Little Guyana reacts to JFK plot

Washington Post:

In the heart of the Queens neighborhood known as Little Guyana, Mohamed Sattaur stood Sunday over his plate of deep-fried cassava, wearing an expression of disbelief. Like many of his neighbors, Sattaur, 46, a Muslim from Guyana, was stunned by the news that men from his country and faith had allegedly plotted to bomb fuel tanks and pipelines at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

"Before this, we got nothing to do with that terrorism," he said in a Caribbean lilt. "I could care less about what happens in the Middle East. We're kind of a peaceful people. . . . Guyanese are not like that."

One day after federal authorities said they broke up a terrorist plot by radical Muslims from Guyana and from Trinidad and Tobago, many in New York's small but tightly knit Caribbean Muslim community expressed emotions raging from outrage to disbelief. Experts, meanwhile, continued to debate how plausible it would have been for the uncovered cell to carry out the alleged attack.

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What seemed more disturbing to observers was the apparent determination of Defreitas to hook up with Islamic radicals abroad and his passion to cause as much damage and loss of life as possible.

The two men arrested in Trinidad are both Shiite Muslim imams, according to media reports from the Caribbean nation. In the federal indictment, the four men are alleged to have sought out the help of Trinidad-based Jamaat al-Muslimeen (JAM), a Sunni group made up largely of converted Black Muslims.

Those familiar with JAM describe it as part criminal gang, part sect. In addition to staging a failed 1990 coup against Trinidad and Tobago's government, it allegedly has ties to kidnapping, extortion and murder rings. But it has mainly confined activities domestically, leading experts to describe a possible international conspiracy as "out of character."

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JAM's leader, Yasin Abu Bakr, is facing legal troubles of his own in Trinidad. Recently cleared of one set of criminal charges, he is about to go on trial for sedition, related to an alleged campaign to extort money from other Muslim groups. He is also battling a $32 million government fine related to property disputes, according to Raoul Pantin, a former Trinidadian TV reporter who was taken hostage by JAM during the 1990 coup attempt and who wrote a book on the siege.

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"This is something I cannot comprehend," said Zameer Sattaur, 41, the imam of Masjid Al-Abidin, the mosque at the heart of the neighborhood, which he says draws as many as 1,000 people to prayer. "Guyanese people here do not support anything of such nature, and we will not condone such things."

If all Muslims responded to charges like this their religion would not be facing the massive loss or respect that it has over the passed six years. This is how responsible people react to the nonsense of the terrorist. Too often the opposite happens where Imams become the preachers of hate and teh instigators of Friday afternoon tantrums.