Compiled, edited and constructed by Russell Dames Updated every Sunday at 2 p.m.
Volume 3 © BahamasUncensored.Com
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
HOW TO RESPOND TO FRIENDLY
FIRE
By Sharon Zoe Smith (from London)
There is no question that the headline in The Tribune of Tuesday
1st February must have caused concern, hurt and injury in the political
circles that count in The Bahamas. The headline read: ELLIS URGES
PM TO SHOW GUTS. The story then went on to say that in a sermon delivered
in his church Mt. Tabor last Sunday, Bishop Neil Ellis launched a blistering
attack on the Member of Parliament for Marathon Ron Pinder. Mr. Pinder
has been under attack for several weeks from Opposition politicians because
of a faux pas he made when he entered the tarmac of the Nassau International
Airport, boarded the flight to Washington without going through the proper
procedures. Mr. Pinder apologized to the House, the Prime Minister
and the country in the House of Assembly. The apology was carried
here last week. Mr. Pinder did not plead ignorance. He admitted
that what he did was wrong.
The country responded well to what he had said. All the newspaper editorials praised him for his behaviour. They accepted that here was a bright young politician who overstepped his bounds acting like he was not subject to the laws and had caught himself and apologized. That was the end of that. And so it was somewhat of shock for the words attributed to Bishop Ellis to be published, and there has been no denial that those were the words spoken. We print them in their entirety below.
The essence of the point made by the Bishop is that Ron Pinder is giddy with power and that he should resign or be fired from office for the incident at the airport. We do not agree. Mr. Pinder is one of the brightest and the best of the PLP and has a great future in the Progressive Liberal Party. The Prime Minister is a great teacher, and it is his job to tame the youthful exuberance of a man like Mr. Pinder and lead it in the right direction. Mr. Pinder is extremely popular with young people. He has acquitted himself well in his job as Parliamentary Secretary. But it is clear that the knives are out, and it would seem that it is in his interest to take stock of why all of the animosity has emerged and how he has to recast himself to avoid the pitfalls of envy.
The other point made by the Bishop is that the Prime Minster must have the guts to deal with others around him or go down with them. We do not believe that the Prime Minister is without guts. It is easy to believe the other man’s propaganda. Because of the PM’s particular decision making style, his civility and deliberation, it is easy to mistake those for weakness. But a man does not get to be Prime Minister after fighting battles for a generation in politics by being without guts. That would seem to speak for itself.
Sunday morning in church is one of the most challenging times for preachers. Every Sunday they are under pressure to produce for the faithful a message from God. All who are in public life, preachers and politicians alike have to be careful to speak with deliberation, care and thought for the consequences, both intended or unintended of any words spoken. Words spoken are taken to mean the consequences that the speaker had when he spoke them, particularly words spoken to your friends.
It was probably just a bad morning. Everyone has those, and we put it down to nothing more than that. We hope that Bishop Ellis can see his way clear to resile from his position. He is quite a good man. He does great things. However, as we saw with Ron Pinder's behaviour as good as we are, none of us is perfect and all are at some point short of the glory of God.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 5th February 2005 at midnight: 77,365.
Number of hits for the month of January up to Monday 31st January 2005 at midnight: 317,212.
Number of hits for the month of February up to Saturday 5th February 2005 at midnight: 43,891.
Number of hits for the year 2005 up to Saturday 5th February 2005 at midnight: 361,103.
AGATHA
MARCELLE ON BATELCO
The public didn’t know what to think about the news on the front page.
The Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism Agatha Marcelle marched into the
Nassau Guardian on Monday 31st January and said that she had had enough
of the bad treatment at the hands of BaTelCo, the telephone company with
the monopoly on land lines in The Bahamas.
Ms. Marcelle who could well have gone to the Minister
directly said that she felt that she had nowhere else to go, having come
to the end of her rope with the bad customer service. She had asked
months ago, five to be exact for her telephone to be toll barred.
BTC never carried out her instruction, and the result was that long distance
charges piled up on the bill. She was outraged. She refused
to pay, and BTC in the end backed down, credited her account and apologized.
Lots of consternation in the PLP and in the public
who did not quite know what to make of it. To be sure BTC and its
staff attitudes are unpopular and many thought they got their comeuppance
but what a way for a Parliamentary Secretary to act was the whisper on
every lip. Ms. Marcelle was defiant and unrepentant.
The Unions then got into the act by reacting to
a story that was later published in the Nassau Guardian that Ms. Marcelle
claims used quotes that took her comments completely out of context.
On Thursday 3rd February she seemed to say that unions were dangerous for
the country. The BaTelCo union accused her of forgetting that they
helped her when she was down and out by giving her work as a human resources
expert before she was a parliamentarian, and that now that she has “a little
power” how dare she attack the unions. It seemed an unnecessarily
unkind remark to make by the union, who could well have called Ms. Marcelle,
knowing her as they said they did, and asked her whether or not what she
said was correct. It was the same point we made with Bishop Neil
Ellis and his attack on Ron Pinder and Perry Christie (See
Comment of The Week). Call first, before attacking your friends
in public.
Ms. Marcelle issued a clarification, and now we
believe that all is now settled. But what a week! Click
here for the full statement by Ms. Marcelle. The cartoonist Stan
Burnside thought that Ms. Marcelle was no doubt right, and the cartoon
of Saturday 5th February in the Nassau Guardian is pictured.
FOREIGN
MINISTER IN JAMAICA
Fred Mitchell, the Minister of Foreign Affairs headed
the delegation to Jamaica last week instead of the Prime Minister.
Visiting Jamaica was the Vice President of China. The fair took place
from 2nd February to 3rd February. China and Jamaica held a joint
trade fair and some 25 businessmen and Bahamian politicians visited the
fair.
The Minister issued a statement on behalf of the
Bahamian delegation. You may click
here for the address.
While in Jamaica, The Bahamas signed an accord to
make The Bahamas an approved destination for Chinese tourists so that The
Bahamas may access some of the tourists who leave from China, 16.6 million
last year. The Minister of Trade and Industry Leslie Miller also
signed a trade and economic framework co-operation agreement. China's
vice-president Zeng Qinghong is flanked by two beautiful Jamaican women
as he cuts the ribbon to officially open the China-Caribbean Trade Fair
at the National Arena in Kingston. (Jamaica Observer photo - Joseph Wellington)
PEET
PRAISES US/BAHAMIAN RELATIONS
Vincent Peet was Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs
for a couple of day this week when he delivered an address for the substantive
Minister Fred Mitchell. Mr. Peet made the point that the US/Bahamas
relationship is good and that it is built on mutual trust and admiration.
The speech was delivered on Tuesday 1st February 2005 at the Rotary Club.
You may click here for that address.
Minister
Peet (foreground) is shown with Minister Mitchell in this file photo.
PRIVY
COUNCIL STOPS CSME?
The Caribbean Community is in a tail spin.
The Caribbean Single Market and Economy is all set to go and is to have
a court called the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) with an originating
jurisdiction to adjudicate all the various disputes that might arise between
countries on the issues arising out of interpretations of the Treaty of
Chaguaramus. It is also to be an appellate court that would replace
the Privy Council as the final Court of Appeal for Jamaica and many of
the Caribbean countries.
The Bahamas had already decided that they would
not join the Court, even though they will help to pay for it. It
is insurance against the day the British decide that the Privy Council
will be abolished.
Jamaica’s Prime Minister P.J. Patterson meant to
leave office having accomplished the CCJ, which had been talked about since
he was a student at the University of the West Indies in the 1950s.
Mr. Patterson whose successors are now lining up for the fight to succeed
him, (he is supposed to leaving September), will to be able to accomplish
that dream it seems unless a miracle happens. The Privy Council has
struck down both as it relates to Jamaica, the court of originating jurisdiction,
and the appellate court legislation being inconsistent with Jamaica’s constitution
and therefore null and void.
The Privy Council said that since the change was
an amendment of the constitution by implication, the procedure for changing
entrenched provisions of Jamaica's constitution had to be followed if the
legislation as contemplated is to take effect. Read in the Privy
Council judgment paragraphs 19, 21 and the last paragraph for the import
of the judgment. Click here.
The political impact is devastating. Caricom
tried to put the best face on it saying that the Court could proceed without
Jamaica, but like with the ill-fated West Indies Federation before it,
without Jamaica, what is the Court.
Jamaica’s Cabinet was sanguine about it. They
will meet on Monday to decide the next step. Edward Seaga, having
demitted office as Leader of the Opposition in Jamaica and the Bar Association
who led the charge must feel vindicated.
For now the Privy Council, which has stopped hanging
in the Caribbean, is still the final Court of Appeal. You may also
click
here for an analysis of why the NGOs moved the matter to the Privy Council.
FR.
