Those of us who “took tear gas” in the 70s remember NJAC as our hope that “every
creed and race find an equal place
“. I now ask the question … will Chief Servant Makandal Daaga and Mrs. Liseli Daagaor or Bro. Khafra Kambon be at the UNC meeting at the Trinidad Country Club. And if we rewound the clock to (2010) the year of their ascendency to political office how would this article have been re-written: http://legacy.guardian.co.tt/archives/2004-04-27/news3.html.
Here is the text of the article:
BY COREY CONNELLY
A decision on the itinerary for the visit of former South African President Nelson Mandela is expected to be finalised today, communications specialist in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cheryl Moses says.
However, a luncheon for Mandela at the Country Club on Friday has now been shifted to the Hilton Trinidad.
“The agenda still has to be confirmed,” Moses said yesterday in a telephone interview.
She said a CONCACAF and Government team was expected to meet yesterday to deliberate on the agenda. A confirmation is expected some time today. Last week, controversy erupted between Government and CONCACAF over the protocol for the event.
However, Prime Minister Patrick Manning, speaking in Parliament on Friday, assured that the impasse between Government and CONCACAF over the visit had been resolved. He also confirmed that the visit would be an official one.
Mandela is scheduled to arrive in T&T on Thursday for a two-day visit to advance South Africa’s bid to host the 2010 football World Cup tournament.
He is expected to leave for Grenada on May 1.
In a statement yesterday, chairman of the Emancipation Support Committee Khafra Kambon continued his attack on the initial decision to host Mandela at the Country Club.
The decision to host Mandela had drawn differing comments for and against.
Khambon said while they applauded CONCACAF’s initiative to host Mandela, “an attention to symbolic things can have the character to enhance or destroy the meaning of the visit.
“In this context, we are deeply troubled, as are many people in the nation, at the decision announced to hold a function at the notorious Country Club for Mr Mandela,” he said.
Kambon said the 1970 Black Power movement had sought to “cleanse the society of the entrenched vestiges of racism that traumatised the nation.”
He added: “The supreme symbol of white racism at the time was the Country Club, an institution whose rabid policies insulted the people of this country and embarrassed the nation internationally, at one time provoking an official enquiry into its scandalous practice of excluding people with black skins.”
Kambon said the club was “a symbol of the slave master complex, and it should be shunned by all who stood up for their dignity.”
Dennise Demming 