Richard Lord

In an­oth­er show of uni­ty, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day chose Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley as the on­ly oth­er mem­ber of the na­tion­al del­e­ga­tion to ac­com­pa­ny her to view Nel­son Man­dela's body. Man­dela lay in state at the Union Build­ings, Pre­to­ria, South Africa–the of­fi­cial seat of the South African gov­ern­ment, where he was sworn in as the coun­try's first black pres­i­dent in 1994.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Row­ley and oth­er mem­bers of the T&T and Cari­com del­e­ga­tions al­so joined hun­dreds of South Africans in the streets of Pre­to­ria cel­e­brat­ing Man­dela's life. Yes­ter­day, many in­ter­na­tion­al lead­ers and hun­dreds of thou­sands of cit­i­zens had their fi­nal op­por­tu­ni­ty to say good­bye to Man­dela, who died on De­cem­ber 5 at his Jo­han­nes­burg home af­ter ail­ing for sev­er­al months. Man­dela's body will con­tin­ue to lie in state to­day and to­mor­row. His pri­vate fu­ner­al takes place on Sun­day.

In a re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said as thou­sands of mourn­ers were lin­ing up to view Man­dela's body, South African of­fi­cials de­cid­ed to lim­it the num­ber of peo­ple ac­com­pa­ny­ing world lead­ers to the view­ing. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was al­lowed to take on­ly one per­son and she chose Row­ley. It was the sec­ond oc­ca­sion in the past week that Per­sad-Bisses­sar had in­vit­ed Row­ley to par­tic­i­pate in an event.

Last Fri­day, she in­vit­ed him to be part of the T&T del­e­ga­tion to South Africa for the Man­dela memo­r­i­al ser­vice, which took place on Tues­day, and yes­ter­day's view­ing of the body at the Union Build­ings, which South Africa Pres­i­dent Ja­cob Zu­ma has re­named the Man­dela Am­phithe­atre.Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­pressed her grat­i­tude to Row­ley for ac­cept­ing her in­vi­ta­tion yes­ter­day. She said the oth­er mem­bers of the del­e­ga­tion were un­able to view the body be­cause of se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns.

Ques­tioned about Row­ley's ac­cep­tance of her in­vi­ta­tion to be part of the del­e­ga­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was "most ap­pro­pri­ate for him to at­tend with us here," and that she and Row­ley "had very cor­dial dis­cus­sions about oth­er mat­ters." She did not elab­o­rate.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was "a very mov­ing ex­pe­ri­ence to be on the African con­ti­nent."Pre­to­ria was a very green city with good roads, she said, and she was re­al­ly im­pressed.The T&T del­e­ga­tion re­turns home this evening.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day by phone, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said while the memo­r­i­al was very cel­e­bra­to­ry, the view­ing of the body "was more som­bre, and it re­al­ly struck home that we have re­al­ly lost a great son of the world."She said she felt "more sad­ness over the great loss of Man­dela."In re­sponse to a ques­tion on any fur­ther trib­utes by T&T in mem­o­ry of Man­dela, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, "We'll have to give more con­sid­er­a­tion to that."

On Tues­day, she said the Caribbean Air­lines air­craft which car­ried the T&T del­e­ga­tion and two oth­er Cari­com heads to South Africa will be named in ho­n­our of Man­dela.Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who is al­so the chair­man of Cari­com, said that body will al­so have to con­sid­er a fit­ting trib­ute to Man­dela in ad­di­tion to the in­di­vid­ual mem­ber states."All in all we have a lot to learn from the life of Mr Man­dela," the PM said.

She not­ed that it was a sig­nif­i­cant oc­ca­sion when so many lead­ers of the world jour­neyed to South Africa to pay trib­ute to a great man.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Man­dela will for­ev­er be revered world­wide for suc­cess­ful­ly shep­herd­ing the coun­try to­wards a peace­ful tran­si­tion to mul­tira­cial democ­ra­cy af­ter three cen­turies of white dom­i­na­tion.Man­dela was jailed for 27 years for his at­tempts to dis­man­tle the apartheid sys­tem which pre­vailed in his coun­try.

He sub­se­quent­ly be­came pres­i­dent in 1994 and served for one term.Asked if the bi-par­ti­san ap­proach would con­tin­ue in T&T dur­ing a joint press con­fer­ence in Pre­to­ria yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar she felt all par­ties in South Africa, in­clud­ing her­self and Row­ley, would do all in their pow­er to see a bet­ter T&T.

Marks for PM

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Wins­ford James said yes­ter­day that Per­sad-Bisses­sar should be giv­en marks for invit­ing Row­ley to be part of the of­fi­cial del­e­ga­tion to the Man­dela memo­r­i­al and pub­lic view­ing of the body in South Africa. He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar was "quite gen­er­ous, no­ble and po­lit­i­cal­ly cor­rect to choose Row­ley as the next per­son to ac­com­pa­ny her. Who else could she have cho­sen. It was a dis­play of wis­dom and she must get marks for that."

James said invit­ing Row­ley to vis­it South Africa was in keep­ing with what Man­dela would have want­ed of all lead­ers acrosss the world. He said Man­dela had "the abil­i­ty to bring peo­ple to­geth­er" and it was im­por­tant that the PM and Row­ley went to pay homage to "the great Nel­son Man­dela."

An­oth­er po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst, In­di­ra Ram­per­sad, said Per­sad-Bisses­sar's in­vi­ta­tion to Row­ley was "a mag­nan­i­mous ges­ture," es­pe­cial­ly un­der the ex­ist­ing ad­ver­sar­i­al sys­tem of gov­er­nance. She said un­der this sys­tem, gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion do not share such ex­pe­ri­ences fre­quent­ly.

Ram­per­sad said while there was no guar­an­tee that such ges­tures will con­tin­ue when they re­turn, she hopes there would be "more am­i­ca­ble re­la­tions in the in­ter­est of the coun­try."She said Man­dela was an in­ter­na­tion­al icon and a hero, and con­se­quent­ly and such ges­tures were in keep­ing with the way he lived. She said it should not be seen as a po­lit­i­cal ges­ture be­cause it was not.For­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day said the move by Per­sad-Bisses­sar had no sig­nif­i­cance.

"I don't think it means any­thing. I don't know of what sig­nif­i­cance it is for the coun­try."