Country’s history, culture altered by key acts, tragedies

Carisa Lee

Re­porter

[email protected]

Au­gust 2025 was a month de­fined by mo­ments that al­tered the coun­try’s his­to­ry and cul­ture, and by tragedies that cut deeply in­to the na­tion­al con­science. The drown­ing of Tara Lochans­ingh at the Matu­ra Riv­er on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, and the death of six-year-old Jash­er Fran­cois at the San Fer­nan­do Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal on Au­gust 7, sent waves of grief across the coun­try.

The eighth month al­so un­fold­ed against a back­drop of per­sis­tent crime and po­lit­i­cal ten­sion. But in the fi­nal weeks of Au­gust, events took a dra­mat­ic turn when the Unit­ed States be­gan a naval build-up in the south­ern Caribbean, a de­vel­op­ment that would dom­i­nate head­lines for the rest of the year and raise re­gion­al con­cerns.

On Au­gust 18, news broke that the Unit­ed States had de­ployed three Aegis guid­ed-mis­sile de­stroy­ers, the USS Grave­ly, the USS Ja­son Dun­ham and the USS Samp­son, to wa­ters off Venezuela.

The move was part of US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s ef­fort to com­bat threats posed by Latin Amer­i­can drug car­tels.

Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro de­scribed the de­ploy­ment as a threat to the coun­try’s sov­er­eign­ty and pledged to mo­bilise over four mil­lion mili­tia mem­bers.

“This week, I will ac­ti­vate a spe­cial plan with more than 4.5 mil­lion mili­ti­a­men to en­sure cov­er­age of the en­tire na­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry—mili­tias that are pre­pared, ac­ti­vat­ed and armed,” Maduro said.

As the war­ships made their way to the south­ern Caribbean, re­gion­al and lo­cal voic­es warned against the mil­i­tary pres­ence in the re­gion stat­ing that it must re­main a zone of peace.

An in­ter­gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean na­tions called AL­BA, or the Bo­li­var­i­an Al­liance for the Peo­ples of our Amer­i­ca, de­nounced what it de­scribed as “re­newed ag­gres­sion by the US against Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.”

AL­BA re­ject­ed what it called the US’ “fla­grant vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law and a threat to re­gion­al peace.”

The AL­BA mem­bers in­clude An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Bo­livia, Cu­ba, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, Nicaragua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lu­cia, Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines and Venezuela.

For­mer T&T prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young said, “Cari­com and our re­gion is a recog­nised zone of peace, and it is crit­i­cal that this be main­tained.”

In con­trast, some Venezue­lans liv­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go say they hope that if the Unit­ed States re­moves Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro, they would be able to re­turn home peace­ful­ly.

As ten­sions, spec­u­la­tion and ex­pec­ta­tions grew, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers said the coun­try would re­main out­side the cur­rent im­passe be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela. He al­so urged the pop­u­la­tion to put aside fear amid the on­go­ing un­cer­tain­ty.

In the Gov­ern­ment’s first of­fi­cial state­ment since the news broke, Sobers, re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, said, “Amer­i­ca is a sov­er­eign coun­try. Where they de­cide to send their ships, or not send their ships, is not re­al­ly a mat­ter for Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Sobers al­so not­ed that the Caribbean Sea ex­tend­ed all the way to the coast of Flori­da.

One day lat­er, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Trinidad and To­ba­go ful­ly sup­port­ed the US gov­ern­ment’s de­ploy­ment of mil­i­tary as­sets to dis­man­tle ter­ror­ist drug car­tels op­er­at­ing in the south­ern re­gion. She added that the US had made no re­quest to use Trinidad and To­ba­go for any mil­i­tary ac­tion against the Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion.

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment that Trinidad and To­ba­go would be pre­pared to grant the Unit­ed States ac­cess to its ter­ri­to­ry should Venezuela in­vade Guyana.

Re­la­tions in the Gulf of Paria were al­ready chop­py, but Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s po­si­tion fur­ther in­ten­si­fied the tide. Be­tween Au­gust 13 and 14, sev­er­al Trinida­di­an na­tion­als and one Venezue­lan man were ar­rest­ed by Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters.

