UNC stalwart Don Sylvester laid to rest

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) stal­wart Don Sylvester, 72, was re­mem­bered yes­ter­day as he was laid to rest, fit­ting­ly on the 37th an­niver­sary of the UNC, as the kind of man who could make you laugh even when you want­ed to cry, and who nev­er wa­vered in his loy­al­ty to his par­ty or his friends.

Sylvester, who died on April 21, served as a sen­a­tor be­tween 2012 and 2014 un­der the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion and con­test­ed the St Ann’s East seat in the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

He al­so worked in lo­cal gov­ern­ment and with the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion. Sylvester re­mained an ac­tive pres­ence with­in the par­ty over the years.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and St Lu­cia Prime Min­is­ter Philip J Pierre both paid trib­ute dur­ing the fu­ner­al.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar told mourn­ers, “ He was a loy­al son of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and he was a loy­al son of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.”

She de­scribed him as “a man de­fined by du­ty, he was de­fined by ser­vice, he was de­fined by stead­fast com­mit­ment.”

She re­called his pres­ence and per­son­al­i­ty.

“I re­call very vivid­ly, as many of us do, his pres­ence, his pas­sion, his en­er­gy. When Don was in the room, you know Don was there. Agreed? You couldn’t miss Don Sylvester at all. His en­er­gy was tremen­dous, his sense of hu­mour was tremen­dous, and I say to­day what a sol­dier who has fall­en, what a man we have lost.”

Not­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of the day, the 37th an­niver­sary of the found­ing of the UNC, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Sylvester sus­tained the spir­it of the move­ment start­ed by Bas­deo Pan­day, which be­gan a move­ment root­ed in jus­tice, in­clu­sion and be­lief in the peo­ple.

She al­so spoke about their per­son­al con­nec­tion.

“For Don, who loved the UNC and I say it with­out be­ing boast­ful, for Don who loved me and I loved him very much, with every fi­bre of his be­ing and mine, this mo­ment stands as a tes­ta­ment to that love that we share.”

St Lu­cia’s Prime Min­is­ter Philip Pierre al­so re­flect­ed on Sylvester’s per­son­al­i­ty and their friend­ship.

“Don was a very spe­cial guy. He was a guy who would make you laugh even if you want­ed to cry.”

He added, “For him, noth­ing was se­ri­ous. And if you tried to get him to be se­ri­ous about some­thing that ought not to be se­ri­ous, he would make a joke. But that was a guy who was a deep thinker.”

Pierre re­called Sylvester’s in­volve­ment in busi­ness and Car­ni­val, as well as his love for pol­i­tics.

“I re­mem­ber one time he was an act­ing sen­a­tor, and he sent me a pic­ture. And I have that pic­ture in my phone, and that was, to him, the best day of his life.”

He al­so spoke about Sylvester’s loy­al­ty.

“He had an un­end­ing love for the Prime Min­is­ter. He loved the Prime Min­is­ter. He said noth­ing wrong. He thought that the Prime Min­is­ter was the best per­son to run the coun­try of Trinidad. And he took no pris­on­ers where that was con­cerned.”

Pierre added, “I miss him… he had a sense of op­ti­mism. He did not take it se­ri­ous­ly. He thought that he would have been out soon.”

The fu­ner­al took place at the St John’s the Evan­ge­list Ro­man Catholic Church in Diego Mar­tin.