The commission of enquiry established to inquire into the events surrounding the attempted overthrow of the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) government on July 27, 1990 began two and a half years ago and is yet to be concluded.So far, 92 witnesses have given evidence in 15 sessions stretching over the period. People directly involved in the bloody uprising or who were victims or relatives of victims have testified.
Witnesses included NAR politicians who were held hostage for six days in Parliament by a group of Jamaat al Muslimeen insurgents, including then prime minister Arthur NR Robinson, who was shot and wounded.They told how they went without food and water and lay bound and gagged on the floor of the Parliament chamber with guns to their heads while gunfire between the rebels and the soldiers went in and out the Red House.
Rawle Raphael, one of the MPs at the time, told the commission that a member of the Muslimeen who was also a part of the NAR's A Team, warned him about the attempted takeover but he took it as a big joke.Former prime ministers Basdeo Panday and Patrick Manning have not testified, thus far. Politicians who testified said these two were absent from Parliament on July 27, 1990, when the Muslimeen invaded the Red House.
Panday has not responded positively to requests for him to testify and has asked if he could cross-examine people who made allegations against him.Manning reportedly suffered a stroke and could not make it. Robinson attended the enquiry in a wheelchair and gave evidence with the use of a hearing aid.
Members of the Defence Force, like Col Hugh Vidale, Brigadier Ralph Brown and Joe Theodore, who played a key role in helping to quell the insurrection, also gave evidence. Vidale said he met with uprising leader Yasin Abu Bakr before the attempted coup but denied it had anything to do with the fatal event.
Several senior police officers from the Special Branch, the intelligence unit at the time, said they knew something was going to happen based on information they gathered but told of a disconnect with the government hierarchy and the Defence Force.Former Jamaat insurgents testified, too. Jamaal Shabazz, who led the takeover of Trinidad Broadcasting Company, was close to tears as he recounted the reasons for the attempted coup.
He traced it back to the killing of WPC Bernadette James who saw then NAR national security minister Selwyn Richardson in a room in Piarco airport with some other people testing cocaine.James who accidentally went into the room told the Jamaat she feared for her life and was later reportedly shot in an exercise in Chaguaramas.
Shabazz apologised for the hurt and pain the rebels caused T&T. Loris Ballack, another senior Muslimeen told the commission he was not apologising and said he saw no need for any reconciliation. He said Jamaat members have been interacting with society as usual after the incident.Ballack, part of the takeover of Trinidad & Tobago Television (TTT) said he was prepared for paradise. However, paradise was postponed and he ate a plant at TTT which helped sustain him, he said.
There have been repeated calls and attempts by the commission secretariat to Bakr to testify but he has consistently refused, citing ill health and an ongoing court case as the reasons.Several victims cried as they told the commissioners of their experience.
Usefulness
Members of the public have questioned the usefulness of the enquiry in which five commissioners were hired, two of them prominent Barbadians.The Government has reportedly spent $31 million in fees, so far. The commission is expected to have one final session in August and then wrap up to begin compiling its report.
Commission chairman, Sir David Simmons, in his opening statement at the start of the enquiry on January 24, 2011, made the purpose and extent of the enquiry pellucidly clear.Dispelling any lingering misconceptions, he said it is a matter of legal record that some people who were involved in the coup d'etat had their cases heard and determined and those matters were "res judicata" and beyond the purview of the commission.
He quoted Lord Woolf from the Privy Council who said it would be an abuse of process to seek once more to prosecute the Muslimeen for the serious offences committed in the course of the insurrection.Simmons added, however, that the commission's terms of reference do not prevent them from identifying and, if necessary, recommending the prosecution of others who may have been involved in criminal conduct during the attempted coup.
He said they have been assigned the heavy responsibility of examining the events surrounding the 1990 uprising in a quasi-judicial manner "with a view to closing that chapter in this country's history."Our report is likely to be the final and definitive word on those events," Simmons said.
NAR leader Dr Carson Charles
National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) leader Dr Carson Charles said he never expected any "more justice" from the commission of enquiry into the 1990 attempted coup since the former insurgents were already heard and tried.Charles said he felt the enquiry was mainly to let the country hear what happened and for vital lessons to be learnt.
He said one of the main lessons to be learnt is that when a particular kind of environment is created it sends to message to misguided groups/individuals that the country would endorse radical actions they may take.Charles said before the July 1990 uprising, the PNM created an environment of hate and protests against the NAR government."It was the first time they had lost an election and their reaction was extreme. The PNM felt it had a divine right to rule.
"The NAR faced the brunt of the PNM's wrath and for years after we won the 1986 election, was constantly under attack."Noting he was not making a link between the PNM and the July 1990 coup attempt, Charles warned that "important people" today need to be very careful of making statements and creating the kind of environment that could incite misguided people.