Yvonne?Ba­boolal

Kafra Kam­bon, head of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee, one of Makan­dal Daa­ga's right hand men dur­ing the 1970s Black Pow­er rev­o­lu­tion, first met him when he was pres­i­dent of the guild at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) in the late 1960s.

Daa­ga, born Ged­des Granger, was the son of a me­chan­ic and a house­wife of Laven­tille Road, Laven­tille, who placed a strong em­pha­sis on ed­u­ca­tion.

"Once Daa­ga took over the guild, stu­dents be­came more in­volved in the wider com­mu­ni­ty.

"Stu­dents were en­cour­aged to go in­to poor­er com­mu­ni­ties like Laven­tille and give young peo­ple lessons and get in­volved with trade unions and civ­il groups," Kam­bon re­called.

Trac­ing his ex­pe­ri­ence with Daa­ga, Kam­bon said a protest by stu­dents at the Sir George Williams Uni­ver­si­ty of Cana­da against a racist pro­fes­sor in Feb­ru­ary 1969 trig­gered the for­ma­tion of the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC).

Cana­da's Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al, Roland Mich­en­er, vis­it­ed the UWI cam­pus­es which were sup­port­ing the protest in a bid to ap­pease them but he nev­er got past the St Au­gus­tine gate.

Daa­ga, Kam­bon and oth­er stu­dents, in­clud­ing for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, Au­gus­tus Ram­rekars­ingh, blocked him, caus­ing a ma­jor up­roar in so­ci­ety.

"We met and formed NJAC that same evening. We put to­geth­er a group of stu­dents, trade union­ists and oth­er stake­hold­ers to deal with Cana­di­an im­pe­ri­al­ism in the Caribbean and the sit­u­a­tion at Sir George Williams Uni­ver­si­ty.

"We be­came im­me­di­ate­ly ac­tive, hold­ing pub­lic meet­ings every night all over the coun­try about racism home and abroad," Kam­bon said.

NJAC joined the bus strike head­ed by for­mer Trans­port and In­dus­tri­al Work­ers Trade Union pres­i­dent, Clive Nunez, and Daa­ga and Kam­bon were ar­rest­ed in May 1969 for block­ing bus­es.

Af­ter that they con­tin­ued to mo­bilise.

"Units of NJAC were built up in com­mu­ni­ties all over the coun­try and by the time 1970 came around, we were well known and well en­trenched. Of course, we were al­so ab­solute­ly hat­ed by a sec­tion of so­ci­ety," he re­called.

The fa­mous Black Pow­er march of Feb­ru­ary 1970 start­ed al­most in­no­cent­ly and qui­et­ly, Kam­bon said.

"A small group of 200 or 300 of us were plan­ning to go and protest by the Cana­di­an em­bassy on the day the stu­dents at the Cana­di­an uni­ver­si­ty were go­ing on tri­al.

"We took the demon­stra­tion to RBC on In­de­pen­dence Square in­stead and the po­lice came and ex­pelled us from the bank.

"That changed the whole mood of the protest and, as we were cross­ing In­de­pen­dence Square, we went in­to a store owned by a Mon­tano with our flags and came back out. Just to in­tim­i­date them," he added.

Kam­bon said the Catholic church in Mon­tre­al had made racist re­marks about the protest­ing stu­dents at Sir George Williams Uni­ver­si­ty and Daa­ga and his sup­port­ers reached the Catholic church on In­de­pen­dence Square, some­body said: "Man, let's go in the church."

They draped white stat­ues in the church with black flags and preached from the pul­pit.

"By the time we came out the church, thou­sands had joined us and shops were clos­ing and work­ers were be­ing sent home," he added.

The next morn­ing Daa­ga, Kam­bon and a few oth­ers were picked up by the po­lice for des­e­cra­tion of a pub­lic place of wor­ship, con­spir­a­cy to cause pub­lic ri­ots and as­sault­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer.

