Lee Sing: Columbus should leave Port of Spain

THE CONTROVERSIAL Christopher Columbus statue should be removed from the capital city, said former Port of Spain mayor Louis Lee Sing.

He was speaking with Newsday in an interview at his Cascade home last week.

There have been recent calls by a number of sectors, including political party Movement for Social Justice, indigenous peoples the Warao nation, and a petition with thousands of signatures organised by activist group Cross Rhodes Freedom Project to have the statue of the famous Italian navigator removed from Columbus Square, Port of Spain. The petition was also laid in Parliament on Wednesday.

Lee Sing said Port of Spain mayor Joel Martinez, who was not "steeped and grounded in the history of the country," was asked to preside over the matter and he rightfully recused himself.

"But you can't recuse yourself when you lead on a fundamental matter. The facts are there. Would the statue be better served in the Moruga Museum (as had been suggested)? And I think it would. But I don't think in the now, particularly when the whole world is saying, 'No, no, no Columbus, bye bye Columbus,',we should be encouraging and having a long, drawn-out debate on whether Columbus should remain in Port of Spain.
I think Columbus should leave Port of Spain and go somewhere, and I think the time has come for us to say so with one voice."

Lee Sing recalled when he was mayor he was speaking with a "well-known emancipator" in the city and telling her that when the slaves were freed many of them settled in East Port of Spain.

"And I said, 'Why is every street sign in East Port of Spain named for some European or other and not for Africans that would have contributed?'"

He asked her to do research and bring a package to begin the process to rename the street names but it never happened.

"Were it left to me I would rename Piccadilly Street Makandal Daaga Street (after late political activist and former revolutionary). I would rename Besson Street Khafra Kambon street (after the former Emancipation Support Committee chairman). And the list goes on."

Lee Sing said the time has come for TT to do what is right and to allow the unborn and those coming up to ask legitimate questions of themselves.

"It can't be that every thing is right except the responses to the questions posed in support of the Afro-Trinidadians."