Yvonne Ba­boolal

None of the arms and am­mu­ni­tion found by the po­lice in the Rin­con For­est, Las Cuevas last Thurs­day were weapon­ry used by Ja­maat al Mus­limeen in­sur­gents in the Ju­ly 1990 at­tempt­ed over­throw of the coun­try. Brigadier Ralph Brown, tes­ti­fy­ing be­fore the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the coup at­tempt yes­ter­day, dis­missed any link be­tween the 15 high-pow­ered firearms and more than 10,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion found by the po­lice. The cache of arms buried two miles in the Rin­con For­est is the biggest arms haul to date made by law en­force­ment agen­cies in their war on crime.

Po­lice were work­ing on the the­o­ry that the arms and am­mu­ni­tion found in the Rin­con For­est be­longed to a well known drug and arms deal­er with­in the North-East­ern Di­vi­sion. Brown, who was a com­mand­ing of­fi­cer in the reg­i­ment at the time of the coup d'etat, was ques­tioned by com­mis­sion­er Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att on a news­pa­per re­port that the arms were part of the ar­se­nal used by the Mus­limeen in the 1990 in­sur­rec­tion. "It was not part of the weapon­ry that was hand­ed over (to the po­lice in 1990). "I don't think they were the weapons that was used in the Red House. "All were hand­ed over to the po­lice by se­r­i­al num­ber," Brown said, dis­miss­ing any sug­ges­tion that they got out.

Brown said, how­ev­er, he does not know if the weapons were de­stroyed or stored. Fur­ther ques­tioned by Ma­habir-Wy­att, Brown re­vealed af­ter the 1990 in­sur­rec­tion, the mil­i­tary got in­for­ma­tion that the Ja­maat got mon­ey for their weapons from Sau­di Ara­bia. "The mon­ey was trans­ferred to a bank in Flori­da," he said.

Brown said af­ter the sur­ren­der of the in­sur­gents, the mil­i­tary made an in­ven­to­ry of the weapons and saw that they were bought in the Unit­ed States. He said the weapons came through the Point Lisas port. A Cus­toms of­fi­cers with links to the Ja­maat left Port-of-Spain and went to Point Lisas to clear them, he told the en­quiry. "They were even­tu­al­ly stored in a Trinci­ty ware­house." Brown said the weapons were orig­i­nal­ly se­cured by the mil­i­tary but were hand­ed over to the po­lice for the Mus­limeen's trea­son tri­al.

"I don't know if they were de­stroyed or stored."

In a sep­a­rate mat­ter, Brown said he was sur­prised and dis­ap­point­ed that re­tired head of the Spe­cial Branch Dal­ton Har­vey had in­tel­li­gence on the Ja­maat pri­or to 1990 and did not pass it on to the mil­i­tary. The en­quiry's lead coun­sel Avory Sinanan told Brown that Har­vey, in a wit­ness state­ment he sub­mit­ted to the com­mis­sion, said it was per­ceived that the Ja­maat, un­der the guise of so­cial work, con­duct­ed crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties. "I am very sur­prised and dis­ap­point­ed that the po­lice had in­for­ma­tion and didn't pass it on. "They didn't trust the Chief of De­fence Staff (Joseph Theodore at the time). They didn't trust me. Some­where along the line was this lack of trust," Brown said. Ex­pos­ing a rift be­tween the po­lice and the army dur­ing the takeover cri­sis, Sinanan fur­ther dis­closed that Har­vey in his state­ment said the po­lice were side­lined by the mil­i­tary and rel­e­gat­ed to a back up func­tion.

Sinanan said Har­vey claimed that he and oth­er se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers went to Camp Og­den, the main mil­i­tary base dur­ing the at­tempt­ed coup, but the army was not in­ter­est­ed in hav­ing any dis­cus­sions with them. Har­vey said they went back to the po­lice bar­racks and stayed there un­til the end of the in­sur­rec­tion and didn't think there was any co-or­di­na­tion be­tween the two groups. He said they were not ques­tioned about any in­tel­li­gence about the Ja­maat or about any tac­ti­cal mat­ters. To this Brown replied, "I don't know what to say. That is Har­vey's po­si­tion." Brown said as far as he knew Har­vey and oth­er se­nior of­fi­cers stayed at Camp Og­den for some time and he was sure they would have had dis­cus­sions with Theodore.

He said at the time mil­i­tary in­tel­li­gence was "in­ward look­ing" and they had no re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ex­ter­nal in­tel­li­gence.

"If Har­vey, as head of the Spe­cial Branch, had in­for­ma­tion about Ju­ly 27 I ex­pect­ed he would have shared it with us. "I didn't think he would just sit on it be­cause we didn't ask. If he kept it to him­self, it is an in­dict­ment against him, not the army for not ask­ing." In an­oth­er mat­ter, Brown ap­peared to be­come vis­i­bly up­set over state­ments by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ad­vi­sor to the Prime Min­is­ter Capt Gary Grif­fith that the army was not prop­er­ly trained for the at­tempt­ed takeover. In a wit­ness state­ment, Grif­fith point­ed out sev­er­al de­fi­cien­cies in the army dur­ing the cri­sis. He said sol­diers were ver­bal­ly abu­sive to cit­i­zens and said all sol­diers should not have been de­ployed at Camp Og­den but some should have re­mained at their bases as back up.Grif­fith al­so sup­port­ed Capt Carl Al­fon­so's ear­li­er tes­ti­mo­ny that Col Hugh Vi­dale, in charge of Camp Og­den, should not have been de­mand­ing so many rounds of am­mu­ni­tion from stores.

Brown dis­missed Grif­fith as an "of­fi­cer re­cruit" fresh from the Sand­hurst Mil­i­tary Acad­e­my with lit­tle knowl­edge of the lo­cal mil­i­tary's ex­pe­ri­ence. As for de­ploy­ing all of­fi­cers to Camp Og­den, he said, "I am sim­ply amazed. "That state­ment is com­ing out of a book. We had a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion and our first in­ten­tion was to con­tain it. "We put men out there and sort­ed them out af­ter."

An ar­ray of for­mer mil­i­tary and oth­er law en­force­ment per­son­nel are lined up to tes­ti­fy in this ses­sion at the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the coup.

They in­clude:

Capt Gary Grif­fith

For­mer head of the Spe­cial An­ti-crime Unit of T&T, Pe­ter Joseph

For­mer Coast Guard Com­man­der Richard Kelshall

Re­tired head of the Spe­cial Branch Dal­ton Har­vey

Next week's ses­sion will be held in cam­era.