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  • 2 years ago
Hundreds were invited to the State Funeral of Basdeo Panday. However, Political Leader of HOPE, Timothy Hamel-Smith and his Deputy Leader, Karen Nunez-Tesheira were not, so they stormed the funeral.


They have come in for criticism from Minister of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs Dr. Amery Browne.


But, Nunez-Tesheira blames the government for what transpired.


Alicia Boucher has more in this report.
Transcript
00:00 take any news why I have to jump over because the minister who was my colleague chose to
00:06 ignore my presence.
00:08 That colleague, Deputy Political Leader of HOPE, Cara Nunes de Sherra, was referring
00:12 to his foreign and caricomer-faced minister, Dr. Emery Brown, whom she had worked with
00:17 in the Patrick Manning cabinet.
00:19 Dr. Brown was in the middle of an interview with TV6 News at the time, following one he
00:24 had done just minutes before with other members of the media.
00:28 And so, Nunes de Sherra's political leader, Timothy Hamilsmith, who held office during
00:33 the People's Partnership Administration, followed suit.
00:36 And now we have to help the former president of the Senate do the same thing because he
00:41 got no invitation.
00:42 Right?
00:43 So let him continue with the interviews and look how it makes them look.
00:51 The commotion didn't go unnoticed by Dr. Brown, who was standing only a couple of feet away
00:56 and in the middle of our interview, he stopped to address it.
01:00 Of course, you have some persons seeking to grandstand very loudly, even while we're doing
01:05 this interview.
01:06 It's very, very unfortunate.
01:07 This is so disappointing.
01:12 This is so disappointing that you have someone coming to grandstand at a state funeral in
01:18 this manner.
01:20 But again, Mr. Pandey, I think in these circumstances, would have pressed on, would have recognized
01:28 that someone is really just trying to distract attention.
01:32 The attention should be on him and his life of service.
01:37 Nunes de Sherra says Hamilsmith tried numerous times to get an invitation to attend a state
01:43 funeral.
01:44 I tried in many occasions, through the prime minister's office, then I think through the
01:49 governor's office, through even the E.B. to see if he would get an invitation as a form
01:54 of private funeral.
01:58 She's of the view that either local government minister, Fares Alarawi, whom she had also
02:03 tried seeking assistance from, or Dr. Brown, could have helped Hamilsmith get into the
02:08 venue.
02:09 But she also says she got a go ahead to go over the railings from law enforcement.
02:14 I do believe that Mr. Brown and I had a good relationship.
02:20 He totally ignored me, because he didn't know me.
02:22 He didn't know me.
02:23 We went from one interview to the next, and in between the two, he could have taken a
02:27 break and done what I said and what I thought.
02:30 It was their suggestion, the police, not him.
02:33 They said to me, why don't you just kind of pretend, because to go down there, the procession
02:38 has started.
02:39 And I said, OK, I'll do that.
02:42 Nunez-Sashara denies that it was a play for attention by her and the former Senate president.
02:47 The president did say that we didn't show if the minister said we were grandstanding.
02:52 Well, we were not grandstanding.
02:54 We were doing what you should have done, which was the right thing to do.
02:58 We also were not allowed to go in.
03:00 But OK, that's OK.
03:02 That's what you decided.
03:03 You decided.
03:04 They instead viewed the service via screens that were under attent at the Sapa compound
03:09 for people who did not have a formal invitation to the funeral service.
03:13 Alicia Boucher, TV6 News.
03:16 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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