https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274516/trinidads-darkest-hour-stephen-brown
Last month saw the 29th anniversary of an Islamic coup attempt to take over the government of the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago.
It was the first and only such Islamic terrorist attack in the Western Hemisphere attempting to overthrow an elected government. At the time, the coup was much underreported by the media due to the First Gulf War in Kuwait, occurring simultaneously.
On Friday, June 27, 1990, 114 members of a Trinidadian Islamic group, Jamaat al Muslimeen, stormed the Trinidadian parliament, also called the Red House, and Trinidad’s television and radio station.
By the time it was over six days later on August 1, 24 people were dead, including one Member of Parliament, a policeman and security guards. Much of the country’s capital, Port-of-Spain, was left a burnt-out ruin. This tragic event has been called Trinidad’s “darkest hour,” shaking the country “to its foundations.”
“The coup staggered the Caribbean country’s sense of itself as an easygoing land of calypso, cricket and British-style democracy,” stated an Associated Press report, sounding like Trinidad’s 9/11 moment.
Forty-two rebels took over the parliament building, taking 50 people hostages including the prime minister, ANR Robinson, while another 72 seized the Trinidad and Tobago television and radio station. The television station was the only one in the country.