Weapons seizure heightens Trinidad coup fears July 1, 2001 Posted: 4:34 PM EDT (2034 GMT)
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (Reuters) -- The prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, who has long warned of plots to topple his government, has reiterated there are serious threats to national security following a major arms seizure in the United States.
With a broad brush, Prime Minister Basdeo Panday has implicated a former insurrectionist group, the main political opposition party and trade union leaders of trying to destabilize his government.
Opponents have accused Panday of paranoia and diverting attention from problems in the government. But last month's seizure of an arms cache in Florida, as well as the arrest of a Trinidadian allegedly linked to an anarchist group that tried to topple a previous government, have intensified fears of unrest.
Panday has issued warnings on several occasions, vowing defiantly never to surrender to "insurrectionists, anarchists, gangsters and other criminals." He spoke out again last week of what he said was "a serious threat" to the southeastern Caribbean nation.
Panday, leading the ruling United National Congress administration for a second consecutive term, said massive quantities of illegal arms and ammunition were being organized for shipment and some had already been smuggled into the oil-rich, twin-island nation of 1.3 million people.
Renewed fears of coup "The anarchists who got away with arson, kidnapping and murder in 1990 are threatening to do it again," 68-year-old Panday said last week.
In July 1990, the Jamaat al Muslimeen, a predominantly Afro-Trinidadian group led by a former policeman tried to overthrow the government in a bloody six-day siege that killed 23 people.
The 114-member group held hostages, including then-Prime Minister Arthur Robinson, in the parliament and at the state-owned Trinidad and Tobago Television headquarters.
The Muslimeen members were absolved of treason, murder and kidnapping charges when a court ruled that an amnesty given to them during negotiations to end the siege was valid.
New fears of a coup plot have arisen in part from alleged irregularities in the December election that returned Panday to office, an election that aggravated racial tension in a population evenly divided between people of Indian and African descent.
Panday is the first prime minister of Indian descent.
Those fears where heightened further by the seizure in Miami two weeks ago of 60 AK-47 rifles and 10 machine guns with silencers and the arrest of a Trinidad-born U.S. resident, Keith Glaude, who said he was a member of the Muslimeen.
Attorney General Ramesh Maharaj said the guns were bound for Trinidad and Tobago. A second Trinidadian linked to the weapons and facing gun smuggling charges in the United States was identified as a Muslimeen member who took part in the 1990 coup attempt.
Maharaj said last week security was in place to thwart any attempted coup, adding, "I think people can feel very, very, safe."
Police also have beefed up security following reports that a religious group planned to bomb their stations, which have been barricaded with concrete and iron.
Panday accused the opposition People's National Movement of trying to incite its supporters and threatening the speaker of the House of Representatives who recently suspended two of its members from the House.
"They are talking about war, revolution and bloodshed," Panday said. He also has accused "hard-liner" trade union leaders of threatening explosions and eruptions and "ventilating incitements to anarchy.
The political opposition and trade union leaders deny the accusations against them. Opposition Leader Patrick Manning called them "red herrings" aimed at diverting attention from serious problems in the ruling party.
"It's not the first time he's accused us of trying this and it's not the first time he's been wrong," Manning said of Panday's most recent remarks made last Tuesday.
I somehow doubt the religious group referenced was Buddhist ...