Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

There will be full ho­n­ours for a fall­en war­rior chief as for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day will be giv­en the first state fu­ner­al un­der Hin­du rites in T&T.

As T&T flags flew at half mast through­out the na­tion yes­ter­day, the plan­ning process was ini­ti­at­ed for a state fu­ner­al un­der full Hin­du rites for Pan­day.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne yes­ter­day stat­ed that the Gov­ern­ment of­fered to have a state fu­ner­al for Pan­day who died on Mon­day, and his fam­i­ly has ac­cept­ed.

A state­ment from the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­istry stat­ed, “A state fu­ner­al will be held in ho­n­our of the late for­mer prime min­is­ter. Fur­ther de­tails will be con­veyed at a lat­er date.”

Browne said the Gov­ern­ment was ful­ly as­sist­ing in the re­turn of Pan­day’s body to T&T, from Flori­da. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Pan­day’s body will be brought home by Thurs­day. Pan­day’s fam­i­ly, who were at his bed­side when he died, are ex­pect­ed to re­turn from Flori­da al­so. Two of Pan­day’s four daugh­ters live over­seas and two live in T&T.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, speak­ing at the  Prison Ser­vice’s First Work­ing Day In­ter­faith Ser­vice at Uni­ver­sal Church of the King­dom of God South Quay, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, said, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty now has the very cru­cial role of re­turn­ing Pan­day’s body.

“Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has a very crit­i­cal role to play in en­sur­ing that the body re­turns with the solem­ni­ty and the re­spect that it de­serves from abroad in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go through the pe­ri­od of mourn­ing and its in­ter­ment,” he said.

Pan­day, the leg­endary “Sil­ver Fox” of  T&T’s pol­i­tics, died on Mon­day evening at a Jack­sonville, Flori­da hos­pi­tal where he was tak­en on De­cem­ber 12 for med­ical at­ten­tion. He was 90 and would have turned 91 in May. Pan­day was T&T’s fifth prime min­is­ter, serv­ing from No­vem­ber 9, 1995, to De­cem­ber 24, 2001.

Yes­ter­day, the Gov­ern­ment, which had played a key role in as­sist­ing Pan­day’s med­ical trip over­seas since his de­par­ture, an­nounced that flags are be­ing flown at half mast in ob­ser­vance of his pass­ing.

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­istry and the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, where Pan­day was once Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, ad­vised all state and non-state agen­cies and T&T diplo­mat­ic mis­sions abroad that the na­tion­al flag was to be flown at half-mast from yes­ter­day.

 ‘Full re­spect for Hin­du rites re­quired’

Browne said he was speak­ing with “Ms Mick­ela Pan­day and fam­i­ly mem­bers” in re­spect of the arrange­ments.

“Great care will be tak­en to en­sure that Mr Pan­day’s fam­i­ly’s wish­es are re­spect­ed and there will be full re­spect to the Hin­du rites as­so­ci­at­ed with deaths and cre­ma­tions. All de­tails are be­ing dis­cussed and fi­nalised with the fam­i­ly,” Browne added.

There is no date yet pro­ject­ed for the fu­ner­al to be held un­der Hin­du rites.

Pre­vi­ous prime min­is­ters the late Dr Er­ic Williams, George Cham­bers, Arthur NR Robin­son and Patrick Man­ning were re­port­ed­ly all buried un­der Chris­t­ian rites.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands a lot of new ground will need to be cov­ered re­gard­ing the fu­ner­al. “This is be­ing done with Mr Pan­day’s fam­i­ly and will take a lit­tle time  to come to a res­o­lu­tion,” of­fi­cials added

“Cur­rent­ly, a plan­ning team is han­dling the mat­ter, the fam­i­ly will make com­ments on all as­pects and lo­gis­tics are be­ing worked out.”

Guardian Me­dia con­firmed that the Gov­ern­ment ful­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed and as­sist­ed the for­mer prime min­is­ter’s re­cent trip for over­seas med­ical treat­ment and has worked with his fam­i­ly since he left via air am­bu­lance for Flori­da on De­cem­ber 12.

The Gov­ern­ment has borne the costs as well for com­plete cov­er­age at the Flori­da hos­pi­tal where Pan­day was be­ing treat­ed as well as mat­ters in­volv­ing mul­ti­ple med­ical agen­cies in the US which were al­so part of the sit­u­a­tion. The State is al­so bear­ing the cost of repa­tri­at­ing Pan­day’s body and the fu­ner­al.

_with re­port­ing by Carisa Lee

Browne, Hinds pay trib­ute

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Amery Browne, pay­ing trib­ute to Pan­day, said, “Bas­deo Pan­day has been a name syn­ony­mous with T&T’s na­tion­al life and pol­i­tics for more than a gen­er­a­tion. This icon­ic for­mer prime min­is­ter and trade union­ist was a most charis­mat­ic leader, and he had the su­perb abil­i­ty to dis­arm any­one and just about any sit­u­a­tion with his broad smile and leg­endary wit. The Sil­ver Fox had so many unique at­trib­ut­es, and he long es­tab­lished him­self as our most quotable na­tion­al fig­ure.

“He was very much a fam­i­ly man, keep­ing his wife and daugh­ters as close as pos­si­ble, whilst at the same time en­joy­ing an au­ra through which he came across as very much ac­ces­si­ble to the wider na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. On a per­son­al lev­el, he nev­er failed to pause for a friend­ly chat and to of­fer words of ad­vice that went far be­yond mere po­lit­i­cal po­lite­ness. You al­ways felt he was ful­ly in­vest­ed in the mo­ment.

