By IRENE MEDINA Thursday, July 26 2007

CONGRESS of the People (COP) political leader Winston Dookeran, who played a major part in the events surrounding the July 27, 1990 attempted coup by members of the Jamaat al Muslimeen is to mount a platform at a mass meeting of the party at Harris Promenade tomorrow to speak about the insurrection.

He will be joined by COP security advisor Captain Gary Griffith, who was at the time a member of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force and Joseph Toney, then Minister of National Security.

The mass meeting is the COP’s way of marking the 17th anniversary of the attempted coup.

Dookeran was the then Minister of Mobilisation and Planning and was held hostage at the Red House before being released to assume the role of deputy prime minister while the constitutionally elected Prime Minister ANR Robinson remained a captive in the Red House.

COP Secretary/Public Relations Nicole Dyer-Griffith said the party will also accept the invitation to attend the wreath laying ceremony at the Red House but will have its own mass meeting primarily to observe the coup attempt.

Yesterday, Parliament issued a media release indicating that at 9.45 am tomorrow, the 17th Anniversary of the coup will be observed with “a wreath-laying ceremony” at the Eternal Flame at the Red House.

Invitations for the ceremony which is being held jointly with the National Alliance for Reconstruction, have gone out to all MPs, diplomats, members of the Armed Forces and to several people who were part of the NAR government at the time.

Former Attorney General Anthony Smart confirmed his invitation, as well as political leader of the UNC, Basdeo Panday.

But while Smart has indicated his willingness to attend, Panday was noncommital saying, “those of us who can attend, will attend.”

He said the party was more involved with the visit of Black Civil Rights activist Rev Al Sharpton for the UNC’s Emancipation Day celebrations.

NAR leader Dr Carson Charles said he felt it was time there is some kind of inquiry into the events of July 27, 1990.

He said while he did not subscribe to a Commission of Inquiry, there must be some investigation of the event.