Written by: Karishma Nanhu, Heritage Preservation and Research Officer
Voices from 1990 is my attempt to capture the previously unheard stories surrounding the 1990 attempted coup d’état on the Government of Trinidad and Tobago by the Jamaat al Muslimeen. In part 1 of this blog, Voices from 1990 , I interviewed persons who had been impacted by the attempted coup. I noted however that while there is so much media coverage of the events of 1990, I was still unfamiliar with the stories of the participants themselves. Generally, when members of the Jamaat have spoken about 1990, the narrative has been dominated by a few individuals and there are still many untold accounts. This blog is an attempt to address this gap. It documents the stories of two persons who actively participated in the attempted coup. Their identities have been purposely omitted.
Interview with Participant # 2
KN: 1990 didn’t happen in a bubble, can you tell me what was going on in the 1980s, share some of the context?
Participant 2:
In the 1980s there were some issues that came up in the Jamaat with respect to the land that the community was on. It had been given to the Muslim community by the then government. The original place that they gave was close to the (US) ambassador’s residence close to Long Circular area. The US government protested and instead the government gave the piece in Mucurapo which was mostly swamp. The Muslims put a structure on it on the front part of it. Around that time, eventually they left, a lot of Muslims who were originally part of the land grant they left. Then other Muslims started to use it with their permission.
What happened at that time, the government of the day said that they were going to build a mini stadium in an old quarry in Laventille on the hill. So Yasin Abu Bakr asked the truckers, who had to excavate the old quarry, for the backfill material instead of dumping it. The backfill was mostly made of stone but it was used to fill up the land on Mucurapo Road.
It started to become a prime piece of land. Some people started to envy it. Also the Jamaat decided it was going to build a mosque. This got a lot of attention. The building attracted attention from City Hall (Port of Spain City Corporation) who tried to stop it because they said we didn’t have the permit to build it. They arrested Abu Bakr for continuing the work. He spent 21 days in Port of Spain prison. In 1984 the Masjid al Muslimeen was opened.
The mosque was built, it was opened with some interesting people attending, Mr Panday, Mr John Humphrey, Mr Lincoln Myers[1].
One of the things that was discussed with the PNM government (1981-1986) was the regularization of the land for the Jamaat. In 1986 NAR win the election and the new regime didn’t want to honour the agreement. Panday was ULF, Robinson was DAC, Carl Hudson Phillips was ONR. They formed a coalition—NAR and they beat the PNM bad, 33-3 (seats). The NAR could have challenged it but they said that Mr Robinson didn’t want to reach that level of embarrassment for 34-2 (seats) for San Fernando East so PNM ended up with Port of Spain East, Laventille and San Fernando East. That was the first time in history that happened.
The new regime didn’t want to honour the regularization of the land. Nothing per se happened until the NAR ran into problems with the economy. The started certain measures, taking away COLA (Cost of Living Allowance), taking away this and that. Citizens were upset. And going through that programme the NAR went into a split and Panday pulled most of his people out (of the party).
There was some kinda talk about “smiles by day and daggers by night”. Robinson said something like that. The party came apart. While that thing was becoming the whole political thing was fractured. There was an issue over drugs, cocaine. It’s still an issue today. Back then the Jamaat decided to make an input in trying to defend the country from the infestation of drugs. It was trying to disrupt some drug movements. Very powerful people were upset. The authorities didn’t support what we were doing so the authorities would harass us. If people were being harassed, the physical space was harassed, how should they respond?
Police started harassing them. Raid the place. We had a school there, police say some man run across and they shooting at the man while the man ran through the compound.
KN: Tell me about the Jamaat’s community activities.
Participant 2:
The Jamaat was helping people with food, medicine, trying to disrupt drug issues. There was a primary school and a secondary school. No talk of a university.
KN: How big was the Jamaat at that time? How many people were joining?
Participant 2:
It was big enough.
KN: Tell me how things unfolded at the end of the 80s.
Participant 2:
Police became antagonistic, threatening. By 88, 89 things were getting real tense and there was a claim that the land business went to court and they decided to partition the 8.8 acres of land. It was in two pieces, the City Council owned the front part and the national government owned the back.
The state owned the back and the state said allyuh can’t come on this part of the land. What the state did was put a contingent of police and soldiers at the back which gave them control of the land and to look at the community.
That created more tension and eventually there was a rumour that the state intended to engage in some kind of physical move against the Jamaat. That was the trigger for July 27th.