DAVID JOHN PUGH DIES
The former rector of St. Anne’s, some 54 years as
a priest; the founder of St. Anne’s High School (1955), died in Wales at
the home of his sister. Death came at 1 p.m. on Friday 28th January.
Fr. Pugh who first came to The Bahamas to serve in the RAF during the war
became an Anglican priest after training at Codrington in Barbados.
He was the first headmaster of St. Anne's. He adopted many boys from
the Village of Fox Hill. He was a mentor to George Mackey, the former
representative of Fox Hill who wrote a brilliant tribute to him in the
press of The Bahamas during the week.
Fr. Pugh loved The Bahamas and took Bahamian citizenship.
He reverted to his British citizenship when he left The Bahamas last year
through force of illness and to enable him to take advantage of the medical
system in Britain when he returned to live with his sister. He had
suffered a broken hip and had lost his ability to move around on his own.
He was 84 years old. Canon Pugh will be buried on Monday 7th February
in Wales. A memorial service will be held at the Christ Church Cathedral
on Friday 11th February. We thank him for all the wonderful things he did
for The Bahamas and the men and women he helped to make.
OBIE
FERGUSON DECLARES WAR
This is the age of startling headlines. The
Nassau Guardian and The Tribune now having to compete with The Punch for
readership and the nasty Confidential Source are now specializing themselves
in alarmist headlines. This is of course helped by national leaders
who seem to specialize in creating and seeing their words in startled and
bold headlines each day in the newspaper. Thus it was that Obie Ferguson,
head of the Bahamas Trade Union Congress, said in a national headline in
The Nassau Guardian on Friday 4th February that Minister of
Labour Vincent Peet was indecisive and that he had abandoned the workers.
The fact that this was the same man who said in an earlier version of his
press views that the Minister was the best Minister of Labour ever, seemed
to escape many. Ho Hum!
We are all watching with care, some would say bemusement
as the two umbrella unions in the country the National Congress of Trade
Unions (NCTU) and the TUC say that they are going to sign an accord to
get together as one single union. Who will lead that union?
We will see the second coming first. There is great pressure
on the Government to declare the NCTU as the official umbrella union for
the purposes of the International Labour Organization. (ILO) Mr.
Ferguson perhaps knows that he may be on the losing end of that stick so
that he is now trying to put himself in the best position to take advantage
of what comes next.
BILL
CLINTON VISITS AGAIN
William Jefferson Clinton is the 42nd President
of the United States of America. We couldn’t get him to come here
while he was president. Well you know The Bahamas is only a playground
so why would they want to waste time coming here to play golf and frolic
on the beach? The last visit of a U.S. President was in 1963 when
John Kennedy came here shortly before he was killed. But since Bill
Clinton left office, he has been to The Bahamas twice. The first
time to launch his Aids initiative, to lower the cost of drugs for Aids
patients. Now that the programme is in full swing, he came back again.
He met with the Prime Minister. He met with the Minister of Health
Dr. Marcus Bethel who beamed from ear to ear, thrilled no doubt by the
cause celebre and perhaps by the celeb himself. The President heaped
praise upon the Minister. The real hero of the piece of course is Dr Perry
Gomez who has sacrificed his income and practice to fight this dread disease.
He is laying up treasures in heaven. We congratulate all the Bahamians
for this world model programme, and thank President Clinton for coming
to see us and our programme. The visit to the PM and the Princess Margaret
Hospital took place on Friday 4th February. BIS photo - Peter Ramsay
BISHOP
NEIL ELLIS IN HIS OWN WORDS
The story must have been a real sensation for The Tribune. It was
three days old by the time that it hit their paper. Nonetheless it
was front page news and a banner headline. The PLP Bishop Neil Ellis
had dumped on the PLP and its leaders. We are certain that is not
how it was meant but it was the sensation for the week. Here is what
was reported and which has so far not been contradicted in the Tribune
of Tuesday 1st February in the Bishop’s own words:
“Who said that the foreign elements last week are not doing what they are doing because they saw how a Member of Parliament behaved going to another foreign nation and don’t want to obey the law.
“ It is not enough as a Member of Parliament to plead ignorance because
you should know the law before you go try make law.
Are you going to be lawmaker in ignorance? It is your responsibility
if you are elected to Parliament to know what is right, know what is wrong,
know what is against the law.
“With all that is going on with terrorism, you mean to tell me you don’t know that you can’t go right on a plane out of your car, going to America, without crossing all the inspection sites.
“It sounds to me like this young man giddy. He thought he was Prime Minister…if you break the law, why wait on the Prime Minister to fire you?
“Why can’t you be honourable and say before I caused the country further embarrassment and the people who I’ve been elected to serve, let me do the honourable thing?
“I believe God has anointed Perry Christie to lead this country at this time, but he has to have the strength, the guts and the ability to deal with those around him or you go down with them.
“When violence breaks out in a town, it’s time for all sensible people
in any kind of leadership in the country to stop and analyze…It is because
we are so mixed up in The Bahamas now with all this foreign element that
the government seem not to be doing anything about?”
CASSIUS
STUART’S IRRESPONSIBILITY
This is a man and his so called party the Bahamas Democratic Movement (BDM)
who shows up everywhere like bad money. Having not heard from him
for weeks, this week he popped up on the talk shows to talk the most unbridled
drivel that has been heard in years.
Yes we are talking about Cassius Stuart, the man
with the lean and hungry look, who has found his latest Hobby Horse to
ride. This time it is the illegal migrants and in particular Haitians,
whether legal or illegal.
Mr. Stuart asserted that he had been told by a Haitian
that the reason why so many Haitians are in The Bahamas is because they
pay Defence Force officers 150 dollars per head in order to get free passage
through The Bahamas when they are interdicted. The commentator rightly
asked him did you take this information to the police.
Then Mr. Stuart went further, he claimed that there
were persons in the business of manufacturing work permits. When pressed
he insisted that there are people who are in the business of manufacturing
work permits. The commentator again asked him whether he had taken
the matter to the police. On both counts he hemmed and hawed.
This is again an example of the waffle approach
to politics, the anything goes school. You simply, desperately want
to unseat a government, a government in which he personally has so many
friends in the PLP who go out of their way to protect him but whose reward
for their friendship is trash talk by him on radio and in the press, without
thinking of the larger consequences for his reputation and that of the
country.
ON
PASSING ON AND OTHER NOTES
ERMA GRANT SMITH 85 was buried on Saturday 5th February in Nassau.
Mrs. Grant Smith is the less well known sister of PLP activist and former
Senator Austin Grant of West End, Grand Bahama. She had a successful
real estate business in Freeport and was known for her elegant language
and intelligent commentary on political affairs in Freeport. She
moved to Nassau in her later years where she helped out at the Conliffe
Bakery. She is survived by a brother Carver, an appraiser in Freeport
and a sister Claudia who owns the bakery in Nassau with her husband Andrew.
BENEDICT DOMINIC DEAN 46 was buried today February.
He died after being hospitalized in the Princess Margaret Hospital. No
cause of death was disclosed. He is one half business of Duff and
Stuff that developed a reputation for some of the best Guava Duff in The
Bahamas.
BISHOP MICHAEL ELDON, the retired Anglican Bishop, the first
Bahama to serve in the post, was hospitalized during the week with a respiratory
ailment. It appears this is a result of catching the flu.
POETRY FEATURE
This week, we post a poems by Bahamian recording and literary artist,
Giovanni Stuart (www.nubah.com).
Giovanni is the author of, ‘Psalm Bird’, the album original classic of
spoken-verse, muse and Bahama love poetry. Entitled, ‘Sonnet Ttsunami’,
the poem celebrates the triumph of the human spirit over adversity and
is a well-wish for Asia, Africa and all persons affected by the recent
natural disasters.
Jongkanu Tidings/ Gold/ Fortune for Youth
Tragedy Factor/ Forged Huemanity
In a Flood/ Global Harmony Came/ Through
Quelled Pessimistic Mind/ of One Earth View
Dazzling display of Nu Order’s True Shape
The Caribs plus, Stars/ His Nations Awake
Afrika and Asia, Love Extended…
Even Bahama Brilliant (Moons Ago
Fresh from Her Nnatural Atrocity)
Gifts Proportionate 2/ Sent out/ Send Heart
Fear Not/ Market Single/ Economies
Libertine! Eradicate Poverty
Lumination/ Mixed with Tangible Gifts
Instant World Access/ Far as the 4 Winds
THIS
WEEK WITH THE PM
The highlight of the week this past week with the
PM was undoubtedly the visit of former US President Bill Clinton.
Mr. Clinton, who was on a private visit to The Bahamas, none-the-less used
the opportunity to renew an old friendship with Prime Minister Christie.
The two chatted for over an hour, before which the former president delighted
the staff of the Office of The Prime Minister by chatting extensively with
them.
