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Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is call­ing for a per­ma­nent memo­r­i­al to the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup, say­ing the na­tion must pre­serve the mem­o­ry of that dark chap­ter and the lives lost.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day to mark the 35th an­niver­sary, Beck­les said the events of Ju­ly 27, 1990, de­serve “a mu­se­um-qual­i­ty dis­play cap­tur­ing the hor­ror and chaos of those six days, re­plete with poignant im­ages, heart­felt tes­ti­mo­ni­als, and his­tor­i­cal con­text”. She said such a trib­ute would ed­u­cate fu­ture gen­er­a­tions about the caus­es and con­se­quences of the in­sur­rec­tion.

Beck­les re­called how “a group of heav­i­ly armed in­sur­rec­tion­ists stormed the na­tion’s seat of democ­ra­cy, their in­ten­tions shroud­ed in chaos and ter­ror”, and how many cit­i­zens, watch­ing the events un­fold live, were ini­tial­ly un­sure whether it was re­al.