A rebel Trinidadian, who never learnt to speak Chinese fluently, never even liked Chinese food eventually became the Foreign Minister of China, after establishing himself as the backbone of the government of Sun Yat-Sen, the first president and founding father of the Republic of China.
Eugene Chen, the ultimate Trinidadian was born in San Fernando in 1876, of mixed heritage that included Chinese, African and Spanish.
The St Mary's College graduate became the first lawyer of Chinese descent in the Caribbean having studied in London, after which he returned home to marry a black woman, Agatha Alphonsin Ganteaume, against his parents’ wishes.
But in 1912, Chen left Trinidad aiming to join the Chinese Nationalist Movement, headed by Sun Yat-Sen.
Once in China, he started the Peking Gazette, writing articles against the British colonial powers, in English.
Five years later he fearlessly published an article revealing secret negotiations between the then Premier of China, warlord Duan Qirui and the Japanese, which landed him in jail.
This got the attention of Sun Yat-Sen and four months later, a free man, Eugene left Beijing and went to join Sun in Shanghai, where he established the Shanghai Gazette and became Sun’s confidante and legal advisor.
He led a boycott against the British interest in China, causing Britain to back down and to sign the Chen-O’Malley Agreement in February 1927 which paved the way for Hong Kong to be returned to China 70 years later.
Eugene Chen never returned to Trinidad but died in 1944 branded as one of the most important Chinese diplomats of the 1920s.
In a 1931 publication on China, Time Magazine called Eugene Chen “the brains, the master propagandist of China and a fearless editor in his own right”.
-Leah Skeete
Source: Virtual Museum of TT, Dec. 28, 2020

In the final years of their short lives, Richard De Souza and Everard Sookharry lost their way. Completely.
One enslaved by bay rum, the other by cocaine, they drifted about Chase Village, Chaguanas, working odd jobs for sympathetic business people who remembered them in their youth.
De Souza plucked and butchered chicken for the depots, and Sookharry sold vegetables and weaved coconut leaf hats that he hawked roadside. Both men, who were friends, were all but homeless by then.
So when they hustled enough money, they would find their way to the space under the flyover spanning the Solomon Hochoy Highway.
And with vehicles rumbling by above, and traffic flashing by below, these modern-day trolls would lose themselves in their intoxicants, safe from the police.
There, they would overnight on cardboard beds, forgetting everything, or maybe remembering their finest moment, 30 years ago, when they had the awestruck attention of the entire country of Canada.
Two weeks ago, when Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley gave one of his long-winded news conference addresses—this one on the matter of the Venezuelan migrants—he reminded the population that Trinidadians had done the same back in the ’80s and ’90s, when they jetted off to North America, in a time before a visa was needed.
And having arrived on vacation, locals claimed asylum and refugee status, alleging all manner of atrocity had been inflicted upon them by the authorities on the island. Rowley mentioned that the desperation was such that there was even a case of two Trinis landing in Canada without the airline ever knowing they were aboard.
The Trinis he was taking about were De Souza and Sookharry.
This is their story.
That Monday morning on February 19, 1990, Sookharry, then 26, and De Souza, 19, strolled into the VIP Lounge of the old Piarco Airport, a drinking spot next to the waving (and weeping) gallery that was so close to the departing aircraft that you could be blown over when they taxied away.
The two were in coveralls, since they had labouring jobs in construction. In the bar, they had an unobstructed view of the tarmac, and of the BWIA Lockheed Tristar sitting there. They knew the aircraft was being prepared for Flight 1011, bound for Pearson International, Toronto.
Both had dead-end lives in Trinidad. Both knew Canada, having returned from there the year before after withdrawing their refugee claims, which were among an estimated 14,700 made by Trinidadians back then.
They took a drink, pondered, and decided to see the Canadian winter.
The men left the airport, walked east to the perimeter fence, easily scaled it and walked to the plane, skipped up the stairs and was into the cabin before anyone noticed. Plan A was to just start up and fly away. So they went into the cockpit and began punching on knobs and flipping switches. That didn’t work out.
So they decided to hide. De Souza tried fitting into a cupboard in the galley. Sookharry considered the overhead luggage compartment. About then, the janitors came aboard to prep the plane for the passengers. De Souza grabbed a clipboard and pretended to be doing a checklist. Their presence on the plane was plausible. Both were in “maintenance” outfits.
The janitors grew suspicious so De Souza and Sookharry disembarked. Plan B was then hatched.
The main landing gear of the Lockheed Tristar, when the wheels are deployed, leaves a huge cavity in the plane’s underbelly near the wings. They crawled in, and waited. The passengers began filing in. The aircraft powered up, and began rolling.


