Before announcing that the T&T Court of Appeal, by a majority decision, had dismissed the State's appeal against a judgment of Justice Clebert Brooks who found that the Jamaat al Muslimeen had a valid amnesty in the document signed by acting President Emmanuel Carter, Justice Satnarine Sharma made a statement which was probably no less significant than the judgment itself. Perhaps anticipating how perplexed and mystified that lesser lights like myself could be by the decision and possible consequences flowing therefrom, Justice Sharma favoured us with this statement: "This appeal has been determined on its own peculiar facts... Lest this judgment of mine be misunderstood and thus cause some perplexity and create fear in the minds of a few, I wish to make it abundantly clear that my decision does not in any way create an open charter for terrorists, nor is it to be regarded as encouragement or an open invitation for others to do likewise."
Without wishing to trivialise the issue, to employ the popular parlance, Justice Sharma may have been attempting to dissuade the unthinking ones affected by the "monkey see, monkey do" syndrome. Within the confines of my own, admittedly narrow, perspective, I'm not quite certain that those inclined to disaffection, insurrection and terrorist methods would heed the Chief Justice's admonitions. My guess would be that, once armed with their "heads of agreements and unsigned amnesty documents," prepared by their "legal advisers," it would be a straight case of "monkey say: cool breeze." According to Justice Sharma, "The court wasn't sending mixed, negative or confusing signals. Trinidad and Tobago suffered immeasurably as a result of the ghastly and mindless acts of a motley band of dissidents. As a result many innocent people lost their lives, and damage done to property was incalculable. In addition to Members of Parliament and others being held hostage, each citizen was held captive in his/her own home. T&T become an islandwide prison."
Justice Sharma probably had some inkling of the extent to which a significant number of citizens were quite understandably horrified and enraged at Justice Brooks's judgment which his court subsequently upheld. Two rhetorical questions were posed: "How could any system of justice liberate people who, in open defiance of the law, had committed the most barbarous and dastardly acts? What sane and civilised system of justice would countenance this?" And, I may add, the State was liable for any inconvenience incurred as a consequence of their "wrongful incarceration." Now memories may be short but as far back as 1984, Prime Minister Eugenia Charles of Dominica voiced her suspicion that some Caribbean dissidents were being trained and funded by Libya and North Korea-countries, we're told, which make short shrift of their own dissidents or anyone even remotely seen as such.
Whatever was the basis of or justification for PM Charles's suspicion, subsequent events have shown the foolhardiness of treating lightly with the threats, antics and strong-arm tactics of would-be sawdust Caesars, however disguised or camouflaged. What, for us, was a horrendous nightmare that kept the nation trembling in fear for some cliff-hanging 120 hours had been characterised by Newsweek magazine as "a tragicomedy in Trinidad of a would-be Islamic revolt which collapsed into a fiasco."
We've probably got to thank Almighty God for having seen us through, as the hostage crisis could have ended in any one of a number of ways, some of which were too frightening even to contemplate. We need no longer speculate as, if I might borrow a cricket analogy, we're now able to get "a ball by ball" commentary on the horrible experiences of the hostages.
Well, it wouldn't be good old Trinidad if we didn't have one or two jokers in the pack. One follow is reported to have claimed that his experience as a hostage in the Red House represented his best and longest parliamentary session. He subsequently claimed that "the amnesty saved his life." Another fellow was frightened out of his wits trying to figure out the difference between a messenger and a negotiator. Yet another fellow sought to impress one of the insurgents at the Red House with his credentials "as an emissary to the Court of St James." That did it for him and he was detained in the "house of horrors" along with the others.
Ironically, attempts were being made by some of our "armchair revolutionaries" to smother the savagery of the assault with a host of euphemisms. We were gratuitously informed that the nation had presumably come of age and therefore "lost its innocence." That violence was part of our history.
Some (not necessarily unlettered) sought to make us feel that we were on the "wrong side of history." It apparently never occurred to them that we needed to ask ourselves whether we were quite ready to legitimise and glamorise or tolerate torture and terrorism as necessary ingredients of the political process. Many were the voices from abroad which commiserated with us in one of our darkest hours. As for our "mocking political pretenders"-lofty pretensions notwithstanding-who were wanted, couldn't be found, but, true to form, were "found wanting."