Richard Lord

On­ly cit­i­zens with of­fi­cial in­vi­ta­tions will be able to at­tend to­mor­row's State fu­ner­al for Sir El­lis Clarke at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) in Port-of-Spain, ac­cord­ing to For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan. "The fu­ner­al is by in­vi­ta­tion in­to the hall," Ram­bachan told re­porters out­side the Red House, adding that tick­ets were due to be dis­trib­uted to the pub­lic from af­ter lunch yes­ter­day. "There are about 700 in­vi­ta­tions avail­able," he added.

The min­is­ter al­so re­vealed: "We are set­ting up big screens in San Fer­nan­do, To­ba­go, Wood­ford Sqau­re and out­side NA­PA in the Memo­r­i­al Park, so the pub­lic can view the ser­vice." A re­lease from the min­is­ter lat­er in the day ad­vised that cit­i­zens who want­ed to at­tend the fu­ner­al could col­lect in­vi­ta­tions on a first come, first serve ba­sis at NA­PA's box of­fice from 1.30 pm yes­ter­day. Ram­bachan said it was ex­pect­ed em­ploy­ers would al­low "work­ers to view it on tele­vi­sion which will be broad­cast live on all lo­cal sta­tions."

He said the en­tire na­tion should par­tic­i­pate in some way in the fu­ner­al.

There will be a pri­vate fu­ner­al ser­vice for Sir El­lis at the Church of the As­sump­tion, Mar­aval, from 9.30 to­mor­row morn­ing. Bur­ial will take place, fol­low­ing the 11.30 am State fu­ner­al at NA­PA, at the Lapey­rouse Ceme­tery, Port-of-Spain. Ram­bachan not­ed that Sir El­lis and the late Dr Er­ic Williams "led the tran­si­tion (of T&T) from colo­nial­ism to an in­de­pen­dent, free-think­ing peo­ple and re­pub­lic." He urged cit­i­zens not to over­look the for­mer Pres­i­dent's "con­tri­bu­tion to con­sti­tu­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. To the end he was com­ment­ing on the Con­sti­tu­tion," he added.

Sir El­lis' body will again lie in State at the Red House to­day from 6 am to 6 pm. Mean­while, at pre­cise­ly 9.28 yes­ter­day morn­ing, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, wear­ing a black dress and dark sun­glass­es, led a team of Cab­i­net Min­is­ters and oth­er diplo­mats in a pub­lic view­ing of Sir El­lis' cas­ket, which was draped in the na­tion­al flag, at the ro­tun­da of the Red House, Port-of-Spain. She was fol­lowed by House Speak­er Wade Mark, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Brigadier John Sandy, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney.

Pe­ter Clarke, son of Sir El­lis, his wife and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers, were on hand to greet mourn­ers. Sir El­lis died on De­cem­ber 30, two days af­ter he cel­e­brat­ed his 93rd birth­day. He suf­fered a mas­sive stroke on No­vem­ber 24 and nev­er re­cov­ered.