Yvonne Ba­boolal

Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with for­mer Ja­maat al Mus­limeen in­sur­rec­tions who staged a bloody at­tempt­ed takeover of the gov­ern­ment in Ju­ly 1990 is not nec­es­sary, act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an says. Dook­er­an, al­so Fi­nance Min­is­ter, made the rev­e­la­tion yes­ter­day while giv­ing ev­i­dence be­fore the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the at­tempt­ed coup, at the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain. Dook­er­an was a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) dur­ing the coup d'etat and one of the gov­ern­ment min­is­ters held hostage in the Red House by Mus­limeen in­sur­gents. The Mus­limeen re­quest­ed that he head an in­ter­im gov­ern­ment (af­ter they had over­thrown the NAR) un­til free and fair elec­tions could be held with­in 90 days.

Asked by the com­mis­sion's lead coun­sel Avory Sinanan if the Gov­ern­ment was ready to con­sid­er rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with the Mus­limeen, Dook­er­an replied that he did not think the sit­u­a­tion in T&T could be re­lat­ed to con­flicts in coun­tries in the Mid­dle East like Afghanistan where there are large ter­ror­ist groups.

"I don't see the Ja­maat rep­re­sent­ing any fun­da­men­tal cleav­age in so­ci­ety...I saw it (the up­ris­ing) as a sim­ple event," he said. "I nev­er as­cribed any strong ide­alog­i­cal views to the Ja­maat. Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion is not nec­es­sary."