The men would later tell a story of screaming along with the jet engines, bodies pressed against the vibrating wall of the wheel well as the plane fought gravity, then the moment of lift-off, and of seeing the ground fall away, of the terror of knowing there was no turning back when the land gear retracted and the massive wheels came within inches of them, and of the space going dark, leaving a smell of burnt tyres.
‘An insane thing for anyone to try’
At least 113 people have attempted to stow away in the landing gear of an aircraft between 1947 and 2015 in the United States alone. Eighty-six of those people died.
Some turned to human ice cubes. Some died from oxygen deprivation and tumbled to earth when the wheelbay doors opened.
De Souza and Sookharry made it. They cut into a rubber and fibreglass reinforced panel and fit themselves into a cubbyhole in the wing. It took six hours to get to Toronto. The jet flew at 10,000 metres. The temperature dropped to -40°C. The oxygen at that altitude is about six per cent of what is available at ground level. They survived hypoxia, nitrogen gas embolism and decompression sickness.


The plane landed in Toronto at 4.30 p.m. And our Trinis stayed hidden until the passengers got out with the crew. De Souza would later explain that when they thought it was safe, they would drop out of the wheel well, and into the Canadian snow. Only to find the plane’s captain doing an inspection of his craft.
“Hey, where did you guys come from?’ De Souza was asked. “We come from Trinidad,” he answered.
They were taken away by airport police to the hospital for a check-up, then sent to a detention centre.
The men fought deportation for more than a year, in and out of Immigration Court in Toronto, while Trinidad and Tobago reeled from the July 1990 attempted coup and its aftermath.
During that time, they were celebrated. “It’s an insane thing for anyone to try,” said the spokesperson for Lockheed.
Every small detail of their journey was chronicled. They had smoked cigarettes up there while hiding near a wing filled with fuel. They had left some “bandana” rags, a pair of sunglasses, and someone had defecated.
In the end, both were deported, returning to Trinidad as Chase Village celebrities. De Souza would henceforth be given the name B-Wee, and Sookharry the nickname Nasa.


They would never fly again but tried fixing their lives, relatives and friends told the Express this week. Both men were intelligent, skilled, and street smart. Each had a son. But the drugs and drink won.
Everard Sookharry died ten years ago from his drug use. He was in his 50s. Last December De Souza died from multiple organ failure from the same abuse. Both were found near their flyover.
The Canadian media had speculated as to how the men could have survived the trip.
They must have fallen unconscious and basically went into hibernation (a poikilothermic state), and snoozed all the way across from the south Caribbean, Lockheed suggested.
Some years before his death, the Express had asked De Souza how they survived.
He laughed. It was rum. They had stowed away with a bottle of Forres Park puncheon.
Source:  Saturday Express, Jan 1, 2021

