In­dar­jit Seu­raj

The com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup will not be a "witch-hunt" new­ly-sworn chair­man Sir David Sim­mons as­sured Trinidad and To­ba­go yes­ter­day.

"I want to as­sure the pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go this in­quiry is not a witch-hunt," he said. He said the in­quiry, which was set to be­gin on No­vem­ber 2, would be in­ter­ac­tive with the pub­lic. As part of the probe, he has in­vit­ed cit­i­zens to write to the com­mis­sion with their rec­ol­lec­tion of the at­tempt­ed coup. "We de­sire the fullest pos­si­ble par­tic­i­pa­tion by mem­bers of the pub­lic," said Sim­mons, who spoke to re­porters fol­low­ing a lun­cheon with the oth­er com­mis­sion­ers. Sim­mons, for­mer Chief Jus­tice of Bar­ba­dos, was sworn in as chair­man of the com­mis­sion at Pres­i­dent's House, St Ann's, just hours be­fore. Oth­er com­mis­sion­ers sworn in were at­tor­ney Sir Richard Chel­tenham, man­age­ment con­sul­tant; Dr Haf­fi­zo­ol Ali Mo­hammed, Dr East­lyn Mc Ken­zie and for­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Di­an­na Ma­habir-Wy­att.

The in­quiry, Sim­mons said, al­so would form part of an ex­er­cise to de­ter­mine if the at­tempt­ed coup was caused by "the con­se­quences of any his­tor­i­cal so­cial, eco­nom­ic, po­lit­i­cal and oth­er fac­tors." It will be held at Win­sure Build­ing, Rich­mond Street, Port-of-Spain, and will be broad­cast live on lo­cal tele­vi­sion. Sim­mons said his in­tent was to bring as much ex­po­sure as pos­si­ble to the hear­ing. The com­mis­sion­ers met with the me­dia yes­ter­day at Chaud Restau­rant, Queen's Park, Port-of-Spain, Co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, that prop­er­ty once stood as the head­quar­ters of the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) – the rul­ing par­ty dur­ing the at­tempt­ed coup.

Sim­mons told re­porters the aim of the in­quiry was to not on­ly find an­swers and pre­vent the re­oc­cur­rence of Ju­ly 27, 1990, but al­so to end the mat­ter which had re­mained on the minds of cit­i­zens for 20 years. "At the end of our work, we will bring some heal­ing to the na­tion and a clo­sure to the events of Ju­ly, 1990," he added. He said al­though the in­quiry in­tend­ed to ex­am­ine the amnesty grant­ed to the mem­bers of the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen, it al­so would ex­am­ine the role of oth­er par­ties in­volved.

He said rec­om­men­da­tions would be made at the end of the in­quiry, on "poli­cies, mea­sures, mech­a­nisms and sys­tems" nec­es­sary to de­tect and pre­vent any such fu­ture in­sur­rec­tion. Part of de­ter­min­ing this, he added, was to seek an­swers sur­round­ing the de­fi­cien­cies in re­sponse and per­for­mance of the De­fence Force and the pro­tec­tive ser­vices. Al­so present at the press con­fer­ence were the com­mis­sion's sec­re­tary Lor­raine Lutch­me­di­al and coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal, SC.