By FRANCIS JOSEPH
Clive Lancelot Small, who participated in the failed 1990 coup, has died.
Better known as Lance Small, or Olive Enyahooma El, was a senior elder at the Jamaat Al Muslimeen in Mucurapo.
His funeral took place at the Muslimeen compound on Thursday. Burial is carded at the Munroe Road Muslim Cemetery.
So who was Lance Small? Many would not know it, but he was a Calypso Tent Manager who managed the Tent Culture House. And he died during Calypso History Month.
He was one of the 114 members of the Jamaat arrested on August 1, 1990 for his role in the storming of the Red House and TTT on the evening of July 27, 1990. He was charged with murder and treason among other offences. But he never served time for the criminal charges.
He along with the others were released in 1992 when Justice Clebert Brooks ruled that the Jamaat members were the beneficiaries of an amnesty. Although the London-based Privy Council ruled that that decision was wrong, the Law Lords did not order the re-arrest of the insurgents.
WEAPONS CHARGES
But in 2002, Small was arrested in Trinidad. Why?
He was wanted in the United States for conspiracy to export weapons – AK-47 rifles and Mac-10 Machine guns to Trinidad in 2001.
He was extradited to Florida in 2004 and in 2006, he was sentenced to 151 months in prison before the Florida District Court. His appeal to the US Court of Appeal 11th Circuit, on November 8, 2006, was dismissed. The Appeal Court found that the sentence was not unreasonable.
While in the US, Small was kept in a prison called Little Guantanamo. It was also referred to as “Gitmo North” – real name the Communication Management Unit operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
In 2009, Small sent a letter to the Guardian newspaper, concerning the prison conditions. Small said there were 30 Muslim prisoners from 15 countries. “I share my tragic story before my countrymen in Trinidad and Tobago, and all the world to see,” he said.
Small said he was the victim of political persecution. “On July 27, 1990, I stood shoulder to shoulder with a group of Muslims as part of a political movement to end the tyranny and injustice against fellow Muslims. The civil uprising ended with an amnesty deal to all those participating. However, despite high court ruling protecting us, the government had other plans for the country’s Muslim community.
“Twenty years later, I am a political prisoner, held captive in the US, lonely, isolated and sequestered away thousands of miles from my wife, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”
Small said after he was released with 113 others for their roles in the attempted coup, he travelled to the United States in 1993, establishing a small cosmetics company in Brooklyn. He said due to complications with official documentation and the long, expensive legal battle with the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service, he returned to Trinidad in 1998, leaving behind his wife, children and grandchildren.
Small said while in Trinidad, he formed an international collection company with a business partner. “I later found that this company attracted the attention of US intelligence, although the business was completely lawful and legitimately profitable,” he said.
Small said in 2004, the T&T Government fabricated a conspiracy of weapons charges against him, accusing him of trying to purchase weapons to import into Trinidad.
The former Gonzales resident said he was eventually extradited to the US in 2004. He said an attempt was made to coerce him into implicating and framing Jamaat leader, Yasin Abu Bakr.
He said: “I was subjected to a circus–a politically-charged trial–and was falsely convicted for events that never took place. I was then subjected to an exaggerated and harsh sentence of 151 months in the US Federal Prison.”
He said all appeals had been denied without explanation. Small said despite his age and nature of the charges, he was secreted away and persecuted even further with other Muslim prisoners, being placed in the old death row cells in Indiana.
Small served his prison sentence in the US. He was later released and deported to Trinidad.
Prior to him being extradited, Small said he won a wrongful arrest case against the State.
He said “I was awarded over $350,000 in damages for having been illegally arrested and detained. But I was not able to collect my money before I was packed off unceremoniously to the States at the behest of the US Attorney General.
“On my return almost a dozen years later, I naturally sought to collect the monies owed to me in the sum of $357.154.75. At the High Court, I was told to check with the Office of the Attorney General. I did. Day after day. Week after week. All I have been getting is the runaround.
“The staff there say that there is documentation to show that a cheque in my name was received. There is, they say, no documentation available to tell me the date of receipt or where the cheque is currently lodged. And they can’t tell me where such documentation can be found.”
Lance Small is dead at 92.