Lo­cal in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cials said the group, com­pris­ing T&T na­tion­als and the Venezue­lan op­er­a­tive, was en route to col­lect a large ship­ment of nar­cotics and firearms des­tined for Trinidad.

Mean­while, Venezue­lan of­fi­cials al­so seized 3,000 litres of fu­el along with a large quan­ti­ty of con­tra­band.

Re­spond­ing to the ar­rests, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said some of the in­di­vid­u­als were al­ready known to law en­force­ment, and that their de­ten­tion had made the po­lice’s job eas­i­er.

He added that while it meant “few­er men” for the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to lo­cate, of­fi­cers re­mained aware of where to look.

The Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er said the ar­rests should serve as a clear warn­ing to oth­er mis­guid­ed in­di­vid­u­als who be­lieve they can evade jus­tice by cross­ing bor­ders.

Po­lice sources told Guardian Me­dia that the group had been re­ceiv­ing in­struc­tions from an in­car­cer­at­ed in­mate in con­nec­tion with the Ju­ly 25, 2019 mur­ders of Vaugh­an “Sand­man” Mieres, his wife, and two as­so­ciates.

Ear­li­er in Au­gust, po­lice ar­rest­ed a man de­scribed as the right-hand man of one of the sus­pects cur­rent­ly be­ing held at the De­fence Force base in Ch­aguara­mas. He was found in pos­ses­sion of a so­phis­ti­cat­ed weapon, which in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve was in­tend­ed to be used in the as­sas­si­na­tion of two de­fence at­tor­neys.

Gue­var­ro re­vealed that the sus­pect’s de­ten­tion came just hours af­ter of­fi­cers alert­ed the two at­tor­neys that their lives were in dan­ger.

Weeks lat­er, it was re­vealed that De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge had al­so been a tar­get, prompt­ing im­me­di­ate prayers from his To­co/San­gre Grande con­stituents.

Two oth­er Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment were al­so re­port­ed­ly threat­ened—Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath.

Res­i­dent Dex­ter Fer­gu­son said re­ports of al­leged threats against Sturge were dif­fi­cult to process, par­tic­u­lar­ly amid the coun­try’s wors­en­ing crime sit­u­a­tion.

“It not sit­ting nice with me, be­cause I know Sturge is a good fel­la… a good guy. I re­al­ly feel­ing it for him,” Fer­gu­son said. “Sturge didn’t help me, but he helped peo­ple close to me. He do­ing his work, and that has been ev­i­dent over the last four months. I don’t know if peo­ple en­vi­ous of our MP.”

While con­stituents of­fered prayers for one Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued a stern warn­ing to her Cab­i­net, vow­ing to “buss their heads” should any min­is­ter be found en­gag­ing in ques­tion­able al­liances.

She said any­one in­volved would face pub­lic ex­po­sure, dis­missal, and pos­si­ble le­gal con­se­quences.

The Prime Min­is­ter stressed that her Gov­ern­ment’s pri­or­i­ty was pro­tect­ing the most vul­ner­a­ble, not re­ward­ing “po­lit­i­cal in­sid­ers.”

“The UNC worked too hard for some peo­ple to be favour­ing cor­rupt fake elites,” she said, ref­er­enc­ing Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment whom she claimed were “lim­ing in Hy­att” with in­di­vid­u­als her par­ty had vowed to hold ac­count­able for cor­rup­tion... They will car­ry you and not bring you back,” she warned.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath voiced full sup­port for the Prime Min­is­ter’s warn­ing, say­ing that groups which had “fed at the trough un­der the PNM” were now seek­ing ac­cess to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said any ac­tion tak­en by the Prime Min­is­ter was aimed at en­sur­ing the UNC nev­er be­comes aligned with what he de­scribed as “crooked and cor­rupt in­di­vid­u­als” whom he claimed robbed the coun­try of bil­lions un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), Au­gust record­ed the low­est month­ly mur­der toll in the last decade. Cel­e­brat­ing the “win,” Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said it was achieved even while op­er­at­ing un­der an on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE).