CHILEAN INTERIOR MINISTER - Also this week, the Prime Minister
received a courtesy call from the Interior Minister of Chile, who is in
the running for the post of Secretary General of the Organisation of American
States (OAS). No doubt the Minister was on the campaign trail, but
there has been no indication of whose candidacy The Bahamas will support.
PM At Cooper's Terrace Cathedral Church Of God, INC. -
Last Sunday, Prime Minister Christie visited the Cooper's Terrace Cathedral
of the Church of God Incorporated. Mr. Christie is shown with the
church's First Lady, Evangelist Modena McPhee and Bishop & Superintendent
Robert McPhee, celebrating their 24th pastoral Anniversary.
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
HIDING THE HAITIANS
It was supposed to be a quiet debate about Rent Control. But
it was perhaps too much to expect that things would go according to the
script. The Minister for Trade Leslie Miller, whose job it was to
introduce the Bill, launched into a fierce attack against Haitian illegal
immigrants. He accused them of impinging on the resources of The
Bahamas, and asked them to go back home. Some people were quite incredulous
that a Government Minster would say that something had to be done about
the illegal immigrants.
At the same time that the remarks were being made in the House of Assembly, it appears that the Department of Immigration was executing a series of raids, some in New Providence and some in Abaco to deal with illegal Haitian immigrants. This no doubt answers the demands of the public who are saying like the Minister that something must be done about the illegal immigrants in the country.
The immigrants themselves seem also to be responding in desperation, with a report carried in one newspaper this week that a boat of immigrants trying to reach The Bahamas, tried to ram a Defence Force boat to stop from being interdicted.
While people ritually add the Jamaicans, Cubans and Chinese into the mix, their real ire is directed at the Haitians. They are Black people, phenotypically Black and African. They conjure up therefore the very worst revulsions in our culture, the bottom of the pile of the despised. Jamaicans have an education and so will not suffer the same loathing and will fight back. The Chinese are in the commercial sector, light skinned and a nation of their own. The Cubans are politically protected by the U.S. and are light skinned. So the African Haitians, poor and despised, black as the ace of spades, take the brunt of our anger. They are to be rounded up and sent back home.
While under Perry Christie we will not see the kind of vile behaviour by Immigration forces that existed back in the 1985 round ups under a previous PLP immigration Minister, we are forced to sound a note of caution. This is playing the same old script again. Round ups and repatriation! It is a failed policy. The only successful policy must be integration. The integration was stopped in 1973 by a foolish policy in the Constitution that denies citizenship at birth to those who are born here. It was an artificial device to stop a problem that continued to grow, largely because we were unable to stop the flow of illegal immigrants. So rather than stop the immigrants, we tried to prevent them and their children from getting status here.
Add into the mix some pseudo-science that is now being espoused by the think tank headed by Dr. David Allen. Dr. Allen’s objectives are laudable but a woman named Sandra Davenport launched into a paper that seemed prejudicial in the extreme, as if she had made up her mind that these nasty immigrants in Abaco had to go, and found the science to support it. Her solution: to stop building, to round those up who should not be here and take them home. No analysis of the fact that over thirty years, you have Haitian children who are Bahamians in every way but in law who are seething with rage at the legal limbo in which they find themselves and how we are to deal with that. How they even try to hide their names, change their names; Anglicize their names because to be known to be Haitian is a disgrace in The Bahamas. How that cannot be healthy for this society because we are becoming a society within a society, which must explode and cause harm to us all eventually.
There is a lack of political will all round. No leadership is being effectively exercised on the subject. The Minister of Immigration is doing in our view a credible job with the bad hand he has been dealt. The thousands of citizenship applications by the children of Haitians born here are languishing unanswered. This means that thousands of disenfranchised young Haitian children born in The Bahamas are here. Part of the solution to the Haitian problem is granting the citizenships. The Minister does not have the resources to stop the inflow. The economy is going great guns and inviting the poor and dispossessed here to take jobs that Bahamians won't do. He cannot stop that growth. So when the prejudices of the Bahamian poor rise to the top, in a tight job market, Bahamians say round them up and send them home. So round them up and send them home it is.
What is clear is that the last Immigration Minister who tried this ended up losing his job, abandoned by the party that was encouraging him to do it. Now his name is called on people’s lips almost two decades after the fact, saying if only we could have him back. It is done with reverence like a ritual incantation. But few people acknowledge the ambivalence of the Bahamian people, the impracticalities of the policies of The Bahamas, which caused the failure of the policy in 1985. It is still happening today. As fast as you round up you have Bahamians running to the police station asking for “my Haitian” to be released. Integration is the answer. Strict enforcement the other answer. International aid to assist with the problem. Until there is that rationality brought to bear, the policies are bound to fail again.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 12th February 2005 at midnight: 73,249.
Number of hits for the month of February up to Saturday 12th February 2005 at midnight: 117,140.
Number of hits for the year 2005 up to Saturday 12th February 2005 at midnight: 434,352.
POLICE
AND THE MPS
The Nassau Guardian published a story on Friday 11th February attributed
to unnamed sources in the Police Staff Association who attacked Ron Pinder
and Kenyatta Gibson, the MPs for Marathon and Kennedy for their role in
trying to quell the disturbances in Nassau Village. We hope that
the Police Staff Association formally repudiates those persons who made
that statement. They are cowards. They as paramilitaries who
are subservient and answerable to civilian authority must be very careful.
What they have done is a direct challenge to the civilian order.
The fact is that a Member of Parliament has the
right to come into his constituency and bring peace if he can bring peace.
The police wanted to go into Nassau Village and crack heads. Their
view seemed to be that since others had gotten away with riots before,
they needed to show once and for all who was in charge. They came
with lethal weapons, few tools in between and were about to fire shots.
The Members of Parliament restrained that, and spoke to the Commissioner
of Police to avert bloodshed. In that they were right.
When the PLP was in Opposition, all of its MPs and
activists would have been in Nassau Village seeking to bring peace. The
MPs did nothing wrong. We go further and say that there appears to
be a campaign by some rogue policemen to suggest that because the political
authorities seek to govern their behaviour that this smacks of political
interference. It is again leading to the view that somehow, the PLP
are against the police. The fact is that while the PLP stands for
law and order, it does not standing for killing people in civilian riots.
The matter was brought under control, and the guilty will be brought to
justice.
People are going around saying rather loosely that
this is the first time something like this has happened where a police
car was destroyed. What convenient memories we have. We seek
to put the blame on the Haitians. But we forget that it was only
about a year ago that in St. James Road, another mob disturbed by police
behaviour destroyed a fire truck. There were no Haitians involved
in that.
We think that both Ron Pinder and Kenyatta Gibson
did a splendid job in bringing peace and were restraining forces that should
be encouraged to keep working in their communities.
Speaking earlier to The Bahama Journal, Assistant
Commissioner of Police Reginald Ferguson said that last year the Commissioner
and his top officers drew up a list of persons and sent a recommendation
to their minister requesting that a citizens’ review board be set up to
have oversight of the Complaints and Corruption Unit, which investigates
all complaints against the police.
“We are fully aware of the perception that the police
are investigating themselves,” Mr. Ferguson was quoted by the Journal as
saying, “and it was for reason that we requested a citizens’ oversight
committee.”
The Journal notes that "Although the xenophobia
seems to have gotten the lion’s share of media attention following the
Nassau Village riot, there are those who have been looking at ways of improving
policing."
THE
CARRONS GET STOPPED
John Rood, the U.S. Ambassador must spend a great
deal of his time here dealing with the bad public relations that centres
around the visas issued or not issued to Bahamians, how Bahamians get treated
in the visa section, and how they get treated going through the pre-clearance
lounge at the Nassau International Airport.
Nassau is one of a number of airports outside the
U.S. that has American Customs and Immigration personnel who are responsible
for entering people into the U.S. on this side of the pond. The facility
has been here since 1959. It avoids the long lines in Miami.
You find them only in Bermuda, Canada, Shannon, Ireland and Aruba, in addition
to Nassau. The facility is good for Bahamian tourism. The Bahamas
Government goes to great lengths to protect it.
The U.S. pre-clearance lounge is also a symbol to
the Bahamian people of their special relationship with the United States.
Anything that goes wrong there is a sign, no matter how misguided the analysis,
that there is something wrong in the relationship with The Bahamas Government.
The Tribune is the newspaper that most pushes this line, what with their
most visceral hatred of the PLP.
The Tribune's owners Eileen and Roger Carron are
in their own eyes so circumspect, that their attitudes often border on
self righteousness. In fact, their attitudes make them objects of
parody. They are examples of self contempt. They have never
done anything wrong in their lives. They are always subservient to
European based authority and customs, how could they possibly ever have
any difficulties crossing borders and such mundane things. The problem
is that it could happen to anyone. And while entering the pre-clearance
lounge in Nassau this month, the husband Roger was detained and the couple
was kept waiting for two hours without explanation while an issue was resolved
in the American's databases.
