Jamaat 15 years on

On the same day that senior Jamaat al Muslimeen member Lance Small was sentenced to 12 years in a US jail for gun-running, Garvin Gillard, the youngest participant in the 1990 coup attempt, was gunned down in Laventille. It is a bookend that reveals the underground effects the Jamaat has had on our society. Gillard was just 14 years old when the Jamaat stormed Parliament on July 27. It speaks volumes about the character of Muslimeen leader Abu Bakr that he would have used a mere boy in his attack. But then-NAR Minister Jennifer Johnson, speaking about the affair after the 114 insurgents had been arrested, emphasised particularly the youthfulness of most of them, and wondered where our society had failed.

Seventy persons of the original 114 have met violent deaths since 1990. That means that most of them would not have lived to see their 40th year. There is a harsh irony here since, if these men had been found guilty by the State, most of them would probably still be alive. But a rougher judgement has prevailed, since it appears that many of the young men were not able to overcome the social conditions or the psychological traits which led them to join the Jamaat in the first place. In other words, they had learned no lessons from their failed venture. But they can hardly be blamed for this, since the country itself appears to have learned little, either.

After all, Small was apparently able to carry on major criminal activities under the very noses of the security forces who, presumably, keep an extra close eye on all Jamaat members. According to the verdict delivered in the American court, the former Jamaat lieutenant had a supervisory role in the plan to smuggle 60 AK-47 rifles, ten Mac-10 guns, and ten silencers into Trinidad. It also appears that Small’s criminal activities were quite profitable, since he was able to find US$100,000 to pay his US attorney. Indeed, in an interview with Newsday’s Francis Joseph, who covered the trial in Florida, Small’s son complained bitterly about having been refused a bank loan even after he offered a $2 million deed as security.

Neil Small saw this as vindictiveness on the bank’s part, rather than the bank judging him as a bad risk because of his father’s reputation. It may be harsh, and it may even be unfair - but it is an understandable consequence of 1990. And, while Gillard’s death may or may not be related to his past, he was a URP employee - a programme that seems to have become a lightning-rod for violent crime since the Jamaat, with the connivance of both UNC and PNM administrations, infiltrated it.

That fact, and the fact that the present spate of violent murders takes place mostly among a very specific socio-economic grouping, suggests that the conditions which allowed Bakr’s recruitment for the 1990 insurgency still exist today. The only difference is that there is no particular strongman, motivated by political or religious fanaticism, to weld  the disaffected young men together. So, 15 years later, Ms Johnson’s question remains the most pertinent one — although it is not a query that will be answered in any official capacity as long as Patrick Manning is Prime Minister.