Yvonne Ba­boolal

Coup Com­mis­sion 214

There has been yet an­oth­er call, this time in the clos­ing stages of the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the Ju­ly 1990 up­ris­ing, for in­sur­rec­tion leader Abu Bakr, for­mer prime min­is­ters Patrick Man­ning and Bas­deo Pan­day, and for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Her­bert Atwell to give ev­i­dence.

The call was made yes­ter­day by Raphael Cum­ber­batch, who worked in Par­lia­ment for al­most two decades and served as act­ing clerk in Par­lia­ment and was held hostage when the Mus­limeen in­vad­ed the House.He added: "I feel a de­gree of re­gret. I sense there is a lot of in­for­ma­tion they can bring to the com­mis­sion," he said.

But com­mis­sion chair­man Sir David Sim­mons told Cum­ber­batch he should not feel re­gret as yet. "I don't think you should ex­press re­gret yet," he said.

Sim­mons said be­fore the close of the en­quiry, maybe af­ter the next ses­sion, of­fers would be made to the gen­tle­men against whom ad­verse com­ments were made to come and tes­ti­fy."Salmon let­ters are be­ing pre­pared to be sent out to var­i­ous peo­ple against whom ad­verse com­ments were made," he said.

Salmon let­ters in­form any par­ty against whom an al­le­ga­tion may be made at an en­quiry of these al­le­ga­tions and the ev­i­dence sup­port­ing them.There have been calls by sev­er­al oth­er wit­ness­es through­out the en­quiry for Bakr, Man­ning and Pan­day to give ev­i­dence.

Se­nior mem­bers of the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen who tes­ti­fied, like Ja­mal Shabazz and Loris Bal­lack, have de­ferred ques­tions, posed to them by the com­mis­sion, to their leader Bakr.For­mer Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) prime min­is­ter Arthur NR Robin­son, who was held hostage by the Mus­limeen in­sur­gents in the Red House and shot and wound­ed, al­so made a sim­i­lar sug­ges­tion to the com­mis­sion.

Robin­son, who was wheeled in­to the court last year to give ev­i­dence and had to use a hear­ing aid, said he had no "hard ev­i­dence" con­cern­ing Man­ning's im­pli­ca­tion in the coup at­tempt but it was re­port­ed to him in such a man­ner that he thought it should be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly.

Glo­ria Hen­ry, an­oth­er for­mer NAR MP, who gave ev­i­dence at the en­quiry, said she saw Man­ning chat­ting with a group of men in a cor­ri­dor near the Par­lia­ment cham­ber be­fore the 4.30 pm tea break. He picked up his brief­case and left short­ly af­ter.

Man­ning suf­fered a stroke last year and has been out of the lime­light since.