This has happened to Government Ministers.
This has happened to many lesser mortals. You will remember all the
fuss they made when the Government of The Bahamas, without any desire to
make a fuss, protested to the U.S. about the searches of the Governor General
and Prime Minister at U.S. airports. The Carrons made sure that despite
the wishes of the Government they would publicize it, and they made sure
that it was done in an embarrassing way. They also lashed the government
for making an issue of it. Mind you it was only their newspaper that
made an issue of it. But why let the facts get in the way of a good
story. What was the big deal, they said. Now the shoe is on
the other foot.
Mrs. Carron wrote editorial after editorial
during the past week, lashing out at the US for stopping her husband and
inconveniencing her; the fact that they were treated poorly, and not told
what the reason was for the delay. Welcome to the club and to the
real world. It could not have happened to finer persons.
Now one wonders why stopping the Carrons, does not
mean that there is a problem between the U.S. and The Bahamas instead of
a simple mistake on the part of the U.S., which we all agree they must
get straightened out. These issues happen all too often for the U.S.
with all their technology, delaying innocent people and inconveniencing
many. We are certain that whatever it is Ambassador Rood will get to the
bottom of it, notwithstanding the quarter it has now affected.
THE
BPSU PRESIDENT TALKS TOO MUCH
John Pinder (pictured), the President of the Bahamas Public Service Union
(BPSU) simply talks too much. He presented his proposal for the new
contract for public servants to the Minister for Public Service back in
January. He was advised and so was the public that the cost of the
proposals had to be calculated, and then the Government would respond.
Instead he has been in the newspapers every day and on the radio pushing
the line of the great benefits he is supposedly asking for the public servants.
According to him, the increase on the public purse
will be in the neighbourhood of 70 million dollars. This is absolute
madness. There is no way in hell such a shocking increase can be
supported. Yet every day, he is pushing this line. The reason,
one suspects, is that he is facing a tough and uphill battle to survive
the elections for president. He is facing opposition from his executive
team. He did not even tell them about the proposals before he sent
them in. So the best defence is an offence. Look to hear more
from him as the time gets nearer to election time in September 2005.
DAVEY’S
DECLARATION
The Royal Bahamas Defence Force is much maligned and much neglected.
The PLP came to office with the overwhelming support of RBDF officers who
believed that there would be change in the command that they believe has
so sapped morale in the Force. No change has occurred, and the men
and women on the Force are restless. For their restless behaviour,
the RBDF Commander Davey Rolle (pictured) had a few choice words to say
to them. Speaking at the annual church service he let them know in
no uncertain terms that he is the leader of the RBDF and that he will continue
to be there. That those who do not like it know what to do.
The RBDF officers do indeed know what to do, but
of course what they do may not be to the liking of the Commodore.
One thing they are doing is lobbying their MPs for change at the Force.
The Government has announced that it is looking at a review of the total
command structure of the Force. The report of the Commission of Inquiry
into the Lorrequin just completed was a sweeping indictment of the both
the past and present leadership of the Force. So one wonders who
would be taking bets on the second part of the Commodore’s assertion that
he will continue to be there. --- Contributed by John Thomas.
MINISTER
MILLER LEADS THE ATTACK
In our editorial today, we referred to comments made by the Minister for
Trade and Industry (pictured in this Bahama Journal photo) speaking in
the House of Assembly on the question of illegal immigration on Wednesday
9th February. Here is what he is reported to have said taken from
The Tribune of Thursday 10th February 2005 in his own words:
“The Bahamas is facing a catastrophe and is sitting
on a time bomb which will explode unless the country deals realistically
with the issue of illegal immigration. If Bahamians do not deal with
the situation, it will deal with us.
“Affordable rental units are being removed further
from the grasp of Bahamians because of the high number of illegal immigrants
in the country.
“If I was (sic.) to take you to Garvin Tynes
Primary in Sunset Park Number one, there are more Haitians, Haitian-Bahamians,
you can call them whatever you will, in that school as students than Bahamians
like you and me who were born here. Many parents are frustrated and
turn to their MPs and complain that they cannot get their children into
primary school.
“I am not saying that those who came to our shores
for a better way of life should not enjoy some of the situations such as
a basic education but this is my Bahamas. This is all I have; all
we have is The Bahamas.
“A situation is developing where illegal immigrants
are also using health care facilities to the detriment of Bahamians requiring
the same service. Not only Haitians but Jamaicans, and others in
the Caribbean and elsewhere. You have Africans now, Chinese, Taiwanese,
you name it they are here, that come here pregnant with one view to have
children in The Bahamas to ensure that they have a birth certificate and
that the child is allowed to go to the school. There is a lot of
frustration; there is a time bomb we are sitting on.
“This problem did not happen overnight.
I am told that in some areas of Abaco you have more foreigners than Bahamians.
I don’t care who these people are and how some people may plead for their
cause, I say to them, please man, do me a favour, go back home, we love
you but we can’t afford for you to impede the progress of naturalized Bahamians.”
JUSTICE
MUST BE SEEN TO BE DONE
The Nassau Guardian of Saturday 12th February reports that Magistrate Linda
Virgil refused bail to three persons of Haitian origin and ancestry who
were charged with minor offences arising out of the riot in Nassau Village.
The three persons are apparently work permit holders and long time residents
of The Bahamas. She refused bailed in some stern tones, even though
the damage done was only 150 dollars, and there was no loss of life.
The three are father, son (pictured in this Nassau Guardian photo) and
mother. The son is 18 years old and born in The Bahamas. She
got into an argument with the attorney for the trio, insisting that the
persons were a flight risk. She went further and seemed to comment
on their guilt in the matter. This is serious.
We believe that the hysteria in the public should
not find its way into the Courts. We also believe that had this been
three whites from Europe or America, there is no question that bail would
have been granted. Certainly, if they had been Bahamians (which the
boy at least has a claim to), there is no question there would have been
bail. The fact that the police granted bail and they showed up for
court gives the lie to any suggestion that they were a flight risk.
Now one must get concerned, what if the next thing
is the whole family is out of their house and their property is stolen
and robbed because now they are marked as a target in that community.
Given the hysteria in our country over this Haitian matter, persons in
authority have a responsibility to act with caution when making public
policy.
VINCENT
PEET ON RENT CONTROL
The Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs and substantive
Minister for Immigration spoke in the House of Assembly on Wednesday 9th
February in support of the Government’s amendment to the Rent Control Act.
The amendment would raise the existing ceiling of $25,000 to $75,000 for
rental properties to be subject to rent control. The Minister explained
the government’s thinking behind the Bill. You may click
here for the full text of the Minister’s remarks. Minister
Peet is pictured in this Bahama Journal photo.
FOREIGN
MINISTER AT CMAG
Fred Mitchell, the Minister of Foreign Affairs travelled to London last
week for a series of meetings as part of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action
Group (CMAG). The group was put together to enforce the Harare Principles
of the Commonwealth on Democracy. Pakistan is the last nation on
its agenda and was subject to review having regard to the fact the President
Perez Musharaff of Pakistan still holds the title of Army Chief of Staff.
CMAG is chaired by Nigeria’s Foreign Minister.
Other countries in the group are: Sri Lanka, India, Malta, Lesotho, Tanzania,
Samoa and Canada. The group decided that instead of re-suspending
Pakistan from the Commonwealth because the General reneged on his promise
to leave the uniform behind that it would rap him on the knuckles.
He has effectively been given a bye until 2007 to get rid of the uniform.
The Pakistanis themselves were hard at work seeking
to avoid a re-suspension from the Commonwealth. They have accomplished
that. The Bahamas as the representative of Caricom supported the
position of the regional power India that wanted to continue the rapprochement
that it has begun with Pakistan.
The Bahamas also signed articles of diplomatic relations
with Pakistan. Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell said that the timing
was coincidental. He said that in doing so The Bahamas was simply
carrying out the mandate of the Cabinet of The Bahamas to conclude articles
of diplomatic relations with all states in the Commonwealth before the
Heads of Government meet in Malta in November. Minister Mitchell
is shown looking on as Bahamas High Commissioner to London Basil O'Brien
exchanges articles of diplomatic relations with his Pakistani counterpart
in London on Friday 11th February.
ANONYMOUS
DOCTOR ATTACKS FOREIGN MINISTER
The Tribune has published a letter that is unsigned
attacking the Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell for carrying out
his annual physical at the Mayo Clinic instead of choosing a Bahamian doctor.
We think it is probably not a doctor at all. However, it is interesting
now that we are in political season that the smallest triviality becomes
an issue.
Mr. Mitchell has been doing annual physicals at
the Mayo Clinic, we believe, since about the early to mid 1990s.
The fact that this is done does not mean as the writer implies that he
does not have a Bahamian doctor. Further, certain matters whether
someone is a politician or not are personal choices and none of anyone’s
business. Lastly, the letter writer is obviously a coward since he
did not even have the courage to sign his name.
