bahamasuncensored.com
JULY 2007
Compiled, edited and constructed by Russell Dames Updated every
Sunday at 2 p.m.
Volume 5 © BahamasUncensored.Com 2007
While material on this web site can be used freely by other sections of
the press, as a courtesy, journalists are asked to attribute the source
of their material from this web site.
8th July, 2007
15th July, 2007
22nd July, 2007
29th July, 2007
Click on a heading to go to that story; press ctrl + home to return
to the top of the page.
 
|
| PHOTO OF THE WEEK: St.
Matthew’s Parish Church is celebrating this year 205 years as a church,
the oldest church structure in The Bahamas. They started the ball
rolling last Saturday 23rd June with a fair on the Eastern Parade.
The Governor General the Hon. Arthur D. Hanna and Mrs. Hanna are members
of St. Matthew’s, where the parish priest is Rev. Dr. James Moultrie.
The fair was officially opened by the Governor General who had a great
time. The fair was to raise funds for various St. Matthew's projects.
Our photos of the week are a collage of photos of the Governor General
and Mrs. Hanna at the St., Matthew fair with other scenes. The photos
are by Carvel Francis. |
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
NO MADAM ATTORNEY GENERAL
Last week on Monday 25th June, the Attorney General Claire Hepburn
let us all down by baring her political fangs at the former Attorney General
Allyson Maynard Gibson. Instead of letting the status quo remain
what it is and moving on, she chose to enter into an unseemly debate in
the Senate over the question of the independence of the Judiciary.
She claimed that she was embarrassed under the PLP that the judiciary became
a subject of public controversy. She said that the Judges Remuneration
and Pensions Act had set a procedure for raising the salaries of judges
and that this was not followed under the PLP. She is wrong.
She said that it was unhelpful when the former Attorney General Allyson
Maynard Gibson got into a public row, her words, not ours, with a Judge
of the Supreme Court. She quoted from a comment in this website which
she named and claimed that because this site was associated with the PLP
that this was an example of the PLPs interference with the Judiciary.
You may click here for the original comments from this site - 6th May 'Revive
& Restructure'; 27th May 'The
March Toward Election Court'.
We really thought better of Claire Hepburn. How can you be
so blinded by Hubert Ingrahamitis that you cannot see the forest for the
trees? She would not back down on the comment when she was challenged
by the former Attorney General now Senator Allyson Gibson and came back
at the next meeting of the Senate to try to reinforce the point.
As usual Lynn Holowesko, who is the Senate President, was not into helping
protect Senator Gibson’s rights.
Let us get the position absolutely ‘clear’, if you will pardon the
pun. Senator Gibson is right. Senator Hepburn is dead wrong.
We believe that the independence of the Judiciary is always the subject
for proper commentary. We believe in roundly criticizing Judges and
their decisions if they make wrong and stupid decisions and if they cross
the line. The time when what Judges did was above the fray has long
since passed. Judges make public policy every day affecting the lives
of the people of this country, influencing whether a Government survives
or it does not survive. As one of our public institutions therefore,
the Judiciary must be subject to the most severe scrutiny. Especially
since, once they are appointed, they have security of tenure and cannot
be removed except in the most extreme circumstances which means almost
never.
On several occasions in this column we have had cause to comment
about the conduct, decisions and words of the President of the Court of
Appeal. Lawyers complain constantly about her demeanour in the Courts
and how she addresses members of the Bar. The Privy Council which
is the Court of final appeal for The Bahamas has on more than one occasion
overturned decisions taken by the Court of Appeal on which she sat because
the decisions were a clear miscarriage of justice. One such situation
we recall is a case that was thrown out of Court because the appellants
did not see the notice on the Board in the Court of Appeal and missed the
Court date. The Court of Appeal refused to restore the Appeal even
though it was clear that out of an abundance of caution, out of a need
for justice that this is what should have been done. We know that
several attorneys wrote the last Prime Minister asking him to move toward
a formal procedure with regard to conduct in the Court of Appeal.
These are all rights of citizens.
The situation became doubly worse when a “ruling” was made by Justice
John Lyons in the Supreme Court which said that he was not an independently
constituted court because he did not get a raise in pay in the proper way.
The judgment crossed the line. Was it in fact a Judgment? What
was it? It seemed a judicial rant, getting back at the executive
with the protection of the bench. In any event, the Attorney General
sought to appeal it. In the mean time, the administration appointed
the Commission and the Commission reported.
During that time the then Attorney General now Senator Allyson Gibson
had a right to report to the public what happened in the House of Assembly
from the Government’s perspective. Further, she was entitled to defend
her reputation. She did that in an address in the House that patiently
explained the law and what did happen and what would happen with regard
to judicial salaries.
The Judge did the most extraordinary thing which called into question
whether formal proceedings should not have been issued against him.
He claimed that he was attacked by the then Attorney General in her House
statement and that she was attacking him based on the colour of his skin
and that he now felt unsafe in the country because he was white.
The new Attorney General Claire Hepburn actually now suggests that the
PLP administration and its Attorney General should have stayed silent in
the face of that kind of dangerous and nonsensical language. The
Judge in question knows for a fact that every night he turns in, everywhere
he goes, a representative of the black people that he claimed to fear in
this country is close by and he knows that nothing has happened to him
and no such statement was made about him. It should be clear that
he has no fear of black people or a need to fear them. The statement
was racist and inflammatory, and made no less immune from public criticism
because it was issued from the Bench. It also had a calculating political
effect.
That is what Claire Hepburn defended. That is what Claire Hepburn
said was a row between the former Attorney General and the Judge of the
Supreme Court. We side with Senator Gibson. It takes two to
make a row. The Judge was out of order commenting on a statement
made in the House. The salary issue is now settled and the now Attorney
General should have left the matter where it was but being an FNM ideologue
and her views being a slave to the whims and fancies of Hubert Ingraham,
she could not and did not.
How this column gets up into her politics is beyond us? We
stand by all of the statements that we have made on this matter.
With a judge who makes those kinds of pronouncements still sitting on the
bench, how can we not come to the conclusion that the Judiciary is anti
PLP. We stand by our position from that oft quoted Denning phrase
that justice is not a cloistered virtue. What we think is quite alarming
is the sanctimoniousness and moral rectitude with which these FNMs like
Claire Hepburn speak when they come to Parliament, as if they are the repositories
of all that is morally right in life. No such thing. But there
is the danger with this sanctimoniousness that they will do foolish things.
The Senator who is now the Attorney General, her Prime Minister, all are
part of a vicious, vengeful and vindictive party. We should not be
surprised then if the law is not used to throttle free speech in connection
with the Judiciary, and we will watch for it very closely. Until
then, we say the only way to have free speech is to speak freely.
Dion Foulkes, Lynn Holowesko, Johnley Ferguson and the rest of the
FNMs in that upper chamber will soon find out what free speech is if they
don’t know already.
No Madam Attorney, you have it all wrong, again.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 30th June 2007 up to
midnight: 202,344.
Number of hits for the month of June up to Saturday 30th June 2007
up to midnight: 940,061.
Number of hits for the year 2007 up to Saturday 30th June 2007 at
midnight: 3,407,226. (Does not reflect hits prior to 14th February, 2007).
CONTACT US AT E-MAIL:placid_point@yahoo.com
A
WALKOUT IN THE SENATE
Dion Foulkes described the conduct on Wednesday
27th June of Senator Allyson Gibson and the PLP when she led a walkout
from the Senate in protest of the Government’s high handed actions in closing
down prematurely the Budget Debate as “disgraceful”. How Dion Foulkes
could fix his mouth to call anyone’s conduct disgraceful is really something
else. The only thing disgraceful in the Senate that day was the conduct
of the FNM. But that is typical of the FNM, they are the offenders
but they start saying it’s the other guy who did it. No more egregious
example of this can be found than their so called trust agenda which is
really an agenda of mistrust.
The Senate was engaged in the Heads of the Budget.
This is admittedly is a tedious exercise but it is one where the people
of the country get to see their representatives question the government
on its spending matters and priorities. Dion Foulkes, Johnley Ferguson
and Lynn Holowesko all FNM Senators were obviously getting rattled by it
but more importantly they were getting sleepy because it was getting late.
Mr. Foulkes warned the PLP that he was going to bring the matter to an
end.
There was a visit from one of his bosses, one of
the senior Ministers of the Government, who was dispatched by Hubert Ingraham
to bring it to an end. Minutes later, after the visit, the Vice President
of the Senate, who was in the Chair allowed a vote to be put to bring the
debate to a close, over the strenuous objections of the PLP. The
PLP walked out in protest. The next day, PLP leader of the Senate
Allyson Gibson held a press conference in which she and the other Senators
for the PLP denounced the FNM’s high handed tactics. You may click
here for their full statement. But this is of course the way
the FNM goes; they have no wish for government in the sunshine. Theirs
is a government of darkness.
Bahama Journal photo of the PLP Senators news conference: Stephen
Gay
CARICOM
HEADS OF GOVERNMENT
Biggetty Hubert Ingraham is headed for his first
Caricom Heads of Government meeting in Barbados since he became Prime Minister
again. Let us hope that he does not go down to the Caribbean and
embarrass us again with his pronouncements that he made during the first
such meeting in 1992. At that meeting he said The Bahamas did not
need the Caribbean. Perhaps since he has had an education in international
politics, he and his insular Foreign Minister Brent Symonette will not
now embarrass us with their xenophobia and racism while down in Barbados.
What is interesting about this agenda for Caricom
is that the Prime Minister of The Bahamas and the Prime Minister of Barbados
Owen Arthur both now say they want to change the focus from the Caricom
Single Market and Economy to more social issues and to reach out to The
Bahamas and the Caricom associated states like Bermuda, Turks and Caicos
and the Cayman Islands. Mr. Arthur has said that functional co-operation
has to be increased. This is unlikely given the fact that Caricom
is a trade pact but more importantly those countries that have been interested
in functional co-operation have to push those issues.
Interestingly without calling the name of this column
or that of Fred Mitchell, Mr. Ingraham arranged for a call to be made to
Caricom Secretary General Edwin Carrington to deny that Mr. Ingraham had
signed on to the consensus on the Caricom Single Market and Economy as
we reported last week. The fact is he did though. Click
here for last week’s story.
The Bahamas has never quite understood its role
in Caricom or why it wants to be there. The issue will get further
clouded under an Ingraham administration that is really hopeless in foreign
policy. The Bush administration has promised extensions to Caribbean
Basin Initiative. The reading in Washington is that this promise
is dead in the water for two reasons. A WTO waiver is unlikely and
so Caricom must negotiate a reciprocal free trade agreement with the US.
Secondly, the recent immigration bill defeat in the US shows that the United
States President is himself really dead in the water in trying to accomplish
any meaningful agenda politically before he demits office next year.
Outgoing Caricom chair Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves
of St. Vincent and the Grenadines declared at the end of the summit in
Washington that the Caricom countries stood firm with regard to Cuba and
Venezuela. No word from Mr. Ingraham what he said or did on that
question. Did he for example make the same declaration that former
Prime Minister Perry Christie made to President Bush that Cuba was our
friend and the United States was our friend; that we sat around the table
with both and it therefore served the interests of both for that to be
so. The practical reality is that Cuba exists in this hemisphere.
It is not an enemy of The Bahamas nor is it an enemy of the United States.
The United States government sees Cuba as its enemy. Perhaps that
is the reason for Mr. Ingraham's silence on the matter, what with his hopeless
Minister of Foreign Affairs pronouncing that The Bahamas has a closer relationship
with the US under the FNM in six weeks than under the PLP, because the
Head of the Embassy of the US in The Bahamas is his neighbour on the Eastern
Road. How silly can you get?
But here is The Bahamas sitting around the table
in Washington. Its closest neighbour is Cuba and it has nothing to
say on the subject of how to reverse the public policy of the US on isolating
Cuba and thereby unnecessarily creating a security problem in this region.
Further, the Ingraham administration has to answer the question of why
it has suspended the programme of eye care that the Cuban government has
been supplying for two years to Bahamian citizens who cannot afford to
get eye care elsewhere. Is this a craven subjugation to private sector
interests or is this part of the foreign policy of The Bahamas toward Cuba.
We add also that Caricom is less than forthright
when it comes to Cuban interests. They are afraid to speak up when
Cuba is wrong. They are afraid to stand up to the US when the US
is clearly wrong on Cuba and so many issues including the slaughter in
Iraq by foreign troops who occupied the country unlawfully, deposed its
President and had him executed by the victors. Just silence.
The Caricom agenda is also deficient in its foreign affairs in that it
does not include a policy toward Africa and in particular the events in
Darfur and in Zimbabwe. The silence of Caricom countries in the face
of events in Darfur and in Zimbabwe is deafening. So as the heads
get together from 1st July to 4th July, Hubert Ingraham ought to think
about all that has been said here, and take that biggetty attitude into
areas of public policy where it might really do some good.
STRAW
VENDORS STOOD UP
The Straw Vendors were told that they were to meet
Earl Deveaux, the new Minister of Works with responsibility for the straw
market on Thursday 28th June at 10 a.m. Mr. Deveaux waited until
the straw vendors were all dressed and ready to go and then without ceremony
cancelled the meeting on the ground that he had to attend a Cabinet meeting.
No further word on the fate of the vendors or another
meeting. But the resistance is growing in the straw market to the
move to put the vendors on the Prince George Dock which requires identification
for each vendor and a security check just to enter the building.
Prince George Dock will be a graveyard for the vendors
and even though the government of review and stopping projects is saying
it will only be a temporary move, the bet is they will move the vendors
from Bay Street and forget them. The PLP again cannot let this happen
and must continue to agitate in the market for the Government to build
the straw market as it was originally envisaged.
PLP
DEFENDS URBAN RENEWAL
There was a murder in Nassau Village on Thursday
28th June right in the yard near where the offices of the Urban Renewal
used to be in Nassau Village. We say used to be because the FNM has
closed down the Urban Renewal offices around the island. The public
complained that if the office had not been closed, the murder would not
have taken place.
The same night that the murder was taking place
near the Urban Renewal office yard, the PLP’s Leader Perry Christie was
heading a host of speakers at the PLP’s Council meeting defending Urban
Renewal. Amongst them was Fred Mitchell, the MP for Fox Hill and
among the places where Urban Renewal has made a difference. You may
click
here for his full remarks.
Hubert Ingraham has to be blamed for the Urban Renewal
mess. He came into office with his vindictive and vengeful streak.
Just because it was a PLP, Perry Christie programme, he decided that it
had to be scrapped. Last week, the police were ordered to leave the
Urban Renewal offices and go back to the police stations. The communities
were furious, and within days Mr. Ingraham had to backtrack and put the
police back. This is pathetic. Every chance the PLP gets, it
needs to bring this home and slam it home. It is Ingraham who is
responsible for the failures of Urban Renewal and for the increase in crime.
THE
FACTS ABOUT PRINCE GEORGE DOCK
The week began with a scathing intervention by Glenys
Hanna Martin, Member of Parliament for Englerston and former Minister of
Transport & Aviation. Mrs. Hanna Martin chastised Neko C. Grant
'the first' now Minister of Tourism, who alleged that the PLP "did nothing"
in response to cruise line requests for work on Nassau Harbour. Said
Mrs. Hanna Martin, "You can fool some people some of the time but you can’t
fool all of the people all the time…" Please click
here for the full statement.
NOTTAGE
RESPONDS TO ATTACKS ON NHI
In a comprehensive address to the Speakers Forum
Wednesday 27th June at the Me Ting Place in the Hilton Arcade Dr. Bernard
J. Nottage, the former Minister of Health and Leader of Opposition Business
in the House of Assembly gave a detailed and updated overview of national
health questions in The Bahamas. Dr. Nottage also responded to continued
private sector attacks on the PLP’s proposed National Health Insurance
programme. Please click
here for Dr. Nottage’s full address.
TANYA
IN THE RED BLOUSE
Tongues were wagging in the Senate on Wednesday
27th June when the Senator Tanya Wright who is at the centre of the controversy
over the seat in the Senate that belongs to the PLP showed up in a red
blouse. Red is the colour of the FNM and it is Perry Christie's position
that no FNM should be occupying the three seats that belong to his Party
and that are within his discretion. The choice of colour did not
seem innocent to some and the point was made before the luncheon break
to the Leader of Government business in the Senate. After the break,
the red blouse was still on.
IN PASSING
Rick Lowe
Rick Lowe has the mentality of, well, we shouldn’t say it. Let’s
say he cannot escape his culture and background. So it wasn’t surprising
that the smart ass to end all smart asses was in the newspaper last week
suggesting that the solution to the straw vendors was for the government
to sell the market property to the vendors and let them develop it.
The whole tenor of the sneering letter was that the vendors had rich children
and the government should therefore not build the facility. Observers
say the letter was clearly trying to make a dig at Franklyn Wilson, the
son of a straw vendor and who has two sisters still in the market, and
who is one of the most successful and wealthy black businessmen in The
Bahamas and one of whom many like Rick Lowe is jealous. The fact
is, though, the market is a public good, not a private one and the Government
has an obligation to rebuild the market. But you know Rick Lowe always
has an opinion floating out there. Here’s one for you: how about
the government selling the market to the straw vendors for $1. We
bet Mr. Wilson would have the market built before you can say jack sprat.
The Faker of Fox Hill
The Faker of Fox hill, the juice in dere, has still not gotten over
the fact that she got beaten in Fox Hill in the last election. So
she has her operatives still writing letters to the press. One of
them is a nasty little man who calls himself a preacher who wrote the press
talking about the Fox Hill festival. Ignorance is bliss. They
all just can’t leave this man Fred Mitchell who beat them in Fox Hill so
they have to make up lies and of course the press is willing to print the
lies.
Attacking A Former MP
The nasty rag twice weekly paper in the Bahamas has been running a
vicious lying campaign against a former FNM MP. The people who run
that paper simply sit down make things up in their drunken hazes as they
wander from one bar to the next. It appears that one of them is a
drinking buddy of the former MP’s partner and that partner is hurting from
losing business so now that the FNM is in power he is seeking to, shall
we say; influence the story to ruin the former MP. But most people
know that the newspaper is a lying rag sheet and nothing that is printed
there should be believed.
