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Trinidadian Islamic Opposition Leader Wants Coup
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, March 17 (IslamOnline) - Yasin Abu Bakr, leader of the Jamaat al-Muslimeen in Trinidad told local radio that he is planning a coup in the country.
Abu Bakr's statements came after President Ray Robinson appointed seven defeated ruling party politicians as ministers in order to ward off an escalating political crisis.
Prime Minister Basdeo Panday had demanded that defeated politicians from his ruling United National Congress party be appointed since he has the right to name government ministers. Robinson at first resisted the demanded but later on agreed to it after intense pressure from the nation's business community.
Abu Bakr, whose group had launched a failed coup attempt in 1990, said, "We are going to remove the UNC from government. I promise you that."
Abu Bakr has just returned from a trip to Libya. He is also a member of World Islamic Peoples Leadership organization, of whom Libyan leader Moammer Ghaddafi is a patron.
There were also reports in late January that the Jamaat al-Muslimeen was organizing a coup and that it was smuggling illegal arms.
When asked about this, Nashir Mohammed, a spokesman for the organization told IslamOnline, "The report you have read were mere games being played by the prime minister of the country who is trying to force the president to swear in a minister of national security who was defeated in the last general elections [December 2000].
"As for illegal arms, they are common. And as for training, it continues till the Day of Judgment. And an attempted coup...Allah knows best."
In the 1990 coup attempt, 34 people, including a government minister, were killed when Jamaat al-Muslimeen tried to overthrow the government led by Robinson, then prime minister.
Abu Bakr was jailed for several years after that. When noted Islamic scholar Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips visited him in prison he urged him to refrain from violence.
Philips reportedly told him, "I hope you've learned your lesson," that he would take a more positive and useful direction.
Because God has blessed him with, as they say, the gift of gab…it would be good if he used it to encourage people to do what is good and what is right, to improve the quality of their lives rather than going into confrontation with the government," Philips added.
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