The Tobago trip which late former People’s National Movement (PNM) general secretary and minister Martin Joseph was on when he drowned yesterday had been planned as his last trip to the sister isle until after steering the party through the 2015 general election.
This was the recollection of former PNM treasurer Andre Monteil, with whom Joseph spent his last few hours on earth before Joseph drowned at Grange Bay, Tobago, early yesterday.
“I bawled down the place like a baby. I make no apologies for that,” a grief-stricken Monteil told T&T Guardian yesterday. He would have been 65 this year.
He follows his mother, Sybil, who died in 2011, and brother, calypsonian Sedley “Penguin” Joseph, who died in 2013.
Both Mrs Joseph and Sedley died around the same time of the year— in February and January respectively — and now Martin also has died around the same period.
Monteil, Joseph and a group of friends had been holidaying at Old Grange “chilling out” since January 1 and normally did exercises every morning.
After a full early morning regime yesterday, Joseph told Monteil he was going to take a dip in the sea and set off to the nearby beach with another gentleman.
“The last thing he did was give me the (TV) remote control and torchlight through the gate and he left and I went to take a shower,” Monteil said.
Monteil was later horrified at the sight of the household’s domestic assistant who came in bawling that “Mr Martin drown.”
In shock yesterday and speaking in a grief-stricken monotone, Monteil muttered: “It was just a dip he was going to take, a dip, to wash off the sweat, just a dip... he couldn’t swim... but the riptide took him.”
Others said the man who had accompanied Joseph into the water also got into difficulty and fought the riptide as well, floating for 15 minutes on his back before he could get out of danger.
The man, severely traumatised, had to be hospitalised but was subsequently released yesterday.
They said Joseph’s body, floating on the water, was visible from the house where his colleagues were staying. It was retrieved by police, they added.
Intense campaign work
Monteil had been close friends with Joseph since their days of bringing home the Mayaro seat for PNM in 2002.
He said Joseph, in his final days in Tobago, had been happy and relaxed but was also busy focussing on plans for PNM’s election campaign which he was helping to shape.
Monteil said: “During the time we were there, he was all about watching his football on TV, planning for the US Superbowl event particularly, and planning his strategies to beat the UNC.
“He assured everyone he was on the right road and that the only person in T&T who could speak with authority on anti-corruption issues was (PNM leader) Keith Rowley.
“He was very upbeat and positive upbeat all the time we were here. After his swim, I knew he had planned to come back and do some heavy reading to review things for his campaign preparation work, as he had a campaign meeting on Friday and had been doing lots of research.”
He added: “Martin had planned to do this (trip) as his last one to Tobago until after the election. After the election he said he didn’t want anything (in government) so we had planned, talking last year, to go on safari to Africa.
“Then Ebola hit, so then we said we would do a cruise down the Yangtze River in China. He had plans...”
Joseph was working with PNM deputy political leader Rohan Sinanan on the election campaign. Sinanan was recently named as Joseph’s replacement as campaign manager but the former minister was retained as the second in command due to his experience.
Joseph, who held degrees in economics and geography/regional science, also held an associate degree in marine sciences.
Monteil also witnessed the autopsy on Joseph’s body, conducted by Dr Hughvon DesVignes, yesterday afternoon.
He brought kidnapping down
The last time Joseph was in the news was in July 2012 when he was tied up and robbed in July 2012 at his home at Flagstaff Hill by a gun-toting assailant.
Joseph had valiantly tried to wrestle the gun away from the robber but both he and his stepson were tied up. Joseph later untied himself, escaped and called for help. He told the T&T Guardian then: “Nothing happened to me. I’m alright.”
At that time, then People’s Partnership National Security Minister Jack Warner had been set to explore one of Joseph’s ideas under the Patrick Manning government: that of a gun court and gun amnesty.
St Ann’s East MP from 1995 to 2002 and a Cabinet minister from 2001, Joseph also chaired and served on a number of state boards under the PNM from PTSC, NFM, Housing to NIB and had also been chairman of CICTE and the OAS Department for Counter Terrorism.
He is also credited with helping Caricom, developing policy eventually leading to the formation of Caricom IMPACS, the regional security apparatus. (See Pages A5 and A10)
To T&T however, he was best known as the Manning administration’s (often pressured) security minister from 2003, fighting to grapple with spiralling crime at the time—particularly kidnapping and murder rates—until a drop in the kidnapping rate arose during his tenure over 2007-2008.
At many a Whitehall post-Cabinet press conference, Joseph experienced a “grilling” from reporters but always set out the case on the crime-fighting problem he and the Police Service faced, being blunt, forthright and sometimes plaintive in enunciating the challenges he encountered.
As PNM general secretary, Joseph was the chief architect of several of the party’s winning campaigns and a regional political consultant whose mapping strategies helped more than one regional leader win elections.
Former PNM chairman Conrad Enill, with whom Joseph served as general secretary, yesterday said:
“I knew him for over 14 years, operating both in government and the party. Apart from being PNM’s strategist he was an expert on PNM’s constitution.
“One of the things he did which worked well for PNM was when he was doing things he liked in the election process, he would train others... the hallmark of a good leader.
“He was very passionate about T&T but some of his most trying times was in National Security where despite his best efforts success eluded him, though he had some successes.
“He was also instrumental in modernising infrastructure we see today and he was also in the vanguard of the move to start transforming the Police Service. He brought his talents as a human resource expert to his work. His motto was ‘Build To Last.’ Hopefully that will be his legacy.” (Gail Alexander)
