Commentary: Is it useful to probe the failed T&T coup after 20 years?

Twenty years is a long time.

Some of those who have opposed the idea of a Commission of Enquiry into the failed 1990 coup have argued that opening old wounds would not provide answers about what happened or offer solutions to make sure it won't happen again.

The attack on July 27 was on three fronts: the democratic traditions of our nation, the Parliament, and the state-owned television station (TTT) from where the Head of News at the time, Jones P. Madeira, had to announce what had happened with guns pointed at him and his colleagues.

For six days, the personnel at the television station lived through a horrible nightmare.

I was in Halifax Nova, Scotia at the time reporting the event for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with what I could find out from my various contacts at home.

I knew most of the victims who were taken hostage, including Madeira and other TTT journalists, as well as the technicians and engineers and all the others who lived through the ordeal.

I had worked closely with most of them for years and many of them have told me they don't want to hear anything about the events that unfolded over those six days; some of them even refused to look at the old Television House structure.

There are others, like Winston Dookeran, who took charge of the government and negotiated an end to the crisis, having taken on the role of acting Prime Minister while the insurrectionists held the country's leader hostage in the nation's Parliament.

And then there is an entire nation that has never got answers to some of the most pressing issues relating to that day and beyond.

Why did both prime ministers after Robinson - Patrick Manning and Basdeo Panday - refuse to set up an inquiry when much of what happened was fresh in people's memories?

Why did the government of the day refuse to prosecute the coup leaders after the Privy Council invalidated the amnesty that was granted to them by the Court of Appeal?

Why was there such a close connection between the leader of the coup attempt, Yasin Abu Bakr, and Manning as well as between Bakr and certain members of the Panday administration?

Manning has admitted having meetings with Bakr, corroborating at least that part of the controversial affidavit of Bakr in which Bakr claimed that he and Manning had a deal through which he would help Manning win the 2002 general election by:

• recruiting young people to support the PNM
• reducing crime in the country
• And that in return Manning would forgive Bakr's mutli-million debt to the State
  

Why did Bakr claim publicly during the 2002 election campaign that he was Manning's national security adviser, a claim that Manning did not deny?

Why did Manning appoint Bilaal Abdullah in 2002 as Special Adviser to the then Minister of Energy, knowing that Abdullah was Bakr's lieutenant and one of the chief architects of the 1990 coup attempt?

Why did the Manning administration allow Bakr organisation to operate an illegal quarry and then buy aggregate from that quarry for the Ministry of Works and Transport?

Like thousands of citizens I would like answers and I know it's not going to be easy for those who directly suffered from this attack.

I can never claim to understand or feel the pain experienced by those who were directly traumatised by the events of 1990 although I can appreciate their fear of reopening old wounds.

However, the country needs closure on this horrible chapter of its political and social life that continues to affect the lives of people today.

There were victims other than those who were held hostage in TTT and the Parliament. We must not forget the businesspeople who became victims of looting and arson; we must never forget the more than two dozen people who died and the families they left behind.

They were all victims as were all the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago who huddled at home in horror, imprisoned by a curfew. Some of the victims would prefer to leave it alone. I beg to disagree.

I know it will be difficult for people like Madeira and my other friends who lived through the ordeal at TTT. And also those who were affected directly.

However, a nation was under siege for six days by men who continue to walk free. And the citizens deserve to know what really happened.

And it seems that Bakr himself is eager to talk about it, to explain why it happened.

Let us hear the truth. Or at least what we as a nation can remember about the 1990 uprising.

If there are prosecutions to follow, let the authorities deal with it through the normal process of the rule of law. But let us bring closure and move on with the business of nation building.

Jai Parasram