The combined advice of the respondents got me there.
Swiss army knife short blade to cut off the plastic fasteners to
remove the inner liner.

Could then see that the power lock actuator was stuck in the way of
allowing the lock mechanism to work. Removed the actuator and now the
non-powered lock is capable once again of actuating the latch.

I've repaired power lock actuators before (talk about adventures in
figuring-it-out!) and I'll just "suffer" with manual locks now.
Opens... locks... good enough for me.

Thanks for the assist.

At 9:28 AM -0600 3/22/14, OlRivrRat wrote:
>       There is a possibility that this issue is related to the rest
>of the CentralLockingSystem not working
>
>properly ~ On my '90, if the FrontDoors are not Unlocked then the
>Key has NoEffect in the RearHatchLock ~
>
>
>               ORR ~ DeanB
>
>On 22 Mar , 2014, at 8:19 AM, Grungy wrote:
>
>>  The rear hatch lock on my '89 Carat has failed locked.
>  > I can't open it with the key.
>>
>  > Any tips on how to get the hatch open?
>>  Haven't tried to peel the hatch liner off yet (with it closed).
>>  I can replace the lock if I can get it open, provided that I can
>>find a part.
>  > (Too bad I already sold the one that I had from my parted-out '90.)

--

bcnu - Grungy  (Seabrook, TX)  opinions are just that.obviously.
'60 dddPanel '69 Bug '89 Carat '11 Jetta SportWagon TDI
g r u n g y AT g r u n g y DOT c o m