Almost a week after the Chaguaramas Development Authority (CDA) sent an eviction notice to the Military Museum, officials locked the curator out of the premises on J’Ouvert morning.
Speaking with Guardian Media outside the museum yesterday, the director of the Military History and Aviation Museum, Linda Kelshall said that sometime just after 6 am she was alerted to the actions of the CDA.
In a letter dated October 1, 2024, the CDA withdrew its 30-year lease, which Kelshall said places the museum and its more than 500 years of history in jeopardy.
“When I come, I saw the gate locked and a CDA man was right there. I asked him, I said I’m not well. I came home really to take it and he didn’t let me in,” the diabetic and hypertensive patient said.
She added that the eviction letter which gave the museum up to last Friday to vacate was challenged by their attorneys, but the CDA has yet to respond to the letter.
The CDA said it made several attempts to regularise the museum as a lessee, but in the last four years did not receive a substantive response from the proprietors who continue to operate on the land without paying rent.
Kelshall, who lives on the compound, was on Ariapita Avenue selling drinks in an effort to raise funds for the museum when the CDA locked her out of her home. She planned to stay with relatives last night as CDA officials refused her entry to collect her medication and feed her pets.
When Guardian Media arrived a CDA official was locked in the compound while two others were outside.
Joining Kelshall was former regiment captain, national security advisor and minister and commissioner of police Gary Griffith.
Taking time out from playing mas for what he said was a more important issue, Griffith accused the CDA of moving highhandedly and called on the MP for the area and Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley to intervene.
“This is totally unacceptable. Me being in the military, I was a military officer for 17 years and what I am seeing here is totally unacceptable. It is a slap in the face to all persons who have been in the military, to persons whose family have been in the military.”
Griffith added that the museum is “arguably one of the most significant military museums in the Americas.”
“This has history dating back past World War I. So we are speaking about history that is going back to over 120 odd years of things that involves persons whose families would have dedicated their lives and made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, not just in Trinidad and Tobago, but throughout the Caribbean and the type of historical artefacts that we have here, and the CDA with the audacity, the arrogance and the high handedness to just shut it down.”
Griffith said the entire incident could have been avoided with dialogue between both parties as the artefacts at the museum are irreplaceable.
“There is nothing, nothing in the Western Peninsula more significant than this military museum. Not Five Islands, not amusement parks, but the historical significance here. And the CDA, they so want to get that land grab, that real estate that is so significant, they have decided to kick them out. What I think is also appalling is the fact that this lady, she’s not as young as me, and she has serious issues where she has medical issues and medication. And to kick her out, she could have died this morning.”
In a statement yesterday, the Chaguaramas Development Authority said it had taken possession of the premises previously occupied by the Chaguaramas Military History and Aerospace Museum.
It said, “It is regrettable that such action was necessary. The management of the Museum was offered numerous opportunities over the years to regularise their occupation and stoutly refused to do so.
“The exercise was conducted in a peaceable manner in accordance with the Laws of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.”