I greet you, the people of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago – very confidently today – at the start of the new year — 2021.
It is with a firm buoyancy that I extend New Year’s Greetings from the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, my family, and myself as Prime Minister.
The first of January 2021 is not just the start of the new year – but it is the day in which we begin to set out what we can see as a new beginning.
There are those among us, the nay-sayers, who will cry out immediately, casting doubts that this year will be just an extension of the awful nightmare of 2020.
My government with its “boundless faith in our destiny” holds, instead, to its faith in the people of Trinidad and Tobago, seeing only hope and opportunities.
I know that we all wish we could leave the challenges of 2020 behind, but its realities are before us.
Globally the dual shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and the collapse in energy prices have had debilitating impacts. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has estimated that the world economy has suffered a -4.4 percent decline.
In some countries, the economic decline and the lockdown resulted in job losses on an unimaginable scale, with commodity and other markets grinding to a halt. That double blow coupled into the challenges of 2020, hindering projected economic growth, resulting beyond belief in millions of people losing income, others their lives and livelihoods.
The health, economic, and psycho-social impact on people’s lives have been enormous, causing strains on governments, just like ours, to extend its policy reach, so that “No one will be left behind”.
The way out, the IMF describes, as “a long and difficult ascent”, fraught with many risks.
However, the COVID-19 vaccines are considered, as the light in the tunnel, but those scars in the global economy will take many years to heal.
Nonetheless, the IMF’s World Economic Outlook projects a 5.1 percent growth in 2021, which is expected to level off at 3.5 percent in the medium term.
It projects that Trinidad and Tobago will see a 2.6 percent economic growth this year, as compared to the -5.6 of 2020.
But the real good news is that we have lived to see another year, and 2021 springs eternal hope for us as a people.
I believe the worst is behind us. With the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, global demand and economic activity are expected to return; improvements are expected in world energy prices, commodity markets; employment in the restaurant, entertainment, and distribution sectors are expected back slowly.
Today, I assure you the Government will do its best to continue to steer this country to a place of growth and prosperity with the aid of our Roadmap to Recovery.
The new beginning I speak of will be a re-orientation of the economy, a transition into the digital age, which will create opportunities for small businesses, and increasing employment in this area.
Opportunities are also identified in manufacturing, energy services, green technology and agriculture.
The government, in its role, will be paying attention to emerging innovations, predicting future trends, attracting collaborations, facilitating the re-design of work processes and re-purposing of organisations.
With food security at the top of the list on the way forward. Government has already approved a $500 million agriculture stimulus package for 2021, in addition to regular budgetary allocations. The use of digital technology in agriculture will be increased with a focus on decreasing our food import bill.
The development of downstream agriculture industries and creating a strong agri-business eco-system are also on the agenda.
Income tax earners will also have a bit of an ease on their pockets. Anyone earning $7,000 per month or less will be exempt from income tax, as the personal tax allowance has been raised from $72,000 to $84,000. It will take effect in January 2021.
One of two new fast ferries is set to arrive in January to service the sea-bridge. The journey to Tobago will be less than three hours and become an integral part of a visit to Tobago.
We are also working towards establishing and increasing our renewable energy usage.
Government has already signed an agreement with Lightsource BP and Shell for the construction of a 150-megawatt solar power plant, which would represent 10 percent of the country’s total power generation capacity.
The development of this area will bring the country within compliance of our commitment to the Paris Agreement.
As our country steadily transforms into a modern State, we will celebrate the diversity of our talent and innovative ideas, seeking to market our creativity to the region and the world.
Let us allow our true spirit of unity to guide us as a people, moving us forward as one, not being dominated and motivated by race, colour or class — but focusing on our similarities, our shared heritage, our promised future, our sense of patriotism, and love of country.
Today, let us invest in our children’s future, creating a society whose singular goal is to meet the needs of all of its peoples, through the creation of opportunities for all.
Happy New Year.

In 1864, a Presbyterian minister from Nova Scotia arrived in Trinidad and changed the face of education on the island forever. But historians say his legacy isn't entirely positive. 
Rev. John Morton was born to Scottish parents in Stellarton, N.S., then called Albion Mines, in 1839. He went on to study at the Free Church College in Halifax and was licensed and ordained to serve in Bridgewater, N.S., in 1861.
According to Rev. Peter Bush, editor of the Presbyterian Church in Canada's newsletter, Presbyterian History, in the winter of 1864 Morton left Nova Scotia for the Caribbean.
"He had, we think, diphtheria and for health reasons had traveled to Trinidad because his doctor ordered that he do that," Bush said in an interview.
The ship he sailed on was carrying salted fish and lumber — part of a thriving two-way trade between the British West Indies and Nova Scotia that had been happening since the 1700s.
While in Trinidad, Morton saw the condition of indentured Indians who had been brought from India to the island by the British, starting in 1845, to fill in the labour gap left by the abolition of slavery.
"He saw that the indentured Indian workers were not being served, not being cared for by any Christian group, that there were Presbyterians who were working with the Black community in Trinidad and with the Indigenous people of Trinidad. But no one was working with the indentured Indian workers," Bush said.
Ignored, alienated and ostracizedBetween 1845 and 1917 over 140,000 Indians were transported to Trinidad to work on the island's sugar and cocoa estates. Most never returned to India. 
Jerome Teelucksingh, a descendant of indentured Indians and lecturer in history at the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine, said Morton would have found these labourers living in wretched conditions and shunned by the rest of Trinidad society. 
"They would have been ignored, they'd have been alienated, ostracized, the majority were poverty stricken," he said.
"And remember at that time the planters and the colonial-era British government were focused only on obtaining their  labour so they were not concerned about their health, welfare or their culture. It was a state that was really despicable."
Convinced that he had to aid this growing community, Morton tried to enlist the help of Presbyterians in the United States and the Church of Scotland, but to no avail.
He returned home and found a receptive audience in Nova Scotia's Presbyterian community.
The Presbyterian Church in Nova Scotia was already familiar with foreign mission work, as Rev. John Geddie had been dispatched from Pictou, N.S., to the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) in the South Pacific in 1846.
Morton's request for a mission was approved and, after raising funds for a year, he set off for Trinidad with his wife, Sarah, and his daughter Agnes — arriving in the capital, Port-of-Spain, on Jan. 3, 1868.
He set up a mission base and home in Iere Village in the south of the island but eventually moved his home to the southern town of San Fernando. 
From the outset, Morton saw education as essential to his mission, according to Brinsley Samaroo, professor emeritus of history at the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine. 
"Most of these missionaries were Scottish Canadians, their ancestors had come from Scotland," he said. "The Scots have always been very, very much concerned about education. And ... whereas Morton was more concerned about evangelization, he used education as a tool towards that."
The indentured Indians in Trinidad had always been reluctant to enrol their children, and especially their daughters, in the Roman Catholic, Anglican or ward schools that served the white and African-Trinidadian populations.  
At the time, Teelucksingh said, Indian children were despised and treated with contempt because of their dress, food, religion and culture. Schools also conducted classes exclusively in English, which most of the new immigrants could not speak.
Canadian Mission Indian schoolsRealizing the daunting extent of his planned undertaking, Morton appealed to the church board in Nova Scotia for help and by 1870 he was joined by Rev. Kenneth James Grant from Merigomish, N.S. 
They established a number of Canadian Mission Indian schools, which later became known simply as Canadian Mission schools.
Unlike other religious groups on the island, Morton and Grant opted to teach in the language of the indentured workers. 
They initially imported Hindi and Urdu religious and teaching books from missions in India but eventually set up their own printing press locally.
By speaking their language and incorporating it into church services, classes and even the names of their churches, the efforts of the missionaries were embraced by the indentured labourers.
"All of that really appealed to the Indians because you were meeting them on their own ground and very slowly and subtly moving them away from that ground and onto a Christian ground," said Samaroo.
"But I think the most important thing is that they all understood that once they got a Western education via the missionaries, that was the beginning of the end of their life on the plantation."
The missionaries also provided material benefits to the Indian population, including food and medicines imported from Canada, according to Teelucksingh.
A few other male and female missionaries from the Maritimes went to Trinidad over the years, but the focus was always on training local converts to keep up with the tremendous demand for schools.
A Presbyterian theological college was established in 1892 and by 1894 a teachers' training college was opened. 
As a historian of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, Bush said he is fascinated by the fact the "mission in Trinidad is led largely by the Indian community."
"If you look at our records ... in Canada, our records record the names of teachers and lay missionaries, long lists of Indian names who are listed in our books as being members of the mission, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, in Trinidad."

