As tributes poured in and the national flag was lowered to half mast yesterday, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said a state funeral will be held for former president Sir Ellis Clarke. Persad-Bissessar said so in an interview with reporters after she signed a condolence book which was opened at the Parliament Building yesterday afternoon. She told reporters a committee comprising officials from the Ministries of National Security, Foreign Affairs and Office of the Prime Minister will work out the details of the state funeral.
President George Maxwell Richards, House Speaker Wade Mark and Foreign Affairs Minister Surujrattan Rambachan were among the other signatories yesterday. The condolence book will be open to the public from 6 am to 6 pm every day, until the date of the funeral, which is yet to be announced. But family sources of Sir Ellis said yesterday that no decision had been taken on the PM's offer. The spokesman also said funeral arrangements were being finalised. No date was given up to late yesterday.
Condolence books will be open to the public during the same hours from Monday at the San Fernando City Corporation, Arima, Chaguanas and Point Fortin Borough Corporations and the Tobago House of Assembly office in Scarborough. Sir Ellis died on Thursday evening, two days after he reached 93 at his home in Fairways, Maraval, after suffering a massive stroke on November 24. The Prime Minister said: "The Government will give this great son of the soil and the veritable grandfather of our nation a state funeral."
She said that was befitting "his status and accomplishments as one of Trinidad and Tobago's greatest legal and academic minds and a contributor to nation building."
Persad-Bissessar added that the national flag will be flown at half mast until Sir Ellis's funeral. The Prime Minister said she would like to establish a foundation for Sir Ellis as a fitting tribute to his memory. She said Sir Ellis was "a great constitutional lawyer, and I would want to look for something in that area...maybe some foundation with respect to constitutional matters." Admitting that no decision had been made on the matter as yet, Persad-Bissessar said: "If I were to make a suggestion, I would want to see something like that." In a prepared statement, Persad-Bissessar said because of Sir Ellis's passing, "Trinidad and Tobago is now bereft of one of its long-standing founding heroes."
She said his passing was a "tremendous loss" to the people of T&T. Persad-Bissessar said Sir Ellis's "viable and crucial drafting of our country's 1962 Constitution" was perhaps his greatest contribution to T&T. "Until he fell ill last month, Sir Ellis remained the active exemplar of dignity and patriotism and our nation and citizens are truly forever indebted to him," she insisted. Persad-Bissessar said T&T had lost "a national hero but we should be assured that while great people must die, death can never kill their names."