Richard Lord

As the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the Ju­ly 1990 at­tempt­ed coup con­tin­ued yes­ter­day, chair­man David Sim­mons, SC, asked for­mer par­lia­men­tary sec­re­tary Rawle Raphael if he ab­di­cat­ed his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty when he failed to in­form the Gov­ern­ment about plans by the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen to over­throw NAR gov­ern­ment.Raphael, for­mer MP for Arou­ca North, con­tin­ued his tes­ti­mo­ny at the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day.

He was one of the hostages at the Red House dur­ing the bloody at­tempt­ed coup, which claimed more than 20 lives.Raphael con­firmed that he was told of the planned in­sur­rec­tion by a mem­ber of the par­ty's A Team of the plot to over­throw his Gov­ern­ment. He said he then ad­vised the of­fi­cial to re­port the plot to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Sel­wyn Richard­son.

Raphael told the Com­mis­sion that he did not take the threat se­ri­ous­ly.Sim­mons asked Raphael if he didn't "find it strange that for the sec­ond time this man was rais­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of trou­ble with you (talk of at­tempt­ed coup)."Raphael re­spond­ed said that many callers to lo­cal ra­dio sta­tions yes­ter­day shared his view that such an in­ci­dent could not have hap­pened in T&T.

"Every­body think that (the threat) was a big joke, as well as me," Raphael in­sist­ed.Sim­mons con­tin­ued: "It was not pos­si­ble? God is a Trinida­di­an?"Raphael re­spond­ed: "Well, some of us think so."Sim­mons then re­mind­ed Raphael that "you were hold­ing a re­spon­si­ble po­si­tion as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment. You think that you should have been so dis­mis­sive of this in­for­ma­tion?"Raphael said again that the in­for­ma­tion "was passed on to the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty."

Re­mind­ed that he was the first source of the in­for­ma­tion, Raphael was asked if he did any fol­low-up.He said : "No, I nev­er fol­lowed up."A seem­ing­ly amazed Sim­mons re­spond­ed: "Nev­er fol­lowed up? Af­ter 20 years does your con­science both­er you at all that you may have been ne­glect­ful of your re­spon­si­bil­i­ties?"

Raphael quick­ly re­spond­ed: "Not re­al­ly."Sim­mons then re­marked: "Not re­al­ly?He then asked Raphael if he main­tained the same po­si­tion of it be­ing a joke when the Mus­limeen of­fi­cial told him of plans to over­throw the Gov­ern­ment, for the third time, on Ju­ly 27, 1990.Raphael re­spond­ed: "Cer­tain­ly."Asked if he had ever re­flect­ed over the past 20 years to de­ter­mine if he had done the right thing, Raphael said: "No, it would have brought back old mem­o­ries and one has to get away from bad in­ci­dents that hap­pened in the past and look for­ward to what is in the fu­ture."

He said he nev­er liked to re­turn to the past, es­pe­cial­ly on neg­a­tive is­sues.Sim­mons then asked Raphael if he didn't hold him­self in any way cul­pa­ble for what hap­pened."Cer­tain­ly not, " Raphael said.Sim­mons then ques­tioned Raphael about the Black Pow­er up­ris­ing in 1970. He want­ed to know if the coun­try had learned any­thing from that in­ci­dent. Raphael said: No, it was a good ex­pe­ri­ence for Trinida­di­ans."He said peo­ple of dif­fer­ent eth­nic groups were able to gain em­ploy­ment at cer­tain in­sti­tu­tions be­cause of the up­ris­ing.