Professor Havelock Brewster has passed away in North America after a brief period of illness and tributes have poured in hailing him as one of the Caribbean’s great economists and integrationists.
He was 86 years old.
“He was a scholar and a gentleman and his contribution to the Caribbean region is recognized and respected. He was a very private person. His wife Jennifer predeceased him … He leaves to mourn two daughters Susan and Rachel and their families, his sister Marion Nassy, and brother Errol Brewster,” the former University of the West Indies Professor’s relative, attorney Dawn Cush told the Stabroek News yesterday.
From humble beginnings here, she reflected that Professor Brewster was the first member of the family to attend Queen’s College and many other relatives followed in his footsteps.
“He is the first family member to enter Queen’s College and then his brother Erwin. My late father Terence Holder entered in 1952 when both Uncle Havelock and Uncle Erwin were at QC,” Cush, herself who entered QC in 1976, stated.
Brewster, a national of Guyana and Jamaica spent most of his career in international institutions and government service, according to Cush.
Migrating from Guyana in the 1960s, he is a graduate in economics of King’s College, University of Durham, UK, and Dalhousie University, Canada.
“In 1993 Ambassador Brewster was awarded Guyana’s Cacique’s Crown of Honor (CCH) and in 2008 he was awarded the Degree of Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causa, of the University of the West Indies. He served as Special Research Adviser and Director of the Commodities Trade Division of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Geneva,” Kush informed.
She said that he also served as Guyana’s Ambassador to the European Union, Austria, Belgium, and Germany. He had been at one time the Executive Director for the Caribbean at the Inter-American Development Bank.
In his later years, Professor Brewster was a Consultant to the Caribbean Development Bank, Hon. Professor of Economics at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, University of the West Indies, and Senior Associate of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery.
Brewster’s work was heralded by politicians from both of this country’s main political parties, all who lamented that his death is a loss.
This newspaper understands that he was also friend of the late President Dr Cheddi Jagan and the late Desmond Hoyte.
“He was a brilliant Guyanese with an insightful intellect. We mourn his passing and express deepest condolences to his family,” Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo told this newspaper.
Former ministers of Finance Carl Greenidge and Winston Jordan both remarked about his works.
Ambassador Brewster is the author of a large number of journals and other publications in the field of trade, primary commodities, social and economic development analysis and policy, trade negotiations, development financing, economic integration and the Caribbean economy,” Jordan said.
Greenidge pointed out that Brewster “made his name” in writing, and his collaboration with local economist and educator, Professor Clive Thomas on the book, “The Dynamics of West Indian Economic Integration”, catapulted their careers.
“You have had a number of outstanding Guyanese economists… Brewster made a name for himself and his joint works contributed to what is called the New World, a Caribbean group of economists, intellectuals and others, Greenidge said.
He said that Brewster’s work was integral in helping to take “the analysis of development forward” for the Caribbean and its people as it made a strong case for a common economy.
It was Brewster’s writing collaboration with him and the decades of friendship they shared that Professor Thomas reflected on, as he paid tribute to a man he said was a well learned scholar and whose death came as a shock to him. “No words can express my grief. We were friends from way back and we worked on the book… together. He was one of the most brilliant men I ever worked with. A true academic… a leading intellectual and a leading pioneer with a distinguished career.”
“The book became a landmark and after that, researchers in Europe and the United States recruited him. He lived in Europe and North America and I was vested in the region but we maintained our friendship. He will be greatly missed,” he added.
