Yvonne Ba­boolal

Her­bert Atwell, for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, planned to es­cape in an air­plane to Venezuela when the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen at­tempt­ed to over­throw the gov­ern­ment in 1990. Atwell's plans to ab­scond to Venezuela were dashed be­cause the pi­lot he asked to take him re­fused.

En­er­gy min­is­ter at the time, Atwell has be­come to be known over the years as the "prime min­is­ter" of the in­for­mal gov­ern­ment at the mil­i­tary's Camp Og­den who helped re­store the coun­try's democ­ra­cy while his col­leagues were be­ing held hostage in the Red House.

His es­cape plans were ex­posed yes­ter­day at the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the Ju­ly 27, 1990 in­sur­rec­tion by his for­mer po­lit­i­cal col­league, Lin­coln My­ers, a Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) min­is­ter at the time. "Atwell came very late," My­ers, one of the min­is­ters on the "out­side" who as­sist­ed in get­ting his col­leagues to­geth­er at Og­den, re­called.

"Word around the camp was that Atwell had been per­suad­ed not to take a plane to Venezuela," he said, putting it dis­creet­ly. "He was so con­cerned about the sit­u­a­tion tak­ing place that he was look­ing for a way out. But the pi­lot re­fused," My­ers added.

Com­mis­sion lead coun­sel Avory Sinanan, com­ment­ing on Atwell's sub­se­quent role at Camp Og­den, in­ter­ject­ed: "Atwell took charge. He be­came the prime min­is­ter of Og­den." My­ers said af­ter the Mus­limeen takeover he and his wife tried to reach all par­lia­men­tar­i­ans who were not in the Red House to get them to as­sem­ble at Og­den.

Fur­ther, there was a great deal of hes­i­ta­tion on the part of for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al An­tho­ny Smart, who was re­leased from Par­lia­ment when the Mus­limeen took over the Red House, to come to Camp Og­den, My­ers con­tin­ued. Smart, who hid in a room with three ladies dur­ing the in­va­sion, said at an ear­li­er ses­sion when Mus­lim rebels found them they did not know who he was and let him go.

He said he con­sid­ered this di­vine in­ter­ven­tion. My­ers told the com­mis­sion when he dis­cov­ered that Smart was not in the Red House he spent hours try­ing to reach him, to no avail. He said the at­tor­ney gen­er­al need­ed to be present for the mak­ing of cer­tain de­ci­sions, like plans to call a state of emer­gency.

He said af­ter sev­er­al hours of try­ing to reach Smart, via tele­phone, one army of­fi­cer, he iden­ti­fied as Bor­rel, told him: "I know where Smart is." My­ers said he an­gri­ly told Bor­rel to call Smart. "There was a great deal of hes­i­ta­tion on the part of Smart to come," he added. He said Smart sub­se­quent­ly ex­plained he hes­i­tat­ed be­cause he didn't know if there was a gun to My­ers' head when he asked him to come to Og­den.

My­ers was asked about ru­mours there were plans by some NAR min­is­ters dur­ing the coup d'etat to stage a palace coup and re­move prime min­is­ter Arthur NR Robin­son. He knew noth­ing about it, he replied, but not­ed there were "cer­tain that things went on that he was not aware of."

My­ers fur­ther de­nounced the "amnesty" signed by gov­ern­ment min­is­ters grant­i­ng the Mus­limeen in­sur­gents par­don. My­ers said he was privy to meet­ings at Og­den be­tween top le­gal lu­mi­nar­ies, in­clud­ing for­mer chief jus­tice Michael de la Bastide and Mar­tin Daly SC, and gov­ern­ment min­is­ters about a dis­cus­sion doc­u­ment that was to be sent to the Mus­limeen.

He added: "Then act­ing pres­i­dent, Em­manuel Carter, said he would ini­tial a copy and send it to the Mus­limeen for dis­cus­sion. It was clear in my mind the doc­u­ment did not rep­re­sent an amnesty." For­mer NAR par­lia­men­tar­i­an Mervyn As­sam, who was a Red House hostage, will tes­ti­fy to­day.