But the month was not with­out vi­o­lence. Forty-year-old Mt Hope busi­ness­woman Make­da Swift was shot and killed by ban­dits dur­ing a car­jack­ing. She was the daugh­ter of Rasta­far­i­an DJ Bri­an “Nyah­binghi” De Four.

In an­oth­er case, a La Ro­maine cou­ple went miss­ing over the week­end of Au­gust 3. Samuel Mon­tano, 44, and Za­hee­da Mo­hammed, 36, were re­port­ed miss­ing af­ter a rel­a­tive dis­cov­ered a trail of blood lead­ing from their home to the near­by beach. Of­fi­cers found a blood-stained sheet on the bed and sev­er­al spent shells on the floor.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard de­ployed divers to comb near­by wa­ters, while drones and ca­dav­er dogs scoured the area but no trace of the cou­ple was found.

With schools set to re­open in a few weeks, the Gov­ern­ment an­nounced plans to de­ploy po­lice of­fi­cers in high-risk schools in an ef­fort to curb vi­o­lence.

The plan was out­lined dur­ing a meet­ing on Au­gust 13 at Ed­u­ca­tion Tow­ers on St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, be­tween Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, and Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro.

An­oth­er ma­jor de­ci­sion the Gov­ern­ment made in Au­gust were the can­cel­la­tions of the In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade and fire­works cit­ing se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons. The events were re­placed by a na­tion­al day of prayer.

“The Gov­ern­ment’s Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ad­vice is that the gath­er­ing of the Pres­i­dent, and all Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion mem­bers, mem­bers of the Ju­di­cia­ry, to­geth­er with a large con­tin­gent of the ma­rine, land and air as­sets of the De­fence Force and the TTPS in one lo­ca­tion would be un­wise at this time,” Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein said dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing.

The Gov­ern­ment saved at least $2.6 mil­lion af­ter can­celling this year’s In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade and fire­works dis­play in the cap­i­tal, ap­proval from the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion was giv­en in Feb­ru­ary.

Ac­cord­ing to Cab­i­net note, the pa­rade alone was pro­ject­ed to cost $1.5 mil­lion. This fig­ure in­clud­ed ex­pens­es such as rent­ing the Grand Stand fa­cil­i­ties, hir­ing ush­ers, con­struct­ing me­dia tow­ers, in­stalling au­dio sys­tems, pro­vid­ing guest re­fresh­ments, and rent­ing chairs and bus­es. The Grand Stand rental alone cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $600,000.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Guardian Me­dia was in­formed that the fire­works dis­play was ex­pect­ed to cost the State around $1.1 mil­lion. How­ev­er, a gov­ern­ment source clar­i­fied that while the pri­vate sec­tor helps fund the show, sev­er­al state en­ti­ties, in­clud­ing the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (UDe­COTT), al­so con­tribute fi­nan­cial­ly and man­age key lo­gis­ti­cal as­pects of the event. UDe­COTT was ex­pect­ed to cov­er $700,000 of the fire­works costs.

The “Toast to the Na­tion,” a for­mal part of In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions tra­di­tion­al­ly held at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) was not in­clud­ed in the cost.

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne said the cor­po­ra­tion spent ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$100,000 to $120,000 to host its own “For the Love of Lib­er­ty” In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tion at Man­dela Park and Ari­api­ta Av­enue.

Pan on D’ Av­enue helped closed off the month of Au­gust, which is al­so na­tion­al pan month in a pa­tri­ot­ic way.

Af­ter stand­ing on In­de­pen­dence Square for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 144 years, the Christo­pher Colum­bus stat­ue was re­moved by the Port-of-Spain Cor­po­ra­tion on Au­gust 6. May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne made the an­nounce­ment on Eman­ci­pa­tion Day.

“The coun­cil of the city of Port-of-Spain has tak­en the de­ci­sion to re­move the stat­ue of Christo­pher Colum­bus from In­de­pen­dence Square and to make it avail­able to the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um and Art Gallery for dis­play,” he said.

