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Wednesday, May 28, 2025

Robinson: Manning's absence raised questions

by

20110128

For­mer prime min­is­ter and pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic, Arthur NR Robin­son, said it did not oc­cur to him to ask for­mer prime min­is­ter, Patrick Man­ning, to set up a com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the 1990 coup at­tempt be­cause he was, in some way, im­pli­cat­ed in the mat­ter. Robin­son made the dis­clo­sure while giv­ing ev­i­dence be­fore the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the coup d'etat for the sec­ond day at the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day. Robin­son said he had no "hard ev­i­dence" con­cern­ing Man­ning's im­pli­ca­tion in the coup at­tempt but it was re­port­ed to him in such a man­ner that he thinks it should be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly.

Robin­son said it had been re­port­ed in many cir­cles that the ab­sence of Man­ning from Par­lia­ment on the day of the coup at­tempt and his sub­se­quent con­duct and as­so­ci­a­tion with the Mus­limeen gave rise to ques­tions. Not­ing that the on­go­ing com­mis­sion would bear fruit, he said: "In­di­ca­tions are it is al­ready bear­ing fruit." Asked if he ever had any dis­cus­sions with Man­ning or for­mer prime min­is­ter and op­po­si­tion leader, Bas­deo Pan­day, on their ab­sence from Par­lia­ment on Ju­ly 27, 1990, and oth­er re­lat­ed mat­ters, Robin­son said he felt it would have been re­ceived with hos­til­i­ty.

He told the com­mis­sion: "The ques­tion should be asked of both ho­n­ourable gen­tle­men." Re­spond­ing to a ques­tion on whether there was PNM an­i­mos­i­ty against the NAR gov­ern­ment, Robin­son said there were calls for the res­ig­na­tion of for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, Sel­wyn Richard­son, who was one of the Mus­limeen's tar­gets in the Red House hostage cri­sis. He said an­i­mousi­ty had been cre­at­ed in cer­tain sec­tions of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and there were calls for Richard­son's res­ig­na­tion be­cause he was a prin­ci­pal cam­paign­er in the NAR's an­ti-cor­rup­tion pro­gramme. Robin­son said there had been 30 years of cor­rup­tion in the coun­try and ev­i­dence was be­ing dis­closed. Richard­son was mur­dered not long af­ter the at­tempt­ed coup, he said.

Robin­son said Mus­limeen leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, ob­ject­ed to his state­ment in Par­lia­ment be­fore the coup at­tempt that a cer­tain amount of mon­ey would be ap­por­tioned in mem­o­ry of Gene Miles in as­sist­ing in the ex­po­sure of cor­rup­tion tak­ing place for many years and which was cov­ered over. Miles had tes­ti­fied at a com­mis­sion of en­quiry many years ago in­to the award of gas sta­tion fran­chis­es.

Re­port­ed to have an amorous re­la­tion­ship with for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, John­ny O' Hal­lo­ran, the man at the cen­tre of the cor­rup­tion scan­dal, Miles re­ceived in­for­ma­tion which ex­posed cor­rupt prac­tices.

She was re­port­ed­ly af­ter­ward ridiculed and treat­ed with scorn un­til her death. Robin­son said he un­der­stood that Bakr said one of the rea­sons he had at­tempt­ed to over­throw the NAR gov­ern­ment was be­cause of the pro­pos­al to ho­n­our Miles. "It's rather strange that Abu Bakr, who said he was against cor­rup­tion, would have op­posed the ex­po­sure of cor­rup­tion in Par­lia­ment in such a vi­o­lent man­ner."

Re­spond­ing to a ques­tion, Robin­son al­so said, as an ob­serv­er, there was a like­li­hood that the ex­pul­sion of mem­bers of the NAR gov­ern­ment who lat­er formed the UNC had some re­la­tion to the Ju­ly 27, 1990, coup at­tempt.

He said he cer­tain­ly got the im­pres­sion that for­mer NAR gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, John Humphrey, who lat­er be­came a mem­ber of the break­away UNC fac­tion, was co-op­er­at­ing with both sides dur­ing the Red House cri­sis. "On oc­ca­sions when things need­ed to be done, both Humphrey and the Mus­limeen would en­gi­neer my as­sis­tance," Robin­son said. He said he felt the Privy Coun­cil rul­ing stat­ing that there should be no fur­ther pros­e­cu­tion of the Mus­limeen in­sur­gents was some­what in­sen­si­tive. "I didn't feel if it hap­pened in the Unit­ed King­dom, the court in the UK would let the of­fend­ers go free in such a man­ner.

Robin­son, how­ev­er, not­ed that the Privy Coun­cil was the high­est court in T&T and "we would nev­er seek to re­verse the de­ci­sion by our courts of Par­lia­ment. "We have re­spect for the law and the courts that up­hold the law." Robin­son gives ev­i­dence again next Wednes­day at 10.30 am.

Daugh­ter of Red House fa­tal­i­ty gives ev­i­dence , Gillian Teague-Weekes, daugh­ter of Mervyn Nicholas Teague, who was killed in the Red House dur­ing the up­ris­ing, gave ev­i­dence to the com­mis­sion yes­ter­day. Teague, a then Gov­ern­ment Broad­cast­ing Unit au­dio tech­ni­cian was shot on the steps of the Red House. Teague-Williams said her fa­ther's death left her moth­er emo­tion­al­ly and fi­nan­cial­ly dev­as­tat­ed. She said her moth­er rents a Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion house and lives off a mea­gre pen­sion. Teague-Williams said she as­sists her moth­er and she want­ed the Gov­ern­ment to give her moth­er a house and help her (Teague-Williams) get a job.


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