Charles Kong Soo

For­mer Black Pow­er leader and founder of the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC) Makan­dal Daa­ga's fu­ner­al ser­vice yes­ter­day was briefly dis­rupt­ed by ra­dio talk show host Ri­car­do "Glad­i­a­tor" Welch who was ap­par­ent­ly dis­pleased with the al­leged "hypocrisy" shown by the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gov­ern­ment for not grant­i­ng Daa­ga a state fu­ner­al.

The dis­tur­bance oc­curred dur­ing Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Max­ie Cuffie's trib­ute to Daa­ga at the Grand Stand, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

Just af­ter Cuffie, speak­ing on be­half of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, said Black Pow­er meant the pow­er of a unit­ed black peo­ple, the rekin­dled la­tent strength of a peo­ple ac­cus­tomed to be­ing told their af­fir­ma­tions were too grand, an irate Welch got to his feet and be­gan shout­ing "hyp­ocrites" at Cuffie.

Welch was es­cort­ed away from the Grand Stand by sev­er­al mem­bers of the au­di­ence and po­lice but was al­lowed to take in the pro­ceed­ings from the side­lines.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian near the end of the ser­vice, Welch said, "My ac­tions are the re­sult of the state­ment made by Ag Prime Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert who said Daa­ga was not qual­i­fied for a state fu­ner­al, that it was on­ly for prime min­is­ters and pres­i­dents who died in of­fice.

"That was a lie be­cause Patrick Man­ning, ANR Robin­son, El­lis Clarke, did not die in of­fice but were giv­en a state fu­ner­al.

"What dis­turbed me was there were PNM mem­bers sit­ting in the au­di­ence, Works Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, Ag AG Stu­art Young and Labour Min­is­ter Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus.

"The cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter of this coun­try marched in the 1970 Black Pow­er strug­gle in To­ba­go and al­so in Trinidad and what was be­ing prac­tised up­on the stage was a mat­ter of hypocrisy."

He said he was against hypocrisy by the cur­rent PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion who praised Daa­ga for his con­tri­bu­tions to T&T and the Caribbean yet re­fused to give him a state fu­ner­al.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) chair­man Dr David Lee spoke on be­half of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar who he said could not make it be­cause of her den­tal op­er­a­tion on Fri­day.

Al­so present at the fu­ner­al ser­vice were sev­er­al of Daa­ga's col­leagues in the for­mer Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, for­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an, ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Fazal Karim, trans­port min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz, Plan­ning min­is­ter Dr Bhoe Tewarie, Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan, min­is­ter of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment Clifton De Coteau, Cul­ture min­is­ter Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters, UNC deputy chair­man Khadi­jah Ameen, Op­po­si­tion MP Bar­ry Padarath, UNC cam­paign man­ag­er Rod­ney Charles, and for­mer vice-chair­man of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith.

Ja­maat al-Mus­limeen leader Abu Bakr was al­so at the fu­ner­al, ac­com­pa­nied by his en­tourage of body­guards along with his son, Fuad.

Daa­ga was lat­er in­terred at the Lapey­rouse Ceme­tery, Phillip Street, Port-of-Spain.

STATE con­tributed $100,000

Speak­ing to the me­dia at Thurs­day's post-cab­i­net press con­fer­ence, act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said Daa­ga did not qual­i­fy for a state fu­ner­al.

Im­bert said, "There are three types of fu­ner­als recog­nised by the State. There are state fu­ner­als, which are the high­est and are re­served for pres­i­dents and prime min­is­ters who die in of­fice.

"Then you have an of­fi­cial fu­ner­al for for­mer prime min­is­ters, for­mer pres­i­dents and sit­ting min­is­ters of gov­ern­ment, ac­tu­al­ly, Cab­i­net min­is­ters in of­fice, Chief Jus­tices, that kind of thing and then you have the fu­ner­al with state in­volve­ment.

"Mr Daa­ga was not in any groups that I men­tioned, he does not qual­i­fy in ac­cor­dance with the rules but we cer­tain­ly be­lieve that he qual­i­fies for a fu­ner­al with state in­volve­ment."

The Gov­ern­ment, how­ev­er, con­tributed $100,000 to Daa­ga's fu­ner­al.