When they were re­leased, NJAC, led by Daa­ga, de­scribed as a pow­er­ful speak­er, held two months of in­tense demon­stra­tions all over the coun­try, joined by thou­sands of pub­lic ser­vants and sug­ar work­ers.

"We held a march from Port-of-Spain to Ca­roni but it was when we de­cid­ed to march from Ca­roni to Port-of-Spain the State de­cid­ed to strike. They de­clared a state of emer­gency on April 21, 1970," he said.

Daa­ga, Kam­bon, George Weekes and oth­ers were ar­rest­ed the next day as po­lit­i­cal de­tainees and spent sev­en to eight months in prison.

Kam­bon, sum­ming up Daa­ga's con­tri­bu­tion to T&T, said: "He had a sig­nif­i­cant in­flu­ence on the ma­jor changes in the coun­try in the 20th cen­tu­ry, in­clud­ing the na­tion­al­i­sa­tion of pri­vate en­ti­ties.

"He made a se­ri­ous dent in bridg­ing the gap be­tween Africans and In­di­ans in T&T at the time and helped Afro-Trinida­di­ans reaf­firm their iden­ti­ty.

"There was al­so a resur­gence of In­di­an cul­ture af­ter the 1970s rev­o­lu­tion."

Raf­fique Shah

For­mer leader of the army mutiny of 1970, Raf­fique Shah, first met Daa­ga in the Roy­al Gaol (re­named Port-of-Spain State Prison).

Daa­ga was ar­rest­ed on April 21 when a state of emer­gency was de­clared af­ter he and thou­sands of NJAC sup­port­ers staged a protest march.

Shah said the army mutiny, led by he and Rex la Salle, part­ly came out of that. "Rex and I were ar­rest­ed on May 1, 1970," he added.

He said he did not in­ter­act much with Daa­ga and his group since sol­dier­ing made that dif­fi­cult.

"We met from time-to-time in the prison yard but nev­er formed the kind of friend­ship where we would vis­it each oth­er's homes," he said.

Giv­ing his take on Daa­ga's con­tri­bu­tion to T&T, Shah said: "I give him cred­it for bring­ing some pride to Afro-Trinida­di­ans.

"He al­so opened the doors for non-White, dark skinned peo­ple to get jobs in banks, with the cab­in crew in BWIA and mid­dle to up­per lev­el man­age­ment in com­pa­nies."

As for bring­ing African and In­di­ans to­geth­er, al­beit for a brief time, Shah said he was not sure that stemmed from Daa­ga alone since de­ci­sions were made col­lec­tive­ly by oth­ers in his group, in­clud­ing Win­ston Lennard, George Weekes, Kafra Kam­bon and a lot of oth­ers.

He re­called the uni­ty march from Port-of-Spain to Ca­roni on Feb­ru­ary 26, 1970 was un­der the ban­ner, Africans and In­di­ans Unite.

"NJAC has to take cred­it for reach­ing out to In­di­ans too. There was a large re­sponse from sug­ar work­ers in par­tic­u­lar, who unit­ed with NJAC.

"Oth­ers came out their homes dur­ing the march to Cou­va and ap­plaud­ed and gave wa­ter and fruit," he added.

Shah said af­ter Daa­ga came out of prison he be­came reclu­sive and NJAC be­came a shad­ow of it­self.

Oil dol­lars were flow­ing and the Williams ad­min­stra­tion doled out gen­er­ous­ly to per­ceived po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents in a suc­cess­ful bid to quell them, he said.

"When the 1986 gen­er­al elec­tion came around, not one NJAC can­di­date got 1,000 votes."

Shah said by the time Daa­ga went on the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship plat­form in 2010, he was but a shad­ow of him­self, due to age.

"He was 75 and no longer pos­sessed his for­mer or­a­to­r­i­al skills. The PP ap­point­ed him a Cari­com am­bas­sador plenipo­ten­tiary but lit­tle is known about his ac­tiv­i­ties in this sphere."

