Richard Lord

Three Caribbean lead­ers, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, left Port-of-Spain for Jo­han­nes­burg, South Africa, yes­ter­day to at­tend to­day's state memo­r­i­al ser­vice for Nel­son Man­dela.Some 59 world lead­ers are ex­pect­ed to at­tend the ser­vice at the FNB Sta­di­um in Jo­han­nes­burg.Man­dela died last Thurs­day and will be buried fol­low­ing a pri­vate fu­ner­al on Sun­day.

Haiti's Pres­i­dent Michel Martelle, the Prime Min­is­ter of The Ba­hamas Per­ry Christie, deputy Prime Min­is­ter of St Lu­cia Philip J Pierre and Grena­da's deputy Prime Min­is­ter Elvin Nim­rod al­so left on the same plane.

Leader of the Op­po­si­tion Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Far­ris Al-Rawi, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs Mar­garet Par­il­lon, chair­man of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee Khafra Kam­bon and jour­nal­ists Khamal Georges, Juhel Browne, An­drea de Sil­va and CN­MG di­rec­tor Ke­van Gibbs al­so trav­elled with the Cari­com del­e­ga­tion.

They left on a spe­cial Caribbean Air­lines char­ter short­ly af­ter noon yes­ter­day, via Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where the air­craft was ex­pect­ed to be re­fu­elled be­fore con­tin­u­ing to South Africa.The del­e­ga­tion is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in South Africa at 6 am South Africa Stan­dard Time, the ser­vice be­gins five hours lat­er.

Ja­maica Prime Min­is­ter Por­tia Simp­son-Miller and the pres­i­dents of Guyana, Don­ald Ramo­tar, and Suri­name, De­sire De­lano Bouterse, left sep­a­rate­ly, Per­sad-Bisses­sar told re­porters at the diplo­mat­ic lounge at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port yes­ter­day.She said she was ho­n­oured to be at the helm of the del­e­ga­tion go­ing to say farewell to Man­dela.Row­ley was not at the news brief­ing called by Per­sad-Bisses­sar.Al-Rawi was seen chat­ting with oth­er mem­bers of the del­e­ga­tion be­fore they de­part­ed.

Man­dela Day is to be ob­served in T&T next year as a trib­ute to the for­mer South Africa leader, who died from com­pli­ca­tions con­nect­ed with a lung in­fec­tion. The date for the T&T cel­e­bra­tion of his life has not been an­nounced as yet.The Man­dela memo­r­i­al ser­vice is to be at­tend­ed by 59 world lead­ers, in­clud­ing US Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro, Cu­ba Pres­i­dent Raul Cas­tro, Kenya Pres­i­dent Uhu­ru Keny­at­ta and In­dia Pres­i­dent Pranab Mukher­jee.

There will be pub­lic view­ing of Man­dela's body to­mor­row and Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er Caribbean lead­ers will be among many who will pay their last re­spects.The T&T na­tion­al flag is to be flown at half-mast to­day and Wednes­day on Gov­ern­ment build­ings and schools as a mark of re­spect for Man­dela.The Prime Min­is­ter has al­so asked Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Gary Grif­fith to en­sure that the flag was flown at half-mast.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ap­point­ed Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Mar­lene Coudray to act as Prime Min­is­ter dur­ing her ab­sence. The del­e­ga­tion is ex­pect­ed to re­turn home on Thurs­day.