RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca­s­ookraj@guardian.co.tt

As Trinidad and To­ba­go marks 49 years as a re­pub­lic, San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris said the na­tion’s lead­ers must lead with dig­ni­ty and hon­esty.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter the pa­rade and cel­e­bra­tions, Par­ris said: “Live good, live right. We are al­most half a cen­tu­ry old and we have ma­tured as a democ­ra­cy, but our lead­ers must lead, and they must do so with a lev­el of dig­ni­ty, hon­esty and truth, be­cause the young peo­ple are look­ing on.”

He added: “The young peo­ple who are here to­day, the fu­ture lead­ers of to­mor­row… cer­tain­ly, hav­ing been a scout and hav­ing moved up in life through var­i­ous civic or­gan­i­sa­tions to be­come the may­or of San Fer­nan­do—some­thing I hold with deep pride—I try to set an ex­am­ple for the next gen­er­a­tion.”

Par­ris ex­plained the de­ci­sion to host a youth pa­rade in San Fer­nan­do with or­gan­i­sa­tions such as the Scouts, Cadets, and Girl Guides.

“We felt it very im­por­tant to have a youth— I wouldn’t say mil­i­tary— but a youth pa­rade with the Scouts, the Cadets, the Guides, and all oth­er civil­ian para­mil­i­tary arms of Trinidad and To­ba­go. These are the types of days we should re­al­ly cel­e­brate, and we felt that was very im­por­tant. We thank the gov­ern­ment for sup­port­ing this ini­tia­tive,” he said.

He not­ed that San Fer­nan­do res­i­dents wel­comed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to host the event.

“The peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do re­al­ly like to host these types of events. We don’t al­ways get it be­cause Port of Spain is al­ways the cen­tre of every­thing. So it is good for San Fer­nan­do, for those who have civic pride, to come out and cel­e­brate the fact that we are 49 years as a re­pub­lic. That is some­thing that de­serves to be cel­e­brat­ed,” Par­ris said.

The may­or al­so high­light­ed the im­por­tance of pay­ing trib­ute to the First Peo­ples.

“We need to con­tin­ue to pay homage to the in­dige­nous peo­ple, San Fer­nan­do be­ing one of the main places where they set­tled. I thought that in the past we didn’t pay too much ho­n­our to the First Peo­ples. Cer­tain­ly, on the 18th of No­vem­ber, we’ll be launch­ing a new stat­ue on the Har­ris Prom­e­nade in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the First Peo­ples of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

Par­ris said the com­mem­o­ra­tion is in­tend­ed to raise aware­ness of his­to­ry.

“We want to in­clude them so peo­ple can un­der­stand. When you fol­low his­to­ry, much of it was rewrit­ten by our colonists. For­tu­nate­ly, we have peo­ple still around who can cor­rect the atroc­i­ties of the past. There­fore, we would like to in­volve the First Peo­ples and pay them that re­spect,” he said.