It was a question of waiting until somebody jumps in your face or you surprise them.
And how they say it, the rest is history.
KN: Can you tell me about the events of the day of July 27th?
Participant 2:
There were about 20 to 30 persons at the Red House.
KN: How many people went to TTT?
Participant 2:
It was a real interesting case because a small number went there. People went and joined them during the night, so they ended up there with probably 70 something people. People went there because it was a softer target than the Red House. The Red House was more dangerous.
KN: How was the decision made about which location they went to? Did they volunteer?
Participant 2:
People were chosen to go to the Red House. The more capable ones. If somebody volunteered, they might not have been capable.
KN: The Red House was definitely more dangerous. Did you think about your family when you were going there?
Participant 2:
Yes, because it was a dangerous situation.
TTT had had some attacks from the army, they fired some missiles. TTT building started to burn, they had to rescue people. The army went after TTT; Radio Trinidad was the radio station adjoining TTT.
At the Red House there were some parliamentarians under some duress. A fair amount of them. The Prime Minister, Humphrey, Ramnath.
The workers were sent home, although there was a woman who got shot, she crawled out and died. Nobody knows how she got shot. It was an accident. The Jamaat never intended to hurt any women. Female ministers were not sent home.
KN: Did everything go according to plan? And why did the Jamaat decide to negotiate?
Participant 2:
The things happened by plan. The people who were there in the Red House didn’t want it to go further so they asked to negotiate. Somebody came up with the name Canon Knolly Clarke. He came to the Red House to negotiate. He came out of the goodness of his own heart. They tried to tie him up in a negative way afterwards.
The (former) Attorney General came up with the amnesty idea, Selwyn Richardson[2]. The document was written up.
The Jamaat agreed because a stalemate was reached.
KN: Did you all consider that you could possibly fail?
Participant 2:
The Jamaat assumed that it would be successful, it did not foresee a stalemate.
The intended outcome was a 5-point plan, the government was supposed to resign and have an election in 90 days.
The bigger thing was to get these guys off our back, and how do we do this.
The Jamaat members who participated were imprisoned for 23 months. My family was harassed. They survived.
Abu Bakr stepson was killed by the police. He was specifically targeted. Definitely. He was killed afterwards between the 27th July and the 1st of August. He probably wasn’t even 20 at the time.
The Jamaat had a lot of public support—not to do something physical, but people appreciated the work that we did.
The day that the participants were released from prison there was a mass of people on Frederick Street and women were crying.
A court was established in Chaguaramas, for the trials. The Jamaat had legal representations.
KN: How do you feel now?
Participant 2:
Yes and no. In spite of all the negative comments the Jamaat al Muslimeen functioned. Still functions today. Some people in their hearts understood what went on, aint nothing in their hearts they can come out and say.
KN: How were you and other members of the Jamaat treated after the coup?
Participant 2:
Some members of the Jamaat faced ostracism from friends and family, some were cut off.
KN: What changed after 1990?
Participant 2:
There was no particular change, the government was voted out. In 1991 the PNM came back.
Some people felt that the members of the Jamaat who participated in the coup should have been hanged. They should have hang everybody.
The drug problem had not been resolved. It got worse.
I recognize the total authority of Allah the creator. I submit to that. In the whole issue there are things that Allah allowed to happen and he didn’t allow to happen. Going in to that and coming out after 23 months, Allah allowed to happen and I accept that.
KN: What about the families of the Jamaat members, how were they affected?
Participant 2:
There is a kind of trauma for the children who went through it. Nobody talks about the trauma that the innocent children would have faced.
Picture of the Eternal Flame which honours the persons who died during the attempted coup on Knox Street
Source: Joseph Bertrand
Interview with Participant # 1
KN: What can you tell me about the attempted coup?
Participant 1:
Those who survived we are part of that struggle. Being a part of the struggle it means we must do the right thing for our children. 1990 come up on the seed and we had to fight. The place at #1 Mucurapo road, we asked them to use it.
It is not an individual perspective that has to be developed. It has to be developed with our elders’ perspective, with all the experiences that took place, to fight and struggle to get what is necessary not to put it together for our children.
KN: What was your experience?
Participant 1:
My experience. 1990 was not going in to TTT and the Red House. It was way way way more than that. Many people set up information on 1990, how much days they make information from 1990. This thinking of how they established themselves to make sure they make sure they maintained a particular way before and after the coup. Would they give in and admit? Have they ever done it? To make sure that what the community and society required for sustainable development moving into the timeframe with all the madness that is taking place on the global level.
