Yvonne Webb

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day has scoffed at the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to set up a com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to 1990 coup at­tempt, mere days be­fore the com­mem­o­ra­tion of its 20th an­niver­sary.

In­ter­viewed yes­ter­day, Pan­day at first, gave an un­usu­al re­sponse to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's an­nounce­ment. He said: "I have no com­ment to make." But pressed fur­ther he replied: "First of all I would like to know, what is the pur­pose? "It will cost the Gov­ern­ment a lot of mon­ey. It is 20 years lat­er. There was a tri­al and all of the ev­i­dence ought to have come to the courts.

"I will love to know what is the pur­pose and, in those cir­cum­stances, I have no com­ment," Pan­day said. Pan­day was Op­po­si­tion Leader when mem­bers of the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen at­tempt­ed to over­throw the Na­tion­al Al­liance For Re­con­struc­tion-led Gov­ern­ment. Pan­day had left the Par­lia­ment be­fore the at­tack. There had been sev­er­al calls for a com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the event by sev­er­al stake­hold­ers.

Last week for­mer jour­nal­ist Den­nis Mc Comie, up­on the re­lease of a book de­tail­ing his per­son­al ac­count of those days in Trinidad and To­ba­go's his­to­ry, echoed the call for an en­quiry. Mc Comie said his life has nev­er been the same since.