ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

For­mer am­bas­sador Regi­nald Du­mas was ad­mired for his in­tegri­ty, ser­vice, hon­esty and in­tel­li­gence dur­ing a memo­r­i­al ser­vice last evening.

He died on March 7 while re­cov­er­ing from emer­gency surgery for a gas­troin­testi­nal con­di­tion.

Du­mas was re­mem­bered for his sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to na­tion-build­ing.

At a cel­e­bra­tion of life ser­vice in Buc­coo, fol­low­ing the view­ing of his body at Bel­groves Fu­ner­al Home in Lam­beau, many gath­ered to share trib­utes and the im­pact he had on those he knew.

Du­mas’ sis­ter Ma­ri­na spoke of his un­con­di­tion­al love.

“We will miss cel­e­brat­ing all our birth­days and Christ­mas lunch­es with Jim. On those days, we al­ways got to­geth­er. We will miss his pres­ence in our lives he was al­ways there.”

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Maria Dil­lion-Re­my ad­mired his tenac­i­ty over the years to en­cour­age good gov­er­nance.

She said, “I was thank­ful that I had such an op­por­tu­ni­ty to meet such a man. To­ba­go has lost stal­wart. A man we are proud of hav­ing been a son of the soil.”

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly of­fi­cial Anslem Richards said Du­mas was ir­re­place­able.

“I don’t think there will be an­oth­er Regi­nald Du­mas and there can’t be an­oth­er Regi­nald. There was on­ly one Regi­nald Du­mas and I know that not on­ly Trinidad and To­ba­go have lost a great mind, a great man of in­tegri­ty, but the re­gion and the world be­cause he was a glob­al fig­ure. And when he speaks, the world lis­ten,” Richards said.

Oth­ers re­mem­bered Du­mas’ il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer that in­volved serv­ing in var­i­ous promi­nent roles in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Du­mas be­gan his civ­il ser­vice ca­reer from 1959 to 1962 and lat­er be­came a ju­nior diplo­mat at Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Em­bassy in Wash­ing­ton.
His ex­ten­sive diplo­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence in­clud­ed serv­ing as Am­bas­sador to the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca and Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States from 1987 to 1988.
Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he served as High Com­mis­sion­er to Bar­ba­dos and the East­ern Caribbean be­tween 1985 and 1987. Pri­or to that, he held the po­si­tion of High Com­mis­sion­er to In­dia, with con­cur­rent ac­cred­i­ta­tion to Sri Lan­ka, Sin­ga­pore, In­done­sia, and Japan from 1980 to 1984.

Du­mas al­so served as High Com­mis­sion­er to Ethiopia, with con­cur­rent ac­cred­i­ta­tion to Kenya, the Unit­ed Re­pub­lic of Tan­za­nia, Ugan­da, and Zam­bia from 1973 to 1976.
In lat­er years, from 1988 to 1990, Du­mas served as Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary to the prime min­is­ter and head of the pub­lic ser­vice.

Dur­ing this time, he led the Pub­lic Ser­vice Re­form Task Force, ded­i­cat­ed to im­prov­ing pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion where he worked to im­prove the ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness of the pub­lic ser­vice.
Du­mas con­tin­ued to make sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions even af­ter his re­tire­ment.