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Truth versus Propaganda
As the FNM government continues to stop and cancel
vitally important and relevant capital projects, both the leadership and
supporters of the FNM alike continue to intentionally mislead the Bahamian
people about the good works of the PLP government. Make no mistake about
it, when the FNM say that the PLP government failed to build one school
in five years, they are intentionally misleading the Bahamian people into
creating the impression, albeit false, that the PLP government failed to
address the vexing issue of overcrowding in the public school system or
the dilapidated state of the education physical plant. We have heard the
“Do Nothing Government” propaganda campaign. Nothing can be further from
the truth. We as PLP supporters must be ever mindful of the FNM's nasty
brand of propaganda and the spin used to undermine the PLP and distort
our accomplishments. We must continuously set the record straight with
truth and facts.
The record will show that the FNM government
built 10 schools between 1992 and 2002 and the Port Authority constructed
two as part of the Freeport Act. All 12 schools amounted to a mere 332
class rooms. If you subtract the class rooms built by the Port Authority,
the number dips below 300. This compares to 519 standard class rooms constructed
by the PLP government in less than 5 years. This translates into 33 class
rooms per year by the FNM versus 100 class rooms per year by the PLP or
three times as much. The PLP did more in 5 years than the FNM did in 10
years and more effectively, aggressively and comprehensively addressed
the vexing issue of over crowding in the public school system. Check the
record.
The Pindling regime of the PLP began the pre-school
initiative in 1990. The first FNM administration continued this initiative
and in 12 years (1990-2002), both administrations built 28 pre-school units.
The PLP government under PM Christie again in just five short years constructed
33 pre-school units and essentially created universal access to pre-school
education. Additionally, the PLP government hired 57 pre-school teachers
and tabled legislation regulating the operation of pre-schools. The PLP
did more in 5 years than the FNM did in 10 years. Again, check the record.
The $60 million school refurbishment program
covered 149 public schools and was the most aggressive and comprehensive
upgrade project in the history of this country in any five year period.
This is evidence that the physical plant was left in a state of disrepair
by the FNM after 10 years of governance. The PLP government clearly demonstrated
a greater commitment to education than the hapless FNM and cleaned up the
mess left behind by the FNM. Check the record.
When one considers the fact that the PLP government
enjoyed these record levels of achievements with a part time education
minister, these accomplishments are all the more remarkable. Under the
FNM, there were two full time ministers in the ministry of education. Clearly
the FNM government who was lazy and unfocused pointed the finger at the
PLP government who was focused, action oriented, and goal oriented.
The FNM has always been long on propaganda and
short on action and execution. Their operatives and allies in the media
do a good job of spin for them and down play the accomplishments of the
PLP. We must know the facts and continue to meet their lies, distortions,
and propaganda with the facts. The FNM cannot and has never been able to
compete with the PLP in terms of performance.
PLP's, we must not lose our voices. We must continue
to write to the editors of the dailies and call and send faxes to the various
talk shows on a daily bases to get our message out and continue to set
the record straight. We must meet the propaganda of the FNM line for line
and word for word and continue to speak truth to power. We must fight fire
with fire and answer the FNM pound for pound and ounce for ounce THE GLORIOUS
WORKS OF THE PLP ON BEHALF OF THE BAHAMIAN PEOPLE MUST NEVER BE ECLIPSED,
UNDERMINED OR RELEGATED TO OBSCURITY BY THE UNCARING AND HAPLESS FNM.
Elcott Coleby
Click on a heading to go to that story; press ctrl + home to return
to the top of the page.
|
| PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Fred
Mitchell, the Member of Parliament for Fox Hill often tells the story of
George Mackey, one of his predecessors as Member of Parliament, coming
to his law office in the fall of 1996 on the eve of Mr. Mackey’s retirement
to ask him if he would be interested in returning to the PLP and in running
for the Fox Hill constituency. Mr. Mitchell agreed on the spot and
in February 1997 became the official standard bearer of the PLP in the
Fox Hill constituency. He lost that election but stayed and was successful
in 2002 and again in 2007. Each year since that time there has been
a service of thanksgiving by the people of Fox Hill to mark the years of
service given to the community. This year the service was held on
Thursday 5th July at St. Mark’s Baptist Church. Mr. Mitchell in his
address told the congregation that the word should go out that there is
only one Member of Parliament for Fox Hill not two. You may click
here for the full address. Our photo of the week is a picture
of Mr. Mitchell with some of his constituents at the end of the service.
The photo is by Al Dillette. |
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
IS LEADERSHIP AN ISSUE?
There is a strange phenomenon in play in The Bahamas with the PLP
that we simply don’t get. It often starts like this. A telephone
rings early in the morning and someone is reporting some startling headline
or story in The Tribune, The Punch or The Nassau Guardian. All of
these newspapers are against the PLP yet PLPs read them, support them even
though the newspapers refuse to give credit to the PLP and misrepresent
PLP positions in an unacceptable way.
The question we ask is why does the PLP continue to do this to itself?
By all accounts the PLP is still the dominant force in the country, even
though by the quirks of election laws, the FNM now has the majority in
the Parliament. Even if they did not have the support that they now
have, there has hardly been a time in the history of the country when the
PLP support has fallen below 35 per cent. The question is why has
the PLP not used its political support to break these media houses?
The Tribune requires the support of PLPs in order to continue to make it.
Yet each week it engages in the most biased and slimy stories about the
PLP. This week in its Independence edition, it claimed that the PLP
was voted out because the people believed that the PLP was an ill disciplined
rabble. Who says? Where does that come from? It comes
only from the subjective pen of the king of jerks John Marquis who needs
to be kicked out of this country. Why then should PLPs continue to
buy and support an instrument that continues to denigrate the PLP and its
legacy in this country?
Who can forget what was done to Shane Gibson, the former immigration
minister through the selective use of purloined photographs and tendentious
writing? It led to the Minister’s resignation on the grounds that
there was something wrong with the relationship that he had with the B
movie actress Anna Nicole Smith as demonstrated in those pictures.
The PLPs were just as responsible for spreading the news as The Tribune
itself. Yet another example of inflicting damage on themselves.
There are other examples of how the PLP continues to support businesses
that refuse to support them. You have Kelly’s the hardware store.
They have built up a fortune in The Bahamas. Their owners are said
to have raised some three million dollars to help defeat the PLP.
This after the PLP’s Leader went out of his way to court the Kellys and
other UBP families with a view to seeking to show them that the PLP had
their interests at heart. That was not enough clearly because one
example is how in the early years of the term of Mr. Christie he was invited
to their summer programme to congratulate the youngsters hired there.
But once Hubert Ingraham returned to the position of Leader of the Opposition,
the invitations to Mr. Christie stopped and Mr. Ingraham was invited instead.
It is clear that they determined where their greater interests were and
it was not with Mr. Christie. As it was said in the aftermath of
the election results, Mr. Christie extended the hand of friendship to Bay
Street and his hand was chopped off.
The question is even more compelling when it comes to businesses
like Kelly’s. Why would PLPs not boycott Kelly’s and simply stop
shopping there and buying their products? What is it that prevents
the PLP’s leadership from leading such a boycott? It can be complete
and effective and modelled after the actions of Jesse Jackson’s Operation
Push in the United States. The request would be simple either stop
your racially biased and politically biased efforts against the PLP or
suffer economic defeat. It may well be the only lesson that they
understand.
After forty years of continually pushing their racism and political
bias, the United Bahamian Party is back in another guise, with their Uncle
Tom at the helm, and the son of the United Bahamian Party’s Premier at
number two, who denies his African heritage but has aspirations to become
the Prime Minister of The Bahamas. The UBP has succeeded and some
of them who were there at the end are right back in the mix. For
example, it was announced that Barrie Farrington, the last Chairman of
the UBP, is now to be the Chairman of Bahamasair.
Into the mix of all of this then, one must ask the question, if the
UBP/FNM can continue to spew out racial prejudice and racial stereotypes
against the PLP, why then should the response of the PLP be a gentle response.
We have seen where that response has gotten us, right back in Opposition
after only five years in office. It is a disastrous result.
It is bad for The Bahamas. It must be reversed.
The question is how? Can you reach this younger generation
of people? Do we know who their movers and shakers are? We
have to find out.
In the mean time, it would behoove all those in the land of the ambitious
to hold their horses within the PLP. It would be a great shame if
it is The Tribune that PLPs use to determine who the next leader of the
PLP is to be. On Friday 6th July, they ran a speculative story
about the PLP’s leadership. PLPs were quoted on the record in it.
What is the matter with us? It is none of their business and our
job should be to try to stop reading their paper and run The Tribune out
of business. Why PLPs continue to even talk to them on or off the
record is a mystery? We would simply tell them bug off.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 7th July 2007 up to midnight:
169,501.
Number of hits for the month of June up to Friday 30th June 2007
at midnight: 940,061.
Number of hits for the year 2007 up to Saturday 7th July 2007 up
to midnight: 3,576,727. (Does not reflect hits prior to 14th February,
2007).
CONTACT US AT E-MAIL:placid_point@yahoo.com
HAPPY
INDEPENDENCE DAY
This week the country will celebrate 34 years as
a nation. The old Union Jack came down just before midnight on the
evening of 9th July 1973 and the new Bahamian flag went up at midnight.
The official observances began in Nassau on Saturday 7th July with the
Beating of the Retreat by the Royal Bahamas Police Force Band. Other
observances include an ecumenical service later today, Sunday; and on Monday
evening a cultural presentation, tattoo by the police and a re-enactment
of the flag raising. The photos of the beating of the retreat are
by Peter Ramsay of the Bahamas Information Services.
KEN
RUSSELL, HEAD OF THE FNM BRAIN TRUST
The Free National Movement called a press conference
on Thursday 5th July 2007 to defend its record on Urban Renewal, all eight
weeks of it. The head of the FNM brain trust that gathered to defend
this programme was Kenneth Russell, the Minister of Housing and National
Insurance. By his side were Loretta Butler Turner, the Minister of
State and Brensil Rolle, the civil servant who played Bo peep, while the
PLP was in power, then quit to run against the PLP. Mr. Rolle
is in charge of the Urban Renewal programme.
Ken Russell and the FNM made the most amazing statement.
They now claim that the Urban Renewal was not started by Perry Christie
but by Hubert Ingraham. That really is a new twist. Up to now
they were saying that they were going to scrap it. Now that the public
has come out and accused them of allowing a murder to take place because
they closed the Urban Renewal office in Nassau Village, they want to take
credit for the programme.
There are also reports that young men who have mentors
in the police at the Urban Renewal offices have lost those mentors and
are now at sea. There are reports that AIDS patients who used to
get their medication from the Urban Renewal offices have lost that.
Hubert Ingraham, vicious, vindictive and vengeful, has to take the fall
for this mayhem that has been created.
Loretta Butler Turner sat at the press conference
in a red blouse as if the campaign is still on and as if we need to be
reminded by a Minister of the Government that she is FNM instead of a servant
for all of the people of The Bahamas. What most concerned us though
was the Assistant Commissioner of Police Marvin Dames sitting in this clearly
partisan forum. Was it appropriate for Marvin Dames, an Assistant
Commissioner of Police to be put in the position where he is sitting in
and appearing to condone the partisan political comments at the FNM's press
conference? Something seems wrong.
Bottom line. The government has reversed itself
and the police are to go back into Urban Renewal. Apart from this
most outrageous attempt at revisionism, which is now a trademark of the
FNM, it seems a little silly to us to be arguing about who started it rather
than making sure that the programme continues to work. Then you can also
ask the question if Hubert Ingraham started the programme why would he
want to scrap it? Is this another example of Mr. Decisive leaping before
he looked? Of course, the Bahamian people know who conceived, established
and nurtured Urban Renewal, but the point is that a government does not
or should not act against the best interest of the people.
THE
MINISTER MUST APOLOGIZE
It has been reported to this site that Vonqiue Toote,
the ZNS reporter was reportedly put in a difficult position recently by
a Minister of the government. It is alleged that Ms. Toote worked
on a story involving that minister. He was not happy to leave it
there but instead called her and asked her not to run the story and when
the phone call did not produce the result desired, he actually went to
the station and demanded to see her, review the story and further demanded
that the story not run at all. In the end the story did run, and
the reporter has asked for a conference with management at the station
about it.
What was that about the PLP interfering with ZNS?
This never happened during the PLP’s time. The press in this country
has given this government a soft time and they need to investigate this
report about one of their own. Next week, if there is no further action
on this matter, we will call the name of the Minister.
THE
BOARDS ARE ANNOUNCED
The Free National Movement is proceeding to help
wipe out the PLP with the appointment of Boards and Committees that run
the nuts and bolts of the country. The PLP supporters must have had
a reality check when these new appointments were made. Frederick
Gottlieb, former MP for Abaco who is an FNM, is to be head of Bahamas Electricity
Corporation. Barrie Farrington, the last Chairman of the UBP, is
to be the Chair of Bahamasair. Julian Francis, the former Governor
of the Central Bank under Mr. Ingraham when he was last Minister of Finance
is to be Chair of BTC. The Faker of Fox Hill is to help to murder
the Clifton Heritage site. The FNM's candidate for Fox Hill became
the Chairman of that entity. This is like putting the mouse to watch
the cheese. No doubt her mandate is to make sure it does not succeed.
Those who know her record on the Fox Hill Festival Committee know that
she never finishes anything. She always falls out with the people
who are on the Committee before she can finish what she is doing.
We live in hope.
THE
FOUL SMELL ON BAY STREET
There is a foul smell in many of the shops on Bay
Street. The unpleasant odour is affecting business and cannot be
healthy. It is said to have persisted for some time to the annoyance
of shoppers and business people alike. Businesses blame the sewage
system. Phenton Neymour, Minister with responsibility for the Water
and Sewerage Corporation must address the issue. We shall watch and
wait.
MITCHELL
TO EXUMA AND LONG ISLAND
Fred Mitchell, the former Foreign Minister, will
travel to Exuma for the annual participation in the Independence Day observances
there. Beginning tonight at 8 p.m. at Ebenezer Baptist Church. The flag
raising ceremony and cultural show will take place on the evening of Monday
9th July at the Regatta Park beginning at 8 p.m. and ending at midnight.
While in Exuma Mr. Mitchell will meet with party members and supporters.
From there he will go onto Long Island for several days to meet with party
members and supporters before returning to Nassau.
MITCHELL
VISITS THE STRAW MARKET
Opposition Fox Hill MP Fred Mitchell visited the
Nassau Straw Market yesterday Monday 2nd July, 2007 in a follow up to vendors’
meeting with Leader of the Opposition Perry Christie. Mr. Mitchell’s
visit was an expression of the Progressive Liberal Party’s continued support
of the Straw Vendors for the reconstruction of a proper Straw Market premises.
A spokesman for the Party said that from time to time these walkabouts
will be done to put the party's position to the Straw Vendors. A
meeting for the Vendors was held recently with the Leader of the Opposition
at the British Colonial Hilton. Party Leaders at the meeting said
they saw no reason that the government should not go ahead with the construction
project of the new straw market as “finances, engineering, architecture,
and quantity surveying were all secured”. Also at that meeting, the
PLP confirmed that the US Ambassador did object to resiting the market
to the Prince George Dock.
Photo: Fox Hill PLP / Dennis Fountain
CHRISTIE'S
SECURITY COMPROMISED
In the midst of legitimate and widespread concern
over security at the family residential compound of Progressive Liberal
Party Leader and Leader of the Official Opposition Perry Christie, Prime
Minister Hubert Ingraham has directed that police sentries at the Christie
residence be taken away. The move is inappropriate and flies in the
face of common sense, given that twice in recent months, the Christie compound
has suffered gun attacks that left buildings in the compound riddled with
bullet holes. Hubert Ingraham; vicious, vindictive and vengeful,
will have to take the blame for whatever happens as a result of this decision.
URBAN
RENEWAL FORUM
The Progressive Liberal Party is on a winning wicket.
They have caused the Government to backtrack on its hasty and “decisive”
decision to scrap the Urban Renewal Programme. The public has been
loud and clear on this. They want Urban Renewal and they want it
with a police component.
Many of those who benefited and saw the benefits
of the Urban Renewal Programme showed up at a forum, broadcast live on
the radio; and sponsored by the PLP, Chaired by Glenys Henna Martin, former
Minister of Transport, whose constituency Englerston was affected by the
shutdown of the Urban Renewal Programme. The meeting took place on
Wednesday 4th July at the BCPOU Hall. As we upload the Government
had effectively reversed itself and has said that the police were going
back into to the Urban Renewal offices.
A press conference (see
story above) was led by the Minister Ken Russell and his Minister of
State Loretta Butler Turner and the Parliamentary Secretary responsible
for Urban Renewal Brensil Rolle. They claim now that Urban Renewal
was not started by Perry Christie but by Hubert Ingraham under the FNM.
The final speaker was the leader of the Party Perry
Christie. Please click
here for the Leader's full address.
CRY
BABY JOHN MARQUIS
Get this: John Marquis, the editor of The Tribune
with slimy, racist views, is suing the Nassau Guardian. It appears
that the suit is based on the repeat of an article that appeared on bahamasuncensored.com
17th March of this year. Mr. Marquis takes offence that his views
were called racist. He also takes offence at those who suggest that
he was less than forthright in an interview he did with a man who could
not defend himself. That smacks of unethical practices. But
never mind poor John Marquis, boo hoo hoo. He hopes that his cries
will soon turn to laughing all the way to the bank at the expense of the
Nassau Guardian. It serves the two of them right.
A
LEOPARD CANNOT CHANGE ITS SPOTS
Trouble is brewing west of the Creek in Grand Bahama.
David Wallace was considered the front runner for the FNM nomination in
the Eight Mile Rock Constituency in the last General Election; a seat FNMs
believed he could have won hands down. Wallace let is be known was
prepared to walk away quietly if he did not get the EMR nomination.
But Hubert 'It's a Matter of Trust' Ingraham persuaded Wallace to be the
FNM candidate in the West End & Bimini Constituency, a seat Ingraham
knew that Wallace could not likely win.
FNM insiders say the rationale was that David Wallace
would be the only candidate that could keep the PLP's Obie Wilchcombe pinned
down in his constituency for the duration of the campaign. If David
Wallace did not win, which obviously he did not, he was promised a Senate
appointment and the chairmanship of a board. That was the deal.
This past week, after the Senate appointments were made and Board appointments
published, Wallace clan members from West End to Bartlett Hill were outraged.
Politicos were surprised that Wallace wasn't made chairman of the National
Insurance Board. What went wrong?
