Witness: Manning seen speaking to young insurgents

After his chat with the group outside the public gallery, Manning went into the Chamber, took his briefcase, and left.

Moments after, during the resumption of the sitting (the 38th Sitting of the 4th Session of the 3rd Republican Parliament), Muslimeen gunmen stormed the Chamber, according to former NAR government minister and Arouca South MP, Gloria Henry, as she gave evidence yesterday before the Commission of Enquiry investigating the circumstances surrounding the insurrection.

Henry, who also gave the police a statement on August 10, 1990, identified those who she saw in the Parliament prior to the attempted coup.

She did not recall seeing former UNC leader Basdeo Panday, but said she heard the gunmen say they were given instructions to let him free.

George Weekes, who was also in the Chamber, in the public gallery, was told he could leave because of his contribution to society.

Henry, who was one of two female government ministers held hostage during the siege, also said she was not of the opinion that the insurgents acted alone.

“I don’t believe that,” she said. Henry, who held the portfolio of Social Development in the Arthur NR Robinson-led cabinet, said the insurgents were possibly expecting outside support. She said it was ludicrous they could not believe that they — a group of people led by a “maniac” (as she described the JAM’s leader Yasin Abu Bakr) — could run a country.

“Somehow they got it into their heads they could run a country. I cannot see how they would have believed that,” she said, also rubbishing the idea that Bakr could have been made National Security Minister, which was one of his demands.

Henry said those in leadership positions should have launched an investigation, singling out the then House Speaker, Nizam Mohammed, since she said he had authority of the Chamber by virtue of the office he held; the Ministry of National Security as well as the Office of the Prime Minister.

“These people came in. They had no right to do what they did... This was high treason,” she said.

Admitting that she was still angry over the incident, Henry said the question of an investigation was raised after a Cabinet meeting, following the insurrection, and Robinson’s response was, “We have a country to run, and we must get on with the business of running it.”

Henry said yesterday, “We could not just go on with business as usual.”

She said “somebody should have done something.” In her testimony, which will continue on Friday, Henry said she was also disappointed that nothing was done to the 114 Muslimeen insurgents, echoing her former colleague Selby Wilson’s sentiments that the local justice system failed the country.

She said when the insurgents were released from the jail, she could have dropped a bomb when she thought of what they had done to the country.

“There were people jubilant outside the jail,” she said.

Unlike some of her other colleagues who were also held hostage, Henry said she suffered no trauma from the event, mainly because of her strong support system, of family and friends.

“I dealt with my demons. I did not have nightmares. I was not dysfunctional. I only have to deal with my anger,” she said.

Henry was able to give a detailed description of the hostage-takers. She too saw another group of young people prior to the resumption of the Parliament at the tea break- similar to the group she saw speaking with Manning — but said they were hostile towards her.

“They behaved strangely,” she said, as if it was a group of jack spaniards whose nest was being approached.

She also saw this group later waving guns in the Chamber. She described them as scruffy young men, who looked as if they belonged nowhere. The majority of the insurgents were between the ages of 15 to 18.

One of the gunmen broke the Mace — the symbol of authority in the Chamber — and said that Parliament was no longer in session, she recounted.

Henry said at one point the Government Broadcasting Unit cameras were still running, but Eden Shand — a former NAR minister and MP — “did something to stop the tapes from running.”

She said she asked TTT for recordings of the night of July 27, 1990, but was told that the army had taken custody of them.

Henry said the insurgents tried to intimidate their hostages and also recounted when her male colleagues in the government were lined up to be executed in the well of the Parliament Chamber.

She said the Muslimeens were given the order: “Muslims make your peace with Allah and take aim on the NAR politicians.” She said the insurgents were prepared to die if the Chamber was stormed by the security forces, and also admitted that she too believed that if the hostages were lucky to not be shot directly, the “little boys” — the insurgents — would have shot them because they were playing with the clips of their guns.

“I never really understood what was going on,” she said. Henry said she tried to determine if the young Muslimeen were barrel children, and sought to elicit from them their background.

“I just figured they were lost young men without a father figure,” she said, but noted that they were respectful as they said they were “taught to respect women.”

She also said she could have identified them by their teeth as all of them had dental problems.

Henry, like Wilson who testified before her, defended the NAR regime and its economic measures, which had been described as austere and extreme.

“People were better off under the NAR than they were with the previous and subsequent regimes,” she said.

Henry boasted of the then government’s social safety net programme, which she said received high marks from the IMF.

She said they made home ownership easier, provided food subsidies to those who needed it as well as increased grants and pensions.

While admitting that perhaps the measures implemented by the NAR “were not properly sold to the people,” Henry said, they were not about engaging in propaganda.

“You needed to propagandise the population as they were listening to the rubbish of the opposition,” she said.

Henry said the Summit of People’s Organisation (SOPO) was a noisy network which was agitating the population in various ways.

She dismissed the disquiet among the population as “an absence of patriotism” at the time.

“What we did was very good,” she said.

“There was one section of the population that was angry,” she said, adding that many of the problems then still persist, including squatting on State lands, poor condition of schools, the health care system, and the public housing stock issue, which she said was riddled with corruption and dishonesty.

Henry said after the formation of Club 88 — the breakaway faction of the NAR led by Panday — the sentiment on the ground was that the “racist (NAR) government was not looking after” the people.

She admitted that at the time people were unhappy with the state of TT, but said post-1990 things appeared to have worsened. Singling out the crime situation, Henry said social problems also have not improved.

Henry said in order to avoid a re-occurrence of 1990, social issues must be addressed, even more than crime, since society will breed less criminals.

Expected to testify today is Finance Minister Winston Dookeran — who held the portfolio of Planning Minister in the NAR government. Dookeran was a key figure during the hostage taking, as he was appointed the Government’s emissary during negotiations with the insurrectionists at the Red House.