Is one set of people doing all of this doing this for themselves to make sure they remain on top. To make sure that our people cannot get what is their own.
I am a trained soldier. So I have to humble and stay away.
Being part of a group of Muslims coming out of the 70s, late 60s and 70s all these groups eventually came into one group. Around that time in 1976 we were attending to the Queen Street Mosque Masjid. San Juan Mosque Masjid. St Joseph as well. The area from East St George Muslims, and brothers from other parts of the country we started to discuss our own place and asking to use Mucurapo Road. So the founders of that era, myself and other brothers we asked to use Mucurapo facility. We asked the Muslim brothers were in charge of there—the Islamic Missionaries Guild. We asked them to use there for the Eid in 1979-80. In two months’ time we had to prepare for Ramadan and we succeeded with approximately 200 people attending Eid for Ramadan. After that we had problem with brothers coming together to work to set up their own organizations and it took us roughly 3-4 years and we started to build to what it is today. Within this same period the government created obstacles, physical and otherwise and it was very difficult for us to function. With the different governments they got help from us. All the political parties were assisted by us from that time up to 1990. The way they got assistance is general community assistance within Trinidad and Tobago. We were never compensated. Our school—we have schools, it started in 1981 with 2 classes of 1st year, with 6 children. Our school is 50 years old. And where our teachers get paid from is part government and part our own and it started without. Picture we maintaining a school for so long and that school reach nursery, kindergarten, primary, secondary and we were building the foundation for the university when they came and destroyed us.
Occupation. Illegal occupation. That is 1990. 1990 is the feedback of that. Look how long it build up. It had 1970. It had the Hosay. And we had to defend. One for all.
Right against wrong.
We are Muslims and as a result we do not interfere with the rights and privileges of others. We will defend our people to the last. And we defended it to the last in whatever way we saw. The people who described the Jamaat in Trinidad and Tobago, the word Jamaat al Muslimeen means Muslim and the word Muslim means to obey the laws and commands of your creator. And the name of the creator is Allah.
For too long the people stay without knowing the importance of defending how it is and what it is took us to this stage. The written history of other parts of what was given in the Caribbean by the people, people who were not involved directly, that section of people has to pay the price for what we have reached in the Caribbean.
We put information and assistance for all the governments.
We were totally involved for and against each of the parties. And what happened, every participation of each government when we intervened the party changed.
We went in the radio station, we take TTT, we went in the Parliament, we take the Parliament, what it is after they did with us, they send us into prisons, different sections of the prisons. They built a prison also. That was my experience. They built a court. They didn’t want the public to see us, if the public had seen us going to court in town that was a next question. So they had to isolate the entire society. And they made whatever arrangements to establish it at the Convention Centre at the Base.
The court was for specific reasons of how do you establish the trial for a coup.
KN: Where were you on July 27th?
Participant 1:
I was in TTT. Within the period of January to July assistance from government institutions on getting rid of the Jamaat, eviction notices were set up and they didn’t know that we had the deed, they didn’t know we had a cornerstone given by the government. The establishment of different media personnel to bombard who and what is the Jamaat and never made the attempt to assist the work in all the communities we were doing across Trinidad and Tobago. We were feeding the poor every day. It have poor feeding the poor and it have all the rich. Write that down. All the big sawatee and dem and we not eating ah food. We feeding the people, we going to the people and still they coming to attack we.
They attack we!
I was living on the compound. My address was 1 Mucurapo road. Hard work to build! I had a factory, wholesale and retail preserved goods.
Where the media played a part in this—caused a major media personnel member from the different media houses—and what they did within the period of the coup and who were the people involved in staging a coup within a coup?
Three governments changed hands, you have people in Parliament, in every one of those three parties. They staged a coup in a coup.
Who were the people involved in Hilton? Let them give us the information from the papers. Let them send it out and let the public see it. All the names of the Ministers, Senators, and private business owners.
What they did? They take the army camp at Hilton.
Anybody know who is a Anglican, who is a catholic and who run the hierarchy in each one.
That is the real coup. The coup is not Jamaat and Muslimeen. It was shifted to them.
There is no way in history you will see a piece of land with a community established with somebody else moved them out by force.
And were able to defend it like we did.
And what we defend it with? What they come with knife and fork?
