An analysis
QUITE UNLIKE Desi Bouterse, the controversial politician and former military leader and now new President of Suriname, Yasin Abu Bakr, the former policeman of Trinidad and Tobago previously known as Lennox Phillip, remains unrepentant about known involvement in sensational political/criminal developments that have wasted lives, traumatised their respective nation and left many questions still unanswered. Abu Bakr, the Imam of the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen, ever ready to summon God to his rescue, much to the amusement of his detractors, shows no remorse, no humility for his culpability in the abortive coup of 20 years ago yesterday. It cost at least 24 lives, among them that of a parliamentarian; the wounding, by shooting, of then Prime Minister Arthur Robinson; millions of dollars in damages in property and looting. But Abu Bakr has never once brought himself, over the past two decades, to utter the word “sorry”. His general public posture remains as arrogant as ever. Worse, behind his self-righteous indulgence in claims of commitment to the poor, there lurks in the Imam’s rhetoric an unmistakable warning of someone ready for a duel – whatever the government in Port-of-Spain. Yesterday was identified by Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to auction properties legally owned by Abu Bakr’s Jamaat so that compensation could be paid for millions of dollars lost to the state during the Muslimeen’s insurrection of July 27, 1990. She is going much further. In the making, as announced, is the composition of a high-level commission to probe the circumstances of that abortive Muslimeen coup with the hope of unearthing the truth about why it happened and, possibly, the roles of others, politicians included, whose names have escaped police records. Why an independent inquiry was not instituted years ago, outside of the court proceedings involving Abu Bakr and his Muslimeen disciples, remains one of the crucial questions about that abortive coup in Trinidad and Tobago.
Media relations
Abu Bakr had managed to cultivate a rather self-serving relationship with sections of the Trinidad and Tobago media, whose coverage I had criticised at public fora and in the media for perhaps being more flattering to the Imam’s ego than condemnatory of his threatening rhetoric and activities. Now the Imam talks glibly about his readiness, “If I am alive, God willing, to be the first person to testify”, (at the coming probe commission). Across in Suriname, another member state of Caricom, rocked by the coup phenomenon and struggling to cope with challenges from drug trafficking and gun-running, Desi Bouterse is openly demonstrating regrets and seeking public forgiveness for his involvement in a 1980 coup against a civilian government, while denying personal culpability in the 1982 murder of 15 political opponents. The 64-year-old Bouterse bears the burden of an 11-year prison term to which he was sentenced, in absentia, by a court in the Netherlands – Suriname’s former colonial ruler – for cocaine trafficking. Under Suriname’s law he cannot be extradited to a foreign country.
Trial for murder
But he also faces the greater burden as one in a group facing trial for the murder of 15 political opponents in 1982 while functioning as military commander and head of the coup regime. After his Meaga Combination (MC) party won the single largest number of votes and seats (23) at last May’s general election for the 51-seat parliament, Bouterse succeeded in a coalition arrangement to secure the required two-thirds vote to become Suriname’s new President. He takes the ceremonial oath on August 3. With tear-filled eyes, Bouterse has been publicly thanking Surinamese for the confidence expressed in their voting for him (at the May 25 general election and that of parliament on July 19) and apologising for the 15 killings of 1982. His claim is that he “accepts responsibility (as then head of the military government) for the killings” but denied any personal involvement. Well, the military court, which met last Friday in Paramaribo, is scheduled to meet again next month at Fort Zeelandia, said to have been the scene of the 15 killings. Meanwhile, elected President Bouterse, head of a coalition government, pleads: “I reach out my hands to everyone who feels that they are adversaries and ask them to leave the past behind so we can build this country together.” Truth is, while reconciliation in politics is much to be preferred to confrontation, there is that challenge of forgetting the past without compromising the future.
