Reader fingers Muslimeen in quarry operations. Reprinted from the Trinidad Guardian

Here's a comment reprinted in its entirety (with formatting adjustments) from the Trinidad Guardian on the issue of illegal quarrying in eastern Trinidad.

Sayeth The Pilgrim:

"The Guardian would do well to recall the series of special investigations it conducted several years ago on the illegal quarrying being carried out by the Jamaat in Valencia.

"They continue to actively quarry on the 30 acres of land ceded to them when Patrick Manning was forced to rescind his promise to grant them the Mucarapo lands in exchange for Muslimeen support in the 2002 elections - the Valencia lands formed part of the 'other arrangements' he declared would be made in reward for their thuggery.

"Those Guardian investigations exposed several things:

• that the Jamaat was operating an illegal quarry, with armed men preventing anyone - including police - from entering the premises to observe what was going on
• that the principal 'client' for the quarried aggregate was none other than the Ministry of Works and Transport (photos were taken of MWT trucks going and coming)
• that the estimated income - all tax-free - from the quarry operations was in the order of $60 Million per annum
• that no license to operate a quarry had ever been issued to the operators (and has yet to be)
• The resulting hue and cry led to the police attempting to close the operations down. What followed were the Port of Spain bombings, and the declaration by Patrick Manning that he knew who 'Mr. Big' was

"Rumour from within the PNM had it that Manning had been warned not to interfere with the quarry, or blood would flow. He ignored that threat, with the resulting series of terrorist bombings as warnings of what would follow.

"When he backed off, the bombings - as yet unsolved - ceased, and 'Mr. Big' faded into the shadows.

"What followed thereafter is nothing short of astonishing: all the frenzy in the government about curbing illegal quarrying instead led to the declaration that quarries under 150 acres would no longer need a license to operate.

"And the issue promptly died. Yet questions linger which no one in the media has yet to ask or answer properly:

• in the wake of Abu Bakr's affidavit that AG Jeremie so desperately wants buried to protect his boss, why has the question of Manning's very public declaration about having to make 'other arrangements' with the Jamaat not been raised?
• why has no one made the connection between the Muslimeen operating a quarry, and the legal aquisition and use of explosives to do so (with all the concomitant questions that go along with what else the Muslimeen could do with explosives other than blast rocks naturally coming into question)?
• why has no one connected the dots between Manning in 2002 appointing Bilaal Abdullah (Bakr's lieutenant and the real architect of the 1990 coup attempt) as Special Advisor to the then Minister of Energy, and the fact that quarries fall under what used to be called the Ministry of Energy and Mines, now simply the Ministry of Energy?
• why has no one asked if there is any truth to the persistent rumour that Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, who in 2002 was Minister of Social Development (and under whom fell in part the Muslimeen-run URP, who in turn got quarried materials from the MWT for road repairs etc.), is in fact Bilaal Abdullah's brother-in-law?
• if this last is proven, why has no one asked how it is that a person linked to a terrorist group that forcibly tried to overthrow the duly elected Government of Trinidad & Tobago, became a sitting member of the Cabinet?
• why has no one inquired about the resulting interconnected web all resulting in the Jamaat becoming the recipient of State funds: for the sale of illegally quarried aggregate to the MWT, and to their employees in the URP for using same, with oversight from both within the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Social Development (and I will not touch on the involvement of former Minister Joan Yuille-Williams, whose 'special relationship' with Yasin Abu Bakr caused her to be the intermediary between Bakr and Manning, and later between Manning and the 'community leaders' from Muslimeen-controlled areas in Laventille)
• why has no one asked why it is now that Bakr's affadavit is suddenly being forced into the open, that the Manning administration suddenly wants to shut down quarrying again after they already declared that any such operation under 150 acres no longer needs a license? Is it quid pro quo? And will we now expect to see a repeat of the PoS bombings all over again?

"So much to ask, so much to add... Where is our 'Guardian of Democracy' when we most need it...?
"(the Pilgrim)