Yvonne Ba­boolal

For­mer prime min­is­ter Arthur NR Robin­son, his deputy Win­ston Dook­er­an and for­mer act­ing pres­i­dent Em­manuel Carter may be guilty of trea­son or trea­so­nous be­hav­iour by sur­ren­der­ing to Ja­maat al Mus­limeen in­sur­gents in 1990 and giv­ing up the State. This is the con­vic­tion of po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Kirk Meighoo, who yes­ter­day put that to a seem­ing­ly con­fused com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the Ju­ly 1990 at­tempt­ed over­thow of the gov­ern­ment. Meighoo, in a sub­mis­sion to the com­mis­sion, said if the ac­counts of the up­ris­ing were ac­cu­rate then Robin­son, Dook­er­an and Carter, be­cause they signed and agreed to an amnesty for the Mus­limeen, could be guilty of trea­son or trea­so­nous be­hav­iour. He said that was writ­ten in his book, "Pol­i­tics In A Half-Made So­ci­ety-1925 to 2001".

Pressed for ev­i­dence for his charge, Meighoo said he was just us­ing in­for­ma­tion cir­cu­lat­ing in aca­d­e­m­ic and in­tel­li­gence cir­cles for the past 20 years. He said that was not some­thing he made up on his own but the same view was ex­pressed by his­to­ri­an James Mil­lette and oth­ers. He said he ten­dered his sub­mis­sion with the ex­pec­ta­tion that the com­mis­sion would ob­jec­tive­ly ex­am­ine the ques­tion of trea­son on the part of the three lead­ers, "de­void of po­lit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tion." That seemed to of­fend com­mis­sion chair­man Sir David Sim­mons. He told Mei­gooo he found that "of­fen­sive" and a bit im­per­ti­nent, as if the com­mis­sion­ers did not have an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

"I am ask­ing you to be more care­ful in your use of lan­guage," Sim­mons cau­tioned, adding that in the spir­it of the sea­son up­on us that would be all he would say. Ques­tioned, al­most re­lent­less­ly, by lead coun­sel Avory Sinanan and com­mis­sion­ers East­lyn McKen­zie, Sir Richard Chel­tenham and Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att on his trea­son charge, Meighoo said it was the job of lead­ers of the coun­try to put their lives on the line. "Robin­son, as head of State, was not sup­posed to give it (the State) up," Meighoo in­sist­ed.

Re­mind­ed by Sinanan that the Mus­limeen rebels in the Red House were se­ri­ous about ex­e­cut­ing par­lia­men­tar­i­ans they were hold­ing hostage, Meighoo replied: "Some­body threat­ens you or oth­er peo­ple, ex­ten­u­at­ing cir­cum­stances notwith­stand­ing, you are sup­posed to be a mar­tyr." Sim­mons, in­ter­ven­ing, asked Meighoo if he se­ri­ous­ly put for­ward the the­sis that Robin­son, Dook­er­an and Carter formed an in­ten­tion to over­throw the gov­ern­ment. (Form­ing an in­ten­tion to com­mit a sub­ver­sive ac­tion against the State is part of the de­f­i­n­i­tion of trea­son). Meighoo said yes.

It was put to him that the po­lit­i­cal lead­ers signed the agree­ment be­tween the Mus­limeen and politi­cians un­der duress, which al­lowed the in­sur­gents to go free un­der cer­tain con­di­tions, in­clud­ing the re­lease of the hostages. Meighoo, quot­ing sev­er­al le­gal au­thor­i­ties, said trea­son was one of the list of crimes to which duress is not ap­plic­a­ble. He said if the lead­ers were not guilty of trea­son they were guilty of trea­so­nous be­hav­iour. Com­mis­sion­er Dr Hafi­zo­ol Ali Mo­hammed asked Meighoo: "How many get killed be­fore the Ja­maat draws a line?

"You said the three lead­ers should not have gone that route, know­ing that they would have all been killed.

"If they killed all the min­is­ters and hostages, who would they be ne­go­ti­at­ing with?" Meighoo said one may make a de­ci­sion to give up the State to avoid a blood­bath. He said coups hap­pened in coun­tries based on such rea­sons. He added: "Maybe that's jus­ti­fi­able, in terms of hu­man life and so forth.

"But it still does not make the be­hav­iour not trea­son­able," he said.