It is with great dis­com­fort and em­bar­rass­ment that I place on the pub­lic record that it is my con­sid­ered opin­ion that it is not saga­cious and to­tal­ly out of place for Su­ru­jdeo Man­groo, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC), to call up­on the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate of our coun­try to re­name the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port the “Bas­deo Pan­day In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port” in ho­n­our of the first East In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go. It is not­ed that his call was made at the NCIC 2026 cel­e­bra­tion of In­di­an Ar­rival Day.

Mr Man­groo’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for re­nam­ing our in­ter­na­tion­al air­port af­ter Pan­day was based on the ground that his ser­vices as prime min­is­ter of the coun­try im­pact­ed the coun­try as a whole and he thus de­serves the ho­n­our.

Well, the African di­as­po­ra in our coun­try can al­so make the same claim for for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning. But even if we were to re­name the air­port Bas­deo Pan­day/Patrick Man­ning In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, it would still be not saga­cious, and an em­bar­rass­ment. And I am al­most cer­tain that if they were alive, both Messrs Man­ning and Pan­day would read­i­ly agree with me.

But I wish to make it quite clear that in spite of the po­lit­i­cal fob­bings of these two for­mer prime min­is­ters, I am of the sin­cere opin­ion that they have made in­valu­able con­tri­bu­tions to the de­vel­op­ment of our coun­try and thus de­serve the right to be recog­nised as na­tion­al icons, but cer­tain­ly not the re­nam­ing of our in­ter­na­tion­al air­port in their names.

And my main and re­al­ly on­ly rea­son for adamant­ly protest­ing the re­nam­ing of our air­port is very sim­ple—WE WILL HAVE TO RE­MOVE THE NAME PI­AR­CO.

And I, in this re­gard, sup­port and en­dorse the Grand Chief of the First Peo­ples Sov­er­eign Na­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go, Er­ic Lewis, that re­mov­ing the name “Pi­ar­co” is an in­sult and a sign of dis­re­spect for the na­tion’s in­dige­nous peo­ples. And I add a non-ac­knowl­edge­ment of their his­toric ex­is­tence and mem­o­ry which goes back to over 8,000 years.

Er­ic Lewis told the coun­try, via his protes­ta­tion to the sug­gest­ed name change in his com­ments pub­lished in the news­pa­pers of June 2, (both Guardian and Ex­press), that the name “Pi­ar­co” be­longs to one of the chiefs of the Na­tion First Peo­ples who ruled one seg­ment of the In­dige­nous Peo­ples cen­turies ago and he be­laboured the point that the in­dige­nous peo­ple of Trinidad had been liv­ing here for cen­turies (8,000 years) be­fore it was colonised, be­fore the African Slave Trade and East In­di­an In­den­ture­ship and all oth­er ar­rivals in Trinidad.

He em­pha­sised that Trinidad and To­ba­go is not part of In­dia, and we are in the Caribbean and the First Peo­ples are the Kali­na­gos and the Arawakans. He thus ar­gued that what­ev­er ad­just­ments peo­ple want to make to the mem­o­ry of our peo­ple, they must be mind­ful of the ex­is­tence of the First Peo­ples and thus be re­spect­ful of the her­itage that was al­ready in Trinidad be­fore the ar­rival of the East In­di­ans and Africans and oth­ers.

And I wish to re­mind the pop­u­la­tion that au­thor CR Ot­t­ley doc­u­ment­ed in his lit­tle book, His­to­ry of Place Names In Trinidad and To­ba­go, the fol­low­ing, which the First Peo­ples left us with:

Ari­ma, Aripo, Aripero, Can­taro, Ca­roni, Cha­cachacare, Ch­agua­nas, Ch­aguara­mas, Cipero, Co­corite, Cou­va, Cumana, Cu­mu­to Cunu­pia, Curepe, Guapo (orig­i­nal­ly Lguapo), Guaracara, Mac­queripe, Matu­ra, Mau­si­ca, Ma­yaro, Mayo Moru­ga, Nar­i­va, Pi­ar­co, Quinam, Tabaquite, Tamana, Tal­paro To­co, Tu­na­puna, Tu­cuche (called El Tu­cuche by the Spaniards—the Hum­ming Bird).

It is an em­bar­rass­ment and an in­sult to our na­tion’s First Peo­ples to sug­gest that the new ar­rival of the Africans, East In­di­ans and oth­ers should take prece­dence over their his­toric her­itage and mem­o­ry.