Dominica’s late PM Pierre honoured in state funeral

ROSEAU, Dominica: Caribbean leaders and hometown residents were honouring late Prime Minister Pierre Charles in a sombre funeral procession yesterday, with many remembering Dominica’s longest-serving legislator as a humble community leader who helped them learn to read and played basketball in the park. The 49-year-old died of a heart attack January 6, while being driven home after a Cabinet meeting. His flag-draped coffin was displayed Friday at the State House, in the capital, Roseau, and on Saturday in his hometown constituency of Grand Bay. As a loudspeaker played the song “Don’t cry for me, Argentina” - one of Charles’ favourites - hundreds of Grand Bay residents filed past his coffin set Saturday morning on a stage in Matutu Park, where Charles had played basketball in his youth. Black and white banners hung from houses around the town of 5,000. Placards set on front lawns read “Thank You, Pierro,” using his nickname, and “Pierro, none can compare.”

Several people broke into sobs, saying the former Grand Bay schoolteacher had been a good family friend and respected community leader. “When my mother died, he never left my side,” said Estasie Abraham, 80. “It’s sad that he has to go before me.” Others told of how Charles helped the town’s elderly read letters from relatives abroad, and established adult literacy classes. Later yesterday, a police guard and motorcade accompanied a hearse carrying Charles’ body along the town’s main street of Lalay to the Grand Bay Roman Catholic Church for a state funeral. A delegation of Venezuelan officials arrived Saturday for the ceremony, though President Hugo Chavez was not in attendance. The delegation did not immediately explain his absence. Other regional leaders attending the funeral included heads of state from Barbados, Grenada, St. Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. During his political career, Charles was a vocal supporter of efforts toward Caribbean economic integration, and for the first half of 2003 held the rotating chairmanship of the 15-member Caribbean Community.

He began his political career as part of the opposition, and criticised the 1983 US invasion of nearby Grenada, which was supported by Dominica’s then-Prime Minister Dame Eugenia Charles. He was elected to Parliament in 1985 and appointed prime minister in 2000. Recently, Charles had called on the United States to lift its trade embargo against Cuba. In recent years, Charles faced economic woes at home, marked by chronic budget deficits and a national debt of EC$779 million (US$287.4 million), or about three-fourths of gross domestic product. The lush, mountainous island — with an economy based on fading agriculture and small numbers of tourists - is one of the Caribbean’s poorest. Last year, Charles pushed for harsh austerity measures that included cutting public spending 15 percent and introducing new taxes — measures that were unpopular with many workers and led to strikes in the former British colony of 71,000, though they were praised by international financial experts. At a memorial rally Thursday night, successor Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit announced that a new road and youth centre in Grand Bay would be named after Charles.