What has changed since 1990?

“On Friday, July 27, 1990, around 5.30 pm, a group of black Muslims, members of the Jamaat al Muslimeen, rushed into the nations Parliament at the Red House, Port of Spain shouting, ‘Allah u Akbar,’ and held at gunpoint the parliamentarians and members of the public who were inside.”

That was the first paragraph of my 1993 book A Society Under Siege: A Study of Political Confusion and Legal Mysticism.

This book was used by the commission of enquiry into the coup attempt to help question witnesses.

Nineteen hostages were captured, including PM ANR Robinson (leader of the NAR government) and seven ministers. Twenty-four people were killed.

At that time, I was an independent senator (1986-91), but not present in Parliament.

Much more than the country’s Black Power protests in 1970, this 1990 insurrection by Abu Bakr and 114 others attracted dramatic world headlines – they firebombed the police headquarters and triggered widespread looting in Port of Spain.

On July 22, a former hostage, Wendell Eversley, in pleading for the country “not to forget 1990,” declared: “Today, gangs are in control of entire communities, judges and police officers are under threat. Corruption is rampant, and no one wants to say how it all started, on July 27, 1990.” Is this true?

About two weeks ago, Police Commissioner Allister Guevarro warned the new UNC government that a dangerous “crime syndicate” had been formed to murder certain highly-placed public officials, including judges. A limited state of emergency was declared by government.

A full state of emergency was declared in 1990.

In 1990, we had around 90 murders. Today we are hitting 220 and climbing. Last year it was 624. We rank sixth in the world.

And with the bump in home invasions, kidnapping, political corruption and institutional breakdowns, is our society still “under siege”?

In trying to explain the reason for the insurrection against the NAR government, a later party leader, Carson Charles, said: “The one lesson learnt is that when a particular kind of environment is created, it sends a message to misguided groups and individuals.”

Do we now have a lot of that “particular kind of environment” here? Charles added: “Before the July 1990 uprising, the PNM created an environment of hate and protests against the NAR. It’s the first time they lost an election and their reaction was extreme.”

Of course, some regard must be paid to the cost-of-living pressures experienced by citizens and the labour unions in 1990, especially the Public Services Association (PSA), whose members’ salaries were cut by ten per cent.

The $30 million commission of enquiry into the Muslimeen insurrection invited me twice to testify. I remember Avory Sinanan, SC, and Jagdeo Singh, the commission’s attorneys, sitting to the left of me.

Twice, the commission’s chairman, the Barbadian Sir David Simmons, a diplomat as much as a judge, asked whether I thought the Muslimeen coup attempt had contributed to the rise in crime at that time, 2013.

I found it difficult to say yes or no; I said there were “other conditions.”

The commission of enquiry had two fatal gaps. Firstly, it did not examine the role of the judiciary in handling the Muslimeen’s allegations – the long delays and postponements, a subject of repeated complaints and frustrations by Abu Bakr.

Secondly, twice the commission was unable to get a key witness – Bakr – to testify. Sir David explained that there was no law to force Bakr to testify. He called for legal reform.

Look, all in all, the social, political and security conditions of the country have not changed much, if at all. As in 1990, largely from the NAR break-up, today racial division still persists, labour unrest exists, police and security services still need urgent internal improvements – a condition reliably evidenced by the Police Management Audit Committee and one that will be aggravated if 800 SRPs enter the service without the required academic and professional upgrading. Did anybody speak to the PM, who had proposed upgrading entry into the police service with at least a diploma?

The foreword and introduction to A Society Under Siege were written respectively by attorney Prof Theodore Becker, head of Political Science, Auburn University, US, and Prof Robin Cohen of Warwick University Graduate School of Sociology.

They both concluded that the social, political, security and institutional weaknesses of the country facilitated the Muslimeen insurrection and encouraged some support for it. Of the book, Becker stated: “It is an outstanding analysis of how the present political and legal system are part of the quandary. But it also offers a refreshingly new course of thought and action.”