We say a leopard cannot change its spots and here
is yet another example of a double cross. In the meantime, Wallace's
old friends are trying to make contact to seek common ground.
THE
CASE OF THE MONKEY TAMARIND
The FNM's look before you leap government; the stop,
review and cancel government, has made another error. They stopped
the construction work on T.G. Glover School saying that it was built on
a toxic dump. They ordered a report after rashes appeared on
some construction workers from the site. The report has been given
to them and it turns out that there is no toxic dump at the site.
It is really just a case of monkey tamarind, the wild plant that gives
off a dust that itches beyond belief. Simple as that. Once
that is cleared from the site, it will be fine. Former Minister
of Works Bradley Roberts issued this statement.
ARTHUR FOULKES
Arthur Foulkes who is Deputy to Governor General
continues to write his column in the newspapers attacking the PLP when
he is supposed to represent all. Congratulations though on his new
job $80,000 per year and a car as head of The Bahamas Information Services,
where all PLPs have been purged. Wonder what he thinks of that.
Great news for him personally though. This is more than just jobs
for the boys. Well deserved for the good propagandist and deserving
son of the movement.
ORIGINAL
CONGOS SAY THANKS
The junkanoo group of Fox Hill Village, the Original
Congos, held an awards presentation and dinner this past week in the Village
on Freedom Park to thank its sponsors for their support during the year
end parades. Group leaders ran the ceremony and promised even more
development of the group in parades to come. Among the sponsors with
the group and its leaders are Fox Hill MP Fred Mitchell, and officials
of the Clipper and Dockendale shipping companies. Also receiving
a plaque of appreciation for his and his country's support was the Chinese
Ambassador.
IN PASSING
The Coral Wave Problem
Carvel Francis, the PR executive, is a most patient man usually.
But he has supplied this column with a response to a notice sent out by
Coral Wave, the internet service provided by Cable Bahamas, the monopoly
cable provider in The Bahamas. The service is lousy and they have
been advertising for more people to use it, claiming that it was blinding
fast. We who use this medium for our information to get out know
that this has not been the case for some time but it has not stopped Cable
Bahamas from lying about the service they provide. It appears from
the copy of the correspondence that Mr. Francis provided this column that
they have finally admitted that which we all did know. They have technical
problems. We print the letter and Mr. Francis’ response. Bravo Mr.
Francis!
Dear CoralWave Subscriber,
As you may be aware, over the past few weeks the CoralWave e-mail
service has been experiencing some technical difficulties. The most recent
of which is with the e-mail retrieval service known as POP3. This
service has been intermittently available on the mail system in general,
and has had notable performance faults on Mail Server 1. We would
like to apologize for the level of service being experienced with the CoralWave
Mail servers and want to assure you we are doing everything possible to
bring this to a final resolution. .
In an effort to achieve resolution to the issue, we have been working
very closely over the past week with the key software vendors to diagnose
and determine appropriate changes to improve overall performance and service
availability. Despite the tireless efforts by the support team, this process
is taking longer than anticipated and we sincerely apologize for any inconveniences
this may be causing. Again, rest assured that we are doing everything
we can to resolve this problem
In an effort to further stabilize the service, we will be performing
maintenance on the mail system from July 6th through July 8th. These steps
are being taken as a best measure suggested by our vendors to further isolate
any possible faults and ensure that our mail server environment remains
stable and accessible in order to meet your needs. Please check the CoralWave
website for any further updates.
We thank you for your patience as we diligently strive to resolve
this issue.
Sincerely,
CoralWave Internet Support Team
Fixing the problem is 3 months LATE!
For me these critical problems have been happening before April
1st. Its July 7th some 3 months later and to hear that you guys are trying
to fix the problem is just laughable.
Carvel Francis
-----------------
Congratulations to Donald Thomas
5 July 2007 - Salamanca, Spain – Bahamas' Donald Thomas highlighted
at the '35th Gran Premio Diputación de Salamanca' - EAA meeting
- held yesterday (4 July) by clearing a PB of 2.35m in the men's High Jump
which is also a new world season best performance.
Four Seasons In Receivership
There is a report that the Four Seasons project, the land deal side
is in receivership. While this is not good news, it is not bad news
either. The question really is what affect will this have on the
hotel project which hires so many Bahamians and was responsible for uplifting
the economy of Exuma. The critics took the news as an opportunity
to attack the PLP's philosophy of anchor projects in each of the islands
to help transform their economies.
Construction Prices
There are dark clouds forming over the economy. One reason is
the FNM’s unreliability what with cancelling contracts already negotiated.
The investors are getting spooky that their investments might not be safe
in The Bahamas. The other is said to be the runaway costs of construction
in the country. This has caused many investors to put their projects
on hold until the pricing in construction returns to some normalcy.
The costs have simply made these projects uneconomic. It is said
that this is affecting the future of the Ginn project in Grand Bahama and
the project in Mayaguana.
Teachers Talking Doo Doo
The leadership of The Bahamas Union of Teachers has been in the press
lately praising their FNM friends. If there was any doubt that the
two sister ugly attitudes that dominate the Union were FNM, all doubts
must now be dispelled. Every week these two birds are out cooing
away about how great the government is. The government's policies
are those implemented by the PLP that are now being carried out.
The BUT got the best contract in its history, a first ever for the country,
yet no thanks, just carping from these two ingrates. Now they are
up in every crevice of Hubert Ingraham saying what a good guy he is.
Good our…
Problems with the Podcast
Fred Mitchell MP for Fox Hill has indicated in a press statement that
there is a problem with the podcasts because of technical issues.
The podcasts are expected to return to the regular rhythm during the course
of the week. The last one recorded was 2nd July. You may read
the text of the current podcast as released by Mr. Mitchell.
He says the audio will not be available until later in the week. Click
here for other podcasts.
The US Celebrates its Independence
Fred Mitchell, the former Foreign Minister, turned out to be the only
PLP official at the function for the independence for the United States.
Brent Symonette was also absent, what with representing The Bahamas at
the Heads of Government conference where Hubert Ingraham refused to attend.
So Mr. Symonette is doing the same thing that Fred Mitchell used to do;
travel on behalf of the country. No criticism of that from the FNM
or the press. But what we can say is that the FNM could have held
a cabinet meeting at the U.S. Embassy on 4th July, all of them were out
in force in the Embassy’s yard to celebrate the U.S. Independence.
We will see if they do the same thing for the independence of The Bahamas
this afternoon. The photo of Mr. Mitchell and the US Ambassador is
by Derek Smith of the Bahamas Information Services. Former U.S. Ambassador
John Rood was also at the party, visiting The Bahamas for the event.
Fred Mitchell - 10 More Years
Fred Mitchell, the MP for Fox Hill marks ten years of service in the
Fox Hill constituency. Mr. Mitchell is pictured above receiving presentations
from executives of the Fox Hill Branch of the Progressive Liberal Party
during a special service of thanksgiving at St. Mark's Baptist Church on
Romer Street in Fox Hill. A special collection was taken at the service
to assist in the completion of the Fox Hill Community Centre. From
left are Mr. Mitchell, Branch Administrator Altamese Isaacs and Branch
Secretary Deidre Rolle.
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Musings on the latest CARICOM Meeting
I wish to comment on the meeting of CARICOM heads held in Barbados
this past week. Because very little was said by our representatives in
the way of public policy, well actually nothing was said regarding foreign
or trade policy, I am left to comment on what was not done or said and
what the foreign minister seemed not to know. The hallmark of our relationship
with CARICOM is functional co-operation and Symonette insults the Bahamian
people by pretending that this is some new ground he is trying to break.
Editor, firstly I was very disappointed that our Prime Minister did
not see fit to attend the latest CARICOM Heads of Government meeting in
Bridgetown, Barbados. If for no other reason, PM Ingraham should have attended
just as a courtesy seeing that he will assume the chair in February 2008.
That is what a true statesman and diplomat would have done.
Secondly, Our Foreign Minister, who has very little to say on foreign
policy and international trade, claims to have just bought into the idea
of functional co-operation and was quoted as saying, "We’re trying to establish
a whole network that we can all buy into," Well this is quite embarrassing
because functional co-operation with CARICOM is nothing new for the Bahamas.
There is nothing novel or esoteric about it and Mr. Symonette should quit
acting as if he stumbled across functional co-operation serendipitously.
He sounded as if he just bought into the idea during July 2007 while in
Barbados. Where has Mr. Symonette been for the past twenty years, and especially
in the past five years when he was “supposed” to be the shadow minister
for Foreign Affairs.
Editor, just for the record I wish to edify our Foreign Minister
on the extent of our functional co-operation with CARICOM and this “network”
that we have bought into long, long ago. It is indeed a deeply integrated
relationship.
The Caribbean Environmental Health Institute.
The Caribbean food and nutrition institute.
The Caribbean epidemiology Centre
The Caribbean Tourism Organization
The Caribbean drug testing lab
The Caribbean centre for development administration
The Caribbean Health research council
The Caribbean council for science and technology
The Caribbean telecommunications union
The council for finance and planning.
The council for trade and economic development.
The council for foreign and community relations
The council for human and social development
The University of the West Indies.
The Caribbean development Bank.
The Council of Legal Education
The Bahamas participated in some of these programs for more than
twenty years and Mr Symonette never bought into the idea of functional
co-operation until NOW. This is ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. Or maybe he is trying
to flam his way through. He should be very aware that Bahamians are observing
and some of us are knowledgeable about our country's foreign policies and
international relations. If we perceive that he is a FLAM or simply not
up to the task, we will not hesitate to expose and challenge him. I say
this because more and more Mr. Symonette is coming across as a minister
who is not committed to or interested in his portfolio and by extension,
not interested in governance. Come on minister, raise the bar of governance.
The least you could do is outperform your predecessor and present shadow.
We shall continue to watch, albeit without bated breath.
Elcott Coleby
Click on a heading to go to that story; press ctrl + home to return
to the top of the page.
|
| PHOTO OF THE WEEK: The
country celebrated formally the 34th anniversary of its national independence
on 10th July last week. There was a spontaneous outpouring of affection
for the country, with people on the streets selling clothing and other
effects in the colours of the national flag. Last year the National
Independence Day Commission asked local communities to do something in
their communities to mark the independence of the country. Fox Hill
began by having a flag raising ceremony on the Saturday after the official
celebrations. This year, the celebrations were done again in Fox
Hill by way of Flag Raising. The Royal Bahamas Police Force did the
honours. An address was given by the Member of Parliament for the
area Fred Mitchell. Please click here
for Mr. Mitchell's full address. Our photo of the week taken
by Clifton Miller is that of the flag raising in Fox Hill marking the 34th
anniversary of the country’s independence. See
more pictures below at Fox Hill Flag Raising. |
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
INGRAHAM ON INDEPENDENCE
When
you look at the photo taken by Peter Ramsay of the Prime Minister Hubert
Ingraham you find a man who appears smug and happy. He must be in
hog heaven. He cannot believe his luck. After being kicked
out ignominiously in 2002 as Prime Minister, he is now back and in charge
of the bull run. The smugness is too much for us, particularly after
such a nasty, wicked and evil campaign at his instance. Further,
in the history of our country, his governmental acts have never been more
vicious, vengeful and vindictive. Yet it was amusing to note the
temerity, really, of Hubert Ingraham to suggest in his statement to the
country on independence that despite our political differences, we must
all pull together.
Pull together where, how and for what reason should we pull together
with a man who has destroyed the civil polity of our country, and is now
in the process through his governmental actions of dismissing the poorest
people from the civil service, ruining their lives and those of their families.
Surely, those who voted for trust did not expect that they would suffer
this fate so soon after the general election. The man who said that
he had changed has not changed at all. He is the same man, capable
of the same vindictive, vengeful and vicious actions that he conducted
while he was Prime Minister for ten years. There is no doubt that
Hubert Ingraham must go. He must be driven from the seat of power.
The PLP and its supporters must know what their job is. He must go.
In the Department of Environmental Health, the PLP had a policy,
too slow as it was, of ensuring that those who had been working for a long
time as temporary workers would get an opportunity to migrate onto the
permanent and pensionable establishment of the public service. This
is usually something that a Permanent Secretary can do once there is the
budget for it, and the necessary paperwork has been supplied for the officers
concerned. The reports are that the Ingraham administration has now
stopped that process. That means that hundreds of workers now face
the uncertainty of being in their jobs and of being fired at any moment.
Within days of the government coming to power, the FNM administration
led by Mr. Ingraham ventured into reviewing all contracts with anyone signed
during the last three months with the PLP administration. They
have also stopped some contracts from being executed. Chief amongst
these is the straw market contract and a school contract for a new Junior
High in Grand Bahama. They are looking for crookedness where there
is none to be found. Yet with all this reviewing and stopping, there
are reports are that the FNM is busy giving out contracts without bids
to their supporters to build additional classrooms in Grand Bahama and
throughout the islands. There is clearly one rule for PLPs and another
for FNMs.
This is the modus operandi of the Free National Movement, to say
one thing and do another. They are the masters of lying, misinformation
and propaganda. The latest example of this is the attempt by the
Free National Movement and surprisingly Dion Foulkes, a Minister of the
Government, to give the FNM the credit for bringing the country to independence
in 1973. Aiding in this is of course the revisionist Tribune who
in its supplement on Independence showed no pictures of the PLPs going
to the independence talks but only the FNM delegation. Just
when you thought things could not get any worse, you now have the FNM claiming
credit for Independence, a policy that they opposed in the general election
of 1972. They did not want independence for the country. Hubert
Ingraham was not part of that and at the time but the fact is he has joined
that band now and must suffer as one who did.
Then the other bit of revisionism is to be quiet about the role the
United Bahamian Party played in the underdevelopment of the country.
After forty years, these men and women are back. Lynn Holowesko,
a Pyfrom, is the President of the Senate. Brent Symonette, the son
of the first Premier of the country under the United Bahamian Party, is
now the number two man in the government and angling for number one.
Hubert Ingraham has sanitized his image and made the frightening spectre
of the revenge of the UBP possible in 2007.
The FNM’s typical response to all of this is: why does the PLP keep
bringing it up? We bring it up because the facts must never be forgotten.
What the FNM wants is for these facts to be forgotten so that they can
run roughshod over this country, continue to subjugate black talent and
ability, and keep control of the economy. The PLP must use its political
strength to shake off this yoke.
Why would the Kellys who have made more than they ever had before
continue to oppose the PLP and then go out and raise reportedly three million
dollars in Lyford Cay in order to defeat the PLP? This is inexplicable.
And so if The Tribune and Eileen Carron can continue to push racist philosophies
in their newspaper every day that God sends a week along, then the PLP
and we who run this column have a responsibility to ensure that the other
side is told. It is as simple as that.
As you contemplate what the national independence of this country
means let us remember then those gallant leaders of the PLP who took the
country to independence and brought us to the level of unprecedented prosperity
in the history of our country. The PLP deserves the credit for it
all.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 14th July 2007 at midnight:
202,981.
Number of hits for the month of July up to Saturday 14th July at
midnight: 382,043.
Number of hits for the year 2007 up to Saturday 14th July 2007 at
midnight: 3,789,269. (Does not reflect hits prior to 14th February,
2007).
CONTACT US AT E-MAIL:placid_point@yahoo.com
A
FALSE PRETEXT FOR ELECTIONS
If you have been watching the headlines in The Tribune
over the last week, you will see that there is this constant drumbeat about
how there has been massive fraud in the elections. They have been
quoting the PLP’s cases in the election court. You will know that
the PLP in the three cases that it has brought to the courts believes that
there were scores of people who voted in the last election that were not
qualified to vote. It appears that the Parliamentary Commissioner’s
office was allowing people to register by using less than satisfactory
documentation. For example there are reports that the staff of the
Parliamentary Commissioner allowed people to register using their driver’s
license or a birth certificate. None of these are proof of citizenship
of The Bahamas. The result is that many young Haitians who were born
in The Bahamas ended up on the electoral rolls and tipped the balance in
some constituencies. The FNM ran a sustained campaign amongst young
Haitians that they would be deported en masse from The Bahamas under the
PLP. In the case of Pleasant Bridgewater, Leslie Miller and Allyson
Gibson, the Members of Parliament who brought election court cases, their
cases turn on these very facts.
You will remember that Hubert Ingraham's first response
was bravado. He told the country when he came home from his meeting
with George Bush that the PLP should bring it on, that no court was going
to change any government, that he had the right to call a general election.
We have reports that up in Grand Bahama, the FNM is working over time to
try and discredit Pleasant Bridgewater’s assertions of people on the register
who should not have voted. They are again using nasty tactics like
going to people and saying that the PLP is trying to send them to jail.
Ms. Bridgewater is certain that she is on solid ground in this matter.
The brave words of Zhivargo Laing, the verbose Minister of State in Finance
and the declared winner in the Marco City seat, once held by Pleasant Bridgewater,
have begun to look hollow in the face of the evidence.
What this all adds up to is the belief in political
circles that Hubert Ingraham is looking to call a general election sooner
rather than later. The Tribune beating the drum of massive voter
fraud in their headlines is not coincidental. What it is designed
to do is to give Mr. Ingraham the pretext to call a general election on
the grounds that the PLP allowed the registration list to be so polluted
that the election has to be called all over again. He will seek to
blame the PLP for the mess. The fact is the PLP as a government provided
the resources for the Commissioner. It did not do the registration.
That was for the Commissioner and his staff without interference.
The question is: if there was massive voter fraud then was it deliberate
or was it inadvertent? We won’t give an answer now but we are very
suspicious.
THE
MURDERS WERE TO STOP
There are now 43 murders in The Bahamas for the
year 2007. If the murders keep on this track, then they will exceed
the 70 murders that were the highest in the history of the country when
the FNM was last in power in 2000. But wait: was it not the FNM who
said that once they got into power the murders would cease? We are
sure of it; crime was to come to a stop when the FNM came to power.
We wonder what happened.
There is of course no easy answer to crime.
First, the FNM overreached themselves as usual. The crime in the
country has little to do with who is the government of the day. The
police statistics show that most of the murders are domestic in nature,
young people who cannot control their impulses. We understand that
the President of the Bar Wayne Munroe has said that one of the reasons
why the young men can’t control their impulses is they see the leaders
in the FNM who have just come into office and they can't control their
impulses either. That is why the PLP started the Urban Renewal programme
to be able to intervene directly into family situations and help with this
very problem. The first impulse acted on by the FNM was to kill Urban
Renewal. Young people have to learn that there are times when you
must walk away, rather than stab or kill someone for simple disputes.