NEW
PRISON HEAD
The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National
Security announced last Sunday that there is to be a new head of Her Majesty’s
Prison. He is Dr. Elliston Rahming who headed up the Prison Reform
Commission appointed by the Prime Minister and which reported last year.
Edwin Culmer who has been the Acting Superintendent will be the new head
of the Carmichael Road Detention Centre operated by the Department of Immigration.
Deputy
Prime Minister Pratt is flanked by Minister Vincent Peet (right) and the
new head of the Detention Centre Edwin Culmer (left) in this Bahama Journal
photo by Omar Barr.
ARTHUR
FOULKES WHIPPING A DEAD HORSE
The Tribune columnist and former Minister and Ambassador
Arthur Foulkes has had one of those off weeks again as a columnist.
He was in full flight in the most recent column of Tuesday 8th February.
He was attacking Ron Pinder, the Member of Parliament and everyone’s favourite
whipping boy for entering the tarmac without a security escort, and for
which the MP has since apologized. Ordinarily that brings closure
to the matter but not so for the FNMs. They keep whipping this dead
horse.
Sir Arthur claims that Mr. Pinder should have resigned.
He further argues that Mr. Pinder is yet another example of the arrogance
of the PLP. We say quite the Opposite. Mr. Pinder is one of
the party's shining stars and Sir Arthur Foulkes is being most unfair by
portraying things the way he has. He then goes on to raise again
that PLP Ministers do not listen to public servants, and how they should
not blame them when things go wrong. This is another dead horse that
he is whipping. We say again, Sir Arthur's memory fails him when
he does not recall how he was undone by the public service.
It was the failure of the politicians of his generation
to get on top of this situation where policies are being undermined, instructions
not followed, advice not given, but the consequences fall on Ministers
of the Government who are only responsible by convention and nothing else.
This is a convention that should be changed. Clearly, too may in
the public service do not themselves play by the rules. Reform of
the public service is therefore key, but unfortunately in this matter as
with all other governments before them, time has now run out on the PLP
for this term.
POETRY FEATURE
This week, a verse-epic by Bahama recording and literary artist, Giovanni
Stuart (www.nubah.com). Giovanni is the
author of, ‘Psalm Bird’, the original CD album classic of spoken-verse,
muse and Bahama love poetry. Please click
here.
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Sharon Zoë Smith
As a faithful reader and friend of the site,
I was wondering if you could tell me who Sharon Zoë Smith is.
I like her writing style… could you also furnish me with an address if
she offers no objection?
Kele' Isaacs
We will pass on your request to Ms. Smith – Editor
Haitians, yes – Shanty Towns, no!
As we all know, Bahamian Governments over the
years have allowed illegal immigration to get out of control for all known
and frequently discussed reasons and more. Succinctly, they all lack
the political will to do anything, in addition to the system now being
infiltrated at every level with illegal sympathizers.
From my own perspective, I can say that I have
no issue with the illegal population being in the Bahamas. They must
be grandfathered in because the short of it is; we need them and have some
obligation to assist. However, what we do not need is the manner
in which they live. Beyond charity extended to a certain level for
their care (health care and education), they must pay their way given that
they have jobs and money to live normally.
An interesting comparison to how and what they
are allowed to do comes from what I now like to refer to as a lack of discipline
in Black led countries. Haitians live in greater numbers in the USA
and in francophone Canada, but for ABSOLUTE CERTAIN, any attempt to develop
shantytowns or other forms of substandard housing, is NOT tolerated.
Therefore, they must live in rental housing which promotes the general
well being of the country. Why can't the Government do such a thing?
Shane Gibson is off to a good start but the message
must be consistently promoted that they must rent ‘approved’ housing.
Bahamians who allow them to erect homes on undeveloped land should be called
to account and someone in Government must have the gumption not to cave
in to what is a meaningless special and extremely selfish interest.
Roger Brooks
We disagree that all illegal Haitian immigrants should be ‘grandfathered’
in – there must be some perceived ‘natural right’ for their presence, such
as birth and / or longevity, or an identifiable and justifiable need for
their presence in the Bahamian economy. Having said that, the elimination
of shantytowns would go a long way toward assisting the integration that
is necessary. – Editor.
THIS
WEEK WITH THE PM
On Saturday the 12th February, 2005 the Rt. Hon.
Perry Christie, Prime Minister and Leader of the PLP along with the National
Chairman of the PLP, Raynard Rigby, addressed the newly approved New Providence
Stalwart Councillors at a Briefing Session at the Party's Headquarters
on Farrington Road. The Hon. George Mackey, Stalwart Councillor Tom Basden
and Stalwart Councillor Doris Burrows also addressed the gathering on the
role of the Stalwart Councillor in the Party. During the course of this
year, the PLP will induct over one hundred faithful party supporters into
its prestigious and distinguished Stalwart Council. Plans have already
been finalized for two such inductions; on the 23rd April 2005 in Grand
Bahama and on the 7th May, 2005 in New Providence.
ADVENTISTS VISIT PM - Also this week, the Prime Minister
received a courtesy call from several leaders of the Seventh Day Adventist
Church in The Bahamas to introduce a guest from Florida; from left to right
are C. Melvin Lewis, Bahamas Conference treasurer; Erick D. Clarke, Bahamas
Conference Executive Secretary; Prime Minister Christie, Bishop Earl Mason,
Pastor from Tampa, Florida; T. Basil Sturrup, Pastor and Gary King, Pastor.
PM with Bank of Bahamas Execs - The Prime Minister also
received a courtesy call this past week from the newly appointed Chairman
of the Bank of The Bahamas Al Jarrett (right). Mr. Jarrett was accompanied
by Managing Director Paul McWeeney (left).
FIGHTING FOR HUMAN DIGNITY
There has generally been a problem with this new PLP. They
have forgotten how to be political. In this new dispensation, it
appears that there is the view that all will be hunky dory once you are
nice to people. That has never been the case and it is not now the
case. As we get closer and closer to the election year, it is clear
that the Free National Movement is in a position to try to strike back,
and it is coming in some strange ways.
Cast your mind back to the year 1997. There is a General Election, and the police are about to vote. The night before the vote Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, takes to the platform. He reconfirms that which we did already know, that on the day that the police were going to vote some $1500 would be paid in an increase to the police to their pay. He stood on the platform and addressed the police directly. “Remember the money! Remember the money!” he said. They voted for him along with the rest of the country in droves. The net result was a landslide for the Free National Movement.
It was said that the PLP lost the police force because it allowed Salathiel Thompson to remain too long as the Commissioner of Police. He was long past his prime when he retired and the morale on the Force simply fell and fell. The police have been thought ever since that time to vote in the majority for the Free National Movement. Some of that sentiment might have been recaptured in the last General Election where the police gave the PLP their fair share of votes. But the old problems are beginning to rise up again.
In this space last week, we brought to the attention of the public the concern that we have about the police staff association or someone purporting to be a representative of that association, attacking Ron Pinder MP and Kenyatta Gibson MP. Both men showed up on the night of the riot in Nassau Village to stop innocent civilians from being shot down like dogs. Mr. Pinder and Mr. Gibson did what any PLP MP or leader would have done prior to 2002. All of the PLPs would have been down there that night to see what they could do.
So when Ron Pinder and Kenyatta Gibson went there they were following the traditional and finest instincts of good PLPs. People were not going to be killed for throwing rocks and stones in the face of lethal force. There must be another way.
At first the political propagandists tried to portray this as a Haitian/ Bahamian battle. The unfortunate and ill timed words of a Magistrate helped to reinforce that notion. It is simply not true. It had nothing to do with Haitians fighting Bahamians. The facts revealed that the entire community came out in response to an attack on one of their members not to stop Haitians from attacking Bahamians.
It appears however that certain elements within the police were trying to make that stick to obscure what really went on there, a failure of the original officers who went to the scene to respond properly to a disturbance. They could simply have withdrawn and this whole mess could have been avoided.
Since the Haitian/ Bahamian fight propaganda is not working, the next tack is to try to denigrate the Members of Parliament. We defend them absolutely and fully. There is no situation that could possibly exist where the PLP could allow a situation to develop where lethal shots would be fired that could lead to a serious loss of life. Contrary to what is being said and alleged, there was no interference in the duties of the police. No command structure was interrupted. If the police stood down, it was because they were ordered to stand down by their Commissioner, not by any politician and certainly not by Ron Pinder or Kenyatta Gibson.
Mr. Gibson had had enough, and this week in the House of Assembly he answered his critics. He has called for a full and independent inquiry. We agree with him. There is too much at stake. Not the least of the matters at stake is the reputation of two of the most promising PLP MPs. They have a right to their reputations and no one should be allowed to sully it.
