Yvonne Ba­boolal

Imam Lor­ris Bal­lack, a body­guard for Ja­maat al Mus­limeen leader Imam Yasin Abu Bakr dur­ing the Ju­ly 1990 up­ris­ing, said he is not go­ing to apol­o­gise for the event. "I am not go­ing to apol­o­gise. Apol­o­gise to who?" Bal­lack shout­ed yes­ter­day dur­ing the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the at­tempt­ed coup at the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain. Imam of the Ja­maat's Pa­lo Seco Mosque and the third in­sur­rec­tion­ist to ap­pear be­fore the en­quiry, he said the na­tion knew what was hap­pen­ing at the Ja­maat (the gov­ern­ment's re­fusal to reg­u­larise their land, po­lice raids, etc.) He claimed the po­lice were not on­ly out­side the com­pound but had tak­en over dwellings in­side the Ja­maat and spied on their women who bathed in out­door wash­rooms.

"I seek for­give­ness on­ly from my Lord, not from Trinidad and To­ba­go," he said. Bal­lack al­so de­clared that he was not go­ing to rec­on­cile with peo­ple who con­sis­tent­ly rape the wealth of the na­tion and leave poor peo­ple with noth­ing. "It is the politi­cians who need to apol­o­gise for all the mon­ey they stole," he said. "Speak about Calder Hart (for­mer chair­man of the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T) first. "With whom should I rec­on­cile?" he asked. "With my Lord," he said, an­swer­ing his own ques­tion. "I don't need no rec­on­cil­i­a­tion." Bal­lack said not one sin­gle Trinida­di­an had open­ly at­tacked him for par­tic­i­pat­ing in the in­sur­rec­tion. "Af­ter I came out of prison in 1992 not one Trinida­di­an threw stones at me. Not a child ridiculed me.

"I have nev­er seen one plac­ard in the vil­lage say­ing, 'you bad boy, you should not have done that'. "I am the Imam of a mosque. We built a kitchen and feed peo­ple in Pa­lo Seco and in Port-of-Spain. "We con­tin­ue to take peo­ple who are lost. Who are you to rec­on­cile with?" he asked. Bal­lack said he did not know that the Ja­maat planned to over­throw the gov­ern­ment, or that mem­bers had been un­der­go­ing para­mil­i­tary train­ing, or had been stock­pil­ing arms and am­mu­ni­tion. Asked if he was ever trained to use a gun, he said he grew up on the Hug­gins' es­tate and be­gan us­ing his fa­ther's gun from the age of sev­en to shoot squir­rels and man­i­cous. He said he rode hors­es and was like John Wayne. Asked why, as a se­nior mem­ber, he didn't ask Ja­maat lead­ers ques­tions, he replied that a good Mus­lim does not ask ques­tions.

Com­mis­sion chair­man Sir David Sim­mons, in­ter­ven­ing, told Bal­lack he was hold­ing back and urged him to tell the com­mis­sion what he knew. Bal­lack, as he of­ten did while giv­ing ev­i­dence, re­spond­ed with a re­li­gious re­ply. "There are times in each of our lives that you have to de­fend cer­tain things. There are some things you keep be­tween your­self and your Cre­ator." He did dis­close, how­ev­er, that part of the rea­son for the up­ris­ing was that the Ja­maat got in­for­ma­tion there was a plot to kill the Imam and oth­er mem­bers. He said the Mus­limeen up­ris­ing was part­ly a case of "do them be­fore they do us". He told the com­mis­sion that the Ja­maat was hired by the US Drug En­force­ment Agency to guard a con­tain­er (be­lieved to be filled with drugs) at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex.

Re­call­ing scenes from Trinidad & To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT) where he played the role of body­guard for Bakr, Bal­lack said they were all pre­pared to go to par­adise by Sat­ur­day morn­ing. Swear­ing by Al­lah and his chil­dren, he said af­ter a few hours he be­came com­fort­able with death and was not even con­cerned about food, telling him­self the next time he eats would be "in the oth­er place". He said a DVD about Ay­a­tol­lah Khome­ni just hap­pened to fall in front of fel­low in­sur­gent Ja­maal Shabazz in­side TTT ti­tled, "Par­adise Post­poned".

Bakr re­port­ed­ly said, "It eh look like we mak­ing it to heav­en to­day. Like we have a post­pone­ment." As they re­alised they were not go­ing to par­adise, they fed the hostages what­ev­er food they could find and he him­self ate palm leaves from a plant in the TTT of­fice, Bal­lack told the com­mis­sion. "It was the on­ly thing I could see look­ing like a green veg­etable. It left a rack taste in my mouth but it did the job." Bal­lack told the com­mis­sion that af­ter he was ar­rest­ed he was charged for killing sev­en peo­ple in the Red House. He said he was nev­er there.