Richard Lord

Se­vere traf­fic dis­rup­tions hit Port-of-Spain to­day as for­mer Pres­i­dent Arthur NR Robin­son be­gan­his fi­nal pro­ces­sion.

Robin­son, 87, who was al­so a for­mer Prime Min­is­ter and the first chair­man of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, died on March 9 from kid­ney fail­ure and is to be buried in Scar­bor­ough on Sat­ur­day af­ter two state fu­ner­als–one in Port-of-Spain on Thurs­day and the oth­er in Scar­bor­ough on Sat­ur­day.

A traf­fic ad­vi­so­ry is­sued by the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions said there would be tem­po­rary road clo­sures and no park­ing zones in cer­tain parts of the city with ef­fect from 6 am Tues­day and con­tin­u­ing in­to Wednes­day.

De­tails of the fu­ner­al arrange­ments were giv­en by pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer of the T&T Coast Guard, Lt Com­man­der Kirk Jean-Bap­tiste, at the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre, Knowsley, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

He said there would be a pro­ces­sion from Clark and Bat­too Fu­ner­al Home on Tra­garete Road to the Par­lia­ment, Tow­er D, Wa­ter­front Com­plex, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, where the body would lie in state to­day and to­mor­row.

The body will be trans­port­ed on a gun car­riage in a slow-walk mil­i­tary pro­ces­sion from Clarke and Bat­too Fu­ner­al Home at 6.30 am east on Tra­garete Road, south along St Vin­cent Street, east on Knox Street and south along Aber­crom­by Street to the Red House, where the Eter­nal Flame will be lit and then pro­ceed south along Aber­crom­by Street to In­de­pen­dence Square and west on the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade to the Wa­ter­front Com­plex for pub­lic view­ing.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er dig­ni­taries will view the body from 8 am to 10 am. Mem­bers of the pub­lic will be al­lowed to view the body from 10 am to 5.30 pm to­day.

To­mor­row, the body will be tak­en in a ve­hic­u­lar pro­ces­sion to the Wa­ter­front Com­plex for pub­lic view­ing.

Press Sec­re­tary Fran­cis Joseph, who al­so at­tend­ed the brief­ing, said Per­sad-Bisses­sar would ar­rive for the pub­lic view­ing of Robin­son's body at 10 am to­day. He al­so said Per­sad-Bisses­sar would ar­rive at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) at 8.40 am to meet Robin­son's fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing his daugh­ter Ann Mar­garet, son David and grand­daugh­ter Anush­ka, on Thurs­day for the State Fu­ner­al.

Some 5,000 stu­dents will line the streets lead­ing the NA­PA for Thurs­day's fu­ner­al and big screens will be set up at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Memo­r­i­al Park and at Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do, for pub­lic view­ing.

Chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion Ken Gor­don, who is a close friend of the Robin­sons, will speak on be­half of the fam­i­ly.

Oth­er ad­dress­es will be giv­en by Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, for­mer Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Sir Shri­dath Ram­phal and the Pres­i­dent of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court Sang-Hyun Song.

Robin­son was large­ly re­spon­si­ble for es­tab­lish­ing the ICC in 2002.