The question we ask as this goes to print is what is behind a secret attack by members of a police staff association that have access to the entire leadership of the Government directly and who have the standing to make a press statement in its name? The answer seems political. It was a political attack by anonymous souls saying that they were acting in the name of the association. The Association has not repudiated the statements. So what happening there?
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 19th February 2005 at midnight: 67,161.
Number of hits for the month of February up to Saturday 19th February 2005 at midnight: 184,301.
Number of hits for the year 2005 up to Saturday 19th February 2005 midnight: 501,513.
LENDING
BY THE BANKS
The Central Bank of The Bahamas has announced that
it has reduced the lending rate to the commercial banks by 50 bases points
from 5.75 per cent to 5.25 per cent. The Bank said that it expects
the commercial banks to reduce the rate that it lends money to its customers
by a similar percentage.
The reserves of the Central Bank now stand at 700
million dollars for the first time in the history of the country, and are
expected to reach one billion dollars by the end of the year. This
would seem to be good news and should lead to some additional credit in
the system, allowing for more commercial activity in the country.
The Bank had been at loggerheads with the Ministry of Finance over the
last year for keeping the level of reserves high.
Now one hopes that the new rate will lead to increased
activity in the Bahamian sector of the economy and create more jobs.
RESPONDING
TO A MAGISTRATE
We want to congratulate attorneys Eliezer Regnier, Fayne Thompson, Paul
Moss and Pastor Cedric Moss for their valiant stand against what appears
to be patently unconstitutional behaviour on the part of a member of the
judiciary.
Last week, we reported in this spot that a Magistrate
had refused bail to three persons who were charged with offences connected
with the riot in Nassau Village. They were charged with minor offences,
and yet despite the fact that police had granted bail, they were determined
by the magistrate to be a flight risk and were refused bail. Further,
the Magistrate said that she was revoking their permanent residence, something
which she does not have the power to do. The four persons just named
appeared on the front page of The Nassau Guardian newspaper on Monday
14th February to denounce what they called an unconstitutional action by
the magistrate.
Pastor Cedric Moss also sounded a word of caution
on the kind of knee jerk reaction that is going on now in the country where
round ups of Haitians are taking place, blaming them for every social ill
in the country. The Haitian Ambassador Louis Joseph also joined the
conversation later in the week appealing for calm and understanding in
the present times. The four men also asked that the Magistrate Linda
Virgil recuse herself from the case since it appears that she may have
prejudged the result by her actions in the court.
What is further disturbing about this whole matter
is later in the week others were charged with riot offences from Nassau
Village. They were charged with throwing missiles. The Magistrate
in that case denied bail in those cases as well. This is clearly
gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. There is no way that in
law one could justify holding people who were throwing missiles who are
not a flight risk and who are not a threat to the existing peace and good
order in the country.
The Judiciary has to be careful how it gets itself
involved in the prejudicial reactions of a society that does not have a
clear view of what happened in Nassau Village, and begins to penalize people
before they actually hear the evidence of what happened.
The Commissioner of Police entered the debate by
saying at a police ceremony on Monday 14th February and being quoted in
the Bahama Journal of the next day “I thought that in handling the incident
the police did what they were supposed to do. You would note the
strong message that was sent in the courts just a few days ago.”
Hmmm! From left are Fayne Thompson, Eliezer Regnier, Paul Moss
and Pastor Cedric Moss.
A BAD
BUS RIDE
The Tribune of Monday 14th February told a frightening story to the Bahamian
public of three passengers who were injured on a bus ride through the southern
part of the island of New Providence. It appears that the attacks
were unprovoked. It seemed to be a robbery attempt.
The story is that the passengers got on the bus
riding down Baillou Hill Road and ultimately into the Kennedy Subdivision
and the Pinewood area. Two men on the bus attacked first one passenger,
trying to get money and threw him off the bus, then another male passenger
and then a female passenger. One passenger was said to be in hospital
with serious injuries. The other two were out to tell the tale but
not without the frightening picture of serious bruises and lacerations
about their bodies.
The female passenger is an English woman married
to a Bahamian, having lived in The Bahamas for eight years. She said
that in England there is no experience with violence on buses. Rubin
Rahming who is the head of the Bus Drivers Association called for those
who saw the incident to come forward and urged that there be an upgrading
of the standard for buses, particularly since tourists are increasingly
using the bus system. The woman said that the result of the incident
might be a travel advisory on The Bahamas by the British, telling people
not to ride buses. That is a potent threat having regard to the fact
that the British are already unhappy with The Bahamas and its inability
to respond to the inquiries on the death of the young Gallagher boy in
a boating accident at Paradise Island.
The bus driver and one other were held by police
to answer inquiries about the incident.
We believe that the whole bus system as it is should
be abolished and replaced by a state corporation. It is the only
way to rationalize what is a very chaotic situation at the moment.
The buses have bad drivers who disrespect the law, who are often unkempt
and who deviate from their routes taking passengers on wild goose chases
in pursuit of a bus fare, whose owners do not maintain the buses.
The state corporation should of course be immediately privatized, so that
the public at large can own it. Tribune photo by Felipe Major
of the bus victims Sharad Lightfoot, left and Stephanie Sturrup, right.
A
NEW RUNWAY GETS STARTED
Lagan, an Irish company, has the contract to complete the construction
or should we say reconstruction of runway 14-32 which is the long runway
at the Nassau Intentional Airport. The runway, which was neglected
over the ten years of FNM rule and now will cost in excess of 40 million
dollars to repair is scheduled for completion in time for Virgin Atlantic
to fly here beginning 28th June 2005. The airport management contract
negotiations are now going apace to settle the rebuilding and reorganization
of the airport. Nassau International Airport is a disgrace for a
tourist destination. Help is on the way. Prime Minister Perry
Christie visited the site of the reconstruction of the runway on Monday
14th February and pronounced himself pleased with what he saw. Bahamas
Information Services photo of Prime Minister Christie along with Transport
Minister Glenys Hanna Martin and officials inspecting work on the runway
at Nassau International Airport by Derek Smith.
GOVT.
WILL PAY $8.4m TO ROYAL OASIS WORKERS
Mr. Bradley Roberts, Chairman of the Cabinet Select
Sub-Committee dealing with the concerns of the redundant workers of the
Royal Oasis Resort in Freeport, announced today the condition under which
the Government has agreed to pay some $8.4 million in redundancy to affected
workers.
Speaking to a gathering of workers in the Jack Hayward
Auditorium, Minister Roberts, along with Minister of Tourism, the Hon.
Obie Wilchcombe, told the workers, “Not withstanding that the government
has not been able to develop a full understanding of what has gone down,
the Government of The Bahamas has decided that, if you agree to assign
your redundancy benefits, the Government will step up to the plate and
pay those benefits to you, and will await the outcome of the final determination
as to what will happen with those properties, and when it will happen.
Mr. Roberts told the workers that it is up to them,
and, “Upon agreeing to assign your redundancy benefits, the Government
proposes to pay immediately as all parties agree as to what that number
is for each individual employee, 25% of what is due to you, immediately;
in 90 days another 25%, and the remainder within 120 days.
Workers were told that the “Government is doing
this out of the generosity of its heart. The Government is not obligated
to do so. This is unprecedented in the history of our Bahamaland
where your Government has stepped in,” said Mr. Roberts. Reported
by By Gregory S. Christie of Bahamas Information Services.
GOVERNMENT
ANNOUNCES NEW WATER PLANT
Bradley Roberts, the Minister responsible for the
Water & Sewerage Corporation this past week announced the approval
of a reverse osmosis (RO) water production facility for New Providence.
The new plant will be capable of producing in excess of 5 million gallons
of potable per day.
The announcement was greeted with wide public enthusiasm,
as Nassau is in the grips of a water crisis, precipitated it seems, by
the contamination of the Andros well fields during the recent hurricane
and the failure of one of the corporation’s barges. The announcement
was yet another example of how the PLP is addressing a problem caused by
the FNM neglected a major issue during their ten years in office.
The RO plant is a major achievement of the government.
Please click here for the Minister’s announcement.
THE
NUCLEAR CLUB
It is a fact that the United States is today the
most powerful country n the world. It should be seen as an avuncular,
kind of older brother type, a world protector. Increasingly though
its is seen as the bully in the ring or the 800 pound gorilla that simply
plops itself down wherever it wants, does what it wants without any regard
for the impacts and cares of other societies. Nowhere does this fact
seem to loom so large as in the whole debate about nuclear proliferation
in the world.
The idea of the anti proliferation treaties to which
countries are being urged to join is that only those who have nuclear weapons
should have them, and no one else should be allowed to have them.
That is totally unrealistic. There is no way that this can be successfully
maintained. The theory is that those who have them are responsible
enough not to use them indiscriminately, and that if they use them they
will only use them for wise purposes.
The other argument is that those who have them can
simply determine who they want to blow up, when its suits their purposes
and for whatever reasons they choose. This would be especially troubling
in a situation where a country comes to be dominated by religious ideologues.
