Nobody’s business

JAMAAT al Muslimeen leader, Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, yesterday admitted to meeting Prime Minister Patrick Manning, but stated that it was no business of Senate Opposition Leader, Wade Mark.

Mark, speaking Tuesday evening in the Senate on the Kidnapping Bill 2003, said the PNM party was part of the crime problem, and that last Wednesday (June 4), on the day of the Movie Towne shootings, Manning had a meeting with the leader of the Jamaat. “Yes, we met,” Bakr said when quizzed by Newsday. The Imam added that he met with Manning at Balisier House.  He said it was a norm for members of the public to meet with the Prime Minister on Wednesdays. Asked what was the nature of the June 4 discussions, Bakr said: “It was a general meeting.  We had discussions with problems affecting the youths.” Mark also said in the Senate that Manning and Abu Bakr meet every two weeks and that the Prime Minister was in collusion with the Jamaat leader.

Questioned on this, Bakr said: “Mark has nothing to say.  Is this what he is getting paid to do... “macco” people’s business? Why don’t they mind their own business?” Bakr went on to say that about a month ago, he met Wade Mark at a restaurant on El Socorro Road, San Juan, and when Mark saw him, the Opposition member ran away. “No, I can’t say why he ran away, but he nearly caused an accident,” Bakr claimed. Mark also alleged in the Senate that Minister of Community Development, Joan Yuille-Williams, knows “a lot about Abu Bakr and that she had childhood contacts with Abu Bakr.” Quizzed on this, Bakr first laughed, but later confirmed to being friends with Yuille-Williams for a long time.  “And so what?” he asked. The leader of the Mucurapo-based Muslimeen organisation went on to say that it was only a tree that bears fruit at which people throw stones. 

“My tree has some rosy mangoes,” Abu Bakr said.  He added that the United National Congress (UNC) is trying to drive a wedge between the Jamaat and the PNM. But Bakr swore that this would never be allowed to happen and accused the UNC of living in the dinosaur age.  He said they gave the UNC the opportunity to run the country, but they did not make much use of it. Bakr also said that Mark and the UNC were jittery because of the July 14 Local Government elections.  “They (UNC) know they are going to lose,” he said.