Door remains open after 15 years

In 1970, there were the Black Power demonstrations in the country. To add fire to the fuel, a band of disgruntled soldiers took the opportunity to cash in on the Black Power strugglers. They created panic at Teteron Barracks and decided they were going to Port-of-Spain.

Thankfully, that at-tempt failed before it started and a bunch of soldiers faced mutiny charges. They were jailed, but the British Privy Council quashed the convictions and ordered their release.

This entire process was over and done with within six years. Not July 1990.

Although 15 years have gone, the scars remain and after all this time, Govern-ment Minister Dr Keith Rowley and the NAR want an inquiry into the attempted coup.

Why now?

After the dust cleared in 1990, the NAR under then Prime Minister ANR Robinson was still in power and did nothing. When the PNM came to office in late 1991, the Patrick Manning administration did nothing. The UNC took over in 1995, and they too, did nothing.

Manning returned as Prime Minister in 2001 and so far, his Govern-ment has done nothing.

Even Yasin Abu Bakr, who led the 1990 attempted coup, is in favour of such an inquiry because as far as he is concerned, the truth is yet to be told.

THE BUILD-UP

TO THE COUP

The Muslimeen did not just wake up one morning and attempt to overthrow the Government. It started years before. There was a running battle between the Muslimeen and the Port-of-Spain City Corpora-tion over disputed lands at Mucurapo.

The Muslimeen occupied the premises from the late 1970s, but it was not until 1985 when the Jamaat tried to construct a mosque that the trouble began. The City Corpora-tion went to court and obtained an injunction. But construction continued and Bakr was held in contempt of court. He was jailed for 21 days by Madame Justice Jean Permanand. Despite that, the mosque was completed. There was a grand opening attended by Op-position politicians. When the NAR won the 1986 general elections, then Attorney General Selwyn Richardson started to put the squeeze on the Jamaat. There was increased surveillance on the Musli-meen.

Raids were carried out at Mucurapo and persons charged with various offences. In 1990, the Muslimeen cleared a parcel of land and laid the foundation for further building development — a school. But the Govern-ment would have none of it and sent the police and army to occupy that parcel of land. The Government contended that the parcel of land on which the school was to be built, belonged to the State and not the City Corporation. On April 21, 1990, the police and army set up a tent on the land, really to monitor the activities of the Jamaat.

The Muslimeen, through their attorney Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, went to court to get the police and army off the land. They got a court order, but the troops did not leave and continued surveillance on the Muslimeen.

But despite their best efforts, the law enforcement officers missed the boat. On July 27, 1990, Bakr held his usual Friday Juma. But there was unusual activity that Friday. The place was swarming with Jamaat members and yet surprisingly no one paid attention.

Then maxi taxis rolled out with the women and children. No one noticed. Then the men followed leaving the police and the army watching what turned out to be an empty compound.

The majority of men heading out of the compound knew nothing. Like loyal troops, they just followed the leader.

Bakr headed a group to TTT House and Radio Trinidad on Maraval Road. Bilaal Abdullah, the second-in-command of the Jamaat, headed a group to the Red House where Parliament was in session. Vehicles loaded with automatic weapons accompanied the groups where history was about to be created.

THE STAGING OF

A COUP

It was about 6 pm when a man walked up to the police sentry outside Police Headquarters on Sackville Street. The man who was holding a paper bag, seemingly asked for directions. As PC Solo-mon Mc Cleod was speaking to him, the man whipped out a gun and shot the policeman in the head.

Within seconds, a Laurel car with four men drove and parked in the northern entrance of Police Headquarters. The men got out of the car and ran away. Three seconds passed and there was a loud explosion at the entrance of Police Headquarters. The Laurel car blew up. That was the signal for the invasion of Parliament by armed insurgents.

There was a mad scamper in and out of the Red House and no one knew what was happening.

Simultaneously, Bakr led his troops into TTT and Radio Trinidad. He disrupted the normal programming to announce that he had taken over the Parliament and by extension, the Government and that the Prime Minister and Cabinet were under arrest.

He asked the police and the army to put their guns down and said he would call elections within 90 days. Bakr thought that his takeover would have been a popular one. He thought that the army and police would join him as well as the people. But that however was a bad miscalculation.

Those members of the Government who were not in the Parliament when the Jamaat men stormed it, rallied and with the help of a number of people were able to get a television transmission to the country assuring the people that the Government was in control.

The security forces, in particular, the army launched an attack on TTT. The police who had been disoriented by the attack on their headquarters started to re-group and assisted the army.

