In the early 1970s, a group calling themselves the National Union of Freedom Fighters (NUFF) for a period of close to five years engaged in guerrilla-type warfare in an attempt to overthrow the government of Trinidad and Tobago. NUFF appeared in the context of a widespread persuasion among the nation’s youth, particularly in Black urban communities, that fundamental change was necessary and further, that it could only be achieved by a commitment to unconventional political action, that is, armed uprising and the violent overthrow of the state.

This is the story of the NUFF guerrilla warfare conducted from bases in the Northern Range and Fyzabad in the South and how they were relentlessly pursued and eventually eliminated by the State’s security forces. Although other accounts of this often-forgotten period of Trinidad and Tobago’s modern history have been written and published by some of its surviving members, David Millette provides a clear and unbiased account of the conditions that gave rise to popular disaffection, the antecedents of NUFF and detailed profiles of the personalities involved both from the side of the guerillas and from that of the state as well as an analysis of the reasons for NUFF’s failure.

David Millette is a former journalist and currently practices as an attorney-at-law. He holds a B.A. in History from The University of the West Indies, St Augustine and an LL.M from the UWI, Cave Hill.  The current work is a revision of a research study that he conducted in fulfilment of the bachelor’s degree in history.