PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

A com­mit­tee should be set up to dis­cuss the re­moval of mon­u­ments which ho­n­our con­tentious his­tor­i­cal fig­ures in our coun­try.

This was the call of Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan, as he con­firmed that Port-of-Spain May­or Joel Mar­tinez was right in stat­ing that the de­ci­sion to move the Colum­bus stat­ue at Colum­bus Square in Port-of-Spain, would have to come from the gov­ern­ment.

“It has to be the Cab­i­net. The Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment has to take a de­ci­sion be­cause the con­sti­tu­tion says that there shall be a Cab­i­net of Trinidad and To­ba­go who will be in charge of the af­fairs of Trinidad And To­ba­go,” said the at­tor­ney in a phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

“The stat­ue is not like a street where the cor­po­ra­tion is in charge of nam­ing streets and re­nam­ing streets. It is more a na­tion­al is­sue now. You will find no prece­dent, it’s just you know the gov­ern­ment is in charge.”

Khan said, how­ev­er, a com­mit­tee should be set up to dis­cuss the re­moval of mon­u­ments ded­i­cat­ed to con­tentious his­tor­i­cal fig­ures.

He said there are oth­er his­tor­i­cal fig­ures who al­so have du­bi­ous deeds at­trib­uted to them like Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi’s racist stance in South Africa and Win­ston Churchill’s racist views.

He said, “Not every­thing peo­ple did wrong they should change every­thing carte blanche. So they should set up a com­mit­tee of very com­pe­tent peo­ple and then af­ter they should bring it to the gov­ern­ment and then the gov­ern­ment, what the gov­ern­ment should have a ref­er­en­dum. The peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go should change it.”

How­ev­er, the se­nior coun­sel, who be­lieves the stat­ue should be re­moved, be­lieves the coun­try’s name should al­so be changed to Iere giv­en the name Trinidad’s con­nec­tion to Colum­bus.

Yes­ter­day, the Cross Rhodes Free­dom Project and the Queen of the Warao Na­tion Don­na Bermudez Bovell con­firmed they had re-sent the pe­ti­tion, which they had pre­vi­ous­ly de­liv­ered to the may­or.

In a re­lease, they said, “In our de­sire to bring a quick res­o­lu­tion to this is­sue the CRFP has al­ready writ­ten to the Ho­n­ourable Prime

Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and dis­patched a pe­ti­tion to both the Up­per and Low­er Hous­es of Par­lia­ment, signed by a cross-sec­tion of promi­nent lo­cal in­di­vid­u­als in­clud­ing a de­scen­dant of Hy­po­lite Bor­de the man who erect­ed the stat­ue in 1881 at his own ex­pense.”

They al­so ex­plained that Bor­de’s de­scen­dant, Liz Noguera, al­so agrees with the re­moval as “it [the stat­ue] rep­re­sent­ed the in­jus­tice of the Old World and its re­moval would be sym­bol­ic of a com­mit­ment to a New World where we could all live as one.”

They al­so said they are hap­py that May­or Mar­tinez has fi­nal­ly ac­knowl­edged, “the emerg­ing view that the stat­ue should be tak­en down and moved to a mu­se­um.”

They added, “The May­or’s con­fir­ma­tion squares with the grow­ing re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al con­sen­sus and is in keep­ing with the ex­pressed views of the Caribbean’s lead­ing lu­mi­nar­ies and em­i­nent his­to­ri­ans past and present.”