Former prime minister Patrick Manning spoke with a group of Jamaat al Muslimeen members shortly before they invaded the Red House on the afternoon of July 27, 1990. Almost immediately after he spoke with them Manning left Parliament. This was revealed by former National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) minister, Gloria Henry, while giving evidence at the Commission of Enquiry into the coup d'etat at the Caribbean Court of Justice, Port-of-Spain, yesterday. Henry was one of the Red House hostages.
She was returning to the chamber after the 4.30 pm tea break when she saw Manning talking with the group, she recalled. Manning spoke to the group around 5 pm inside the Red House, just outside the Parliament chamber, and then went inside, picked up his briefcase and left. The men Manning chatted with were among the group of insurrectionists who stormed the Red House soon after and held several parliamentarians hostage for six days in an attempted take-over of the country. She also saw a light-skinned East Indian man in a bright-pink jumpsuit talking to another group of young men she later identified as insurrectionists, Henry said.
She sensed hostility when she approached that group, like when you go near a Jack Spaniard's nest, Henry told the commission. When the Muslimeen stormed the Parliament chamber soon after, one of them shouted, "we have orders to free Panday (Basdeo)" she further disclosed. Describing Jamaat al Muslimeen leader Imam Yasin Abu Bakr as a "maniac" and a "crazy man," Henry said she never felt the group acted alone and that the Summit of the People's Organisation and "others" had to be involved in the uprising. "This was high treason," she told the commission, her voice rising.
She added: "I would never believe the Jamaat was acting alone, a maniac and some others. One crazy man was to be minister of national security and we were to follow him. "I can't believe they acted alone. Somebody had to know what was going on and who were the other players." Henry said she never had nightmares or became dysfunctional after her harrowing experience as a hostage but she had to deal with "certain demons". Expressing emotion in her voice, she said she was "very, very angry" when a Privy Council ruling freed Bakr and the 113 Muslimeen involved in the attempted coup.
"I was very disappointed at the Privy Council ruling. I felt a disservice was done to the country and to the people serving Parliament," she said. Henry was especially moved by the number of very young Muslimeen insurrectionists, many of them between 15 and 18, she said. A significant part of her submission to the commission was on the phenomenon of "barrel children," whose parents migrated and sent barrels of food, clothing and other items to them as a substitute for their presence. Henry said she spoke to young insurgents in Parliament during the hostage crisis and they could not say why they joined the Jamaat.