Inquiry on failed coup

PORT-OF-SPAIN – The Trinidad and Tobago government yesterday announced that it would establish a Commission of Inquiry into the failed 1990 coup by members of the radical Jamaat-Al-Muslimeen group against the government of then Prime Minister ANR Robinson.At least 24 people, including one government legislator, Leo Des Vignes, were killed when Yasin Abu Bakr led 114 members of his Muslim group in coordinated attacks on the Parliament and the Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT) station in his attempt to overthrow the then ruling National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) administration on July 27, 1990.Bakr later appeared on television and announced that the government had been overthrown, and that he was negotiating with the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force. He called for calm, and said that there should be no looting.SurrenderAfter six days of negotiation, the insurgents surrendered on August 1, and were taken into custody. They were tried for treason, but the Court of Appeal upheld the amnesty offered to secure their surrender, and they were released. The London-based Privy Council, the country’s highest court, later invalidated the amnesty, but the Muslimeen members were not re-arrested.“As we approach the anniversary of the coup, we want to announce that we took a decision to launch an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding what is referred to as the 1990 coup,” Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar told reporters at the news conference nearly 20 years to the day since the Muslimeen members launched their insurgency. She said that for several years calls had been made “by a generous percentage of our population for such an investigation”.Persad-Bissessar said there was a general feeling that “this investigation is necessary for several reasons” including the need “to bring finality to this matter” and to deal with the fact “that there were varying degrees and categories of trauma experienced by citizens in different institutions directly and indirectly”.“We also know and we feel that it is important for us to have this inquiry to find out what went wrong and why it happened so that we can take steps to avoid such a thing ever happening in this country again,” said the newly-elected prime Minister. (CMC)