Trinidad 1990 attempted coup revisited

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar Friday urged citizens to read the report of a Commission of Inquiry that probed the events leading to the 1990 attempt by a group of Muslims to overthrow the government of prime minister ANR Robinson.

“The report must go beyond mere study, mere scholarship, mere education and information,” she said, telling legislators that the report “must serve to provide tangible lessons for the people of Trinidad and Tobago with the objective of ensuring that such a a grievous and heinous assault on our democracy must never happen again.”

Prime Minister Persad Bissessar, who dedicated the report to an ailing and hospitalised Robinson, said it should serve as a reminder of the dark history of the twin-island Republic noting that “some of the descriptions are understandably stark and graphic but they are real and factual”.

“It is my hope that the publication of this report will bring considerable satisfaction and some closure to our former President who withstood the intended humiliation of those days of infamy with remarkable dignity and courage.

“The strength and resilience he displayed at that time continue even to this day to inspire an entire Nation and remain a testimony and a beacon to all of us” she told legislstors.

She laid the “voluminous” report of the Commission that was chaired by the Barbadian jurist Sir David Simmons in Parliament and said it would be made available on the Parliament’s website for the benefit of the general public.

She said the government had taken a decision to waive the confidentiality aspects on national security so as to ensure national debate on the document.