Mau Tsu Tung. Oh boy, what a time. Actually I think there’s
a whole thing on it on the Parliament Channel.”
For a man who’s seen the world several times, his home
is decorated like a tourist gift shop. His walls are adorned
with Caribbean artwork. Above his piano is a painted forest
scene, to the left a painting of fishermen pulling a boat
onto the shore, To the left of that, a painting of a group of
women gathering, most likely after making their way to
market. His second wife, Marie, whom he married in 1988,
does most of the decorating.
His love for local culture spans beyond paintings.
Marie, served on the board of the now defunct National
Youth Orchestra. Abdulah spoke fondly of attending the
orchestra’s sold out Christmas concerts at the Hilton. He
regularly attends film festivals, and though he loves the
European film festival for its niche offerings, he is now
becoming a fan of the TT Film Festival and is quite happy
with its growth. So far he’s enamoured with Darisha J.
Beresford’s award winning film, “The Cutlass.”
The Abdulahs have even loaned out their home to Danielle
Dieffenthaller as one of the settings in the local soap opera
“Westwood Park” which was a local soap opera series a
few years ago.
When he retired from the foreign service he served as the
Deputy Secretary General of the CARICOM Secretariat, at
a time when Europe looked to the Caribbean as the model
of integration. The media has now prefix his name as “
Former Diplomat Frank Abdulah”.
He still has strong feelings about what CARICOM should
have been.
“Too many people felt they wanted to be a big fish in a
little pond rather than a little fish in a big pond. And the
whole thing never took off as it should have. We are today,
struggling to try and bring the Caribbean together in some
sort of community, and focus on our problems,” he said.
“And the problems have changed a lot since then.”
But that’s a problem for the next generation.
18
19
A
t almost 88, going on
89 years old Frank
Abdulah only fully stepped
out of the work force last
year, when his five-year
stint in the Public Service
Commission came to an
end, and with it, came
some disappointment that
he couldn’t do more to
change the beleaguered
institution.
“It was a lot of work,” he
said. “We were trying to get
the public service working
properly, but there were so
many problems. There is
no holistic looking at these
things. It’s piece meal,
piece meal, piece meal.
This does not contribute to
a proper framework which
can move forward. I don’t
think that has changed.”
He admits he thought he
could bring about change
through his experience as
a Permanent Secretary,
and his experience in the
field as a Diplomat. He
leans back with a sigh,
admitting that there were
just too many obstacles to
overcome.
Days after this interview,
Prime Minister Rowley
expressed his own
frustration with the Public
Service Commissions.
“For the benefit of all those
involved, the staff and
the public, there needs
to be some significant
adjustments, improvements
and evolution of the role of
service commissions in the
management of the affairs
relaxing so I potter about in the
garden and look after our pets
(a white Terrier called Blanquita,
and a rescue dog named
Sarah).”
It doesn’t seem like Abdulah
has ever rested much. He
started school at Rosary
Boys, then wrote the College
Exhibition, passing for Queen’s
Royal College. He also taught
French and Spanish at QRC
for some time before earning a
scholarship to Oxford University
through Britain’s Colonial
Development and Welfare Act.
He studied languages at Oxford where he met his first
wife Norma. They have four daughters, twins Allison and
Pamela (who also recently retired), Melanie and Helen.
He graduated and returned to Trinidad to teach at QRC.
Shortly after he joined the Police Service. In1958 when
Lord Hailes took the oath of office as Governor General of
the short-lived Federation of the West Indies, Abdulah was
appointed his local aide-de-camp.
“We had no army, and it’s the army that provides the aide-
de-camp now. We were paramilitary in those days,” he
recalled.
Thence, he went to the diplomatic service of the
Federation. When the Federation was dissolved in 1962,
the officers with diplomatic training were reabsorbed into
the service and became what we now know as the foreign
or diplomatic service.
Abdulah’s first deployment was to Jamaica to set up the
Trinidad and Tobago High Commission.
His longest stint was in New York where he served
as Trinidad and Tobago’s chief representative to the
United Nations. He was also the chairman of the special
committee on decolonisation. He has lived in Ottowa,
London and New Delhi.
One of his most memorable trips came in 1975, where
he was part of a Dr. Eric Williams led delegation to China
to meet Premier Chou en Lei. One night, Abdulah, Dr.
Williams, and Professor Courtenay Browne were whisked
away to meet founding father of the People’s Republic of
China, Mao Tsu Tung.
“We were staying in a guest house and one night we
were told, ‘Get ready you are going to be traveling.’ They
didn’t tell us where we were going. Next thing we knew
we were being escorted from the guest house to a military
field. We got on a plane and were on our way to meet Mau
Tsu Tung,” he told this story in between laughs, clearly still
giddy by the experience. “I have a picture with us meeting
Frank Abdulah
From Teacher to Diplomat
of Trinidad and Tobago,” Dr. Rowley said
during the press conference.
It’s not clear if Abdulah caught the press
conference, but there’s a good chance
he did. Abdulah admits he watches the
Parliament Channel, to keep to date and to
marvel at just how much has changed (not
necessarily in a good way) since his days
as a Permanent Secretary.
“Sometimes it gets to be too much and I
turn it off,” he joked.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’s tried to
bring a semblance of sanity to the country.
Many remember the 2004 incident where
drugs were found in the diplomatic bags,
destined to be shipped to Toronto and
London.
Abdulah was part of a three-man
committee tasked “to review the
security of the diplomatic pouch,
identify its weaknesses and make
recommendations” as assigned by then
Prime Minister Patrick Manning.
“We made recommendations to
ensure it’s not done again. None of
the recommendations were taken,” he
laments. He doesn’t even know where
the report went, since it was never laid
in parliament.
After a long career of essentially trying to
save the world from itself, as evidenced
by his thoughts on the current state of the
United Nations, he is now in full retirement.
“The UN was not as it is today,” he
recalls.“Although you had the big powers
dictating the way they want things done.
The General Assembly was not afraid to
tackle things and tried to bring some sense
into the life of the planet.”
Now he gets to sit back and watch.
“It’s nice not having to meet deadlines and
all sorts of things. At my age I should be
by Kejan Haynes
COVER STORY
PHOTOGRAPHY by
Kern Williams
