Richard Lord

As trib­utes poured in and the na­tion­al flag was low­ered to half mast yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said a state fu­ner­al will be held for for­mer pres­i­dent Sir El­lis Clarke. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said so in an in­ter­view with re­porters af­ter she signed a con­do­lence book which was opened at the Par­lia­ment Build­ing yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. She told re­porters a com­mit­tee com­pris­ing of­fi­cials from the Min­istries of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, For­eign Af­fairs and Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter will work out the de­tails of the state fu­ner­al.

Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards, House Speak­er Wade Mark and For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan were among the oth­er sig­na­to­ries yes­ter­day. The con­do­lence book will be open to the pub­lic from 6 am to 6 pm every day, un­til the date of the fu­ner­al, which is yet to be an­nounced. But fam­i­ly sources of Sir El­lis said yes­ter­day that no de­ci­sion had been tak­en on the PM's of­fer. The spokesman al­so said fu­ner­al arrange­ments were be­ing fi­nalised. No date was giv­en up to late yes­ter­day.

Con­do­lence books will be open to the pub­lic dur­ing the same hours from Mon­day at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, Ari­ma, Ch­agua­nas and Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tions and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly of­fice in Scar­bor­ough. Sir El­lis died on Thurs­day evening, two days af­ter he reached 93 at his home in Fair­ways, Mar­aval, af­ter suf­fer­ing a mas­sive stroke on No­vem­ber 24. The Prime Min­is­ter said: "The Gov­ern­ment will give this great son of the soil and the ver­i­ta­ble grand­fa­ther of our na­tion a state fu­ner­al."

She said that was be­fit­ting "his sta­tus and ac­com­plish­ments as one of Trinidad and To­ba­go's great­est le­gal and aca­d­e­m­ic minds and a con­trib­u­tor to na­tion build­ing."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added that the na­tion­al flag will be flown at half mast un­til Sir El­lis's fu­ner­al. The Prime Min­is­ter said she would like to es­tab­lish a foun­da­tion for Sir El­lis as a fit­ting trib­ute to his mem­o­ry. She said Sir El­lis was "a great con­sti­tu­tion­al lawyer, and I would want to look for some­thing in that area...maybe some foun­da­tion with re­spect to con­sti­tu­tion­al mat­ters." Ad­mit­ting that no de­ci­sion had been made on the mat­ter as yet, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "If I were to make a sug­ges­tion, I would want to see some­thing like that." In a pre­pared state­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said be­cause of Sir El­lis's pass­ing, "Trinidad and To­ba­go is now bereft of one of its long-stand­ing found­ing he­roes."

She said his pass­ing was a "tremen­dous loss" to the peo­ple of T&T. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Sir El­lis's "vi­able and cru­cial draft­ing of our coun­try's 1962 Con­sti­tu­tion" was per­haps his great­est con­tri­bu­tion to T&T. "Un­til he fell ill last month, Sir El­lis re­mained the ac­tive ex­em­plar of dig­ni­ty and pa­tri­o­tism and our na­tion and cit­i­zens are tru­ly for­ev­er in­debt­ed to him," she in­sist­ed. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said T&T had lost "a na­tion­al hero but we should be as­sured that while great peo­ple must die, death can nev­er kill their names."