Richard Lord

In To­ba­go

Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Orville Lon­don yes­ter­day called for To­ba­go to be giv­en full au­ton­o­my as a fit­ting and last­ing trib­ute to for­mer pres­i­dent, prime min­is­ter and chair­man of the THA Arthur NR Robin­son, who died from kid­ney fail­ure at St Clair Med­ical Cen­tre, Port-of-Spain, on April 9. He was 87.

Lon­don said this dur­ing a state fu­ner­al for Robin­son at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um, Ba­co­let, To­ba­go. The first state fu­ner­al was held at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (Na­pa), Port-of-Spain, on Thurs­day.

Yes­ter­day's fu­ner­al ser­vice was not with­out in­ci­dent. Short­ly af­ter the cas­ket was brought on the stage, the na­tion­al flag drap­ing it fell off, caus­ing the au­di­ence to gasp in sur­prise. One of the sol­diers who had brought the cas­ket on stage had to rush to rec­ti­fy the prob­lem. Mo­ments lat­er, it slipped off for a sec­ond time, as there was a strong breeze blow­ing across the sta­di­um. The flag was again se­cured around the cas­ket, al­low­ing the ser­vice to be­gin.

Among those present were Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, Chief Sec­re­tary Orville Lon­don, cab­i­net min­is­ters and Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley. Robin­son's chil­dren Ann Mar­garet, grand­daugh­ter Anush­ka and nephew El­lis were al­so present.Allen Granville ho­n­oured Robin­son's na­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions in song; the au­di­ence sang along with him, clapped and even gave him a stand­ing ova­tion.

Lon­don said Robin­son's vi­sion was for au­ton­o­my for To­ba­go: "He has died with his To­ba­go vi­sion un­ful­filled." Lon­don said: "...We must take the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that Robin­son's vi­sion of an au­tonomous To­ba­go in an eq­ui­table, dig­ni­fied, and mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial re­la­tion­ship with Trinidad, in a strong, unit­ed, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic state, is re­alised."He al­so urged lead­ers to "strive to em­u­late (Robin­son's) courage, for­ti­tude, char­ac­ter and re­fusal to com­pro­mise on prin­ci­ple."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar paid glow­ing trib­ute to Robin­son, say­ing he was will­ing to lose his life in de­fence of the na­tion dur­ing the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup by the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen, when he or­dered the army to at­tack with full force dur­ing the hostage cri­sis at the Par­lia­ment build­ing.Robin­son was a true cit­i­zen of this coun­try and a true Caribbean man, she said.She said he must be re­mem­bered as "a car­ing fa­ther, a res­olute leader, a lov­ing son, a de­vot­ed hus­band, and a loy­al friend."

The Sig­nal Hill Alum­ni Choir, Bish­op's High School Choir and Rox­bor­ough Com­mu­ni­ty Chorale all sang songs.Row­ley said Robin­son was a good ex­am­ple of moral­i­ty in pub­lic af­fairs. He said the late pres­i­dent recog­nised the im­por­tance of spir­i­tu­al knowl­edge and urged every­one to em­u­late the high stan­dards set by Robin­son.Rev Joseph Hep­burn of the Methodist Church gave the homi­ly. He said Robin­son did not em­brace the idea of pow­er, but be­lieved in the pow­er of ideas.

Fol­low­ing the three-hour ser­vice, there was a pri­vate ser­vice at the Scar­bor­ough Methodist Church. Robin­son was lat­er buried at the church ceme­tery, with a 21-gun salute.