Bar­ba­dos’ For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter and Cari­com’s as­sis­tant sec­re­tary-gen­er­al are ex­pect­ed to be among the hun­dreds at­tend­ing this morn­ing’s fu­ner­al of for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA) in San Fer­nan­do.

The fu­ner­al of T&T’s fifth Prime Min­is­ter be­gins at 9 am.

Fi­nal farewells will be said to a man whose very con­sid­er­able, colour­ful and con­tro­ver­sial ca­reer since en­ter­ing pol­i­tics in 1966 - and the Par­lia­ment in 1976- earned him leg­endary sta­tus among the pub­lic he served and on T&T’s po­lit­i­cal land­scape.

Pan­day was the UNC’s founder and first leader.

Pan­day died Jan­u­ary 1 at a Jack­sonville, Flori­da hos­pi­tal, af­ter be­ing tak­en by air am­bu­lance to the Unit­ed States on De­cem­ber 12 to in­ves­ti­gate med­ical con­cerns. His body was re­turned home last Wednes­day.

To­day’s state fu­ner­al will be T&T’s first such un­der Hin­du rites. Fu­ner­als for four oth­er pre­vi­ous prime min­is­ters were un­der Chris­t­ian rites.

Ac­cord­ing to the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­istry, the fu­ner­al cortege de­parts at 8.10 am, un­der mil­i­tary es­cort, from the cor­ner of Cipero Street and Rien­zi Kir­ton High­way, then on­to Todd Street and in­to SAPA, where the fu­ner­al will take place.

The T&T Guardian was in­formed that there will be ap­prox­i­mate­ly 700 peo­ple in SAPA it­self.

Lim­it­ed space is avail­able for mem­bers of the pub­lic to view the fu­ner­al ser­vice via livestream at the SAPA carpark. Ad­di­tion­al view­ing via large screens will be avail­able on a first come/first serve ba­sis at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do. Peo­ple are asked to be seat­ed by 8.15 am.

Of­fi­ci­at­ing at the fu­ner­al, which will be con­duct­ed un­der full Hin­du rites, will be Pun­dit Art­ma Ma­haraj.

The two and a half hour long pro­gramme in­cludes an ad­dress from Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo.

For this fi­nal leg of the “jour­ney” and the cre­ma­tion, Pan­day’s body will be dressed in tra­di­tion­al East In­di­an wear. For the two pub­lic view­ings where his body lay in ho­n­our - in Port-of-Spain last Fri­day and San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day - he’d been dressed in a suit.

Pub­lic in­vit­ed to join pro­ces­sion to cre­ma­tion

Fol­low­ing the fu­ner­al ser­vice, the cortege de­parts SAPA at 11.30 am and pro­ceeds on to Bal­isi­er Av­enue, then the San Fer­nan­do By­pass, con­tin­u­ing on to South Trunk Road, then Mos­qui­to Creek Road.

At 12.40 pm, the mil­i­tary pro­ces­sion will be­gin its es­cort on Mos­qui­to Creek Road and pro­ceed north, turn­ing in­to the Shore of Peace cre­ma­tion site.

The min­istry stat­ed that mem­bers of the pub­lic are in­vit­ed to join the fu­ner­al pro­ces­sion to the Shore of Peace.

Pan­day’s en­tire fam­i­ly will be in at­ten­dance at the fu­ner­al, in­clud­ing Mrs Oma Pan­day, who was seen at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port when she ac­com­pa­nied her hus­band’s body back home but wasn’t seen at the two re­cent view­ings at NA­PA and SAPA. Last Fri­day, Pan­day’s daugh­ter Mick­ela said her moth­er was “strug­gling a lit­tle.”

At yes­ter­day’s SAPA view­ing, Pan­day’s el­dest daugh­ter Niala and her fam­i­ly - who ar­rived from over­seas last week­end - were among the clan present. Ms Pan­day, who was over­come with emo­tion at the view­ing, was com­fort­ed by her sis­ter Mick­ela - Pan­day’s sec­ond daugh­ter - who hugged her and brushed back her hair.

Mick­ela - who marked her birth­day yes­ter­day - hugged and greet­ed the num­ber of ear­ly ar­rivals to yes­ter­day’s view­ing. The fam­i­ly left SAPA at 9.49 am.

For­eign dig­ni­taries

on hand

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Amery Browne in­di­cat­ed yes­ter­day that Bar­ba­dos’ For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Ker­rie Sym­monds, Guyana’s Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Hugh Todd and Cari­com’s as­sis­tant sec­re­tary-gen­er­al Eliz­a­beth Solomon are ex­pect­ed for the fu­ner­al. There was no word on oth­er re­gion­al per­son­al­i­ties.

Trib­ute has been paid to Pan­day by re­gion­al lead­ers, in­clud­ing for­mer Ja­maican prime min­is­ter PJ Pat­ter­son and Guyana’s vice pres­i­dent Bhar­rat Jagdeo. Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali al­so sent Mrs Oma Pan­day a per­son­al let­ter of con­do­lence laud­ing Pan­day, in­clud­ing as a fight­er, ar­dent re­gion­al­ist whose work helped shape the con­tours of Caribbean re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion and for Pan­day’s deep con­nec­tion with Guyana.

For­mer UNC Min­is­ters - in­clud­ing Vas­ant Bharath, Gan­ga Singh, Jack Warn­er and oth­ers - as well as rel­a­tives of de­ceased politi­cians are ex­pect­ed to be among fu­ner­al at­ten­dees.

Bharath has launched an on­line pe­ti­tion, so far with over 1,000 names, seek­ing to have the Pi­ar­co Air­port re­named the Bas­deo Pan­day In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

For­mer Min­is­ter Car­los John, Pan­day’s col­league for over 25 years, said yes­ter­day, “He didn’t have any sons but he al­ways treat­ed me as an ex­ten­sion of the fam­i­ly. What’s left of my heart af­ter Bas died will be fur­ther shat­tered at that cre­ma­tion site in a few hours ...”

The Gov­ern­ment’s team, head­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, will be at­tend­ing to­day’s fu­ner­al.

UNC par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, head­ed by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar are al­so ex­pect­ed, ex­cept MP Rush­ton Paray, who’s in the US on busi­ness. UNC Sen­a­tor David Nakhid, who’s al­so over­seas, yes­ter­day post­ed a trib­ute to Pan­day on his sup­port of na­tion­al foot­ball.