Richard Lord

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan says the peo­ple of T&T will be mak­ing a state­ment of grat­i­tude at this morn­ing's state fu­ner­al for Sir El­lis Clarke at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) in Port-of-Spain. Last rites for the coun­try's first Pres­i­dent will be­gin with a pri­vate ser­vice at the Church of the As­sump­tion in Mar­aval at 9.30 am, fol­lowed by the state fu­ner­al at NA­PA at 11.30 am.

Ram­bachan an­nounced de­tails of the state fu­ner­al dur­ing yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann's.

He said a state fu­ner­al is filled with cer­e­mo­ny and pro­to­col and while we "do not have an of­fi­cial state pro­to­col hand­out or book­let, we have main­tained in­ter­na­tion­al pro­to­cols and we would be adding (cul­tur­al and so­ci­ety) as­pects the pop­u­la­tion can iden­ti­fy with and will be very proud of. "This state fu­ner­al is al­so a state­ment about our­selves as a coun­try and as a peo­ple...It gives us an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­press grat­i­tude to a man who has con­tributed in no small way to the af­fairs of this coun­try," he said.

Ram­bachan said as the last Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al and first Pres­i­dent of T&T, Sir El­lis "led the (T&T) tran­si­tion from the rem­nants of colo­nial­ism in­to in­de­pen­dence and re­pub­li­can sta­tus. "He has had an in­te­gral role to play in the con­sti­tu­tion­al de­vel­op­ment of T&T so­cial­ly and po­lit­i­cal­ly...He, in his own way, added val­ue to this coun­try," he said. The na­tion­al an­them will not be played at the start of the fu­ner­al ser­vice but at the end.

Arch­bish­op Ed­ward Gilbert will be the Chief Cel­e­brant and will de­liv­er the homi­ly at the state fu­ner­al.

Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie "will be de­liv­er­ing trib­utes" dur­ing the state fu­ner­al, Ram­bachan re­vealed. In ad­di­tion, there will be spir­i­tu­al mes­sages read by rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the An­gli­can, Hin­du, Mus­lim and oth­er ma­jor re­li­gious faiths in T&T.

Ram­bachan lat­er told the T&T Guardian that Grena­da's Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al Car­lyle Glean is ex­pect­ed to at­tend the fu­ner­al. He, how­ev­er, could not con­firm the at­ten­dance of any oth­er Cari­com or for­eign dig­ni­taries.

The For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter said a con­do­lence mes­sage was sent to the T&T Gov­ern­ment from US Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton on be­half of Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma and the US gov­ern­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to Ram­bachan, the roads lead­ing to the NA­PA will be lined by mil­i­tary per­son­nel and mem­bers of the Boy Scouts As­so­ci­a­tion.

"We are try­ing to keep the wish­es of the fam­i­ly and the wish­es of Sir El­lis Clarke as might have been com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the fam­i­ly," he ex­plained. Re­spond­ing to ques­tions on a na­tion­al trib­ute to the mem­o­ry of Sir El­lis, Ram­bachan said a de­ci­sion would be made af­ter con­sul­ta­tions with the wider so­ci­ety. "We want to do some­thing that is go­ing to be na­tion­al­ly ac­cept­ed and it must be in line with what the fam­i­ly is think­ing," he said.

"There must be a con­sul­ta­tive process, but yes, the Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to recog­nis­ing him and to do so in a sig­nif­i­cant way." He said both the pri­vate and state fu­ner­al ser­vices can be viewed live on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion and al­so on big screens lo­cat­ed at Memo­r­i­al Park and Wood­ford Square in Port-of-Spain, Har­ris Prom­e­nade in San Fer­nan­do and in To­ba­go.

He urged that em­ploy­ers al­low their staff to view it on tele­vi­sion as a form of say­ing thank you to Sir El­lis. Ram­bachan said Sir El­lis' cas­ket was not opened while his body lay in state at the Red House on Wednes­day and yes­ter­day at the re­quest of his fam­i­ly. Sir El­lis died on De­cem­ber 30, two days af­ter he cel­e­brat­ed his 93rd birth­day. He suf­fered a mas­sive stroke at his Fair­ways, Mar­aval, home on No­vem­ber 24 was tak­en to West­shore Med­ical Pri­vate Hos­pi­tal in Co­corite and re­leased in ear­ly De­cem­ber, but nev­er re­cov­ered.

Mil­i­tary pro­ces­sion

Fol­low­ing are de­tails of the times and routes for the fu­ner­al ser­vices and mil­i­tary pro­ces­sion for Sir El­lis Clarke:

The pri­vate fu­ner­al ser­vice for Sir El­lis takes place at the Church of the As­sump­tion in Mar­aval from 9.30 am. This ser­vice will be at­tend­ed on­ly by close rel­a­tives of the for­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go pres­i­dent.

Af­ter the ser­vice, the cas­ket bear­ing the re­mains of Sir El­lis will be tak­en on a gun car­riage in a mil­i­tary pro­ces­sion to the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) in Port-of-Spain.

• The pro­ces­sion will leave the church and head east along Sad­dle Road, Mar­aval to the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah.

• There will be a slow march in front Pres­i­dent's House, fol­lowed by the Pres­i­dent's Guard pre­sen­ta­tion of arms.

• The pro­ces­sion will pro­ceed around the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, down Char­lotte Street on­to Queen's Park West. It will turn left un­to Chancery Lane, left un­to Keate Street and in­to the Keate Street en­trance of NA­PA.

• The pro­ces­sion will en­ter NA­PA at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 10.30 am. Guests and oth­er dig­ni­taries should be seat­ed in­side NA­PA by 10.50 am.

• Al­most si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly as the ar­rival of the pro­ces­sion, Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie will ar­rive at the front en­trance of NA­PA on Fred­er­ick Street.

• Af­ter the ser­vice in­side NA­PA, sched­uled for ap­prox­i­mate­ly one-and-a-half hours, the pro­ces­sion will leave the Keate Street en­trance and pro­ceed to the front en­trance of NA­PA where the body will be placed on a gun car­riage.

• The Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter and Chief Jus­tice will view this cer­e­mo­ny at the front en­trance of NA­PA.

• The pro­ces­sion will de­part the front en­trance of NA­PA north on Fred­er­ick Street and pro­ceed right, around Memo­r­i­al Park, right on­to Keate Street, left on­to Fred­er­ick Street, right on­to Park Street, past Green Cor­ner on­to Tra­garete Road and left on­to Phillips Street to Lapey­rouse Ceme­tery.

The pro­ceed­ings will be broad­cast on lo­cal tele­vi­sion, as well as on big screens set up at Memo­r­i­al Park, Wood­ford Square, Har­ris Prom­e­nade and Scar­bor­ough, To­ba­go.