As much as the society has talked about it, the point does not seem to
be getting across.
The last two men who were murdered within days of
each other last week were both teen-agers, barely into their young adulthood.
One was shot because he was dating a young woman who used to date the alleged
murderer. The alleged murderers are the same ages as the victims.
In one case, there was a dispute about the age and whether he was in fact
under 18. These are sad statistics. The Christian Council has
issued its usual statement in ignorance of the law that the government
must start hanging people in order to cut down on crime. The fact
is the government can’t hang anyone until the courts say that they can.
The government’s minister Tommy Turnquest made the same ignorant statement
when he first came to office that they proposed to resume hanging.
This of course is the same cynical Hubert Ingraham government at work.
Just hang some people to stop the criticism, not to stop the crime.
Anything for political reasons even if it means killing some people.
In that sense he and his government are just like these young men in the
streets, can’t control their impulses.
TOUR
OF EXUMA AND LONG ISLAND
Each year with but one exception since 1997, the
Member of Parliament for the Fox Hill constituency has joined the people
of Exuma for their independence celebrations. He also takes time
to visit with the leadership of the PLP in the area during that time.
This year was no exception. Mr. Mitchell joined MP for Exuma Anthony
Moss for the independence church service and the flag raising on Regatta
Park. The church service was conducted at the Ebenezer Baptist Church
in Rolleville, Rev. Adam Brown presiding. The homily was delivered
by the Rev. Fr. Mario Conliffe, the Anglican Rector of St. Andrew’s Church
in Georgetown. The festivities were organized by Administrator Alexander
Flowers. One of the highlights of the evening was old story time
by Barbara Conliffe, nee Franks (pictured, above left). From Exuma,
Mr. Mitchell flew on to Long Island where he was met by Stalwart Councillor
Captain Alphonso Moree. While there he met with leaders of the PLP
there including Mario Simms and Lockhart Turnquest. The photos by
Dennis Fountain are from the tour.
HENRY
WOOD VINDICATED
We need to start popping the champagne corks.
Henry Wood, the now Managing Director of Bahamasair, has been vindicated
by the Supreme Court. You will remember that shortly after Hubert
Ingraham came to office in 1993, he held a Commission of Inquiry that was
responsible for investigating the conduct of the affairs of Bahamasair
where Mr. Woods was the manager of the engineering department. The
Commission of Inquiry was simply an example of Hubert Ingraham’s vindictiveness.
It was to investigate what the FNM said was wrongdoing by Sir Lynden Pindling
in a number of governmental matters. The result of the Commission
was that it found nothing worse than a man who could not balance his cheque
book, but in the process the Commission was used effectively to sully the
reputation of the former Prime Minister. It was one of the more disgraceful
episodes in the history of this country and Hubert Ingraham will go down
in history as the most vindictive, vicious and vengeful Prime Minister
in the country’s history.
Now the year is 2007 and the findings of the Commission
against Henry Wood that were adverse to him have been successfully challenged
in the Supreme Court. Remember that these findings came in 1995 and
here we are 2007, twelve years later, and they have seen the light in court.
Justice Vera Watkins has quashed the findings.
The Commission had said that Mr. Wood was a senior
manager in Bahamasair when he utilized company resources for his own personal
endeavours on company time and at no cost to himself.
The Commission declared "As we have tried to make clear in the appraisal
of this manager, the record of suspensions, reinstatements, salary cuts,
demotions in job level, distasteful incidents with subordinates and the
like is indicative of a very unsatisfactory performance over the years.
"We note also that all these events took place in
a highly inefficient engineering department, as well as an on-time performance
that was consistently below acceptable standards. The combination
of poor ethical standards, the instances of impropriety, lack of initiative
to put matters right that were obviously wrong, and the widespread and
costly inefficiency that pervaded areas under his control were sufficient
reason for his dismissal."
The Judge said while there was an abundance of evidence
of probative value on Mr. Wood, the finding of the Commission could not
be made unless the Commission first notified Mr. Wood that they intended
to make an adverse finding and gave him an opportunity to be heard on those
points. That means that the Commission violated the rules of natural
justice by failing to give Mr. Wood the right to be heard. That is
the current state of the law.
The irony of the FNM's position is that they rehired
Mr. Wood at Bahamasair following the Commission’s findings to help put
the engineering department back in order. This proves that there
was nothing wrong with Mr. Wood in the first place. But again, Mr.
Wood's case was just another example of a mean, vicious and vindictive
FNM and Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham.
WITHOUT
COMMENT
Glenys Hanna Martin, the former Minister of Transport
and Aviation in the last PLP administration and MP for Englerston has announced
that she will be running for Chair of the PLP at the next convention.
Anyone who knows her and especially as she is a Hanna knows that this is
done with steely resolve. We wish her every success. The matter has
raised some public comment from another PLP former Senator Philip Galanis.
Here is what he had to say in his own words:
“I think all these individuals [who are seeking
to be chairman] should devote their time to being in Opposition and to
being a shadow Minister for their respective Ministries.
“I also believe that there were some Ministers in
the former PLP administration who were not effective as Ministers.
They did not execute their portfolios well and they need to focus their
attention on maintain their seats and representing their constituencies
and the party in parliament, and for such a person to have a dual role
[as Chairman and Member of Parliament] is going to be distracting
and I don’t think it will be effective.
“We have some PLP Members of Parliament who are
just deplorable and we have some members who need to focus on keeping their
seats and representing the party and their constituency as a parliamentarian
and they will be distracted by trying to reorganize the party as Chairman.”
Some have said that it perhaps wiser for PLPs not
to discuss these matters in public.
FOX
HILL FLAG RAISING
Photos from the Fox Hill flag raising in commemoration
of the thrity fourth anniversary of national independence... Top left;
Fos Hill girl Michelle Francis in native costume, top right, Village Elder
Eric Wilmott recounts a history of Fox Hill for the gathering as Rev. Dr/
J. Carl Rahming and Fox Hill MP Fred Mitchell listen and look on; above,
village dignitaries gather for the cutting of the Indendence Cake by former
Sandilands School Principal and former Member of Parliament Frank Edgecombe.
Photos by Clifton Miller.
IN PASSING
Malcolm Adderley
The announcement of Government Boards included the fact that Malcolm
Adderley a PLP MP had agreed with Hubert Ingraham, the FNM Prime Minister,
to stay on at the Gaming Board as it Chair until the end of the year.
The FNM propagandists immediately went into overdrive in that this to them
was a clear indication that the FNM had gotten to Mr. Adderley and that
he was about to cross the floor to the FNM. We do not believe that.
No word from Mr. Adderley on the speculation. It would be most unusual
for a PLP MP in Opposition to the Government to accept an executive position
with the Government in the absence of some sort of coalition government.
PLP Files Senate Case
The case to settle the true composition of the Senate has been filed
in the courts by former Attorney General Paul Adderley on behalf of the
Official Opposition. The case is to determine whether the Progressive
Liberal Party under the constitution is entitled to the last three seats
in the Senate, Senators to which are appointed by the Prime Minister after
consultation with the Leader of the Opposition. Former PLP MP Michael
Halkitis currently holds one such seat; Tanya Wright holds another and
the third remains vacant. The PLP is challenging the appointment
of Ms. Wright. Mr. Adderley has said that there is a possible procedural
question in that the parliament has not prescribed as the constitution
requires the procedure for challenging Senate seats. He is to seek
the court's guidance.
Alfred Sears’ Mother Dies
We extend condolences to the PLP Member of Parliament for Fort Charlotte
Alfred Sears on the passing of his mother.
Wayne Munroe Re Elected
The 700 strong Bar Association of The Bahamas, the cartel that
controls the lives of lawyers in The Bahamas, met at their annual
general meeting last month and reelected Wayne Munroe as their President.
Mr. Munroe has been criticized in this column for sucking up to Judges
of the Court instead of supporting lawyers. Of late he has been more
even handed in his remarks, speaking about the biases of the system by
the now government of Hubert Ingraham. Mr. Munroe defeated Brian
Moree, the man with CSME on his mind, who believes that he is born to rule.
We congratulate Mr. Munroe. Mr. Moree was not supported by the white
establishment firms in The Bahamas. They perceive that he was not
as supportive of Hubert Ingraham's return as he should have been.
You will note that the Consultative Forum that advises the government on
legislation in the financial services sector has been disbanded and he
has not been asked it appears to play any role in the new government.
Some see Brian Moree as a PLP "sympathizer". Coming from Long Island
and being the colour that he is that is a cardinal sin and one for which
in the apartheid of his world, he is to ostracized. It is sad
but those things still happen in The Bahamas. You cannot leave your
group without an effective sanction against you for siding with black people.
Transfers in Local Government
Everett Hart, the former Administrator is the king of the bull run
now in Exuma. Having switched sides just before the last general
election to support Joshua Sears, the former PLP who sat as an Ambassador
for four years for Perry Christie then turned coat just before the election,
Mr. Hart’s friends have been saying that they have been instrumental in
moving the administrator Alexander Flowers from Exuma and sending him to
Nassau. Mr. Flowers restored good order to the office of Administrator
and brought some neutrality to it and support for the official work of
the Member of Parliament without being political in anyway. Mr. Hart’s
friends are saying that the former Administrator turned FNM because he
was not allowed to stay in the Administrator’s house while his own home
was awaiting construction. Those who know the facts say that his
is just an excuse by his friends who know that his retirement was long
in coming. Mr. Flowers is a senior administrator and should not be
punished in this way for purely political reasons. But that’s the
government of Hubert Ingraham for you. There are others like Reevus
Rolle who is also a senior administrator who is being brought into Nassau,
again as an act of political spite. Administrators are saying that
for the first time, Administrators are being sent out not on the basis
of seniority but purely on the basis of politics. What is strange
is that one administrator is coming from Grand Bahama to a southern island
who could not even sign cheques in the last district he was in because
of some irregularities in his previous district. Oh well; why let
those little things interfere in a good political move?
A
WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING
 |
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Forward, Upward, Onward, Or Backwards?
Many speak profoundly of the morning on July
10th, 1973 when the tide of the ordinary Bahamian life changed in a minute,
through independence. Others comment on the endless years of struggles
which were compiled in the years of colonialism and slavery and now we
are free to make our own decisions and speak for ourselves in the councils
of the world.
This year we are celebrating our forebears.
It is a known fact that many of the forebears of our country are men and
women of colour who fought against the rigors of oppression to uplift the
masses of Bahamian people who were silenced because of their hue.
It was a small few who rose up amidst the odds, and traveled to other countries
and in some aspects worked in the attainment of civil liberties of coloured
persons in other countries, like the United States. Though the whole
process was exigent, they used the exposure gained from these experiences
to return to their small country to assist in achieving liberties that
the average black person only dreamed.
Dr. Miles Munroe, in a sobering message
at the Independence Ecumenical Service on July 8th, 2007, spoke of independence
and the benefits and curses of such an attainment, both of which we are
accessible. At first glance around the Kendal Isaacs Gymnasium you
see noticeably missing the population of “white Bahamians”. Incidentally
though, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Bahamas, a white Bahamian, himself,
was present, however, his wife was not present. On the contrast,
the Prime Minister brought his wife and other family members as did other
Cabinet Ministers. Similarly, at the flag raising ceremony and cultural
show on Clifford Park this same “white” population was again missing.
The inclination of thought is that the “white Bahamian” would not have
any other affiliation with this country, The Bahamas, other than for the
economic gains that they have achieved and continue to achieve at the expense
of the black citizenry, and their clever prospect of attaining the leadership
of this country once again. While The Bahamas was a colony, we recognized
that the ruling “white” class controlled the economy and the leadership
of the country, thus, they fed the monster of oppression of the black class
who depended solely on them for their livelihood and maintained loyalty
to them so that they could eat and their family would be safe.
It is no secret that this minority “white”
class is slowly and discreetly planning their resurgence again. Prime
Minister, Hon. Hubert Ingraham recently named the remainder of the Board
Chairmen to include Barrie Farrington, who has had previous affiliations
with the United Bahamian Party (UBP), the preceding white ruling party
of the Bahamas who blatantly disrespected, exploited, and demoralized black
Bahamians. We recognize that many of these appointments had to be
made, though they may be regarded as iniquitous because if the ‘white’
merchants funded the Free National Movement’s campaign, then they are to
be rewarded, to the compromise of promises made by Mr. Ingraham, himself.
Is our country going, forward, upward, onward, or are we going backwards?
Abagail Cartwright
Sneering Rick Lowe Replies [Click here for
original article]
As usual you chose to ignore the central point of the article because
of your political and racial motives.
The FNM straw vendors complain when the PLP are
in charge, and the PLP straw vendors complain when the FNM are in charge.
But the market belongs to the government (from taxpayer money) so they
have to do what the government instructs.
The hard working vendors would no longer have
to be at the mercy of either political party if they owned the market.
If the government wanted to sell it to them for
a $1 that's okay too. The point is to make them dependent on themselves,
not beholden to either political party.
By the way, thanks for informing me that Mr.
Franklyn Wilson is the son of a straw vendor. I didn't know that, but it
illustrates one of the points in the piece very well.
In a nutshell, once you get over venting in the
opening paragraph of your response, you agree with me.
Rick Lowe
For those of us who passed BGCSE English; nay, let's say BJC; it's
called irony - the use of words to express something different from and
often opposite to their literal meaning. Duh! - Editor.
Is the PLP too soft?
After reading today's post on Bahamasuncensored.com,
[Click
here for original article: Is Leadership and Issue?] I must say
that I totally agree with the opening paragraphs posted on the website.
Why does the PLP, my party, like an unskilled boxer take so many body shots?
The story that the Tribune ran about the brewing leadership issue in the
PLP was a stinger whether true or not and what makes it worse is that the
PLP doesn't respond hard enough to these attacks. It is so irritating.
Every undecided voter who read that story has
now been implanted with the thought that the PLP as a party is unstable
and may be filled with infighting. WIth the election court approaching
and an impending snap election, this was a blow to the PLP.
But what was interesting to me and at the same
time totally [ticked] me off was the response of the PLP to the article.
The PLP's response was SO WEAK. Since that article came out what
have we heard or seen from the PLP leadership on that matter? NOTHING.
The PLP should have sent out its people on all the talk shows that Friday.
There should have been a press conference that very same day with all the
PLP leadership behind Perry Christie as he addressed the country on this
situation. But did they do anything along those lines? NO.
What is the PLP's response? Hardly a pin drop. The leadership
in that party better wake up or else they better get use to being in opposition.
I have posted this sentiment on the PLP's blog
and I am saying it again to you, the PLP needs to get down right NASTY.
If the FNM and its cohorts want to get dirty, then by all means the PLP
must be willing to get dirty as well. If there is one thing I admire
about Hubert Ingraham it is that he is CUT THROAT. This is what we
need in our party, a "take no prisoners" mentality. There are times
to respond quietly and then there are times to respond with all guns blazing
and when the dust settles count the dead. The leadership needs to
stop trying to make everyone happy and make up its mind to get its knuckles
bloody.
My fear is that the PLP's leadership doesn't
have the [testicular fortitude] at times to put the hammer down when necessary,
and if we don't get it right, when Hubert calls another election the FNM
will again out campaign us. If they did it and we were the government,
trust me they can do it now and in an even more effective way now that
they are in government. This is so depressing.
The economic strangle hold of the Kellys, Roberts,
Symonettes and Lowes should have been broken by the PLP during the last
5 yrs. The media strangle hold of the Dupuches should have been dealt
with during this last term. But what did we do, NOTHING.
When is our leadership going to get it?
We must be willing and ready to fight with just as much vigor and intensity
as the FNM and right now we are not. This is so depressing.
Franklyn
We agree. - Editor
Seeing Red
Quoted from this week's article: [Click
here for original article: Ken Russell, Head of the FNM Brain Trust]
"Loretta Butler Turner sat at the press conference in a red blouse
as if the campaign is still on and as if we need to be reminded by a Minister
of the Government that she is FNM instead of a servant for all of the people
of The Bahamas."
Most of the comments made on your site demonstrate
a high level if ignorance and immaturity but this one beats them all.
If I'm correct, I now have the right to say anytime a PLP MP where's (sic)
yellow, it's symbolic of them still believe they won an election they lost
and that they are still all-for-me-baby instead of a "servant for all of
the people of The Bahamas"?
The fact is Mrs. Butler Turner is a Minister of the Government, not
an FNM ideologue. The red blouse was inappropriate in the circumstance,
unless, of course, this was the FNM making a political intervention and
not Ministers of Government reporting to the public. We don't think
so. We are sorry that you suffer in ignorance of the need to be sensitive
to these issues. - Editor
It's 4:40pm!
You said the update would have been by 3:30,
it's now 4:41, I am anxious to read what you have to say. Living
here in Freeport.
Leroy Miller
We apologise unreservedly to Mr. Miller and to all our readers who
logged on last week only to find that the weekly upload was late.
It seldom occurs and never without unavoidable and insurmountable obstacles,
but it is always unacceptable. Thanks for reading and please keep
reading. - Editor.
THIS
WEEK WITH THE LEADER
Progressive Liberal Party Leader and Leader of the
Official Opposition Rt. Hon. Perry Christie this past week attended official
commemorations of the country's national independence and is shown at left
entering the independence service of thanksgiving. [BIS photo:
Derek Smith] At right, Mr. Christie is pictured accepting a hard
cover version of the memoirs of former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister
of Tourism Hon. Sir Clement T. Maynard. [BIS photo: Peter Ramsay]
Click on a heading to go to that story; press ctrl + home to return
to the top of the page.
|
| PHOTO OF THE WEEK: There
was a lot of pent up energy to be released. It should have happened
long time ago and it is of course a sign of things to come. There
will be many more. The Progressive Liberal Party through its Branch
in Yamacraw and its representative in the House of Assembly for that area
Melanie Griffin held an outdoor or open air branch meeting. Mrs.
Griffin invited speakers from the Eastern Region of the PLP and the Party
Leader Perry Christie. The meeting was carried live on GEMS Radio.
The meeting took place on Monday 16th July in front of Mrs. Griffin’s headquarters
in Antigua Street in Elizabeth Estates. One of the speakers was Fred
Mitchell, Member of Parliament, for Fox Hill, a constituency that is adjacent
to Yamacraw. Mr. Mitchell made the point that the present administration
is marked by vengeance, viciousness and victimization. You may click
here for the full remarks and for other
pictures below. Our photo of the week is Mr. Mitchell at the
platform in Yamacraw. Photo: Fox Hill PLP / CJ Miller |
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
TIME FOR THE U.S. TO PACK
IT IN
Departure is a simple act. First you put the left foot and
then the right foot...
--Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion In Winter
We have with few exceptions limited ourselves in any commentary on
matters involving the United States and its adventures abroad. With
the situation in Iraq deteriorating to the extent that is has and the public
debate in the United States now bordering on sophistry, it is time for
us to speak...
The Bahamian people now have a new Foreign Minister Brent Symonette
who claims that his relationship is closer than ever with the United States
because the Head of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in The Bahamas is his neighbour.
It is time for him to speak to his neighbour.
The fact is that the situation in Iraq is getting worse by the day.
It was never good. We made the point long ago that the war in Iraq
was wrong and morally muddle headed. It appears that the people of
the United States and of the United Kingdom and the world were misled by
the leaders of those countries about what actually existed in Iraq.
Having gone in under the pretext of a lie that there were weapons of mass
destruction, a lie that should have been obvious to all who really wanted
to see, the situation has caused and is causing the virtual slaughter of
hundreds of thousands of people, displacing hundreds of thousands more,
killing the young citizens of the United States who are soldiers in their
thousands, and maiming several thousand more. This is all in defence
of a policy that having started on a false premise has only gone down hill.
As we watch the muddle headed debates on the U.S. and British television
services that are supplied to Bahamians each day; as we see the justifications
for the continuation of policies that are failing by the respective governments
of the U.S. and Great Britain; as we watch the refusal of the legislators
who were elected in their countries to bring an end to the farce and the
tragedy of it all, one wonders what in the world is a private citizen who
is not American or British who sees these outrages and is moved about it,
to do.
Amnesty International has catalogued; Human Rights Watch has catalogued
a slew of examples where the U.S. officials have engaged in government
sponsored torture and inhumane and degrading treatment of prisoners in
Guantanamo and in Iraq and in kidnapping other persons and putting them
in places beyond the law and in countries that have less than humane standards
of justice. All of this arises out of the so called war on terror
of which Iraq is a part. We hear for ourselves how the American President
has indicated that some people will never come to trial; some people will
never be tried for any specific offences. They are to be held incommunicado,
without access to their families and to lawyers indefinitely and charges
will never be brought. Yet the world is lectured on the brutality
of the regime of Fidel Castro next door to The Bahamas. There is
nothing that the world has heard about what the Cuban government has done
that approximates what we are hearing about and seeing in American prisons
in Guantanamo and in their secret prisons around the world.
Tony Blair is now gone. The former British Prime Minister was
still insisting as he went out the door that he did what he thought was
right when he decided to join the invasion of Iraq. This was an invasion
that former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Anan described
as illegal. Mr. Blair might be right about how rightly he believed
but that does not translate into the rightness of the policy. He
was clearly wrong and at best misguided; at worst he made a huge error.
Many innocents have died because of the wrong headed policy.
It appears that these men Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair who never fought
themselves in wars or who were never in the military were just too quick
to commit other people’s children to the theatre of war.
When the Gulf War stopped, the father of the present President of
the United States was in office. His advisors told him that it would
not be in the best interests of the world, the region and the United States
to push so far as to remove Saddam Hussein from power. His son did
not listen to that sage advice. The result is the country of Iraq
is now virtually split into three. The central government there,
if you can call that which was installed as the puppet of the United States
a government, has no control over the country. The untold suffering
in the country has led to calls for the occupation to end. And make
no mistake; this was an occupation in every sense of the word, not liberation.
The British and the United States are simply engaged in a new form of colonialism,
invading another man's country that was no threat to them and removing
him from power for their own interests, installing a regime friendly to
them, and executing the former leader.
As you watch the body count go up and up, does any one not think
that they are now reaching the same level of madness that Saddam Hussein
was accused of perpetrating?
Small countries don’t get up in these things generally. But
Caricom's leaders were brave enough when this whole mess started to say
unequivocally that they did not agree at all with the policy of invading
Iraq. For that, the Caricom leaders were put on ice. There
was a brief respite when they were consulted on the question of Aristide
in Haiti but in the end even that resulted in a double cross from the areas
of the developed world who had their own agenda and that was that Aristide
had to go.
What then can we do about it? The Bahamas as a country should
not get involved in a public shouting match with the United States over
it but there should be left no doubt about the view of the many Bahamian
citizens that what is going on in the Middle East is a tragedy beyond all
proportions. Our country’s citizens should make it clear that we
do not support the continued abuse of the human rights of the people of
Iraq, and those persons who were seized and are being held indefinitely
right next to us in Cuba.
None of this looks good for the United States and as we watch the
popular uprising against the war and the policies being pursued in the
U.S. in particular, we think finally, just maybe, finally, the long nightmare
is coming to an end, and common sense and reason will return to the public
policy of the United States in international affairs. There is no
need to debate the difficulty of leaving. Just go. Pack up
and leave. The mess will sort itself out. We are watching closely
the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama for the Presidency of
the United States. If this is the direction that the U.S. will go,
the world can breathe a sigh of relief.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 21st July 2007 up to
midnight: 206,402.
Number of hits for the month of July up to Saturday 21st July 2007
up to midnight: 598,250.
Number of hits for the year 2007 up to Saturday 21st July 2007 up
to midnight: 4,005,476. (Does not reflect hits prior to 14th February,
2007).
CONTACT US AT E-MAIL:placid_point@yahoo.com
MELANIE
HAD A GOOD MEETING
Faithful PLPs gathered from about 6 p.m. in front of Yamacraw MP (PLP)
MP’s headquarters in Antigua Street in Elizabeth Estates for the outdoor
branch meeting on Monday 16th July. It was going to be one heck of
an evening.
The speakers were all strong and the supporters
were enthusiastic. It is clear that the fire for victory still burns
within the breasts of most PLPs. There is also a feeling that this
kind of momentum must be kept up if the PLP is to regain the government
any time soon. There was no negativism there at that meeting; all
positive thoughts about where the PLP is going. Among the speakers
were Picewell Forbes, the MP for South Andros, Senator Hope Strachan, the
candidate for Sea Breeze, Obie Wilchcombe MP West End and Bimini, Ricardo
Treco PLP candidate for St. Anne's and Fred Mitchell, the Member of Parliament
for Fox Hill.
The Leader of the Party Perry Christie defended
his record and again told the FNM's leader that he (Mr. Ingraham) was scrapping
Urban Renewal one of the most sensible programmes of social intervention
in the country that ultimately helped with the tackling of crime.
The Urban Renewal offices are being closed down throughout the country
in an act of vengeance by the FNM against the PLP.
CHRISTIAN
COUNCIL PRESIDENT MISSPEAKS
Prior to the election of 2007, most people, certainly most PLPs, would
have bet that John Humes was a PLP supporter. Not only is he phenotypically
a PLP type but he has said as much both privately and publicly. But
his coming into the office of the President of The Bahamas Christian Council
and the loss of the PLP coincided. Suddenly some strange things have
begun to emanate from that pulpit. One was that the Government should
start hanging people to stop crime. The Attorney General Claire Hepburn
had to explain to the public that you can’t hang people unless the courts
allow it and at the moment the courts have the matter blocked. In
any event what is a man of God doing asking for people to be killed?
Not a very Christian thing. The whole idea of putting hanging into
the public domain seemed calculated to cast aspersions on the PLP but it
had nothing to do with the PLP, it was the law that you cannot hang at
the moment.
But this past week, the eyebrows went to the roof
when Bishop Humes who also heads the Church of God said that the lawlessness
in the country is caused by the PLP because PLPs can't accept that they
have lost the election. What was that? PLP Chair Raynard Rigby
was incensed, and sharply rejected the statement (SEE BELOW), telling Bishop
Humes that he cannot be right thinking to suggest that the PLP which has
a right in law to challenge the election result is engaging in lawless
behaviour.
What comes over these pastors? Perhaps it
is trying to sound intelligent. Perhaps, it is trying to impress
the new government. Perhaps it’s not knowing what to say when a microphone
is in front of you. Some have suggested that the problem is that
the PLP spent too much time courting the church and the church let the
PLP down in the 2007 election. They all remained silent as the FNM
abused the electoral process. The Anglican Archbishop now deigns
to speak, only by speaking in parables. The Roman Catholic Archbishop
wrote a pastoral letter just before the election and virtually told his
people not to vote PLP. This, again, after all the outreach of the
PLP to him. Now they are a tiger that has simply gotten out of the
cage and cannot be curtailed or controlled. Whatever it is, we ought
to drop all pretence and respond to them in an unapologetic way.
PLP
RESPONDS TO BISHOP HUMES
Raynard Rigby, the National Chairman of the PLP, responded to the comments
by Bishop Humes and defended the Party’s overall record in Opposition as
acting in the best interests of the Bahamian people.
“For Bishop Humes to blame the PLP’s decision
to proceed to an Election Court as contributing to the atmosphere of lawlessness
in our nation is not only preposterous but it is an assault on the core
principles of democracy and the Rule of Law. The PLP has made it very clear
that our decision to challenge the election results in Pinewood, Marco
City and Blue Hills was purely driven by the evidence that was uncovered
which led our legal team to be satisfied that there were serious issues
of election fraud. In a democracy like The Bahamas, it must be recognized
that all individuals, and in this case the PLP, have a constitutional right
to free and unfettered access to the Court to adjudicate on legal complaints.
Our Party sincerely hopes and trusts that Bishop Humes was not attempting
to suggest that the PLP did not have such a right and that where someone
has been wronged he must not seek redress from the Courts. That would be
a frightening approach to the protection of the rights of persons living
in a law-abiding society.
“It is a fact that the PLP has accepted its role
as the Official Opposition. As a Party we have been able to quickly transition
to opposition politics. Our performance both inside Parliament
and in the nation generally, demonstrates the energy, vigour and skill
which we have brought and will continue to bring to the role of opposition
on behalf of the Bahamian people.
“On the issue of crime, Bishop Humes could have
used his opportunity on the talk show to bring healing to a country that
has been experiencing violent deaths of its young males and to speak to
the role that the Church can play in arresting the societal issues and
challenges that we face as a nation. However, the PLP and the Bahamian
people have noted that in the midst of the national debate on the role
that Urban Renewal played and can continue to play in the fight against
crime, his voice was silent.
“Bishop Humes should refrain from making comments
that can be interpreted as partisan and political and thus cause right
thinking people to view the church as less than balanced in public affairs.
“As the Leader of the Christian Council one expects
informed, responsible commentary and not commentary that can only further
inflame an already fractious public debate.
“In moving to the Election Court as it has; also
in seeking the determination of the Courts in the matter of appointments
to the Senate; and in seeking to preserve the reduction in crime and the
fear of crime brought about by the Urban Renewal Programme; the Progressive
Liberal Party has, is, and will always continue to champion the protection
of the Constitution and the best interests of the country and the Bahamian
people.”
Cartoon by 'Dafcraf' - Special to BahamasUncensored
MITCHELL
SPEAKS OUT IN THE HOUSE
Fred Mitchell, the former Foreign Minster, and now
the Opposition’s spokesman on Foreign Affairs was sharp and direct in his
attack on Brent Symonette and the FNM in Foreign Affairs. This should
be so since the FNM which attacked the foreign policy of the PLP under
Mr. Mitchell is now embracing everything that the PLP did when in office.
The latest was Brent Symonette boasting that machine readable passports
will be ready for distribution in The Bahamas by the end of the year.
This is a programme that was almost singularly driven by Fred Mitchell,
the former Minister.
Mr. Mitchell in his address asked the now Minister
to comment on what the position is with regard to the Bahamian owned property
in Harlem that was bought by the Bahamian community in the 1930s and is
now in need of restoration. Mr. Mitchell pointed out that the PLP
administration came to the rescue of The Bahamian American Association
to save the building but that the Bahamians in New York have heard nothing
from the new government. He asked that the new government continue
to support the project. You may click
here for the full address.
SENATE
PRESIDENT TRIES TO IMPOSE LIMITS
Senate President Lynn Holowesko is reportedly heading
for a showdown with PLP senators. The new Senate President is said
to have decided that she is going to impose time limits on the debate in
the Senate where there is no provision in the rules for limits on the debate.
She proposes to do this as early as Monday 23rd July when the debate on
the Speech From The Throne begins in the Senate. This seems all part
and parcel of a plan by the FNM to throttle debate in the Senate.
The question is: will the PLP let her get away with it? You will
remember that it was the FNM who brought the budget debate to an early
close in the Senate because the FNM Senators were all tired and sleepy
and wanted to go home.
MALCOLM
ADDERLEY EXPLAINS
 |
Stan Burnside's 'Sideburns' The
Nassau Guardian 21st July, 2007
The PLP has not yet found an effective way to communicate
to its supporters information about it. Part of it is that there
is not a culture of information sharing and response from the PLP and its
members. Part of it also is that many PLPs use the mainstream media
to inform its own leaders what their positions are on matters, either by
leaks of information or deliberate statements.
Now we come to the case of Malcolm Adderley, the
MP for Elizabeth, who against all odds won what is a PLP seat in the last
election. The PLP poured resources and people into Elizabeth, helped
to reorganize his campaign and pumped money into the seat and in the end
he won even though the nomination process for Mr. Adderley was difficult
because the highest level of complaints came from his constituents against
any incumbent. But the Leader of the Party Perry Christie stuck to
his guns and against all the opposition from constituents in the area,
ensured that Mr. Adderley was renominated.
The Tribune and The Punch now say that because Mr.
Adderley has accepted an executive position with the FNM government that
this means that he has crossed the floor. The most we can say is
that it is unusual but not that unusual. What we also say though
is that The Tribune’s constant digs into the rumours swirling around this
matter and stirring up trouble over it reminds us of the relentless campaign
of disinformation that they ran against the PLP in the 2007 general election.
Their latest headline on Saturday 21st July is that the silence of Malcolm
Adderley on the matter speaks volumes and that PLPs have given up on Malcolm
Adderley.
The fact is Mr. Adderley held a public branch meeting
on Tuesday 17th July. The Tribune could have attended and heard what
Mr. Adderley said about his continued membership and loyalty to the PLP.
But no, let’s not let the truth interfere with a good story. The
Tribune would rather have these young men and women working for them kicking
up rumour and dirt in order to sell newspapers. The point is Mr.
Adderley is not silent and he said what he is and he said it in public.
IN PASSING
Alfred Sears Mother Buried
The mother of Alfred Sears MP for Fort Charlotte
was buried in a moving ceremony at Mary Star of The Sea Catholic Church
in Freeport. The service was attended by a number of his colleagues
including Fred Mitchell, MP for Fox Hill, Shane Gibson MP for Golden Gates,
Vernae Grant MP for Eight Mile Rock, Kwasi Thompson MP for Pineridge, Obie
Wilchcombe MP for West End and Bimini and Senator Pleasant Bridgewater.
Mrs. Sears was buried in the Grand Bahama Memorial
Park in Freeport. A comment needs to be made about the state of that
cemetery which used to be amongst the more well kept in the country.
Its state is appalling, a jumble of concrete vaults and open holes and
dried scattered wreaths all over the place. This is certainly not
befitting the dignity of the loved ones of those who have passed away,
It should be addressed immediately.
Alvin Smith Oversteps His Bounds
 |
Stan Burnside's 'Sideburns' The
Nassau Guardian 20th July, 2007
Wednesday 18th July was the resumed date for the House
of Assembly. This present debate is the beginning of the last of
two days of debate before the summer recess. The PLP had to fight
hard for these two days because the government was insisting that it did
not want a debate on the Speech From the Throne that lasted more than a
day with all speakers being limited. In the end, they said they would
agree to two days of debate and they would limit their speakers so that
all the PLP speakers could speak and that the debate must end at 7 p.m.
on Monday 23rd July.
The House resumed after a one month adjournment
following the budget debate because the FNM’s leader could not trust being
away for any length of time with him not being in the House. Of course
that logic went out of the window when he promptly opened the House on
Wednesday 18th July and then left for a Caricom Heads of Government meeting
with the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper down in Barbados.
The debate on the Speech from the Throne is usually a routine debate that
comes right after the reading of the Speech, since it is the Government's
policy document. The budget then follows. Trust the FNM to
do it another way, and muck it all up.
But what was supposed to be a routine debate was
derailed by a foolish ruling by Alvin Smith the new Speaker who ruled that
Shane Gibson could not use his laptop in the Assembly. Mind you laptops
were being used all up to the dissolution this year. Mr. Smith had
no authority to do any such thing. When Mr. Gibson refused, Mr.
Smith “named” the member and ordered him to withdraw forthwith from the
chamber for the day. The PLP went ballistic. Alfred Gray MP
PLP MICAL told the Speaker he could only be showing off because there was
no one more disrespectful in the House to the Speaker than Alvin Smith
in the previous five years. Tommy Turnquest, the Leader of the House
quickly moved a five minute suspension and in the end, the matter was diffused,
with Mr. Gibson agreeing to express regret that he did not follow the Speaker's
ruling, and Mr. Smith agreeing to come back with a rule to allow laptops
at the next session of the House.
The story behind the laptop kerfuffle is that Mr.
Smith seems to have had some experience with members in the past Parliament
downloading risqué material from the web while in the House.
But even if that is the case, that is a private matter and none of Mr.
Smith's business. Folks are also saying that Mr. Smith has been giving
the FNM an equally hard time with his rulings because he is very unhappy
about being made Speaker and not a Minister. After all that walking
with Ingraham in the mornings, he thought that he was a shoo-in for a ministerial
post.
Brent Says Farewell to Cuban Ambassador
Cuban Ambassador Felix Wilson Hernandez said a formal
good bye to the Bahamian community after four years of service here in
Nassau first as the Consul General and then as Ambassador on Friday 17th
July. He is to return home to Havana. Mr. Wilson was his country’s
first resident Consul General and first resident Ambassador.
The subject of Cuba was a political football during
the campaign with the FNM pretending that they wanted to downgrade the
relationship because they wanted to show themselves as more American than
the PLP. Brent Symonette, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has now
announced that the Embassy started by The Bahamas in Cuba under the PLP
will remain in Cuba. No word yet on Mr. Wilson’s replacement.
We wish him well. He was a friend of The Bahamas.
