Is­rael B. Ra­jah-Khan SC, LLD (hon­oris causa)

Pres­i­dent, Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion

On Ju­ly 27, we marked 36 years since the repro­bate Yasin Abu Bakr and his 114 co­horts at­tempt­ed to vi­o­lent­ly over­throw the du­ly elect­ed con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. 

In my ca­pac­i­ty then as an al­der­man in the East St George Coun­ty Coun­cil (as it was then called), I moved a mo­tion call­ing up­on the coun­cil to cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly con­demn the bar­bar­ic at­tack up­on our Par­lia­ment and the sov­er­eign­ty of the State. 

The en­tire pre­sen­ta­tion of my mo­tion was unan­i­mous­ly passed and ac­cept­ed by the coun­cil. It was pub­lished in the Sun­day is­sue of the T&T Guardian on No­vem­ber 4, 1990. 

 At present, it ap­pears that all the so­cio-po­lit­i­cal con­di­tions which ex­ist­ed in 1990 are re­peat­ing them­selves to­day, and un­scrupu­lous peo­ple who are hun­gry for po­lit­i­cal pow­er can en­cour­age un­in­formed and ig­no­rant peo­ple to en­gage them­selves with them to over­throw the du­ly con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment of the day. 

 I stat­ed in the mo­tion the fol­low­ing: “Let me say right away that the vi­cious, bru­tal and evil at­tack on par­lia­ment, the high­est in­sti­tu­tion in this land, by Imam Abu Bakr and some of his fol­low­ers had ab­solute­ly noth­ing to do with the so-called suf­fer­ing of the mass­es in this coun­try…I ac­knowl­edge that there are poor peo­ple in this coun­try, I ac­knowl­edge that there are peo­ple who are suf­fer­ing in this coun­try—as in all oth­er coun­tries.

“The poor we will al­ways have with us…but by no stretch of the imag­i­na­tion can any sen­si­ble and re­spon­si­ble per­son say the con­di­tions which pre­vail in Trinidad and To­ba­go war­rant­ed the at­tempt to vi­o­lent­ly over­throw the du­ly elect­ed Gov­ern­ment, es­pe­cial­ly when we have fair and free elec­tions to in­stall a Gov­ern­ment.”

I point­ed out then that “we have no po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers in this coun­try, that we have free and fair elec­tions to elect a gov­ern­ment, an in­de­pen­dent and im­par­tial Ju­di­cia­ry, where cit­i­zens can sue even the du­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ment if the gov­ern­ment has com­mit­ted wrongs against any cit­i­zen.” 

I called up­on each and every mem­ber of coun­cil to put aside what­ev­er hate or prej­u­dice he or she might have been har­bour­ing, as I now call up­on the Op­po­si­tion mem­bers of our Par­lia­ment to do the same, as the pre­am­ble of our Con­sti­tu­tion recog­nis­es that men and in­sti­tu­tions re­main free on­ly when free­dom is found­ed up­on re­spect for moral and spir­i­tu­al val­ues and the rule of law. 

 The peo­ple of T&T in­stall and change a gov­ern­ment if nec­es­sary by bal­lots and not bul­lets. Now we are hear­ing hushed voic­es of the lat­ter. This is un­nec­es­sary, as it is dan­ger­ous to our democ­ra­cy and way of life.

Thus, I urge all cit­i­zens to be vig­i­lant and not take our democ­ra­cy for grant­ed.