Raphael John-Lall

The Tri­ni-style wake for the late Hugo Rafael Chavez was a lo­cal way to send off the Venezue­lan leader, said Bur­ton Sanker­al­li, chair­man of the Bo­li­var­i­an Sol­i­dar­i­ty Move­ment of T&T."The orig­i­nal idea was to have a Tri­ni-style wake to ho­n­our Chavez in our own lo­cal way. A lot of Tri­nis have been moved be­cause of his death and be­cause of his con­tri­bu­tion to the re­gion and world," Sanker­al­li said.

Sanker­al­li, a Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) lec­tur­er and so­cial ac­tivist, said the sol­i­dar­i­ty or­gan­i­sa­tion in­volves na­tion­als of T&T who pro­mote Venezue­lan cul­ture and its so­ci­ety.Chavez died on Tues­day af­ter­noon in a Cara­cas mil­i­tary hos­pi­tal af­ter a two-year bat­tle with can­cer.

From 6 pm to 11 pm on Thurs­day, a wake was held at the Venezue­lan Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain in his ho­n­our. Peo­ple came with can­dles, Crix bis­cuits, cof­fee and oth­er items that usu­al­ly make up a Trinida­di­an wake.A cross sec­tion of cit­i­zens across the coun­try were at the em­bassy in­volv­ing trade union­ists, non-gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tions (NGOs), re­li­gious bod­ies, cul­tur­al groups and mem­bers of dif­fer­ent po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

Mem­bers of the Venezue­lan com­mu­ni­ty in T&T were al­so there to mourn.Sanker­al­li said the late Venezue­lan pres­i­dent made a vast con­tri­bu­tion to in­ter­na­tion­al are­na and he was hap­py that na­tion­als of T&T were be­gin­ning to see that."The death of Chavez is sad and we hope that T&T con­tin­ues to re­alise all that he has done. We al­so hope that T&T learns about what he rep­re­sents," he said.

Vin­cent Cabr­era, pres­i­dent of the Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers' Union, who spoke at the wake, said al­though Chavez was gone phys­i­cal­ly, the world must car­ry on his lega­cy."In Chavez's view we must keep up the fight against im­pe­ri­al­ism. The right-wing po­lit­i­cal group in T&T is unit­ed, so must be the work­ing class."His­to­ri­an Michael An­tho­ny, who was at the wake, said Chavez was a rare leader and would be missed.

"He has been one of the great­est lead­ers in the west­ern hemi­sphere. He is the sec­ond Si­mon Bo­li­var, who lib­er­at­ed Latin Amer­i­ca."Com­mu­ni­ca­tion of­fi­cer of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee Shaba­ka Kam­bon said his or­gan­i­sa­tion send con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of Chavez."From the bot­tom to top of so­ci­ety, sup­port is ring­ing out. Chavez is wor­thy of those ac­co­lades and ho­n­our."