Visa Section Cleaned Out
After the FNM launched an attack against the PLP's
Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell on the visa issue, they came
to office and found that there was nothing amiss. What they found
was a blueprint left by Mr. Mitchell on how to keep the visa section above
reproach. In his Budget address, Mr. Mitchell advised the new Minister
to follow through on the plans to ensure that all persons were cycled out
of that section, an instruction which the previous Permanent Secretary
refused to carry out. It has now been learned that all persons who
worked in the section have in fact been cycled out to new areas and new
persons are coming in to head the unit. We think that this is a good
idea.
The Morgue
Reports are that the morgue at the Prince Margaret
Hospital had refrigeration problems during the week. No word on the
bodies that this may have caused damage to but it bears investigating by
the new Minister of Health Dr. Hubert Minnis.
Phenton Neymour On Petrocaribe
Phenton Neymour is one of the PLPs/CDRs who has
ended up by his various artifices as one of Hubert Ingraham’s ministers.
Politics is the art of the possible after all. Anything is possible.
What should not have happened however is that after an exhaustive debate
about a matter that a neophyte Minister comes in starts talking about embracing
a policy that is thoroughly discredited. We speak of the Petrocaribe
initiative. With gas prices rising again, the Bahama Journal prompted
the new Minister to say that he might be looking at this initiative from
the mercurial Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that was rejected by the
PLP. This is a gift horse. Mr. Neymour had better look at it
in the mouth.
On the face of it, Petrocaribe looks like it will
provide cheap gas. It will not. The Bahamas has a private distribution
system not a public one like Jamaica and so without significant investment
in public infrastructure for distribution, the initiative is no good.
Who wants the public sector in this country to deliver gas anyway?
One day you wake up and hear on the community announcements of ZNS that
the man forgot to order the gas. The record of BTC and BEC is enough
to put us off that.
Secondly, The Bahamas has no balance of payments
problem. Petrocaribe would be good for that because it is a credit
arrangement. When the price of gas is over 50 dollars per barrel,
the Venezuelans give you a credit of up to 40 per cent on the price and
you repay it over 25 years at 2 per cent interest. What interest
does The Bahamas have in that? In any event why would we want to
artificially depress gas prices? This is one area that that the market
should rule. Maybe, just maybe, people would start using their discretion
in using their cars instead of driving up and down for nothing.
Ashley Glinton Straw Market Contractor
Woslee Dominion got the contract back in February
to build the 21 million dollar straw market. Ashley Glinton is Woslee’s
owner. Mr. Glinton had not up to last week been notified that his
contract had been terminated by the government, even though the Prime Minister
said it in the House during the budget debate, together with some defamatory
statements about the contractor. Then the Minister of Public Works
Earl Deveaux announced to the press last week in the Bahama Journal that
the market contract has been terminated and that Tommy Turnquest is now
in charge of a Cabinet subcommittee to come back to Cabinet in 90 days
with a scaled down market contract. Again, it appears that Mr. Glinton
was not given the courtesy of a notice to this effect.
Mr. Glinton wrote the press on his own behalf to
say that his reputation had been sullied and he listed the extent of his
expertise and training. There is a new case called Toussaint on appeal
from St. Vincent to the Privy Council which says that you can use statements
made in Parliament as evidence of the motives behind government policies.
We think that in any legal action against Mr. Glinton he should use this
case to improve his claim for damages.
Meanwhile Telator Strachan, former Senator and still
straw vendor, led a demonstration of straw vendors to protest the cancelling
of the market. They have been told they have to move to the Prince
George Dock. The vendors demanded that the government fix the present
tent where the vendors are and build the market on Bay Street. They
sang the song “We Shall Not Be Moved”.
When Ingraham Is Away
Most members of the House were remarking how smoothly
the House runs its business once Hubert Ingraham is not in the House.
Mr. Ingraham went off to meet the Canadian Prime Minister and was missing
from the House for last week’s meeting. The issues were resolved
but without all the acrimony attached to his presence in the House.
Perhaps he needs to go missing more often.
CARTER
OUT AT THE NASSAU GUARDIAN
Late breaking news is that Bahamian media icon Charles
Carter has stepped down as the publisher of The Nassau Guardian.
Mr. Carter made the announcement while on GEMS radio as a guest on that
station public affairs programme hosted by Sean McWeeney. No reason
for his departure was given, but it is being speculated that the former
publisher's usefulness to the Guardian organisation's new owners is now
limited since the coming to power of the Free National Movement government.
Carter was a minister of government in the first PLP administration under
Sir Lynden Pindling. It is further speculated that the owners of
The Nassau Guardian are minded to divest their interest in the newspaper
and that talks are being held with The Tribune organisation. If this
were to take place, it would be a public policy tragedy of the first order
in The Bahamas.
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Was Bishop Humes speaking as a private citizen or as BCC President?
I make reference to comments attributed to Bishop
John Humes, President of the Bahamas Christian Council, in a front page
story of The Tribune entitled, “Christian Council president: PLP’s inability
to accept election results contributing to lawlessness”.
I find Bishop Humes’ conclusion troubling and
it raised several questions about his interpretation of our democracy and
the rule of law. On what authority or factual evidence does Bishop Humes
make such assertions or draw such conclusions? If it is the challenge of
the election results of the three seats now before the courts, then he
must answer whether or not the PLP has the constitutional rights and protection
to seek legal redress if and when it believes that the Supreme Law was
breached. What is inherently wrong or improper about the PLP’s decision
to seek legal clarification on one of the senate appointments through our
courts? Was Bishop Humes speaking as a private citizen or as the President
of the Bahamas Christian Council (BCC)? Do all members of the BCC share
his view? The good Bishop would be well advised to pray and seek a revelation
from God instead of interpreting crime reports.
Most respected ministers of the gospel make interpretations
on national and international issues and events based on biblical precepts.
This approach strengthens their position of objectivity and solidifies
their reputation as the moral compass of a Nation. The (message of the)
church has always been the moral anchor for our nation. Those who speak
on behalf of the church must be able to defend their public interventions
with biblical precepts. Christian nations such as the Bahamas have successfully
weathered national storms and turbulences because to their collective faith
in God so messengers of God (i.e. Bishops and Pastors) must deal in moral
absolutes, not strategic secular alliances. The faith of a nation in the
(message of the) church must not be shaken and God’s messengers must not
be trivialized and marginalized because of strategic secular alliances,
real or perceived. The onus is on the messenger to ensure that this does
not happen.
The national moral good must always be the goal,
focus and desire of the church for civil society. This approach effectively
ensures objectivity and balance, all in a spirit of love and with a sound
mind. Our beloved, but vulnerable, country can ill afford for it to be
any other way.
Elcott Coleby
THIS
WEEK WITH THE LEADER
This past week, Progressive Liberal Party Leader Perry Christie addressed
the subject of the Party’s white support, or lack of it; and his leadership
prospects.
Mr. Christie spoke to the new group the National Progressive Institute,
the PLP think tank at the British Colonial Hilton on Tuesday 17th July.
The press was there. Mr. Christie was speaking to the group that
is supposed to take the PLP to the next level. The Bahama Journal
reported this on Wednesday 18th July. Here is what he said in his
own words:
“The whites are able to be stronger in their
resolution to support the party of their choice – which is not the PLP
generally – than the blacks…We are democrats and so I think people in The
Bahamas have the right to vote for whosoever they please.
“That is something that the PLP fought to put
in place and is something that we will maintain our position on and ultimately,
it is my hope that those persons who have the same kind of philosophical
commitment that I have to all peoples will be seen to be the right people
in politics.
“I made a special effort to meet with the expatriate,
white community in Lyford Cay, the local white community and the white
business community to show them the type of government that I was leading.
I sought to convince them that my government would be beneficial to them.
“My government was very good for them.
They made record profits in banks; they made record profits in businesses
and we have this chilling reality that no matter how good we perform, no
matter how valuable to the personal profits of the family businesses in
this country, when it comes to elections, they have no interest whatsoever
in supporting me.
“I don’t know how you rationalize that because
The Bahamas is a special place in this regard…
“I don’t need to look around the Caribbean for
the presence of people who lost an election and stayed on. In my case,
the record would reflect – the PLP has obviously petitioned the court on
the basis that it did not lose the election, that in fact, the simple majority
of the three seats would be in favour of the PLP”, said Mr. Christie.
Response To Calls For Resignation By Perry Christie
“I’m assured right now for example, that there
is no challenge to my leadership in the Progressive Liberal Party – absolutely
no challenge, and that if we would try and build somebody into contesting
an election against me, that person would be disappointed,
“I not only command the support of the majority
of Bahamians in the PLP, but also the majority in the entire country.”
Photo of Mr. Christie addressing PLP
public Yamacraw branch meeting Monday 16th July, 2007: Fox Hill PLP / CJ
Miller
Click on a heading to go to that story; press ctrl + home to return
to the top of the page.
|
| PHOTO OF THE WEEK: It
was a great blow to the cultural community. The rumours that they
had heard coming out of a comment made by Opposition Spokesman Fred Mitchell
in the House of Assembly on Wednesday 18th July turned out to be true.
Carifesta X in The Bahamas was cancelled. The PLP made a detailed
statement in response to it and called a news conference to voice their
displeasure, particularly the attempt to blame the PLP for something that
is entirely the province of the FNM. Our photo of the week is that
of the news conference of the Progressive Liberal Party on the cancelling
of Carifesta X in The Bahamas. From left are Dr. Bernard Nottage
MP, Obie Wilchcombe MP, Fred Mitchell MP (at microphone); Vincent Peet
MP, Glenys Hanna Martin MP and Rt. Hon. Perry Christie MP, Leader of the
Opposition. You click here for
the full statement of Fred Mitchell, Opposition Spokesman on Foreign Affairs.
Photo: Dennis Fountain |
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
EMBARRASSING YOUR OWN MINISTER
(The story of how Carifesta was cancelled)
The
Government has now confirmed what former Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell
intimated in the House of Assembly on Wednesday 18th July. Carifesta
is not be hosted by The Bahamas in 2008. It appears that the Prime
Minister Hubert Ingraham without checking with the cultural community told
the Heads of Government down in Barbados on Thursday 18th July that The
Bahamas could not be ready for Carifesta in August 2008. Mr. Ingraham
misled his colleagues in Caricom. His assertions were false.
The PLP’s spokesman on Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell who first raised
this as an issue held with his colleagues a press conference in which the
case was painstakingly laid out. The Minister of State for Culture
spoke on 6th June in the House of Assembly during his contribution to the
Budget debate and he assured the country that The Bahamas would be ready
for Carifesta. Six weeks later on 23rd July in the House of Assembly
he was eating crow and reversing himself. The only problem is he
was seeking to blame the PLP for his misfortune.
The cultural community was furious. A group of them went on
a radio talk show to denounce the government for cancelling the commitment.
It is a slap in the face to them and to the international community.
Dr. Bernard Nottage, the Government’s leader in the House said that he
had the experience of putting together the arrangements to host the first
Carifta games in The Bahamas. He said The Bahamas had no resources
but once the decision was made, they went ahead and hosted the event and
ended up with improved sports infrastructure to the permanent good of the
country.
Picewell Forbes in a written statement
in his absence as the PLP's Spokesman on Culture talked about how deeply
disappointed the cultural community was that the hosting had been cancelled.
The whole thing turns on whether or not The Bahamas can be ready
to host the Festival and this turns on the venues both inside and outside.
Mr. Mitchell made the point that a national stadium is not required, that
Clifford Park would do. Mr. Ingraham insisted that we need a national
stadium. Mr. Mitchell says that there are three indoor stages that
can be ready for use by August 2008; the College of The Bahamas auditorium
newly refurbished at 2.3 million dollars; the Dundas and the Centre for
the Performing Arts.
So what Mr. Ingraham and his Minister of State for Culture are saying
is not true.
The one who comes out of this looking poorly is Charles Maynard,
a young member of the outer Cabinet, an aggressive and ambitious new Member
of Parliament. He is the son of Andrew 'Dud' Maynard, the former
PLP Chairman and Senator and brother to Sir Clement T. Maynard the former
PLP Deputy Prime Minister. His grandmother Georgiana Symonette was
a tough act. Now with all those antecedents there is egg on Mr. Maynard's
face. Those who read the political tea leaves say that when he made
the statement on 6th June saying all was well with Carifesta, he went too
far and may have done it without checking. Mr. Ingraham was having
none of it and reversed the decision without checking, leaving the Minister
to have to unscramble the egg for himself. The story is that the
Cabinet itself was split on the matter and that Mr. Maynard was close to
resigning over it. That is the Maynard that we know.
What ever happened behind closed doors, Carifesta is now cancelled
based on a lie. Mr. Maynard who told the cultural community that
they could feel secure and trust him as the Culture Minister now has to
a lot of explaining to do in order to recover his position. It is
clear that Mr. Ingraham has no regard for him and his feelings or reputation.
How then can he fully represent the issues that are important to culture?
The cultural community believes that every government has mistreated
culture and left it as a side issue. With the coming of Carifesta
they believed that this was their moment in the sun. Now that is
dashed and no one for one moment believes that the FNM has the slightest
intention of doing anything more for culture or Carifesta in 2012.
Out of sight, out of mind.
You may click here for the full
statement of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Fred Mitchell and here
for the full statement of the Spokesman on Culture Picewell Forbes.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 28th July 2007 up to
midnight: 243,963.
Number of hits for the month of July up to Saturday 28th July 2007
at midnight: 853,096.
Number of hits for the year 2007 up to Saturday 28th July 2007 at
midnight: 4,260,322. (Does not reflect hits prior to 14th February,
2007).
Cartoon by Dennis
Fountain special to BahamasUncensored.Com
CONTACT US AT E-MAIL:placid_point@yahoo.com
AWASH
IN BLOOD
Carvel Francis is prolific and he is active.
Each day he sends out an e mail to scores of PLP supporters to drum up
support for the party. This week he was able to show in dramatic
form how the party that promised to end crime is in the middle of the worst
slaughter since they were in power in the year 2000. In that year
there was a record number of murders (70). Now the murder count has
reached 49 with mainly very young men murdering one another. The
most recent is a sixteen year old male who was charged with murdering another
sixteen year old.
The country is at a loss as to what to do.
The police sound more like sociologists in their statements. The
Government’s Minister responsible Tommy Turnquest says to wait until September
when he will have some ideas on what to do. The church says they
will pray. That has not worked in the past but there's nothing like
trying one supposes.
The fact is the FNM is politicizing the Police Force
putting someone who is close to a political ideologue and operative on
the Force in charge of the Force. The level of political interference
is unprecedented. The Commissioner of Police is on leave. The
matter is quite serious. The PLP that started Urban Renewal to try
to get on top of these things can only sigh and say we told you so.
Of course the Bahamian song writers have been quite active and say it much
better with “You Get Swing” and of course our favourite “Look What You
Could Get When You Tired Of What Ya Gat”.
TRIB
AND GUARDIAN MERGER NOT GOOD
(Reporters send anonymous letter
to the Guardian)
A letter to the readers of the Nassau Guardian on
Friday 27th July spoke volumes about the concerns of the general public
and the PLP as a political party about the merger, buyout, takeover (however
described) of The Nassau Guardian by The Tribune. The letter was
signed by the reporters of the Guardian anonymously. In it they expressed
their concern about the announcement of a joint operating agreement by
the two major dailies in The Bahamas The Tribune and The Guardian made
on Monday 23rd July to the respective newsrooms.
We reported on this site late last Sunday that Guardian
publisher Charles Carter had resigned and that The Guardian was to be taken
over by The Tribune. Allies of The Guardian’s owners were working
the phones and the lobbies to be sure that the truth about this deal was
established. There was no buyout, that there would continue to be
two separate editorial staffs but they were trying to cut costs by a joint
operating agreement. On the face of it the economics makes sense.
The actions are consistent with what has been happening in newspaper markets
throughout the world. There are too many newspapers in the market
here in The Bahamas for the advertising revenue available so something
had to give.
The Guardian has been limping along for years and
one editorial change after the next, including bringing in Mr. Carter as
publisher did not improve the bottom line. The owners are now trying
radical surgery. However, the two newspapers have a credibility problem
with the PLP. Few people believe the story for one minute that The
Tribune has not "taken over" The Guardian and that it is just a matter
of time before the true nature of the deal is revealed.
It was announced that Eileen Carron is to end up
being the Chairman and Publisher of the joint operation and her son Robert
Carron being the Chief Operating Officer of the joint operation.
To many that means that The Tribune has "taken over" The Nassau Guardian.
Like the reporters who wrote the letter, we are skeptical. To many
this is just like the pre 1967 days when the UBP owned The Guardian and
a UBP sympathizer Etienne Dupuch owned The Tribune. In some senses
today is worse because unlike prior to 1967 we have a black professional
class today that does not accept nor acknowledge that the UBP even existed
and they certainly find it hard to believe that this is the situation today.
The PLP had better act like it. We are in a big enough trouble as
it stands. The PLP needs its voice heard.
In every crisis, there is an opportunity and now
maybe Wendall Jones and his Bahama Journal will be able to get greater
market share because of the perception of the independence of its newsgathering
operation. We were really disappointed again by Arthur Foulkes basking
in his $80,000 a year salary at the Bahamas Information Services who claimed
that this was a good deal. Boy!
THE
PRESENTATION OF QUEEN’S AWARDS
The awards, honours and insignia of the New Year’s
honours of the Queen were finally distributed on Thursday 26th July at
Government House by the Governor General Arthur D. Hanna. These were
the last awards given by the PLP before they were booted out of office.
They were largely PLP supporters who got the awards who had been left out
in the ten years that the FNM were in office. One who was not a PLP
supporter but was well deserving was Levi Gibson who was given an O.B.E.
for his services in the real estate sector and to the civic life of the
country. Mr. Gibson is now 93 years old and ailing. We are
glad to see that it was done. Eric Wilmott of Fox Hill also received
a British Empire Medal for his work as journalist and for his community
work in Fox Hill. He was pleased as punch.
Attending the Queen's Awards ceremony was former
Prime Minister Perry Christie but in the midst of this was the scion of
the UBP's first and last Premier Brent Symonette. Mr. Symonette congratulated
the awardees for their contributions to the development of The Bahamas.
This must have been like biting iron since most of the people there were
opposed to what he stands for. Today in this year 2007, 40 years
after majority rule came and after his father, the symbol of oppression
in The Bahamas was booted out of office, the son is back and in charge
and presiding over medals to PLPs. Life is full of ironies.
