Family offers to pay for Komal Chand’s remains to return from Cuba

May 17, 2020 News

– meets with Foreign Affairs Ministry

In a few days’ time, it will be three months since an ailing Komal Chand, President of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), left the country for medical attention in Cuba.

Son: Mavendra Chand

The late union leader, Komal Chand

Chand, 75, was accompanied by his wife, 64, on February 22nd. He died in Cuba on April 8th.
With Guyana on a lockdown with its borders and airports closed, the family has been desperate to bring his body home.
However, there has been no permission from the National COVID-19 Task Force to date.
On Friday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it has met with Chand’s family on the matter.
There were no immediate decisions taken- she promised to discuss with the Task Force and get back to the family.
“Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Karen Cummings, recently met with Mr. Mavendra Chand, son of
the late trade unionist Komal Chand. She conveyed a message of condolence and reassured the
Chand family that the Government of Guyana was prepared to continue its support to the family,” the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry acknowledged that Chand was pivotal in championing the rights of sugar workers.
On Friday, his son, Mavendra, 34, who met with the minister, said that his family is naturally anxious to bring closure with the issue taking a toll on his mother who remains stuck in Cuba.

Foreign Affairs Minister, Dr. Karen Cummings

He said that the family has not received any documentation from the Guyana Embassy in Cuba who is in touch with the Cuban authorities.
As head of one of the most powerful unions in Guyana, Chand was a parliamentarian for the People Progressive Party/Civic for almost three decades.
The local health authorities have not been allowing any flights in to bring Guyanese who are stuck abroad.
In fact, officials said that they remain fearful that the floodgates would be open at this time when the country remains on partial lockdown and with limited space to quarantine persons.
GAWU itself had been critical of the decision by Government not to allow the union leader’s remains to be brought home. The family together with the union and other colleagues of Mr Chand has been seeking to arrange for the transport of the body and his widow back to Guyana.
The union had said that requests were made for Chand’s body and widow to be accommodated on a return flight chartered by the Goverment to take hampers to Guyanese students in Havana : “Those requests were not approved as the Government said it could not afford such a request. The Government, astoundingly claimed it would have to seek to raise the required sum through donations from the society. It causes us to worry about how the ship of state is being steered. It seems to us, that cake shops are better managed.”
The union said that it had written President David Granger for his intervention.

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