By DARCEL CHOY Wednesday, July 28 2010

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PAST AND PRESENT: Past chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC) Christopher Thomas (left) relaxed with present chairman Nizam Mohammed at yeste...

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AS THE country marked the 20th anniversary of the Jamaat al Muslimeen’s failed coup on July 27, 1990, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday said never again should a small group of dissidents believe the only way to air their discontent is through violence and terror.

She was speaking at the wreath laying ceremony at the cenotaph of the Red House, Abercromby Street, Port-of-Spain. She said as more years pass, it must be resolved that the nation must never be drawn into the harm of 1990 again.

“The democratic process allows for freedom of expression and not freedom to terrorise, it is our constitutional right to have our say,” she said. Persad-Bissessar said that today, fathers, mothers and siblings still ask why, the coup happened but in time she believes that they will find peace.

“That is why the government took the decision that we should have an inquiry into the event of July 27, 1990. Not just to bring closure, not just to bring feeling but to find out why so we could take a new step that is necessary so it would never happen again,” she said. Later on, the Prime Minister indicated the commission of inquiry would consist of three people, who will have a military background, a social and psychological background and a legal background. She added that more would be revealed at the weekly post-Cabinet meeting at her office in St Clair.

Also speaking at the ceremony was communications expert and former hostage Dennis McComie, who struggled as he fought back tears, while saying it was important that the country does not forget the incidents of 1990.

“We cannot and must not forget our passage from the relative peace our country enjoyed before the violence of 1990. If we forget it, we are doomed to repeat it,” he said. McComie said that the contribution of citizens who chose to be brave during those times should be celebrated. “We must be mindful of the past but focussed upon and determined to build our future, a future characterised by freedom, equality, harmony, justice, love and peace,” he said. At the interfaith service at the Trinity Cathedral Revered Knolly Clarke in his sermon said the coup was a negative event that must never happen again.

“We all have to be alert and vigilant, this is not the business of the protective services, it is our business, it is our responsibility of all people in this nation,” he said. He said the country has become brutally evil as so many brutal acts have been taking place in the country and assured the religious organisation would help.

“We at the IRO (Inter-Religious organisation) will help in working in schools, in the neighbourhoods in order to deal with this train of violence, this runaway horse,” he said.