“Those at­trib­ut­es and that sense of con­tact and prox­im­i­ty to the na­tion­al pulse es­tab­lished and main­tained Bas­deo Pan­day as a force to be reck­oned with in the na­tion­al life of T&T and his icon­ic sta­tus is cer­tain to be en­dur­ing. I of­fer my heart­felt con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly, his many loved ones, col­leagues, and the wider na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.”

 Hinds de­scribed Pan­day as a “war­rior” and “a tiger of a man” who had a rea­son­able re­la­tion­ship with oth­er politi­cians and trade union­ists.

He ex­tend­ed con­do­lence to the fam­i­ly.

He pro­vid­ed T&T with safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty as PM– Lawrence Ma­haraj

For­mer UNC at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj yes­ter­day paid trib­ute to Pan­day.

Ma­haraj re­called the re­la­tion­ship with his for­mer boss, Pan­day, who dis­missed him as at­tor­ney gen­er­al dur­ing the UNC gov­ern­ment’s tenure. They clashed dur­ing the Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion’s tenure when Ma­haraj and fel­low min­is­ters Trevor Su­dama and Ralph Maraj protest­ed al­leged cor­rup­tion. Ma­haraj was fired. Maraj and Su­dama re­signed. It led to the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s down­fall.

Ma­haraj said, “There can be no doubt Mr Pan­day left an in­deli­ble mark on T&T’s pol­i­tics in that be­fore he be­came prime min­is­ter he was very in­volved in the strug­gle of the work­ing class and he en­tered pol­i­tics at a time when there were great in­jus­tices to sug­ar work­ers and oth­er work­ers.

“Dur­ing the time he served as PM and I as at­tor­ney gen­er­al, he was able to have a coun­try that was safe from crim­i­nals as the crime rate was one of the low­est T&T ever saw. Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, the oil price was low on the world mar­ket and he was still able to de­liv­er gov­er­nance which pro­vid­ed re­lief to most sec­tors.”

Ma­haraj added, “Notwith­stand­ing the hic­cups that oc­curred in his gov­ern­ment, it was able to pro­vide T&T with safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, sus­tain­able at­tack on the drug trade and good eco­nom­ic prospects. His death is a loss for T&T and one of the is­sues that stands out in his lega­cy is his fight for equal­i­ty of treat­ment for all. Dur­ing the time he was PM and I was at­tor­ney gen­er­al, the gov­ern­ment was able to pro­vide Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty leg­is­la­tion and trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty of the gov­ern­ment to the peo­ple.”

He said de­spite their dif­fer­ence of opin­ions and dis­agree­ments, “The fact he was an­noyed with my plan to fight cor­rup­tion and he dis­missed me as AG, we were nev­er on very bad terms as we sub­se­quent­ly re­con­nect­ed and worked to­geth­er. He knew I was a firm be­liev­er in open trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty of Gov­ern­ment. He had his views, I had mine, and notwith­stand­ing his strong views against the stance I took, we re­con­nect­ed.

“I had a good re­la­tion­ship with him, we met so­cial­ly and even had tea up to two or three years ago. I was al­ways his friend, nev­er his foe. I stood up for what I con­sid­ered to be right and main­tained that stance through­out my friend­ship with him.”

T&T hard-pressed to find an­oth­er leader with such sin­cere out­look–Kam­la

UNC Po­lit­i­cal Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day that T&T and the Caribbean would be hard-pressed to iden­ti­fy an­oth­er leader with such an in­sight­ful and sin­cere out­look as Pan­day.

“He has served and led us like no one else,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar added.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in a sec­ond trib­ute to Pan­day (af­ter her first on Mon­day), said, “He re­mained op­ti­mistic even as he oc­ca­sion­al­ly voiced his pub­lic frus­tra­tions. He was unique for his strong-willed na­ture, the clar­i­ty of his of­ten-rad­i­cal views, and his val­our in pro­mot­ing his prin­ci­ples and stan­dards. Trinidad and To­ba­go–and, in­deed, the Caribbean–would be hard-pressed to iden­ti­fy an­oth­er leader with such an in­sight­ful and sin­cere out­look and the de­ter­mi­na­tion to work to­ward its ful­fil­ment.”

“For­mer PM Pan­day was the con­science of our na­tion and an undis­put­ed post-colo­nial Caribbean vi­sion­ary leader. T&T is for­tu­nate that this ex­cep­tion­al­ly gift­ed son of our soil de­vot­ed his en­tire adult life to cam­paign­ing for a coun­try of eco­nom­ic eq­ui­ty, so­cial jus­tice, and eth­nic and class uni­ty. The gen­e­sis of Mr Pan­day’s life­long con­tri­bu­tion to pub­lic ser­vice stemmed from his unswerv­ing and clear-sight­ed view that our so­ci­ety must be re­mod­elled with equal and fair op­por­tu­ni­ties for all and a pro­gres­sive, sus­tain­able econ­o­my.”

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, al­so pay­ing trib­ute to Pan­day, said, “The late Ho­n­ourable Bas­deo Pan­day was a fierce ad­vo­cate for jus­tice and al­ways had the well-be­ing of oth­ers at heart. The le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty and, by ex­ten­sion, Trinidad and To­ba­go has lost a great po­lit­i­cal icon, trade union­ist, and lawyer, and he will in­deed be sore­ly missed.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go ex­tends its deep­est con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of the Late Ho­n­ourable Mr Bas­deo Pan­day and hopes his lega­cy will con­tin­ue to serve as a bea­con for oth­ers to fol­low ...”