Richard Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says a full state fu­ner­al is to be held for for­mer pres­i­dent and prime min­is­ter Arthur NR Robin­son who died yes­ter­day af­ter ail­ing for months.Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the dis­clo­sure fol­low­ing a 45-minute vis­it to Robin­son's Eller­slie Park, Mar­aval, home yes­ter­day, where she met with his daugh­ter Ann Mar­garet Robin­son and his grand­daugh­ter Anush­ka.

Robin­son, 87, who was this coun­try's third prime min­is­ter and pres­i­dent, passed away at St Clair Med­ical Cen­tre at 6 am. He was tak­en there one month ago and died from kid­ney fail­ure.Per­sad-Bisses­sar could not give the date of the fu­ner­al but in­di­cat­ed that it would be in To­ba­go as it was Robin­son's wish to be buried in the is­land of his birth."Those dates have not been worked out be­cause Mr Robin­son's wish was to be buried in To­ba­go and the Jazz Fes­ti­val is com­ing up so we will fac­tor that in when we meet," she added.

The Prime Min­is­ter said she would re­mem­ber Robin­son for his courage and his call to the army to "at­tack with full force" against the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen in­sur­gents, when he and oth­er Cab­i­net min­is­ters were held hostage dur­ing a six-day siege at the Par­lia­ment build­ing in Ju­ly 1990.She said the na­tion should be in­spired by his courage, grit, bril­liance, fam­i­ly life and his de­ter­mi­na­tion."At­tack with full force we must nev­er for­get," she said.

Big fu­ner­al plans

She said a state fu­ner­al will al­so be held in Trinidad so that the en­tire coun­try could get a chance to pay their fi­nal re­spect to a man con­sid­ered a gi­ant of pub­lic life and ser­vice to the so­ci­ety. "We do plan to have a full state fu­ner­al with all the ho­n­ours be­fit­ting a great man like Mr Robin­son," Per­sad-Bisses­sar told re­porters out­side Robin­son's house.She said a team, in­clud­ing the For­eign Af­fairs and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ters, was set up to plan the fu­ner­al arrange­ments.

Flags were or­dered flown at half-mast hours af­ter his death was an­nounced yes­ter­day.Among those who vis­it­ed the fam­i­ly yes­ter­day with the PM were Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith and Vice-Chief of De­fence Staff An­tho­ny Phillip Spencer, who both served as aide-de-camp to Robin­son.Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said Robin­son was her per­son­al men­tor, added he was al­so "a hero, icon and great son of our soil."

Plans are be­ing fi­nalised for Robin­son's body to lie in state, pos­si­bly at the Par­lia­ment Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, and at a venue in To­ba­go, she said. Sev­er­al Caribbean lead­ers and in­ter­na­tion­al dig­ni­taries are ex­pect­ed to at­tend his fu­ner­al.

Rel­a­tives com­posed

The PM said Ann-Mar­garet and Anush­ka were in grief but they de­tailed dur­ing her vis­it yes­ter­day some of the spe­cial mo­ments and ex­pe­ri­ences they shared with him.Robin­son's daugh­ter and grand-daugh­ter, Anush­ka, were said to be com­posed yes­ter­day as they mourned his pass­ing and Robin­son's for­mer in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions of­fi­cer and le­gal ad­vis­er, De­bra Cory­at-Pat­ton, is pro­vid­ing sup­port in their time of need.

The PM said she as­sured them of all the nec­es­sary sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment dur­ing the pe­ri­od of mourn­ing and sub­se­quent­ly.Robin­son was the on­ly cit­i­zen to hold the of­fice of chair­man of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, prime min­is­ter and pres­i­dent.Robin­son was ail­ing for sev­er­al years but on March 8 he was tak­en to St Clair Med­ical Cen­tre com­plain­ing of feel­ing un­well. He was treat­ed for a kid­ney al­i­ment but suc­cumb yes­ter­day af­ter com­pli­ca­tions sev­er­al hours be­fore.

Dur­ing the 44th ses­sion of the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in 1989, Robin­son pro­posed the cre­ation of a In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC) to ad­dress trans-na­tion­al crimes. The In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court was in­au­gu­rat­ed in 2002 to hear cas­es of crimes against hu­man­i­ty.

Glow­ing trib­ute

Robin­son, an at­tor­ney, was award­ed the coun­try's high­est award, then the Trin­i­ty Cross, the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty's high­est award, the Or­der of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty, and the To­ba­go Medal of Ho­n­our, the is­land's high­est ho­n­our.For­mer pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards said the world owed Robin­son a debt of grat­i­tude."He was a good man who served with in­tegri­ty and com­mit­ment. His lega­cy will live on," Richards said.He said Robin­son dis­played com­pas­sion and spoke glow­ing­ly of his pur­suit to es­tab­lish the ICC.

"We have lost a fine in­di­vid­ual and my heart goes out to his fam­i­ly and loved ones," Richards added.Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, said Robin­son, who was a found­ing mem­ber of the PNM, served the na­tion with dis­tinc­tion and did so dur­ing the coun­try's dark­est hours dur­ing the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup.

ICC pres­i­dent Sang-Hyun Song, in a state­ment on the in­ter­net yes­ter­day, said: "It is with great sor­row that I learned of the pass­ing of for­mer Pres­i­dent Robin­son. He will be re­mem­bered by many as the 'grand­fa­ther' of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court."Ja­maat al Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr, who led that coup at­tempt, said Robin­son had achieved a lot aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly but as a politi­cian he did noth­ing for the coun­try.

He said he would tell his side of the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup soon and his de­ci­sion to speak out had noth­ing to do with Robin­son's pass­ing.