Imagine if Germany had gotten the nuclear bomb in the Second World War
before the good guys did. It seems to us that the only solution is
for everyone to get rid of them. That too will not happen.
So until that time, in another dimension and galaxy, we must face the fact
that every nation will feel the right to do what is necessary to protect
itself. That unfortunately will mean acquiring nuclear weapons.
What those who have nuclear weapons must now decide
is how to treat with other nations and peoples to ensure that no one uses
them, to so conduct their foreign policies that it does not appear that
simply on their whim they decide to change governments in other sovereign
nations and replace them. We believe that this is what helps to fuel
the desire and the need for other societies to seek the weapons, which
they believe, will stop the threats to their existence. Some people
will be evil but that too is a fact of life but it is equally as true that
all the good in the world does not repose in one side either.
A
MEETING IN FOX HILL
The murder several weeks ago of Philip Andrew Moss
in Fox Hill has caused a spike of concern in the Fox Hill community. The
representative for the area Fred Mitchell brought a professional team in
to try to work with the community on the way forward. There was a
community meeting at Faith Mission Church of God Community Hall on Thursday
17th February. The police as well as the community leaders and citizens
were there.
It appears that on one side there is a denial that
there is a problem. Some community leaders objected to the characterization
by Dr. David Allen, the psychiatrist and head of the Urban Renewal Commission
that “Fox Hill is at war”. On the other side, there is the desire
that there be a programme of action.
Some argued that here is no evidence of a “war”
in Fox Hill. However, staring the community in the face is the fact
that a series of murders dating back to 2002 appear to be connected to
the most recent murder. At the very least, the present murder is
being linked to a dispute, which led to a knife attack last year at the
annual Fox Hill Day celebrations.
The meeting agreed on a series of measures to try
and combat this growing problem. Melanie Griffin, the Minister of
Social Services filled in for the representative Fred Mitchell at the meeting.
She asked the community to pull together and to work toward peace.
FOREIGN
MINISTER AT HEADS MEETING
Prime Minister Perry Christie has turned to his
domestic agenda as the time for the election campaign begins. The
Prime Minister told The Bahama Journal in its Thursday 17th February 2005
edition that he had been consumed by trying to conclude an agreement with
the Bahamar Group. That group has put forward a proposal to invest
one billion dollars in the Cable Beach strip. It would mean a complete
reinvention of Cable Beach as a tourist attraction. The devil has
been in the details, and the Prime Minister was determined to see it through
to conclusion.
There was a bit of bad news in that the Bahama Journal
showed a picture of the group moving out of the Crystal Palace. They
had been there for weeks interviewing staff, and appearing to make preparations
to take over. It did not look propitious. Nevertheless the
will is still there to try to conclude it.
In the meantime, Mr. Christie dispatched the Minister
of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell to the Heads of Government meeting in
Paramaribo, Suriname from 16th to 17th February. At the meeting,
The Bahamas had two matters of interest, the question of support and reengagement
with Haiti. That was agreed. The other was to settle an approach
on the successor to the Secretary General of the Organization of American
States. The countries agreed that for the moment they would say nothing,
and that Prime Minister P.J. Patterson of Jamaica would have the responsibility
of trying to forge a consensus around one of the candidates either from
Mexico, Chile or El Salvador.
On Saturday 19th February, the Foreign Minister
travelled to Georgetown, Guyana, standing in for Prime Minister Christie
at the official commissioning of the new headquarters building for Caricom,
called Caricom House.
200
HAITIANS ARRESTED
The country has now gone into full knee jerk mode with the Immigration
Department in a frenzy to lock up, round up illegal immigrants and send
them back to Haiti. The fact that they will probably be right back
in the country within three weeks, having regard to the lack of capacity
on the part of the Defence Force is not a matter to be discussed in polite
circles. What also makes the whole policy a bit of a joke is the
fact that we all know that the reason why the Haitians are here is to supply
labour at the bottom of the labour pool for all the jobs that won’t be
done by Bahamians. They do it well, and they have a good work ethic.
Stan Burnside, the cartoonist, always knows how to get to the heart of
the matter and he drew something on Tuesday 15th February that describes
the situation to a T. Take everyone out except: “My Haitian”.
The cartoon appeared in the Nassau Guardian.
COB
OPENS POULTRY UNIT
In a bold move meant to boost the production of chickens in the country,
the College of The Bahamas has officially opened a poultry unit.
The unit sits on acreage at Gladstone Road made available by the Ministry
of Agriculture, which also allowed the secondment of one of its poultry
experts to run the unit and train students. Justin Taylor, technical
officer in charge of the unit is shown with Minister of Agriculture Alfred
Gray and the president of the College Dr. Rodney Smith in this Bahamas
Information Services photo by Peter Ramsay. The COB Poultry Unit
was made possible by a grant from the Freedom Foundation of which Mr. Lowell
Mortimer is trustee.
A VISIT
TO BUCKINGHAM
On Friday 11th February, the Foreign Minister Fred
Mitchell visited his alma mater the University of Buckingham. He
attended law school there from 1983 to 1985. The reason for the visit
was to meet with Bahamian students at the university. There are some
26 students there. The visit was organized by Bahamas Student Association
'The Bahamian Society' president Andrew Rolle. The Minister took
time out to listen to the concerns of the students and for this photograph
from left to right are Domek Rolle, Treasurer; Terence Kealey, Vice Chancellor;
Sasha Lighbourn, Secretary; Fred Mitchell; High Commissioner Basil O'Brien;
Andrew Rolle, President and Krystle Rutherford, Vice President.
POETRY FEATURE
The verse this week is, ‘Sonnet: Political Greatness’
(click here),
by classical poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley --- Contributed by recording and
literary artist, Giovanni Stuart (www.nubah.com).
9th
ANNUAL CACIQUE AWARDS WINNERS ON TV TONIGHT
The Cacique Awards Show will be televised this Sunday, February 20th
on ZNS TV at 9:00 p.m.
Transportation - Michael Thompson
Human Resources Development - Felice Renee McKinney
Nature Tourism - Ben Rose
Sports, Leisure & Events - David & Kathleen Ralph
Creative Arts - Elyse Wasile
Handicraft - Joseph Albury
Special Awards - Brian & Jennifer Hew (Kamalame Cay)
Clement T. Maynard Lifetime Achievement Award - Sir Albert Miller
The Minister's Award - Margarita Clarke
Airline of the Year - Air Tran Airways
Cruise Line of the Year - Discovery Cruise Lines
Travel Writer of the Year - Paula Thrasher
Travel Agent of the Year - Neil Henderson (Banana Travel, UK)
Tour Operator of the Year - Paradise Island Vacations
Employee of the Year - Dellarese Frazier
Supervisor of the Year - Stephen Moncur
Sales Executive of the Year - Andre Newbold
Chef of the Year - Jasmine Young
Manager of the Year - Lynn Johnson
Hotelier of the Year - Paul D. Thompson
Gospel Song of the Year - Hold On To Jesus - Da Fam
Secular Song of the Year - Mr. Gofa - Phil Stubbs
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
I, T. Khalieah Butler, am the grad in the photo. I am the first in
the family to go to college. I graduated with a B.S. in Industrial
Engineering from Florida A and M University, Tallahassee, Fl. The
lady in the photo with the RED hair is Millie Ledon, my grandmother.
She was given away at birth, lived in Sand Cut, and then to Miami.
I know her family comes from Cat Island (New Bight maybe) in the Bahamas,
but we do not know our family there. Her Mother was Lillian Ledon,
daughter of Albertha (?) and father I do not know. My grandmother
has always helped others her whole life and never had a family of her own.
She works in a homeless shelter today for people who have no home or have
no family. If it was one thing I could ever do to repay her for her
sacrifices, it would be to help her find the family she never knew.
My grandma Millie would tell us stories about how she grew up with no education
and worked in the fields. She also said that Sidney Poitier was a
relative she remembered growing up, but never knew how to find the rest
of the family. My grandmother says that they were less than poor.
She said that several members of the family migrated to Florida and other
places. I do not know where to begin. Can you help???
Khalieah
tyshawna.butler@fldoe.org
THIS
WEEK WITH THE PM
INTERNATIONAL CONTACT – Candidates for the post of Secretary
General of the Organisation of American States (OAS) are circulating through
the member countries of the group in advance of the selection process scheduled
for June of this year. In this connection, one of the candidates,
His Excellency Fransisco Flores, former president of El Salvador, visited
The Bahamas this past week. Mr. Flores paid a courtesy call on Prime
Minister Perry Christie at the Office of The Prime Minister on Cable Beach
and met with Mr. Christie, Minister of Foreign Affairs & The Public
Service, Fred Mitchell and Attorney General & Minister of Education
Alfred Sears for more than an hour. Mr. Flores has visited The Bahamas
previously, though before he was a declared candidate for the OAS leadership.