The President of the country, Noor Hassanali, was in England on vacation. The acting President Emmanuel Carter was in the hot seat. By the second day, he was advised to give the Jamaat members an amnesty. Although they got the amnesty, the insurgents still kept the hostages under the gun while making more demands.

It was not until August 1 that the hostages were released and the insurgents surrendered. The Red House in particular and its surroundings was a messy scene as dead bodies lay in different places, victims of the assault on the Parliament.

Days later, 114 Muslimeen members were charged with offences including murder and treason. The top Muslimeen members were kept at the Port-of-Spain Prison while the majority were detained in a special facility in Chaguaramas. At least 30 persons died during the state of emergency including Bakr’s stepson. There was widespread looting in Port-of-Spain. The city was destroyed by fire and there were scenes similar to Iraq.

The army moved in on the Mucurapo premises and bulldozed everything except the mosque.

Years later, Justice Carlton Best ruled that the destruction by the army was unlawful and awarded the Jamaat $2.1 million, interest and costs. That money was paid.

The State also sued the Muslimeen for the destruction of Police Head-quarters and damage to the Red House. Justice Joseph Tam awarded the State $15 million, interest and costs. But the State, despite more and more promises, has so far failed to enforce the judgment of the court.

THE FREEDOM

The Jamaat members argued that they had an amnesty so they could not be prosecuted. The Privy Council ruled that before the criminal charges could be heard, the issue of the amnesty must be dealt with.

In 1992, Justice Clebert Brooks, presiding in the Port-of-Spain High Court, ruled that the amnesty was valid and ordered the release of the 114 insurgents. Bakr and his followers were freed. The State appealed, but the Court of Appeal by a 2-1 majority agreed with Justice Brooks.

But the Privy Council in 1994 ruled that the amnesty was invalid. If the Jamaat members had released the hostages and surrendered when they got the amnesty, the document would have been valid.

But the insurgents continued to detain the hostages and make fresh demands. This caused the amnesty to be invalid, the Law Lords ruled.

But the Privy Council said it would not have been proper to re-arrest the insurgents and charge them again. The Jamaat members had been released on a habeas corpus application and in those days, there was no way to appeal this. But the release of the insurgents also signalled the weakening of the Muslimeen. Since 1992 to today, several of the insurgents have met violent deaths including former soldier Dominic Bethelmy in New York. Some of the leading members have broken away from Bakr.

They included Bilaal Abdullah, Hassan Anyabwile, (who was shot and left paralysed in Belmont), Salim Muwakil, Kwesi Atiba, and Anthony Faltine. Lance Small, another of the elders of the Jamaat, was extradited to Florida last year on charges of attempting to export guns to Trinidad. He was found guilty and will be sentenced next week. Although not involved in the coup attempt, top ranker Mark Guerra was shot dead in Waller Field in 2003.

After the attempted coup, a Muslim leader Louis Haneef was charged in Florida and sentenced to four years in jail for exporting guns from Fort Lauderdale to Trinidad. The guns were identified as those used by the Jamaat in the attempted coup.

Warrants were issued and are still pending in Florida for Bakr, Bilaal Abdullah and Riad Ali. No attempt was ever made by the US to seek their extradition.

Bakr has had a love-hate relationship with both the UNC and the PNM. When the UNC came to power in 1995, Bakr and his team met with Prime Minister Basdeo Panday and representatives of his Government. Bakr had stated that his organisation assisted the UNC in winning the marginal seats. But that love soon turned to hate. In 1998, the two came to blows when the Government erected a fence separating the two parcels of land at Mucurapo and the Muslimeen tore it down. The fence went back up again this time under the watchful eyes of heavily armed policemen.

There was a stand-off at Mucurapo, but it ended with the Muslimeen withdrawing from what could have been a confrontation. Muslimeen switched allegiance to the PNM in the 2002 elections. Bakr also claimed that his group assisted the PNM to win the marginal seats and the Government.

But this relationship has gone sour and the Jamaat is on the warpath against the PNM administration. In 2003, Bakr was charged with conspiracy to murder two expelled members of his Jamaat. After a three-month trial earlier this year, the jury could not agree. A re-trial was ordered. No one knows when the re-trial will be listed.

Now, Dr Rowley and the NAR want a public commission of inquiry into the events of 1990. After all this time many of those involved, for example Selwyn Richardson, are dead; some have left the country and probably only a few remember in detail the events of that terrible time. What use would an inquiry be today? An inquiry should have been held many years ago as to how a group of men could have mounted such an attack on the democracy of Trinidad and Tobago. Of course better late than never but only time will tell.