Richard Lord

For­eign Af­fairs and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan says the 9/11 at­tacks on the Unit­ed States should en­cour­age all to make the world free of bit­ter­ness and ac­ri­mo­ny. Ram­bachan made the com­ment at a cer­e­mo­ny held to mark the tenth an­niver­sary of the at­tacks. The cer­e­mo­ny was or­gan­ised by the US Em­bassy in T&T and took place at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, Port-of-Spain. More than 3,000 peo­ple, in­clud­ing 14 T&T cit­i­zens, died when three air­craft that had been hi­jacked by mem­bers of the Al Que­da ter­ror­ist group crashed in­to the World Trade Cen­tre tow­ers in down­town Man­hat­tan and the Pen­ta­gon Build­ing in Wash­ing­ton DC on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001.

Many of the peo­ple who at­tend­ed yes­ter­day's event were rel­a­tives of those who died in the at­tacks. Ram­bachan said while there were many events in which sev­er­al lives were lost "nev­er has there been a tragedy that has caused such glob­al an­guish." He said while the World Trade Cen­tre tow­ers were the tar­gets of the vi­o­lent at­tacks, "the in­ven­to­ry of vic­tims is al­most uni­ver­sal." He said cit­i­zens of the world must now do all they can to en­sure that fu­ture gen­er­a­tions will be able to live in a world "de­void of hate and ag­gres­sion." Ram­bachan said since "man can­not pre­vent death, he does not pos­sess the right to de­ny an­oth­er the free­dom to live."

Mean­while, at an­oth­er func­tion, Ram­bachan al­so paid glow­ing trib­ute to Mus­lims in T&T for their in­valu­able con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of T&T. He was speak­ing dur­ing an Eid-ul-Fitr lun­cheon at Gas­ton Court, Lange Park, Ch­agua­nas. Like Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar did last week, he al­so com­mend­ed the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty for the sac­ri­fices they in­curred af­ter the de­c­la­ra­tion of a state of emer­gency and cur­few dur­ing the month of Ra­madan.