Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

A re­li­gious leader has made an ap­peal for changes to rem­e­dy what he de­scribed as the ug­li­ness in so­ci­ety. Dur­ing the fu­ner­al ser­vice for mur­dered prison of­fi­cer Kendell Smith on Thurs­day, Vic­ar Gen­er­al Fa­ther Mar­tin Sir­ju said it was time to take back the coun­try from the grips of crime, mur­ders and vi­o­lence.

“I love my peo­ple. I think this is, in spite of the many many things that we see, a very good place in which to live. Hav­ing said that, it does not mean that I am hap­py with all that I see in my coun­try and what we are about this morn­ing is a vivid tes­ti­mo­ny of that,” he said.

Smith, who was last as­signed to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca, was mur­dered last week in Ari­ma.

While de­liv­er­ing the ser­mon at Smith’s fu­ner­al at the Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion in Port-of-Spain, Fa­ther Sir­ju lament­ed the coun­try’s crime sit­u­a­tion.

“Our coun­try is marred by dif­fer­ent kinds of ug­li­ness, whether it is white col­lar crime and most of the crim­i­nals there go free, then there is vi­o­lent crimes, where most of the crim­i­nals al­so go free, whether it is do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and things like that, there are many brush­es that paint an ug­ly scene in our coun­try,” he said.

Fa­ther Sir­ju said in re­sponse to the ug­ly scenes, cit­i­zens must colour the na­tion­al land­scape with beau­ty on a dai­ly ba­sis.

He stat­ed, “There are too many scenes of ug­li­ness. I think one of the an­ti­dotes for all this ug­li­ness that we see is to make it a habit every­day to do good.”

The re­li­gious leader al­so said there were oth­er fac­tors that could re­turn the coun­try back to a path of right­eous­ness.

“In sim­ple mat­ters, like how we talk to peo­ple, how we speak to them in the fam­i­ly, that is a lit­tle ges­ture that will re­move the ug­li­ness from the world. Ed­u­ca­tion is al­so an­oth­er to make the coun­try more beau­ti­ful. When­ev­er those op­por­tu­ni­ties arise, please take them for a good ed­u­ca­tion, put to good use, it will bring forth a more pleas­ant and beau­ti­ful coun­try.”

While de­liv­er­ing the eu­lo­gy, Smith’s cousin, Dr Ayan­na Miller, re­mem­bered the prison of­fi­cer for his en­dear­ing love.

“As a cousin, nephew and friend, Kendell was a source of joy and strength in our lives. His ded­i­ca­tion ex­tend­ed be­yond fam­i­ly bonds, as for near­ly 15 years he served as a prison of­fi­cer show­cas­ing strength and com­mit­ment to a chal­leng­ing pro­fes­sion,” Miller said.

Act­ing As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent of Pris­ons Wen­dell Mitchell de­scribed Smith as an of­fi­cer who went over and be­yond the call of du­ty.

“Dur­ing his 14 years in the ser­vice, of­fi­cer Smith served with pride and im­mense pro­fes­sion­al­ism. Smithy was the gold stan­dard and em­bod­ied the ex­pres­sion of tak­ing pride in one’s work.”