Reflections on the 1990 uprising - the Peter O'Connor column

Twenty years ago our Parliament was captured and held hostage for several days while the perpetrators announced, via a similar takeover of our only TV station, that they had taken over the government, all ministers were under arrest, and that the hostages were “wired with explosives” to be detonated if security forces tried to counter-attack.

The resulting standoff lasted until August 1st, Emancipation Day 0f 1990.

To this day, twenty years on, there is no account of the activities which took place in Trinidad, leading up to, during and in the aftermath of the attempted coup.

What is known is that 114 members of the Jamaat al Muslimeen, under Abu Bakr and Bilal Abdullah, acquired a massive cache of arms, drove out of their compound with all this, blew up Police Headquarters and seized Parliament in session, Television House and Radio Trinidad.

The city was then looted and burned, while security forces confined the insurrection to the Red House and Television House.

Demands were made by the perpetrators and negotiations went on for the next five days, whereupon the perpetrators released all of the hostages who were still alive, and surrendered to the security forces.

To this day, no one in the country, other than the perpetrators, knows how the arms were brought into the country. Apart from a couple of personal accounts, Dennis McComie’s being the latest, of individual experiences during the coup, there have been no questions put, far less answered, regarding these frightening days in our country’s history.

But these are the questions which now demand answers, and the answers must be given in a formal setting - in a Commission of Inquiry, so long overdue: How did the arms and ammunition come into the country and into the Muslimeen compound undetected?

Were Patrick Manning, Basdeo Panday and any others informed in advance of “some type of disturbance” being planned in Parliament that day, occasioning their absence from the sitting or their early departure?

When the security forces repeatedly cut telephone communication between Television House and the Red House, who within TELCO (as the phone company was then known) was restoring the telephone links between the two locations?

After the situation was confined to two “hostage events” and the terrorists began talking of “negotiations”, who were the persons who for the next several days handled the negotiations for us, the worried people of Trinidad and Tobago?

We know that Canon Knolly Clarke served as a “go-between”, and that Winston Dookeran was released to become “an interim, unity government” Prime Minister, but who led the negotiations for us?

And who was the legal team which was brought in to advise the negotiators of what they could and could not attempt to do? And what were the options which the negotiators were considering?

“Attack with full force”, and free which hostages may have survived? Grant an amnesty for the hostages’ release, and let the Muslimeen be part of a new government? Pretend to grant an amnesty, but then deny it, and arrest the perpetrators?

What were Patrick Manning and Basdeo Panday, both members of Parliament who had taken oaths to protect and secure the country, doing for the duration of crisis?

Is it true, as has been reliably reported, that when no one in the PNM had heard from Manning in days, Lennie Saith drove to San Fernando to tell Manning he had to issue a statement, and found Manning and family cowering in a back room, locked in with food, and praying for their lives?

Is this the truth, Dr. Saith?

My understanding is that Manning, Panday and others, including Muslimeen attorney Ramesh Maharaj, were advised that “something” would happen in Parliament on July 27th 1990.

Ramesh, who probably knew more than the others, flew off to Grenada. The others hid quietly and cowardly in their homes. I have no idea who was responsible for reconnecting the telephones between Television House and the Red House.

My understanding of the negotiations is that it was decided to “play along” with the amnesty/joint government scenario, to rescue the hostages and arrest the perpetrators.

The “amnesty document” was to be seized and destroyed, but should it ever come to light, it would be claimed that it was granted under duress, and would not stand in court.

The police searched all the terrorists and seized copies of the “amnesty”. But MP Kelvin Ramnath, who had also taken an oath to defend T&T, smuggled a copy out and gave it to Ramesh, who used it to free the Muslimeeen.

A civilized country, which has a history, cannot continue to conceal the knowledge of this event.

Peter O'ConnorPeter's columns also appear in Newsday