Yvonne Ba­boolal

For­mer op­po­si­tion leader and prime min­is­ter, Bas­deo Pan­day, has told the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the coup d'etat that he was in no way in­volved in the event and has no doc­u­men­ta­tion on it.Pan­day, whose name fig­ured promi­nent­ly in the first ses­sion of the hear­ings which end­ed yes­ter­day, fur­ther in­formed the com­mis­sion that he did not think the scope of its mis­sive in­clud­ed his views, which were per­son­al.

Pan­day was ex­pelled, along with oth­er UNC mem­bers, from the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion gov­ern­ment in 1988.Then prime min­is­ter, Arthur NR Robin­son, while giv­ing ev­i­dence be­fore the com­mis­sion re­cent­ly, said Pan­day af­ter­ward sought to bring down his gov­ern­ment.Pan­day made his state­ment to the com­mis­sion yes­ter­day in re­ply to two let­ters sent to him by sec­re­tari­at, Laraine Lutch­me­di­al.

The let­ters to Pan­day al­leged­ly stat­ed that it had come to the com­mis­sion's at­ten­tion that he might be a per­son who might have in­for­ma­tion, doc­u­men­ta­tion and/or views which might be of in­es­timable val­ue to them.Pan­day replied that he was at a loss to know who gave them such in­for­ma­tion."It is pub­lic knowl­edge that at the time this in­ci­dent oc­curred, I was at home re­cov­er­ing from open heart surgery and was in no way in­volved in its af­ter­math or pre­cur­sor events," he said.

He fur­ther stat­ed that he begged to dis­agree that the com­mis­sion's let­ter to him con­sti­tut­ed an in­vi­ta­tion. He said it mere­ly pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion.He dis­closed, how­ev­er, that he had no ob­jec­tion to ap­pear­ing be­fore the com­mis­sion if he was sum­moned to do so.Pan­day told the sec­re­tari­at that he no­ticed that a great deal of hearsay, and in some cas­es, hearsay up­on hearsay, ev­i­dence was be­ing ad­mit­ted by the com­mis­sion.