The normal Friday Jumma the Imam will give information on how the community would operate. We got instructions until the next Jumma. Those instructions were totally led by a leadership, and that leadership, the command was Yasin Abu Bakr and everybody supported. The people in the society will not give a true reflection in what role played in 1990.
This is the foundation for the preparation. That the whole society presently is involved in. let the public give the answers.
I was living there, Mucurapo road, how I will let people come and take where I living?
The ending of the coup—is about 2 years we spend in jail. So they give us, we had agreements in the 6 days in TTT.
The class structure in the education system, from slavery to now and the creation of the trauma that exists in the society through that came out in 1990, it rises and falls. Every time it falls there are riots but the trauma remains.
KN: Can you tell me what happened on July 26th?
Participant 1:
I had an old Bedford truck, every day I was fixing that truck. That was parked outside Mucurapo on the day of the coup. That was the heavy duty transport for the transport. We had two factories, we had a next factory, bleach, we were given the opportunity to establish a bleach factory. I build the materials the signs, the bottles,
From the day the Imam finish the khutbah, all the instructions were given by the Imam and everybody had to follow. The ladies, wives and children did not know anything. So they could not tell anything. We left that compound without any wife or children knowing anything.
I was telling the younger men instructions.
My wife was locked up. They said she training the Muslimeen to regroup. My eldest daughter looked after the rest of my children when we were locked up. I had 6 children.
They lived different places, with people from the Jamaat.
It wasn’t difficult for brothers and sisters to accommodate one another. Eventually my wife was let out after about 6 months.
I was worried about my family and other women too. Two hours of bombardment in TTT. THE POUNDING of the vibration of the weapons. The building was vibrating all the time.
KN: Did you ever meet any of the people from TTT afterwards?
Participant 1:
But I saw one, he got some award.
I talk with the man for about 15 minutes.
All the people who was in TTT, you had hierarchies. Dominic, Jones P. Madeira, Gideon Hanoomansingh, and his brother, Pantin, Hennesy—he run like a thief.
We didn’t keep the women. All women and children we let them go.
KN: Did you all know what has happening at the Red House?
Participant 1:
We didn’t have so much information about the Red House but the brothers who were in charge of the Red House got an interview through the BBC. That was a very good opportunity.
KN: What was your role?
Participant 1:
My part or my contribution I was able to tell the leadership that the army will not interfere with a situation that is not properly administered if the government is using oppressive means. That’s how we get to find out that it have a coup in a coup—NAR POSSE. Pantin and them. The Archbishop was part of it. The men who was in TTT was talking, they say he church is in Belmont, St Martin church.
The whole thing is based on that development. Societal evils.
I am very thankful and for the honourable ANR Robinson opposing us. To give us the strength to understand oppression. And how do you overcome oppression? And in the enquiry I want to thank Colonel Brown for clarifying at the time when it was necessary to understand the role of the army in a situation of unrest.
They came and sit down in the Mosque before the election and they win 33 to 3.
KN: What changed after 1990?
Participant 1:
In my experience out of this is to bring better youths to better conduct through proper parenting.
Fear in your mind but you are doing something right so you have to face your creator.
You always think about your family. I grew up a rebel. In 1990 they tell me I is a rebel. I will die a rebel.
All the soldiers who were involved in 1970 and were Muslims were in 1990. Some were in the coup and out of the coup. People who took shahada to become a Muslim, Muslims in the army and Muslims who after they left the army, they became Muslim. Old soldiers and all took shahada. These Muslims come from all the Jamaat all over the country including Jamaat al Muslimeen. Jamaat al Muslimeen is a formation of brothers majority African from 1980 to 85-86. We were Jamaat al Muslimeen by 86. Muslimoon when we started. We changed to Muslimeen closer to 1990. It’s the plural.
The more you grow the more you live.
KN: So by 1985 the numbers were growing a lot?
Participant 1:
The numbers increased in 85 come up weekly by the hundreds.
There were men they did not lock up.
They taking the coup as individual not all the things that lead into that mind frame.
Conclusion:
These interviews represent the perspectives of the participants and do not reflect the position of the National Trust of Trinidad and Tobago.
[1] Lincoln Myers was a senator who sat on the steps of the Hall of Justice for 40 days from 6 am to 6 pm to protest against PNM corruption in 1985. He was a member of the Public Accounts Enterprises Committee of Parliament, which had ordered PLIPDECO to explain fraud. He went on to defeat Prime Minister George Chambers in St. Ann’s East in the 1986 General Elections when the NAR won.
[2] At the time Richardson was the Minister of National Security