The Organization of Commonwealth Caribbean Bar Associations (OCCBA) is extending condolences to the family and wider people of Trinidad and Tobago on the death of former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday.

Panday, who served as prime minister between 1995 and 2001, died on January 1 at the age of 90.

The OCCBA, in a statement, hailed Panday for his service to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago as a excellent “attorney-at-law, parliamentarian, trade unionist, economist, civil servant and even as an actor of the stage and screen”.

Remembering his iconic ‘If you see me and a lion fighting, don’t feel sorry for me, feel sorry for the lion!’ quote, the OCCBA said that it summed up Panday’s fighting and determined spirit which served him well in his legal, political and trade union work.

In a recent editorial published in the TT Daily Express, the publication remarked “…’The Silver Fox’, as Basdeo Panday was known, is an apt sobriquet. The title arose from Mr. Panday’s full head of shiny white hair, but was also a popular culture reference of his generation… While his historical achievement was to become T&T’s first prime minister of Indian descent, Mr. Panday was the quintessential Trinidadian. He grew up in St Julien Village, then a remote rural enclave in South-Central Trinidad, part of the sugar belt, about four miles east of Princes Town. It was an ethnically diverse village of Indians, Africans, Hindus, Spiritual Baptists, Merikins and Amerindians, including Venezuela’s Warao people… Mr. Panday spent his lifetime shaping the political culture of T&T. He has left the legacy of an organised political party, the United National Congress (UNC), evolved from his early decades of trade union struggle, as well as his memorable brand as the last of the old-style politicians defined by command of language, charisma, and fight.”

The regional legal body echoed sentiments expressed by the Law Association of Trinidad & Tobago (LATT), which on they reflecting on the contributions of Basdeo Panday, wrote “…Basdeo Panday was a fierce advocate for justice and always had the well-being of others at heart. The legal fraternity, and by extension Trinidad & Tobago has lost a great political icon, trade unionist and lawyer, and he will be sorely missed…”.

“The bar associations in the 16 jurisdictions of the Commonwealth Caribbean that comprise OCCBA, specifically, Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, and the Turks & Caicos Islands, collectively pay tribute and remember the life, work and worth of Basdeo Panday,” the OCCBA said.