Dumas: Right wing group in NAR may have wanted to overthrow Robinson

Reginald Dumas

A former top diplomat said on Monday a member of the Robinson NAR cabinet telephoned him in 1990 and told him to be on standby to become a minister.

Reginald Dumas made the disclosure to the inquiry into the failed 1990 Muslimeen coup. He was at the time head of the public service and permanent secretary to the prime minister.

Dumas told the inquiry that on July 28, the day after the Muslimeen stormed the Parliament and took over the state television station, he got a telephone call which made him think that there might have been a group within the government that may have wanted to stage a right wing counter-coup to take over political power and get rid of prime minister Arthur NR Robinson. 

"A certain government minister phoned me on Saturday morning and told me to stand by to take ministerial office.

“He never got back to me and I never asked about it. But it did strike me that something was going on; that there was the possibility of a group in the NAR that wanted to take over the government and get rid of Robinson," Dumas said, without naming the person.

“I don’t have any evidence but I would not dismiss the possibility,” Dumas told the commission.

He explained that some ministers had confided in him that they were not happy with Robinson's leadership but were afraid of raising the matter with the prime minister.

Dumas said Robinson’s personality could have been seen as arrogance by the masses who felt the government has lost touch with the people. 

The Robinson government was forced to take stringent fiscal measures, which caused widespread national discontent. Dumas said the government did not bother to try to explain its moves to the people. 

He said in 1989 he told Robinson he needed to communicate with the people. “I told him, chapter and verse, why the government was so unpopular, what needed to be done and what ought not to be done. I told him that he and his government needed to change their ways,” Dumas said.

Dumas said he believed the Muslimeen tried to seize power because of the personal ambition of Jamaat al Muslimeen leader Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, whom he said was trying to establish an Islamic state. 

“He may have been sighting the possibility of political power. He believed he could get people to rise up and overthrow the government but it didn’t quite work out that way. 

“To a large extent Bakr and his men took advantage of a home grown situation brought about by fiscal measures," Dumas said, adding that he felt that Bakr misunderstood "the culture of the people".