No word yet on whether this FNM government intends
to bring into force the new honours act that was passed by the PLP before
they left office in May. The new acts will create a National Heroes
Day and an act to create Bahamian honours. The photos are by Derek
Smith; bottom left, Eric Wilmott BEM; bottom right, Levi Gibson OBE.
RIGHT
BACK BEFORE 1967--- SIR CLEM’S BOOK
Sir Clement Maynard who served in the Parliament of The Bahamas for thirty
years, one in the Senate and 29 in the House of Assembly, has in Put On
More Speed now added to the increasing documented knowledge of the period
of political struggle from the dawn of black political consciousness in
1942 up to Independence and the struggles beyond. Sir H.M. Taylor,
the founding Chairman of the PLP, wrote his political memoirs. Sir
Randol Fawkes, the labour leader, wrote his as well. The late Sir
Lynden Pindling commissioned a biography on which he co-operated before
he died. Sir Clifford Darling, the Taxi Union Leader and former Governor
General, Minister and Speaker, has written and published as well.
Now comes Sir Clement.
The title of Sir Clement's new book comes from a
story he heard from an early acquaintance that when a boat is being
towed and begins to sink you have two choices to save it, either to cut
the boat and let her go or to put on speed. He claims it as an axiom
of his life in the face of troubles both public and private. Sir
Clement did not run for the House in 1967 but when the PLP won he became
a Cabinet Minister without portfolio resigning as President of the predecessor
to the Bahamas Public Services Union to do so. When the PLP lost
in 1992, he was the only one along with Sir Lynden to have served continuously
in the Cabinet from 1967 until the PLP lost.
The book is a mix of the political stories and explanations
behind the scenes of many of the public stories that we know. It
is a tour de force of the history of tourism development. He served
as the longest Minister of Tourism ever. It describes a life of humble
beginnings and struggle, born out of wedlock, and rising to the heights
of political power and prestige in a modern Bahamas, transformed from a
racially segregated backwater colony awash in poverty to a rich modern
state by the work of he and his colleagues. Its most touching personal
moment is the description of the utter devastation of himself and his wife
Zoe when they learned that their oldest son Julian as a young boy was struck
with cancer. How they struggled to save him and how after being given
six months to a year, he survived 34 years before they ultimately lost
him in 1995. The story of the family’s struggles to educate their
children, to balance public life with private life. The ecstasy and
the glory of the political victories. The disappointment and tension
of the in fighting.
Sir Clement's legacy includes a daughter Allyson
Maynard Gibson, a former Cabinet Minister and now Senator. He writes
with candour about the phrase that some political operatives have come
to associate with his family in a negative way “All For Me Baby”.
The book leaves you wanting more: more about why the loss in 1992 and the
inner thinking behind that last PLP Cabinet’s actions; more about the 1969
conclave at Small Hope and the 1984 Conclave at Chub Cay; more about the
so called “Night of the Long Knives” when Hubert Ingraham in 1997 was PLP
Chairman and led the charge cutting numerous incumbents from being renominated
by the PLP. That evening Sir Lynden and his then Deputy Prime Minister
Arthur Hanna resigned and had to be begged to come back. It illuminates
and refreshes memories of the painful moment when four marines lost their
lives when Cuban planes sank the HMBS Flamingo 10th May 1980. This
work is an important addition to the known sources of information about
the most important period in the building of the modern Bahamas.
You should go out and buy it. It is well worth it.
Sir Clement is pictured presenting a copy of his memoir to Opposition
Leader Perry Christie in this BIS photo by Peter Ramsay
PLP
HAS FORUM ON VICTIMIZATION
Vincent Peet, the Member of Parliament for North
Andros led the PLPs effort to get the news out about the people who have
been victimized by the FNM administration. A special forum was held
at the Workers House where PLP faithful gathered to hear from the people
themselves who had been victimized by the FNM. Speaker after speaker
came to the podium and told how their contracts had been terminated without
notice by the FNM; how they were good workers but were told by the FNM
that they no longer have to come to work because their services were not
needed. The only issue seemed to be that they were PLP. Party
Leader Perry Christie spoke at the Forum which was held on Tuesday 24th
July.
Photos: PLP media/Andrew Burrows
FNM
SETS UP RIVAL FESTIVAL
If you are in The Bahamas, you may know that the
time of Emancipation Day is the time for the Fox Hill Festival. The
historic village of Fox Hill has been gathering on the parade grounds since
the emancipation of the slaves in 1834 to celebrate their freedom.
The modern Festival lasts for ten days or so and stretched from the Friday
before Emancipation Day Friday 2nd August to Fox Hill Day which is Tuesday
14th August. Each night some activity is planned for the Village.
This year will be no exception with Junkanoo on Monday 6th August at 1
a.m., an ecumenical service at 1 a.m. broadcast to the nation and the group
Soulful Groovers entertaining in the evening as the traditional fare is
sold on the park.
This year however the FNM candidate has decided
to set up a rival Festival to detract from the Fox Hill Festival.
They have sent their operatives into the Fox Hill Festival meetings to
create an artificial crisis and to destroy it. It is sad that these
people do not know where to put partisan politics and that is at the door
when they enter. We think this is poor on their part but what can
you do but persevere.
SIR
NICHOLAS NUTTALL DIES
Prominent environmental activist and marine conservationist, Sir Nicholas
Keith Lillington Nuttall, 3rd Baronet, died in London early Sunday morning,
29th July, 2007, following a long illness. He was 73. His wife,
Eugenie Lady Nuttall, and children were at his bedside.
A longtime permanent resident of The Bahamas, Sir
Nicholas, was in the forefront of a number of important marine conservation
initiatives and environmental causes. He was well known throughout
the islands and in local schools where he frequently gave talks on the
fragile marine environment and endangered fisheries. His agitation
was chiefly responsible for the introduction of a closed season for grouper
fishing in The Bahamas. He was also the founder and driving force
behind BREEF, a non-profit organization for the protection of the marine
reef system of The Bahamas. He also took a leading part in the environmental
movement to keep Clifton free from commercial development.
Born at Leicestershire, England on September 22nd,
1933, Sir Nicholas was the only child of Sir (Edmund) Keith and Lady Nuttall.
At the age of eight, he became the 3rd Baronet Nuttall following his father’s
death in action in the Second Great War.
Educated at Eton and Sandhurst, Sir Nicholas continued
the military tradition, joining the Royal Force Guards and later commanding
the Guards Independent Parachute Company, attaining the rank of full Major.
Sir Nicholas emigrated to The Bahamas in 1979.
In 1983 he married the former Eugenie McWeeney of Nassau. They had
one child, Alexander. Sir Nicholas had five other children from previous
marriages: Harry, Nicholas, Tamara (who predeceased him), Gytha and Amber.
Funeral services will take place at Lowesby, Leicestershire
on the 9th August. Interment will follow in the family crypt.
A memorial service will be held in Nassau at a later
date to be announced.
Internet file photo of Sir Nicholas Nuttall
IN PASSING
Niki Kelly Should Leave The Punch
There is a report that the former Tribune journalist and now Punch
columnist Niki Kelly has written an article critical of the decision of
the last PLP administration to sign a contract for the purchase of the
border management control system for The Bahamas which includes bio markers
and e passports that are also machine readable. The article we are
informed alleges that the costs in Guyana were significantly cheaper that
that of The Bahamas. Arthur Foulkes is always accusing Niki Kelly
of being wrong. We don’t go that far. We simply say sometimes
she gets it wrong as does Arthur Foulkes and goes off the deep end by beginning
with a false premise. The facts behind this contract signed for machine
readable passports was painstakingly explained and carefully examined by
the last Opposition FNM and now government in the House of Assembly.
The papers and all the facts were laid on the table and are in the public
domain. When you compare what The Bahamas purchased with what was
purchased by other Caribbean countries with that by The Bahamas, we are
not talking about apples and apples but comparing apples to oranges.
We did not just buy a machine readable passport system but a total border
management control system, with bio markers for visas, work permits and
passports and a common data base. The passport will include the latest
chip technology. One of the bits of advice that most people have
for Ms. Kelly is that her problem is she does not get the readership she
should because her column appears only in a sleazy newspaper. When
she writes material that is substantially in error and without proper factual
checks, it then makes it look that her talents are now conforming to the
rest of the sleazy paper in which she writes. Perhaps, she needs
to find a new employer.
Hubert Ingraham About The Police Force
The Prime Minister summoned Clint Watson, like a
compliant amanuensis to appear to interview him. The interview was
played on ZNS TV and Radio on Thursday 26th July. The purpose of
the interview was to refute the remarks made by former Prime Minister Perry
Christie about the political interference of Mr. Ingraham in the police
force. The interview was interesting because Mr. Ingraham was as
usual trying to be dismissive and imperious but he was also being too clever
by half.
It appears that Reginald Ferguson is now Acting
Deputy Commissioner of Police. Mr. Ingraham said that he did not
force the substantive holder of the office out of office; that John Rolle
who now holds the office volunteered to go and asked to be paid out his
one year's vacation leave. That is disingenuous of the Prime Minister.
We all know that the political atmosphere in the Force has been so hostile
that Mr. Rolle who is thought to be PLP was simply forced out by the circumstances.
We also found out that the Prime Minister did not consult with the Leader
of the Opposition with regard to the appointment of Reginald Ferguson,
the brother of the now Vice President of the Senate and FNM Chairman Johnley
Ferguson, as the Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police. This
appointment is sure to be and should be opposed by the PLP's leader, having
regard to what is known to have transpired in the Force with regard to
political matters and this officer. He is thought to be an FNM and
a favourite of the Americans to the extent that when he was moved from
the post of Assistant Commissioner of Police responsible for crime earlier
this year, there were some diplomatic ripples. Mr. Ferguson himself
resisted in carrying out the instructions and took long leave instead of
complying forthwith with the orders.
With the coming of the FNM, the Prime Minister’s
government has proceeded to reverse all the careful restructuring that
the Commissioner of Police Paul Farqhuarson had put in place in the last
months of the PLPs administration. Mr. Farqhuarson himself was said
to have been continuously on leave in the face of the overwhelming political
pressure which Mr. Ingraham has been putting on him since came to office.
This brings us to the real point of this command performance by Hubert
Ingraham on TV. Mr. Ingraham says that the restructuring of the Force
under Mr. Christie was foolish. He said that if the PLP thinks that
the restructuring is going to stand then it has another thought coming.
At the same time and in the same breath, Mr. Ingraham claimed that he did
not interfere with the Force; it was Mr. Christie who did.
Now let’s get honest here. First, it is politicians,
the Minister for National Security and the Prime Minister and the Cabinet
who have control over the Force. The Commissioner of Police Paul
Farqhuarson came to the Cabinet with a restructuring plan under the PLP
and that plan was approved by the Cabinet. The officers to fill the
posts were approved by the civilian authorities in charge at the time:
the PLP. Mr. Ingraham has the power and the right to do the same.
Mr. Ingraham is now trying to convince the public that weeks after those
changes with elections intervening and a redeployment of the officers taking
place, with him as the Prime Minister that he had nothing to do with the
redeployment of those Assistant Commissioners of Police. We know
that is laughable because on this site we reported how FNM adherents during
the PLP’s time were particularly upset about the posting of Assistant Commissioner
Marvin Dames on promotion to the post to chart a new course for security
for our ports including the Lynden Pindling International. With the
clutter of dissatisfaction surrounding the Dames move, some of it being
pushed in stories in the Bahama Journal, where his sister is an editor,
the FNM came to power and Mr. Dames was suddenly redeployed. The
PLP government’s thinking was here was smart young man who could get on
top of the serious security situation at the airports given the complaints
by the Americans and since they trusted him, he was the right man for the
job.
Mr. Ingraham cannot now pretend that he who has
such strong opinions like the moves were "foolish" sat back as Prime Minister
when he would meet with the Commissioner in his weekly meetings and say
nothing about it. He expects the public to believe that? At
the very least, he presumably told the Commissioner that he thought the
moves were foolish, consistent with his now public position. And
even if the Commissioner now hears that on the radio that is enough for
him to know that changes now had to be made to what was done under the
PLP.
Reginald Ferguson, the now Acting Deputy Commissioner,
had been so long on the crime beat that the feeling was crime was getting
out of hand under him and before the country started calling for English
police as they have in the Caribbean, a new Bahamian should be allowed
to get working on the problem. That man was Ellison Greenslade who
had been languishing in Freeport for too long twiddling his thumbs so to
speak, certainly idling his intellect. Now comes the scuttlebutt
that Mr. Greenslade is to be drummed off the Force on some spurious pretext
about what was given to him when he left Freeport. He has been reportedly
ordered to give them back or sell them at auction. It is clear that
the FNM has no authority to do this but this is part of the destroy Greenslade
campaign in order to wreck his future prospects to become Commissioner.
Reginald Ferguson is clearly now the FNM's choice for Commissioner.
The PLP cannot allow someone who is so closely associated with a partisan
political cause to ascend any higher in the force and if they do without
protest it will be to the party’s detriment. If there is one time
Mr. Christie's voice needs to be heard and heard most publicly it is now,
loud and clear.
An Apology To Vaughnique Toote
Two weeks ago we published a story about an FNM Minister of the Government
who went to ZNS and demanded that Vaughnique Toote rewrite a story that
she did on him. She refused and complained to management. We
asked the Minister to apologize or be revealed. He has one more week
and then the name will be given. The interesting thing is not one
member of Ms. Toote’s profession came to her aid.
It Was The Rand’s Morgue
Alfred Sears, the former Minister of Education and the MP for Ft. Charlotte,
spoke with moving deliberation in the House of Assembly on Monday 23rd
July about the death of his mother. We have given our condolences
in this column. However, last week we reported that the morgue at
the Princess Margaret Hospital in Nassau had a broken refrigeration unit.
The Minister of Health did not report the matter to the country.
It turns out that it was the refrigeration unit at the Rand Hospital in
Freeport where Mr. Sears’ mother had died and where her body was being
kept. Mr. Sears said that the hospital‘s unit was not functioning
for 24 hours and that his mother’s body decomposed and some other bodies
decomposed to the point of their being unrecognizable. No explanation
for the matter was forthcoming from the Government. The Minister
did not apologize for it even though he admitted in the House that there
was a breakdown in the unit.
Laing A Worried Man?
This picture in the Nassau Guardian’s Business Section on Thursday
26th July speaks a thousand words or does it? Here is one of the
youngest member of the parliament looking like he has gone through the
wringer. Is it the burdens of office? Is it the legal case
that Pleasant Bridgewater PLP has brought against him in the Election Court?
Only the shadow knows.
Three New Anglican Priests
There are three new Anglican Priest who have been ordained to Holy
Orders by the Archbishop of the West Indies and Bishop of Nassau, The Bahamas
and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The ordination took place at the
Christ Church Cathedral on Friday 27th July. They are pictured with
the Archbishop at the back centre and the two other Bishops of the Diocese,
Bishop Gilbert Thompson on the left and Coadjutor Bishop Laish Boyd on
the right. The new priests are: Theodore Hunt, Ethan Ferguson and
Berkeley Smith. Congratulations to them all. The photo is by
Peter Ramsay.
Dedication to Archdeacon Thompson
On Friday 13th July a solemn mass was held to dedicate a new plaque
in St. Agnes Anglican Church in Grants Town to the memory of Archdeacon
William Thompson. Officiating at the mass was the Archbishop of The
West Indies and Bishop of The Bahamas Drexel Gomez. Archdeacon Thompson
was murdered in 2000. The photo is by Peter Ramsay. You may
click
here for photos of his funeral in that year.
REWRITING
HISTORY ON THE FNM
The Free National Movement, led by Arthur Foulkes
has been trying to rewrite the history of The Bahamas. Independence
is no longer brought to the country by the PLP. In fact in the new
version of history the FNM was at the forefront of the fight for independence.
Fortunately some of the bodies are still around and alive and well, one
of them being Errington Watkins who fought the fight to keep the country
British or at least Abaco where he represented. We think that there
two pieces are instructive and you should have a read of them.
(from the Bahama Journal)
AN OPEN LETTER TO ARTHUR FOULKES
(From the Bahama Journal 9th July 2007)
By E. W. I. Watkins
My Dear Arthur: In your weekly Column, To The
Point, in The Tribune of 26th June, 2007 in an Open Letter to Mrs. Allyson
Maynard-Gibson, you, from the tone of your letter, seemed to be very upset
with her, and really took her to task, while glorifying Cecil (Sir).
I was very amused. You also went to very great lengths in dishing
out kudos for Midge (GG Arthur Hanna), his wife, Beryl, Sir Clem and Lady
Zoe - a noble gesture - but why? It never ceases to amaze me, the
lengths that some of us would go to defend our political masters, even
though in some cases, they are indefensible. I do not want you, for
the slightest moment to believe that I am defending Allyson Maynard-Gibson
- far from it, My Brother for she is more than capable of doing that herself.
This letter is to correct certain statements by you, refresh your memory
and try to gain some answers as to why you and others try so hard to hide
the role played by the UBP in the formation of the FNM. As far as
you and others advocating independence in the 50s, I know nothing of that,
nor did I hear of it. It could have been so.
In naming the eight 'dissidents', you added two
more to the list, giving readers the impression that the FNM was formed
by the eight plus two. This, my friend, is misleading and far, very
far, from the truth of the matter. I will try to refresh your memory
and correct that which requires correction.
Sir Orville Turnquest and Kendal Isaacs were
not a part of the amalgamation of the Free PLP and the UBP that emerged
as the FNM. Turnquest was the Deputy Leader of the NDP. While
waiting until around 1 a.m. in the morning for the Leader of his party
to show up for the nominations of candidates to contest the 1972 General
Elections for the NDP, and the Leader did not show, he (Turnquest) like
the other members of the Grouping (NDP), just went adrift.
Turnquest joined the new party, FNM after its
formation. Isaacs was persuaded to join and given the safe UBP seat
of Montague and the assurance of House Leader if Cecil should lose his
seat - which he (Cecil) did.
When you speak in so glowing terms about Cecil,
you made me smile and I thought to myself, is this the same Arthur Foulkes
who, along with a number of other supposed Stalwarts and supporters of
Cecil, abandoned him (Cecil) and his Party (FNM) and formed the BDP with
Henry Bostwick as Leader because Cecil said that he was not nominating
any white candidates in 1971? Then was it not you, Arthur, along
with Bostwick and the remnants of the BDP who, after Norman Solomon, Jimmy
Knowles and the other 'White Boys' abandoned the BDP - the same group that
left the FNM in support of them (White Boys) - to form the SDP and became
H. M. Loyal Opposition, crawled back to Cecil and forced a change of name
from FNM to FNDM? Some loyalty, don't you think?
