The Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen sought help from suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments to re­solve the land is­sue at Mu­cu­rapo but with­out suc­cess. De­spite promis­es by for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning that it would be set­tled and now by the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion, Mus­limeen mem­ber Kala Akii Bua says there is a lev­el of fear of be­ing as­so­ci­at­ed with the Ja­maat. He said the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship was tak­ing a hands-off po­si­tion on the Ja­maat's school and land at the Mu­cu­rapo land in St James, be­cause of fear that peo­ple would say they were the ones who set­tled the mat­ter with the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen. He said the mem­bers of the Ja­maat would fight for the land with their last breath. Akii Bua was re­spond­ing to ques­tions by com­mis­sion­er Dr Ali Mo­hammed at yes­ter­day's hear­ing of the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup. It is be­ing held at the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice, Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain. Akii Bua said: "Every gov­ern­ment, for fear of los­ing the next elec­tion, will promise to as­sist the Ja­maat and then pull away." Mo­hammed had asked what the Ja­maat had done in 1998 and be­yond when it found there were dis­crep­an­cies with the land as stat­ed in the deed. Akii Bua told the com­mis­sion that los­ing close to half of the 8.8 acres of land it had leased from the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion con­tributed to the Ja­maat's Ju­ly 27, 1990 in­sur­rec­tion. How­ev­er, he lat­er said it was the cause and rat­ed it six on a scale of one to ten.

He said the threat to wipe out the Mus­limeen was tak­en light­ly and rat­ed it at three. Akii Bua claimed Man­ning back­tracked on his promise of the land be­cause he was not get­ting sup­port from five mem­bers of his Cab­i­net.

He added: "The clos­est we got to solv­ing this mat­ter was when for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning made pub­lic that he was go­ing to set­tle this mat­ter once and for all. "The fol­low­ing day... now this came out in the news­pa­per... "The fol­low­ing day he called the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen and he said 'I am hav­ing prob­lems in the Cab­i­net.' "He said 'I am go­ing to have to change my po­si­tion but look at the five min­is­ters who are stand­ing with me when I am mak­ing this an­nounce­ment on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion tonight.' "The five min­is­ters were Mr John Ra­hael, Mr Fitzger­ald Hinds, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, de­ceased Ken Val­ley and this good­ly la­dy... Camille Robin­son-Reg­is."

Akii Bua said the Ja­maat would con­tin­ue its strug­gle for the land de­spite its lim­it­ed re­sources. He said for about 20 years the Ja­maat had been to the courts and spent "mil­lions," gained through mem­ber­ship, as lawyers "don't come cheap." He claimed many lawyers were afraid to take cas­es from the Ja­maat for fear of los­ing briefs from the Gov­ern­ment. But an area of con­tention for com­mis­sion­er Mo­hammed was that leader of the Mus­limeen Yasin Abu Bakr did not state on tele­vi­sion on the night of Ju­ly 27 that the land is­sue was the cause of, or con­tributed to, the coup at­tempt.

Akii Bua said Abu Bakr was the best per­son to ex­plain why he did not men­tion the land is­sue. He said the imam could not list all the rea­sons for the coup. Chair­man of the com­mis­sion, Sir David Sim­mons, al­so sought clar­i­fi­ca­tion, say­ing Abu Bakr spoke about a num­ber of things on the night he took over the tele­vi­sion sta­tion but nev­er the land. The land was owned by the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion in 1969 and Akii Bua ques­tioned "how it changed in May 1990 just so." He claimed the land was sur­veyed on May 29 and June 7, 1990. In 1998, the Ja­maat first saw a deed for the land but it was not for the 8.8 acres, he said. Akii Bua claimed the Ja­maat did not make a fuss over it be­cause its at­tor­neys as­sured it had "a foot in the door." He said Ja­maat mem­bers saw that as a re­lief, hence the rea­son they nev­er ques­tioned it. He said be­fore see­ing the deed in 1998, the Ja­maat paid tax­es to the Val­u­a­tion De­part­ment but when they were giv­en the deed, which was signed by for­mer pres­i­dent Noor Has­sanali, they be­gan pay­ing rent. Akii Bua said: "Had we been in pos­ses­sion of the doc­u­ment be­fore 1998, we would have ques­tioned the sur­vey." He claimed each time a sur­vey was done, the size of the land and the bound­aries di­min­ished. Sim­mons said the com­mis­sion was wait­ing pa­tient­ly for Abu Bakr and Akii Bua said he re­al­ly want­ed him to come.