SCARBOROUGH, Tobago, CMC—Reginald Dumas, 88, has died. He was the Retired head of the Trinidad and Tobago public service and a former United Nations special advisor on Haiti.
His relatives said that he died at the Scarborough General Hospital here on Thursday night, days after major surgery for a gastrointestinal condition.
His daughter, Sonja Dumas, confirming the death, asked “everyone for a couple days of private time as my family comes to terms with this cavernous loss.
“He fought an extended challenge of gastrointestinal failure over the past few weeks at the Scarborough General Hospital. We thank the various medical, surgical, and anesthesia teams for their efforts to bring him back to health. We thank, too, all the friends, allies, family members, and strangers who donated blood and helped in various ways as advocates for his recovery.”
She said he leaves a legacy of “integrity and honesty,” noting that for many, he was a great diplomat, an orator, and a political analyst.
“He fought tirelessly for good governance. His generosity touched countless people, as did his wit (which was often acerbic). He wasn’t perfect. He was more stubborn than ten mules put together and could dismiss you with a short, tart phrase when he’d had enough of what he thought was nonsense. But his heart was huge, and his mind brilliant.
“Last night, we listened to jazz while I read the papers to him. We laughed, as usual, at the reported follies of people grappling for power, lamented the state of Carnival as described in one of the articles, and cringed at the emaciated kangaroo,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
When he was appointed as the special advisor to the UN Secretary-General on Haiti in 2004, the UN said he would “closely follow developments in Haiti and liaise with all relevant actors, in particular the regional organizations that have been undertaking vital efforts to find a solution to the country’s persistent political impasse.
“The Secretary-General hopes that with his appointment as Special Advisor, the United Nations can make a significant contribution to alleviating the political, economic, and social crises that afflict Haiti.”
For many years, Dumas actively participated in multilateral negotiations dealing with the specific concerns of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
He has an extensive diplomatic background, serving as ambassador to the United States and the Organization of American States and as High Commissioner to Barbados, the Eastern Caribbean, and Canada.
He served as Trinidad and Tobago’s country’s High Commissioner to India, with concurrent accreditation to Sri Lanka, Singapore, Indonesia, and Japan. Between 1973 and 1976, he was Trinidad and Tobago’s High Commissioner to Ethiopia, with concurrent accreditation to Kenya, the United Republic of Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
In 1998, he became a co-founder of Trinidad and Tobago’s Transparency Institute, the National Chapter of Transparency International, and published several newspaper articles and books.
Professor Emerita at The University of the West Indies (UWI) specializing in Caribbean History, Bridget Brereton, said Dumas has been described as a Mandarin: a member of a scholarly elite devoted to public service, perhaps an endangered species these days.
“ His contributions to nation-building in his own Trinidad and Tobago and to regional and international causes have been multifaceted, distinguished, and sustained over a lifetime,” she said, following Dumas’s publication of his memoir, which he called a retrospective, covering his first 30 years.
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