Now when Allyson or anyone else says that we,
the FNM in 1972 opposed Independence, she and who else says it, are CORRECT.
If your memory is fading on this matter, here is a reminder. The
PLP's slogan was, "A vote for the PLP is a vote for Independence."
Our (FNM) slogan was, "Independence - not now". The PLP won, the
FNM lost. The FNM garnered 41% of the votes, but all - everyone of
the Dissident 8 lost their seats. Kendal Isaacs, the outsider who
was never - like Gerald Cash - affiliated with any Party, ended up as House
Leader of the Party. It was after our defeat that Isaacs and others
- you included - proclaimed that the FNM would now go along with the PLP
on the Independence issue. Marsh Harbour refused and as their MP,
I represented their wishes. Roland Symonette, Cleophas Adderley and
Michael Lightbourne supported me in the Abaco stand, for which the four
of us were expelled.
It is not fair to say that Allyson lied when
she said that the FNM opposed Independence in 1972; she was correct.
She did not lie when she said that the roots of the FNM were opposed to
Majority Rule. The UBP who held 9 seats and was H.M. Loyal Opposition
in Parliament at the time of the amalgamation, was always opposed to Majority
Rule, and you of all persons, was aware of this. To say that Majority
Rule was attained before the marriage of the two entities does not alter
the fact that the roots of the new entity of which the Free PLP was then
an integral part, were so opposed.
The Election slogan, "No Independence Now" is
a testimonial of that fact. You, Arthur and many others in the FNM,
over the years, have been misleading John Q. Public into believing that
the Dissident-8 formed the FNM. In doing this, you all failed to
mention in any way or form the presence of the UBP, when not only were
they a part, they were the hub on which the FNMs' wheel spun.
Arthur, you of all persons should know that the
more you try to bury the truth, the more it would find a way to surface.
It's history, my Brother, and there are a number of old UBPs out here not
only kicking, but still riled up at the way many of you allowed not only
yourselves, but close kin to be walked over and pushed around by a Political
Transplant; but are quick to jump on opponents when the truth is brought
to the fore. If, as you claimed, you were so patriotic and in favor
of Independence, why did you campaign - like the rest of the FNM Candidates
- so hard against it in the 1972 Elections. Further more, why did
you, along with the FNM's Delegates attending the 1972 Constitutional Conference
packed up and come back home, leaving the PLP (Government) to complete
the Conference with the excuse that you all wanted to spend Christmas with
your families? Pindling and his Delegation remained until the Conference
was completed.
There is an old Bahamian saying, "The more you
stir the wet stuff, the stinker it get." Another one is, "Its best
to let sleeping dogs lie". The movers and shakers in the formation
of the FNM were: Geoffrey G. A. D. Johnstone, Leader (UBP), Errington W.
I. Watkins (Chairman, UBP), Peter Graham, M.P. (North L. I., Rum Cay &
San Salvador), Donald d' Albenas, MP South Long Island), Roland Symonette,
MP (Shirlea), Noel Roberts, MP (N. Eleuthera), Capt. Sherwin Archer MP
(Marsh Harbour), Cleophas Adderley, MP (Nassau City), Norman Solomon,
C. A. Dorsett, Reginald Lobosky, the officers and members of the Council
of the UBP - Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, MP (Leader of the Free PLP), Curtis
Macmillan, MP, Arthur Foulkes, M.P., James Shepherd, MP, Warren Levarity,
MP, Dr. Elwood Donaldson, MP, George Thompson, MP and Maurice Moore, MP,
along with supporters of the Group.
This blatant distorted and BIAS portrayal of
the FORMATION of the Free National Movement by persons attempting to distance
themselves as associates of former members of the UBP should cease.
If you had felt so strongly, as you often professed,
about being associated with the White movers and shakers of the UBP, you
should have - like the leader of the NDP -gone back to the PLP, then you
would not have been in the awkward position of trying to hide the fact
that the UBP played the MAJOR role in the formation of the FNM. History
cannot and will not be changed on this issue. As Chairman of the
UBP, I continued on as Coordinator of the New Entity. All records
and Minutes of Meetings and other activities are still around for perusal
and refreshing of memories.
----------------
UBP + Free PLP = FNM Disintegration Sets In
(From the Bahama Journal 12th December 2006)
By: E. W. I. Watkins, BSc, J.P.
With the death of the Late Clarence Bain, M.P.
for Central Andros in early 1971, a by-election was called for later that
year. The Free PLP led by Cecil Wallace-Whitfield who, in 1970, led the
faction – later dubbed the Dissident 8 – that supported a vote of no-confidence
in the Pindling-led government, of which they – the Eight – were a part,
was formed by that Group after their expulsion from the PLP for their participation
in the vote. An event took place during that historic vote that is worthy
of note. Clarence Bain, who was hospitalized at the time, was brought from
the hospital on a stretcher for that session, and was allowed to make his
contribution while sitting. The Dissident 8, along with the nine UBP MPs
and four other supposedly disgruntled PLPs would have had the majority
needed to topple Pindling, so every vote was vital to Pindling’s survival,
and since C. A. was able to talk, his presence was of dire importance.
The four disgruntled MPs abandoned their support of the vote when two voted
against it, one went fishing and the other went overseas on vacation. When
the by-election was called, the Free PLP nominated Roston Miller – making
him the first and only candidate to run for the Free PLP, contrary to FNM
propaganda that he (Miller) was the first FNM candidate – the UBP nominated
Norman Aranha and the PLP ran Darrell Rolle. Both Parties (UBP and Free
PLP) were soundly trounced at the Polls. The NDP, which was formed by Paul
Adderley, Orville Turnquest, Spurgeon Bethel and others after being expelled
from the PLP in the early 1960s, and the Labour Party led by Randol Fawkes
(later Sir Randol) did not contest the election. After that election, the
UBP and Free PLP amalgamated forming the FNM.
The 1972 Election was fought on a single issue
– Independence, ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ . Pindling knew at the time that independence
for The Bahamas was inevitable and not debatable, but I am of the opinion
up to this day that L. O. never disclosed that fact to his Party or his
Cabinet. Being the master politician that he was, he played the issue for
all that it was worth. The PLPs’ stance was, "a vote for the PLP was a
vote for Independence," and the FNM’s view was "Independence – not now."
With both views as their election campaign banner, both parties stormed
the campaign trails throughout this archipelago like a category 5 hurricane.
The election results was a devastating defeat for the FNM and the lone
Labour Candidate (Randol Fawkes) with the PLP winning 30 seats, the UBP
– 8, and Labour – none.
The Long Island, San Salvador and Rum Cay seat
was contested in Court by the FNM and won, with Cyril Fountain, displacing
Philip Smith of the PLP thus giving the FNM nine (9) seats and the PLP
twenty-nine (29). After the FNM’s defeat, Kendal Isaacs was the Leader
in the Parliament and Cecil, the Leader of the Party overall. This was
the first time in Party Politics in this country that one Party had two
leaders. This situation was really the beginning of the fragmentation of
the FNM, as the majority of the UBP faction were loyal to Isaacs and the
majority of Free PLPs were loyal to Cecil. As for complete harmony, there
was none. The Free PLP came to the Party penniless (broke). The UBP Faction
had the cash – and still do – so they called the shots then and are calling
them now.
After its defeat, an election post mortem was
held and the Parliamentary Leader (Kendal) announced that since the majority
of the voters had voted for Independence, the FNM should now go along with
the PLP. The majority of the UBP Faction – including me – disagreed with
this suggestion. The Abaco voters were still hopeful that they could remain
a Crown Colony under Great Britain. As their MP, I had a duty to carry
out their mandate, whether I agreed with it or not. I was called in and
told in no uncertain terms, to abandon the Abaco movement or suffer the
consequences of my actions. I felt that as the elected MP for the Marsh
Harbour constituency, my obligation was to them. I then moved a resolution
in Parliament seeking a U.N. sponsored and supervised Referendum on the
issue of Independence, as I felt that the Election results were due to
boundaries Gerrymandering and emotionalism on the part of party supporters.
I informed the Parliamentary Leader of my intention to Table the Resolution
and was told not to do it, as no one in the Parliamentary Group would support
me. When told that he would be surprised of the support I had, he said,
"Watkins, if you find one MP from this Party to support you, I will resign
as House Leader of this Party." "You had better start writing that Resignation
now," I told him. Before embarking on that route, I canvassed the Group
(Parliamentary) and was confident of the support of four of eight. I later
learnt that one of them who had Leadership ambitions and knew that if he
threw his weight behind me, he would not have been able to win the leadership
of my Grouping, which would have automatically become the Official Opposition
in Parliament, but if he stayed with Kendal’s Group, he could become Leader
of the Opposition. He really did not know Whitfield at all.
I moved the Resolution the next day in Parliament.
The debate raged on for hours between the two FNM Factions, Isaacs’s crowd
and mine. The PLP just sat and enjoyed the show. At the end of the Debate,
the PLP joined Isaacs’ Faction to defeat the Resolution. Kendal being the
gentleman that he was, resigned as House Leader and Cecil – the overall
Leader of the Party – appointed Cyril Tynes as the Official Leader of H.
M. Loyal Opposition in Parliament, thus leaving the man with the would-be
Leadership ambition, politically frustrated, and aborting what would have
been an interesting course in Parliamentary history in this nation. Along
with the three members that supported my Resolution, Sir Roland Symonette,
Cleophas Adderley and Mike Lightbourne, I was expelled from the FNM. Sir
Roland Symonette and Mike Lightbourne were eventually lured back to the
Party. Cleophas Adderley resigned from politics.
I sat in Parliament as an Independent MP until
it’s dissolution in 1977. The intrigue, backstabbing and infighting continued
to gain momentum in the Party, culminating with the defection of the UBP
Group, along with Isaacs, Turnquest, Foulkes, Bostwick and others from
the Old Free PLP supporters to form the BDP. This Grouping was short-lived
with the defection of Irvin Knowles to the PLP as Minister of Agriculture
and Fisheries and Norman Solomon, along with the majority of the Parliamentary
Group to form the SDP and become H. M. Official Opposition in Parliament.
After the return of Bostwick and what was left
of the BDP, and the defection of Jimmy Knowles back to the FNM, the FNDM
was born and became H.M. Official Opposition in Parliament. After the Party
once again came to be known as the FNM, infighting and backstabbing continued,
unabated up to this day. With the Advent of Hubert Ingraham as Leader,
this situation has erupted into a full scale bi-partisan (UBP vs Free PLP)
political conflict.
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Carifesta Debacle
Please allow me to chime in on the CARIFESTA
debacle. If anything can be used as a microcosm of the FNM’s incompetence,
this is it. In typical FNM style (because they have NO vision for
this country) the newly appointed and puffed up minister of state for culture
boasted about the FNMs plans for CARIFESTA on June 6, 2007 during the budget
debate. Again in typical FNM fashion, he had to take most of the
time criticizing the previous PLP administration in particular former Prime
Minister Perry Christie.
Lo and behold six weeks later and the minister
of state discovers that the PLP, according to him, made no preparations.
What changed in six weeks? He then makes the rounds on the radio
stations and in the newspapers telling the Bahamian people that he is not
capable of pulling off the event even though the event is a full year away.
He goes on to then make the ludicrous assertion that we will host CARIFESTA
in 2012. We will never see it. If the man tells on June 6,
2007 that you will have CARIFESTA in a year and comes back six weeks later
and says it has been cancelled, what do you think will happen in 2012 when
elections and the Olympics are scheduled?
Contrary to what Mr. Maynard would have us believe;
he knows that he had no part in the decision to cancel CARIFESTA.
This was done by Hubert Ingraham.
Having been used to attack Perry Christie during
the budget debate and the debate on the prime minister’s pension bill,
Maynard now finds himself totally embarrassed and is out there trying to
defend a decision he knows he had no part of. This is truly sad;
anything for a post. This scandal will be to Maynard what the bleachers
episode was to Neville Wisdom; a millstone around his neck.
The real reason for the cancellation of CARIFESTA?
The ham-fisted way in which Ingraham has dealt with foreign investors,
the cancellation and suspension of contracts and firing of persons engaged
on a contract basis in the public service is already being felt in the
economy and the folks at the Ministry of Finance are seeing this in the
numbers. Confidence had taken a blow. Revenues are down and Ingraham is
looking to cut spending to achieve his twenty-five million dollar surplus.
Name Withheld
------------------
Poverty Alleviation Initiative: Is this governance of “Politricks”
This so called poverty reduction initiative,
in my view, is arguably the most hypocritical, cynical and sinister of
all of the initiatives advanced by this FNM government since May 2nd. During
the budget debate, the government mentioned that $3 million will be allocated
for poverty alleviation. I thought this was odd because the last poverty
study revealed that between 25,000 and 30,000 Bahamians lived below the
poverty line. Since three million dollars amounted to $100 per person,
I dismissed the government as not being serious and merely window dressing.
It is now apparent that the government is firing contract workers hired
by the PLP in the months leading up to May 2nd even though this is being
widely denied by FNM supporters. Firing or victimizing 303 persons at $190
per week frees up $3 million per year. This is the amount that will be
used to “alleviate poverty” as the FNM puts it. Clearly the net effect
on poverty will be zero at the end of this exercise. The government is
simply putting 300 PLP's (so they believe) out of work and replacing them
with 300 FNM supporters. The flip side of this policy is massive victimization
and intimidation so its part and parcel of this “noble” anti-poverty initiative;
they must be seen as one. This is a political exercise, not governance
and is reminiscent of the high level transfers that took place on the RBPF
shortly after May 2nd and just six weeks after the Commissioner of Police
had restructured the police force. These transfers were nothing more than
a massive political exercise. The so called poverty alleviation initiative
(financed by massive firings) is the politics of intimidation and the politics
of solidifying ones political support base. What makes this exercise more
odious and despicable is the fact that the single greatest challenge this
country faces is social development (or the lack thereof). Certainly forcing
hundreds of poor people deeper into the abyss of hopelessness cannot improve
our social condition. It can only lead to greater levels of frustration,
intolerance, anger and rage. These are the ingredients for anti-social
behaviour, an increase in criminal activity, and further social decay and
isolation. The FNM may very well be blinded by and victims of their decidedly
right wing conservatism, but nothing good can come out of this initiative.
To add insult to injury, the government
then brags about a projected $25 million budgetary surplus in the current
fiscal year, but claims that there is insufficient funding to retain the
services of these entry level contract workers who were the product of
Operation Second Chance. In the minds of the FNM legislators, the mechanics
of government clearly takes precedence over the mandate to govern and to
the fulfillment of the role of the government, which is to continuous empowerment
and improvement of the lives of the citizenry through the use of the instruments
of the government or the state. This government is systematically, but
rapidly, losing credibility and by extension, political capital.
I hasten to remind the FNM government that an
election victory does not give the government a mandate to settle scores,
victimize, or get even, but to comply with the role of government. This
is mandatory because an election victory is the people’s victory. It is
a victory for democracy, not for a party leader or his party.
Elcott Coleby
---------------
THIS
WEEK WITH THE LEADER
Beneby Bros. Present Their Father’s Book
It is called “BECAUSE I WAS CAREFUL”. It is
the autobiography of Bishop Nathaniel Beneby Sr. in one hundred and four
succinct and tightly written pages of the life of a Bishop of the Church
of God of Prophecy, the headquarters for which is located on East Street
at the corner of Sunlight Village.
What is always remarkable about the men of his generation,
the Bishop died in December of last year at the age of 81, is how men and
women who left school at the age of 14, who were born into grinding poverty
in remote places like Crooked Island in the early part of the 19th century,
where parental death when they were young was a common occurrence, were
able to pull themselves up to such larger than life accomplishments and
in the process build a modern Bahamas. He lived to celebrate his
Golden Wedding anniversary and at the time of the writing of the book in
2006 had been married for 56 years to one wife the former Victoria Moss
whom he nicknamed “Dear”.
By now we are familiar with these stories.
It is the same for Sidney Poitier born into grinding poverty in remote
Cat Island. Clement Maynard has added this week (see
review) his story of life in Nassau in the early 20th century.
Sir Clifford Darling who also hails from Crooked Island wrote of a similar
story. Yet the story never fails to move you. Bishop Beneby’s
story is no less moving nor any less compelling. If only this generation
would; and it could, rise then to higher heights instead of slaughtering
themselves senselessly on our streets. There was this abiding faith
in God that got them over.
Bishop Beneby and his wife had 11 children, ten
are alive today and he is proud in his book to write that he had never
been to court for one of them. Nathaniel Beneby Jr. who takes his
father’s name is the first Bahamian country head of the Royal Bank of Canada,
a bank his father points out that did not hire black people when he (the
Bishop) was a young man. He is clear that he supported the PLP and
he reminds us that he was Lynden Pindling, the founding Prime Minister's
barber, and also a former Chaplain of the House of Assembly.
Bishop Beneby gives us a history of the Church of
God of Prophecy and how it came to be distinguished from the Church of
God. As he contemplated retirement from a hilltop retreat that he
built in Crooked Island with all the modern conveniences, a far cry from
the situation at his birth, he talked about the doctrinal changes in his
church with regard to the wearing of jewellery, with which he did not agree
and he figured it was time to retire which he did at the age of 70 in 1995.
In the book, the Bishop tells us that he was blessed
with a wonderful life. Indeed he was a hero of the revolution of
1967, one of those men in the non political world that created the modern
Bahamas. He ate his dinner late last year, and then died in his sleep.
He leaves behind this legacy in this book titled from an admonition from
his step father as he was leaving for Nassau, to live his life with circumspection.
Thank you for a wonderful book and walk down memory lane. His children,
all successes in themselves, ought to be proud. They presented the
book to former Prime Minister Perry Christie at his office on Monday 23rd
July 2007.
PLP Victims Forum
As reported above, the Progressive Liberal Party held a victims forum
this past week for people who are being victimised by the FNM government.
The final speaker at the event was Party Leader Perry Christie, who is
shown above meeting with one of the victimised families.
Photos: PLP Media - Beneby Brothers Book Presentation / Dennis Fountain;
Christie at Victims Forum / Andrew Burrows