Teelucksingh said in addition to opening numerous schools in areas with a high concentration of indentured Indians, the Canadian Mission also offered night classes for adults and women missionaries from Canada taught women "catechism and domestic chores."
The popularity of the education opportunities offered by the Nova Scotian missionaries and their use of locally trained teachers led to a rapid expansion of their mission. 
Although conversion was not a requirement for taking part in their educational programs, it was a requirement for taking up teaching positions, and some Indians, though not the majority, converted for the opportunities it offered for upward mobility. 
Samaroo estimated that by 1956 there were 71 Presbyterian elementary and secondary schools in Trinidad serving 3,000 students.
Unintended consequencesHe said that the influence of the missions also caused unintended negative effects on the Indian community, and the island in general, that persist to this day.
According to Samaroo, Presbyterian Indians became alienated from their culture as they were taught that they shouldn't bother with their old cultural ways.
He said because their education allowed them to prosper and move away from the plantations, it allowed them to ascend into "a higher echelon of the society" and become an "elite Indian class." 

Teelucksingh said this distinction lessened when Hindu and Muslim schools started to be established in the 20th century, allowing the rest of the Indian population to catch up.
He said it became evident that many converts were actually "temporary Presbyterians," as they went to teach at the new schools with many reverting to their previous religious practices.
The more problematic side-effect, according to Samaroo, was that the Canadian Mission deepened racial divisions on the island. 
He said the creation of divisions was not deliberate or unique to the missionaries but part of the British colonial system of "divide and rule."
"By going to the Indians and speaking in Indian languages and calling churches after Indian names," Samaroo said, "it created antagonism because you didn't have too many Black people in the Presbyterian circle, very few of them ... and that created a kind of ethnic competition, a kind of ethnic antagonism."
Despite the creation of divisions within the Indian community and the wider community, Samaroo believes the Canadian Mission had an overwhelmingly positive effect on the island.
"I think they were the major agencies for the emancipation of the Indians from the plantations to the professions," he said. "And had they not come, I think it would have taken much longer for the Indians to escape the drudgery of the plantation."
Today, four of the most prestigious high schools in Trinidad & Tobago — Naparima College, Naparima Girls' High School, Hillview College and St. Augustine Girls' High School — can trace their roots directly back to the work of missionaries from Nova Scotia.
Source:  Vernon Ramesar · CBC News ·  Dec 28, 2020