Shah said he last saw Daa­ga in 2009 at the launch of a doc­u­men­tary on the Black Pow­er Rev­o­lu­tion at Movi­eTowne.

Suni­ty Ma­haraj

Me­dia work­er, Suni­ty Ma­haraj, wife of de­ceased Lloyd Best, who head­ed the Tapia House Move­ment which sup­port­ed Black Pow­er, said Daa­ga's place in T&T's his­to­ry was as­sured.

"In one of the thresh­olds be­tween po­lit­i­cal in­de­pen­dence and re­al in­de­pen­dence, he emerged as one of the lead­ing fig­ures."

Daa­ga, she said, would be re­mem­bered for lead­ing a move­ment to help black youths get an equal place in so­ci­ety and equal op­por­tu­ni­ties.

"There were many who came out of uni­ver­si­ty in 1962 who re­al­ly felt they would have got­ten a place in so­ci­ety but that was not so," she said.

She said Daa­ga helped raise, not just black, but na­tion­al con­scious­ness. "He made us all aware of dis­crim­i­na­tion on the ba­sis of colour and race."

She said his ac­tions pushed the Williams gov­ern­ment to change its poli­cies and come out and min­gle more with the peo­ple.

Dr Kei­th Row­ley

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who is in the US un­der­go­ing med­ical ex­am­i­na­tions, sent con­do­lences to fam­i­ly, friends and col­leagues on the pass­ing of Daa­ga.

Laud­ing Daa­ga's con­tri­bu­tion to T&T, he said: "Mr Daa­ga made his mark as a po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist in the 1970s as leader of the Black Pow­er Move­ment.

"He was not afraid to chal­lenge the sta­tus quo, speak up against in­jus­tice and ad­vo­cate for equal­i­ty.

"Even in the lat­ter years of his life, he con­tin­ued to be a pres­ence on the po­lit­i­cal land­scape of Trinidad and To­ba­go which, un­doubt­ed­ly, at­test­ed to the fact that his in­ter­est in the de­vel­op­ment of our twin is­land state nev­er waned.

"I join the rest of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in mourn­ing the loss of Mr Daa­ga and hold up his loved ones in prayer. May he rest in peace."

In 2012, Row­ley, at a pub­lic meet­ing, chas­tised Daa­ga for not speak­ing out against in­suf­fi­cient fund­ing giv­en to the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee for eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions that year.

He said Daa­ga was silent be­cause he was "eat­ing ah food" in the then gov­ern­ment.

He said Daa­ga's biggest in­put in­to the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment was the cre­ation of the "ab­solute non­sense" Min­istry of Na­tion­al Di­ver­si­ty and So­cial In­te­gra­tion".

Sev­er­al peo­ple as­so­ci­at­ed with Daa­ga the T&T Guardian spoke to felt those state­ments did not mean Row­ley did not re­spect Daa­ga.

Kam­bon said it may have been a po­lit­i­cal state­ment made in a cer­tain con­text but did not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean that was how Row­ley mea­sured the whole man.

Kwasi Mutema, NJAC chief ser­vant, said he felt one should rise above those state­ments at this point in time and Daa­ga him­self would not have placed any im­por­tance on it.

Max­ie Cuffie, Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter, said: "A man is dead and the Prime Min­is­ter sent con­do­lences.

"If he didn't, they would ask why. This is not the kind of ques­tion the me­dia should be ask­ing at this time."

Act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert has al­so of­fered con­do­lences on the pass­ing of Daa­ga.

"On be­half of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, I join with the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in ex­tend­ing heart­felt con­do­lences to the Daa­ga fam­i­ly in this time of grief.

"His lead­er­ship of the Black Pow­er Move­ment in the 1970s brought about far- reach­ing change which have helped to shape the so­cial and po­lit­i­cal re­al­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go."