away from their home for extended periods of time. He was on one of his extended absences when she was told of this. She said when she confronted Du Verney, she denied it, insisting that she was Afeisha’s mother.

On her father’s return however, she asked him and he confirmed what the neighbour had said, even showing her a newspaper article, and letting her know she had brothers. “After that everything changed. The kind of love I had for my grandmother, I didn’t have it anymore, knowing that she was not my mother. That love changed.

She had lied to me. I thought they were the only family I had. She had told me my mother didn’t want me, not knowing it wasn’t like that,” she said sadly.

She recalled that, as a child, Titi and Akee used to make brief visits to her Champ Fleurs home, but she did not know they were related to her. “If my mother was alive I probably would have been better off, knowing her side of the family.

Although my father loved me he was not really there for me and could not assist me - physically, financially, emotionally. Growing up in a house with only men was no easy thing,” she said.

Afeisha now has two children, ages eight and two, and they live in Du Verney’s church, Mt Prizgar Spiritual Baptist Church in Mt D’Or, along with her uncles.

Four years ago, Afeisha and her family were left homeless after their house was burnt down in a fire. They had nowhere to go and so moved into the church her grandmother led. However, Du Verney died in 2014 and Afeisha is concerned about her status there.

“As time goes by they will want their church to continue their services because it belongs to the Spiritual Baptist Archdiocese. Also, recently I got a call saying that my grandmother had mortgage owing on the land that the church is on, so they might come to put us put soon,” she said.

“People might see us laughing but no one can feel the pain we are feeling on the inside. While I don’t regret my children, if I had my mom, she would have taught me things I needed to know about men and children, and wouldn’t have had any,” she continued.

Another aftermath of their mother’s death, was that Titi became an alcoholic. “When mammy died it was like she couldn’t take it and she felt that was the only option to ease her mind,” said Kalamo.

Despite this, she took good care of her two grandsons. “Although she used to drink her little rum, and would go through her problems, she treated us really good.

She managed us real good — made sure we ate, taught us manners, kept us from going astray... She do a good work,” he stressed.

In the mean time, Afeisha was having a difficult time at home.

Titi had died in 2000 and she felt even more disconnected from her family. In 2004, she ran away from home and a school friend told her the location of her brothers’ home.

She took a taxi, went to look for them, and spent some time with them. That was the first time she had met Kalamo and, from then on, would regularly visit them on evenings after school.

“Meeting them for the first time as my brothers was both happy and sad. I was happy to see them but sad knowing that we didn’t get to grow up with each other.

There was also a little resentment because, at the time, not knowing that my grandmother had cut them off from me, I thought they had turned their backs on me and left me to go through all that I had gone through,” she said.

Although she remained in Champ Fleurs with her father’s family, Afeisha became very close to her brothers, especially Akee.

She said Akee supported her when she became pregnant and for the first years of her son’s life, so it was devastating when he was killed by the police on October 1, 2010, a few days before Kalamo’s birthday.

Akee’s death by the police dragged up unpleasant thoughts with respect to their mother’s death.

Afeisha told Sunday Newsday people speculated who actually shot their mother. “At TTT (Trinidad and Tobago Television) the Muslimeen released all the women.

They could have done that at the Red House too. It could have been that the army did not realise a civilian was coming out and shot her.

But then again it could have been the Muslimeen. No one even tried to find out who was responsible but I guess it wasn’t important then and it’s too late now. It’s all a lot of uncertainty and untruth so we have no closure,” she said dejectedly.

“On top of that nothing went on at the Red House on July 27th this year. They close down. They are not thinking about anybody’s family, they care nothing about anybody.

They didn’t pay their respects to anybody,” Kalamo interjected.

“No government official even come and at least lay a wreath, make some effort to finish the renovations on the Red House or light back the Eternal Flame. Nothing at all! That is part of Trinidad’s history but instead they studying September 11 and paying their respects to people in the US,” added Afeisha.

She said she had attended commemorations of the anniversary of attempted coup for over 20 years, at the Trinity Cathedral, then at the Red House. She said it hurts her that every year only two or three people visit the Red House to commemorate the deaths, and that, when they go, people pass and ask what they are doing there.

Afeisha asked that Government look into the recommendations made in the report of Commission of Enquiry into the 1990 attempted coup, to assist the needy who were personally affected by the events.

Kalamo pointed out that, when their mother died, no one gave them any assistance - financially or emotionally. Now, recently unemployed with a girlfriend, a twoyear- old daughter, as well as his brother’s three children to care for, he hopes someone could assist him with a job, or a place to live.

In addition, Afeisha recently lost her job at a construction site after she had to remain at home because she could not afford to pay for her children to be supervised while they are on vacation from school.

The siblings would appreciate any assistance rendered.