Er­ic Lewis, of the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ples, held a smoke cer­e­mo­ny at the Colum­bus Square site to com­mem­o­rate the re­moval of the stat­ue. He said the stat­ue rep­re­sent­ed more than his­to­ry, call­ing it “a mon­stros­i­ty” that car­ried the sym­bol­ic weight of colo­nial vi­o­lence.

“We’re here to pu­ri­fy the space and ho­n­our our an­ces­tors,” Lewis said.

Free­dom Project Caribbean’s Shaba­ka Kam­bon de­scribed the stat­ue’s re­moval as an “his­toric vic­to­ry” af­ter near­ly a decade of ad­vo­ca­cy. The coun­try lost promi­nent fig­ures such as In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor and Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) De­oroop Teemal who died at 68-years-old.

For­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter and PNM stal­wart Dr Lenny Saith died at age 90. On Au­gust 29, at the age of 57, In­shan Ish­mael, a promi­nent busi­ness­man, ac­tivist, and me­dia per­son­al­i­ty al­so passed away.

Al­so in Au­gust, for­mer FI­FA vice pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er re­ceived a ma­jor life­line in his long-run­ning ef­fort to chal­lenge his pro­posed ex­tra­di­tion to the Unit­ed States. The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al ad­mit­ted that Warn­er’s pre­vi­ous le­gal chal­lenges were dis­missed by lo­cal courts and the Privy Coun­cil based on a mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion made by the State.

The bomb­shell ad­mis­sion could have a di­rect im­pact on the fu­ture of ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings against Warn­er, who is ac­cused of fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing linked to his more than two-decade tenure at the helm of world foot­ball’s gov­ern­ing body.

The na­tion was al­so shak­en by tragedy, as par­ents across the coun­try shared in the grief of Aaron and Yh­nique Fran­cois fol­low­ing the death of their six-year-old son at the San Fer­nan­do Teach­ing Hos­pi­tal.

The first au­top­sy, con­duct­ed at the hos­pi­tal’s mor­tu­ary, list­ed the cause of death as as­pi­ra­tion pneu­moni­tis, like­ly trig­gered by vi­ral pneu­mo­nia. How­ev­er, Jash­er’s par­ents re­ject­ed the find­ings, ques­tion­ing their son’s sud­den de­te­ri­o­ra­tion.

They lat­er ac­cept­ed the re­sults of a sec­ond, in­de­pen­dent au­top­sy, which sug­gest­ed that an ad­verse re­ac­tion to in­tra­venous­ly ad­min­is­tered med­ica­tion may have caused his death. The au­top­sy was con­duct­ed by Pro­fes­sor Dr Hu­bert Dais­ley at the JE Guide Fu­ner­al Home and Cre­ma­to­ri­um.

In re­sponse, the Min­istry of Health ap­point­ed a com­mit­tee to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter.

On Au­gust 19, bus dri­ver Mustapha Khan and pas­sen­ger Rox­anne Phillip—a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer at­tached to SWAT—were killed when a PTSC deluxe bus slammed in­to the rear of a flatbed truck while trav­el­ling south along the Solomon Ho­choy High­way, near the Freeport over­pass.

The truck dri­ver suf­fered mi­nor in­juries, but Khan died at the scene. Phillip al­so lost her life and re­mained trapped be­neath the wreck­age.

Tragedy struck again the fol­low­ing night when 19-year-old Kav­ish Per­sad was killed in a sep­a­rate crash along the Beetham High­way in Laven­tille. Po­lice said Per­sad was dri­ving a white Hyundai Ion­iq east­bound around 10 pm when he at­tempt­ed to over­take a brown Mit­subishi ve­hi­cle.

In­stead, Per­sad col­lid­ed with the rear of the car, caus­ing his ve­hi­cle to veer off the road­way and crash in­to the Beetham Wa­ter Main. The im­pact sent the car air­borne be­fore it plunged in­to a drain.

The Mit­subishi was pushed in­to a grassy area at the side of the road, but its dri­ver was un­harmed.