Yvonne Ba­boolal

Se­nior Ja­maat al Mus­limeen mem­ber Kalla Akii-Bua lost his com­po­sure yes­ter­day, be­com­ing high­ly emo­tion­al at the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry ses­sion in­to the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup as he plead­ed for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with Trinidad and To­ba­go.Akii-Bua was among 114 Mus­limeen in­sur­rec­tion­ists at­tempt­ing to over­throw the gov­ern­ment in Ju­ly 1990.Al­though they were grant­ed amnesty and re­leased, Akii-Bua in­di­cat­ed that they con­tin­ue to be de­nied jus­tice and equal­i­ty and re­main alien­at­ed by so­ci­ety.

He com­plained that the Ja­maat still does not have reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion (se­cu­ri­ty) of land tenure at the Mu­cu­rapo Road com­pound and their school re­mains un­recog­nised."Why are we pay­ing tax­es and not get­ting any­thing in re­turn? This is the frus­tra­tion," he shout­ed emo­tion­al­ly in the court­room of the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice on Hen­ry Street."What can we do again to be a part of this so­ci­ety?"Akii-Bua said the chil­dren of Ja­maat mem­bers keep ask­ing why their land and school are not reg­u­larised.

"Our chil­dren must know that this thing (the coup d'etat) must nev­er hap­pen again."They have the world at their fin­ger­tips. I don't know what is in their minds," he said.Akii-Bua was told by com­mis­sion lead coun­sel Avory Sinanan that the Ja­maat was not be­ing sin­gled out; that many oth­er cit­i­zens pay tax­es and felt they got noth­ing in re­turn.He in­sist­ed, how­ev­er, that the Ja­maat was be­ing sin­gled out."We are sin­gled out," he shout­ed. "How the Biche High School could be sin­gled out for reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion? We are sin­gled out for pun­ish­ment."

In­tro­duc­ing race in­to the mat­ter, he asked fur­ther, "Is it be­cause the ma­jor­i­ty of us at the Ja­maat are of African ori­gin?"Sinanan point­ed out to him that the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple in the steel­band move­ment are of African ori­gin and they are not sin­gled out for pun­ish­ment.Plead­ing for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, Akii-Bua con­tin­ued, "I be­lieve this thing should come to an end."This is a small place. We all have to live to­geth­er. I came to the en­quiry be­cause 1990 is in my head."I think it's time so­ci­ety knows cer­tain things and move on. I am com­mit­ted to see­ing this thing (en­quiry) through. I will do my part."

Sinanan put it to him that the onus is on the Mus­limeen to come back to the fold, much like the prodi­gal son of the Bible.Akii-Bua, in re­sponse, not­ed that for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning apol­o­gised and peo­ple are tak­ing it as a big joke.Sinanan told him that he can­not de­ny peo­ple their right to ex­press them­selves and ad­vised him to try apol­o­gis­ing and see how peo­ple would re­act.Com­mis­sion chair­man Sir David Sim­mons al­so sug­gest­ed that in their com­mem­o­ra­tion of the at­tempt­ed coup next year that on the ban­ner they nor­mal­ly put up on their com­pound, they should ask for for­give­ness of the so­ci­ety.

Akii Bua in­formed the com­mis­sion that the Bas­deo Pan­day-led Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) gov­ern­ment was the first to at­tempt rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with the Ja­maat af­ter the 1990 up­ris­ing.He said a team of se­nior Ja­maat mem­bers, in­clud­ing leader Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, met with Pan­day at his Twin Tow­ers of­fice when he be­came prime min­is­ter in 1995.Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, then a UNC min­is­ter, was al­so present at that pre­lim­i­nary meet­ing, Akii-Bua re­called.He said they had cam­paigned for the UNC in the gen­er­al elec­tion that pushed them in­to pow­er based on a promise by for­mer UNC Works Min­is­ter John Humphrey.

Humphrey promised that he would see to it that the Ja­maat's school and oth­er in­sti­tu­tions of learn­ing would be con­struct­ed on the com­pound, he said.He said af­ter the meet­ing with Pan­day there was a dai­ly bar­rage of protests in the press from the then PNM op­po­si­tion claim­ing that the gov­ern­ment was be­friend­ing the Mus­limeen.Akii-Bua said some­one in the UNC al­so, was ad­vis­ing Pan­day against it.He claimed the next move Pan­day made was to in­struct that a fence be put up around the land the Ja­maat oc­cu­pied (to pre­vent fur­ther en­croach­ment on State land)."Every­thing end af­ter that. There was no meet­ing af­ter that. The next meet­ing was a fence," he told the com­mis­sion.

Akii-Bua said, iron­i­cal­ly, while the PNM was protest­ing their meet­ing Pan­day, the Ja­maat was al­so hold­ing meet­ings with for­mer PNM At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Kei­th So­bion at his Rich­mond Street of­fice with rec­on­cil­i­a­tion in mind.He said at the fol­low­ing gen­er­al elec­tion in 2002, they cam­paigned for the PNM and saw them in­to pow­er.