Yvonne Ba­boolal

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and mem­bers of her Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley and his MPs sat to­geth­er for Ken Val­ley's fu­ner­al ser­vice at the St Fin­bar's RC Church, Diego Mar­tin, yes­ter­day. This prompt­ed Fr Clyde Har­vey to re­mark in his homi­ly: "A won­der­ful mix of politi­cians, all sit­ting on the same side of the aisle. Ken Val­ley would hope that side is side T&T." Var­i­ous politi­cians, past and present, in­clud­ing for­mer Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader Patrick Man­ning, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly head, Orville Lon­don, and new Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic and So­cial Re­struc­tur­ing Min­is­ter, Dr Bhoen­dra­datt Tewarie, were al­so at the church.

His rel­a­tives, Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral con­stituents and friends packed the church. Val­ley, a for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, died of can­cer last week Thurs­day at age 63. Po­lit­i­cal al­lu­sions and Val­ley's con­tri­bu­tions in that are­na laced the speech of every speak­er who paid trib­ute to him. His el­dest son, Ker­win, a Cana­di­an cit­i­zen res­i­dent in T&T, urged the con­gre­ga­tion to strive for a coun­try that cross­es eth­nic di­vides.

He said his fa­ther vi­su­alised T&T as an Eden and worked to­wards the at­tain­ment of a coun­try where every­one would be equal and recog­nised on mer­it alone. Val­ley's youngest broth­er, Clin­ton, a min­is­ter in the Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist Church, Cal­i­for­nia, USA, said the PNM was one of his de­ceased broth­er's pas­sions.

"He loved the PNM but his al­le­giance was not to in­di­vid­u­als but to the ideals on which the par­ty stood," he said. Clin­ton re­ferred to a book Val­ley wrote with de­ceased PNM MP, Mor­ris Mar­shall, called: "In De­fence of The Peo­ple's In­ter­ests." He said the first chap­ter was about in­tegri­ty in pub­lic life. "I be­lieve this should be re­quired read­ing for all who en­ter pol­i­tics to­day," Clin­ton said. He said Val­ley was a "trans­for­ma­tion­al leader who mod­elled what in­tegri­ty in pub­lic life meant," Clin­ton al­so re­called Val­ley's "un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous" ex­it from pol­i­tics in 2007.

Val­ley was not al­lowed by then PNM leader, Man­ning, to run for the Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral seat again.

"His un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous ex­it from pol­i­tics was de­ter­mined by his deep love for his coun­try. "He pre­ferred to sac­ri­fice his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, to bow out rather than bow down at the al­tar of po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­di­en­cy," Clin­ton said, to loud ap­plause from the con­gre­ga­tion. Row­ley, ad­dress­ing the con­gre­ga­tion, said he met Val­ley in the "very dark days of the PNM" in 1986 (when the par­ty suf­fered a hu­mil­i­at­ing de­feat in the gen­er­al elec­tion). "If there ever was a man of cri­sis, Ken Val­ley was that man," he said. Row­ley said Val­ley re­mained a "loy­al and re­li­able friend" since then.

Al­so pay­ing trib­ute was Cos­ta Ri­can Am­bas­sador Ri­car­do Thomp­son-Thomp­son, who re­called that in 2006 Val­ley helped es­tab­lish an air­line that could take cit­i­zens of T&T di­rect­ly to Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries with­out hav­ing to trav­el north first. Thomp­son-Thomp­son said Val­ley helped to in­crease trade and con­tact be­tween Cos­ta Ri­ca and Cu­ba. "He is con­sid­ered a great friend by the peo­ple of Cu­ba," he added. On a more philo­soph­i­cal note, the am­bas­sador said: "Death is not wel­come any­time. It's like an in­trud­er but when it knocks at the door it says, here I am." Per­sad-Bisses­sar, speak­ing briefly with the me­dia af­ter the ser­vice, said Val­ley was a great man, fa­ther and son of the soil and he would be missed. She said a full state­ment on Val­ley would be made in Par­lia­ment to­day.

Man­ning dis­miss­es me­dia

For­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning dis­missed the me­dia af­ter the fu­ner­al ser­vice of Ken Val­ley yes­ter­day, say­ing: "Now is not the time for that." Mem­bers of the me­dia ap­proached him for com­ment on Val­ley's pass­ing but Man­ning did not stop in the crowd­ed yard of the church af­ter the ser­vice. He kept on walk­ing and his se­cu­ri­ty pushed back peo­ple in the way, caus­ing them to al­most fall on each oth­er. An­gry out­bursts from peo­ple in the crowd fol­lowed his ex­it from the church. "Let the dead go!" a man shout­ed af­ter Man­ning.