From left are Salvadorian Ambassador-at-large Ricardo Moran Ferracuti,
Minister Mitchell, Prime Minister Christie, former President Flores; Salvadorian
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Margarita Escobar and Minister Sears.
There are two other candidates vying for the top OAS post, one from Chile
and another from Mexico.
PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE - Prime Minister Christie this past
week took delivery of the formal plan for the redevelopment of Bay Street.
Mr. Christie is pictured with officials and executives of the world reknowned
planning consultants EDAW. The presentation ceremony was immediately
followed by a private planning session for the island of Eleuthera. 
One
of the hallmarks of Mr. Christie's government is his insistence that the
development of the entire Bahamas be carefully planned to avoid the pitfalls
of haphazard decisions. From left are George Mackey, Chairman of
the Antiquities Corporation, Dr. Baltron Bethel, Prime Minister Christie,
Barbara Faga, Chairman of EDAW, Todd J. Hill, EDAW Vice President and Ellen
M. Heath, EDAW Vice President.
A WEDDING IN PARADISE - Last week say the 25th wedding anniversary & renewal of wedding vows of Lillie and Dapo Popoola, M.D. The couple are friends of Prime Minister Christie and travelled from their home in Africa to stage the ceremony at Paradise Island.
NO MR. WELLS
Tennyson Wells MP (Independent) Bamboo Town was incensed or so it
appears. He was so incensed about the matter of the payout by the Government
to the Royal Oasis workers (click
here for last week’s story), that following a communication to Parliament
on the matter by Minister of Works Bradley Roberts, who chairs the Cabinet
sub committee on the Royal Oasis crisis, he rose to his feet and proceeded
to blast the Government. He said the move was unprecedented for the
Government to use the consolidated fund to pay off private debts.
He said that he believed it was illegal, and demanded that the Attorney
General write a legal opinion on the matter to ensure that the matter was
in fact legal.
The front bench was silent in the face of this unprecedented and blindsiding assault from someone who is generally believed to be an ally of the Government. If the remark had come from a Free National Movement MP, there is no doubt what the response would have been. Nonsense! The fact that the issue is before the House and has the support of the Government, it means quite clearly that the Attorney General who is part of the Government saw no illegality in the matter. It was the stuff of headlines, tailor made by The Tribune, and they dutifully trotted out the appropriate headline the next morning. Whether it is the right thing to do is quite a different matter from whether it is illegal.
Notice that all FNM MPs stood silent. They know that they cannot open their mouths to object to something that will help their constituents and their base in Freeport.
What Bradley Roberts did point out was that the communication period in the House was not the appropriate time to engage in a debate on the matter. Mr. Wells himself often relies on the rules. The rules are the great comforter of the minority so it was unusual and unnecessary for Mr. Wells to make the outburst that he did. While, we share his anxiety, we do not agree that it is illegal.
It appears from other reports, notably the former Tribune columnist Nicki Kelly who now writes for the down-market Punch that there are others who are unhappy and who take the Government to task over the matter.
These two persons Mr. Wells and Ms. Kelly are not opinions to which the Government should be indifferent. The Government, however, is between a rock and a hard place. It wanted to help the workers, stem the tide of political attacks that the Government was doing nothing in the extraordinary circumstances of what happened to help the employees, and without making a permanent charge on the revenue. In the end, it may have caused everyone to be unhappy. While Pat Bain, the leader of the Hotel Union, thanked the Government, he himself is under pressure from the employees. They think the Union has not done enough, and some may argue that his embrace may be a situation of misery loving company. There was no spontaneous applause from the employees for the Government's gesture. Many are grumbling that it took too long to do anything.
The plan seems to us, not quite as open ended and unfettered as Mr. Wells would have us believe. It is hemmed in with all kinds of conditions, the irony of which is why it may prove to be more trouble than it is worth. First, there has to be an agreed position on where and what you are owed as an employee, the employee has to agree to assign his benefits to the Government. The payouts will be made over a period of months.
Some had argued for the use of another public policy instrument. This would have satisfied Mr. Wells and the other fiscal conservatives who would argue that you use public works jobs to get money into the hands of those who are most in need, and you leave it to the individual to pursue their own contractual rights as former employees.
What many are quite perplexed about is why isn’t the Government being more aggressive in collecting the taxes, seeking to jail the bandits who are injuring the Bahamian workers, and seizing property to get the money to pay off this massive obligation. The Prime Minister has said that there must be a more cautious approach. For the moment, the public seems to trust his instincts.
However, while we disagree with Mr. Wells on the question of the illegality, and we agree that the Government had to do something, it is important also for the Government to be more aggressive to get the culprits who want to take the money and run. There is no way that the Royal Oasis and its owners should get away with this.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 19th February 2005 at midnight: 73,737.
Number of hits for the month of February up to Saturday 19th February 2005 at midnight: 258,038.
Number of hits for the year 2005 up to Saturday 19th February 2005 midnight: 575,250.
PM TO JAMAICA
In fulfilment of his promise to visit with the students
in Jamaica who were airlifted to The Bahamas before the hurricane last
year, Prime Minister Perry Christie will travel to Kingston to mark the
start of the Bahamas Week celebrations on the Mona Campus of the University
of the West Indies. The visit will take place today and he returns to the
country on Monday 28th February.
THE BILLION
DOLLAR DEAL
The press is full of speculation about whether or
not the deal to replace the existing hotel plant at Cable Beach is going
to come off. The Bahamar group was kicked out of Phil Ruffin's hotel
Crystal Palace the week before last, and Phil Ruffin was busy doing interviews
on radio saying that the deal was off because the group had refused to
put up their money to take the hotel off the market. The Prime Minister
continues to work on the deal. What it calls for is a comprehensive
revamp of the entire Cable Beach strip in New Providence. The hotel
rooms will be refurbished; some will be replaced. The road will likely
be re-routed, and the properties expanded substantially. The casino
would be upgraded. The total package is said to be over one billion
dollars. You can imagine the knock on effects that this will have
for jobs in the country. So everyone is kind of watching and waiting
to see what exactly is going to happen. The plan sounds too fantastic
to be true. No one is quite sure why the Bahamar group will not simply
put down their money like any other buyer would do. It appears they do
not want to risk losing their deposit. So the deal is still dangling
in the wind, but maybe by next week this time, we will know the fate of
Cable Beach.
THE
DEFENCE FORCE AT 25 YEARS OLD
Commodore Davy Rolle has announced that the Royal
Bahamas Defence Force will be celebrating this year its 25th anniversary.
The Force was commissioned in the midst of controversy on 31st March 1980.
At the time, the resistance to the Force was that the late Sir Lynden Pindling,
then Prime Minister was seeking to start a military force to keep him in
power. It turned out to be a lot of nonsense. The Force pretty
soon went about its job of catching poachers, stopping illegal drugs and
illegal immigration. Two months after its inauguration on 10th May
1980, the Force suffered four casualties with the sinking of the HMBS Flamingo
by a Cuban MIG that shot it out of the water. Four marines died that
day. The Cubans later paid compensation and apologized for the event.
The Force has had its share of controversies. Amos Rolle, the Commander
of the Flamingo was later retired from the Force following a Commission
of Inquiry into a drug operation at Norman's Cay. Carlos Lehder,
the jailed Colombian drug lord, was arrested in the raid at Norman’s Cay
but later released after being taken into custody. It was claimed that
money passed hands to effect that release. Then there was in 1992
the Lorequin incident that led to another Commission of Inquiry last year.
Again the issue was drugs on board a ship, that didn’t seem to make it
to shore. The Government is now reviewing the Force. The Commodore
was blamed by the Commission of Inquiry as well as his predecessor for
the failure to deal properly with the controversy surrounding the missing
drugs on the Lorequin. The question many then ask is: who will lead the
Force which Commodore Rolle described in his press conference on Friday
27th February as: “the best little navy in the Caribbean”. The Government
is reviewing its options for the Force, now including its command structure.
So while it celebrates the first 25 years, change would seem to be upon
us at the start of the next 25 years.
PM SPEAKS
OUT ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
It is panic time in The
Bahamas again when it comes to illegal immigration. The Haitians
are now responsible for every ill in the country. The pressure has
caused the Government to move to increase the round ups and repatriation
of immigrants throughout the country. In the straw market, immigrants
are being told that they have to leave. The complaints about Haitian
migrants working in the market have reached a crescendo. The Minister
of Immigration appears to have conceded on a Love 97 show recently that
there could come a point when the Haitian migrants and their children outnumber
those who are Bahamian by birth and ancestry. This sent waves of
shock in the community. It may happen anyway. But as Nicolette Bethel,
the Director of Culture points out: who here isn’t an immigrant anyway?
Prime Minister Christie speaking in his constituency on Wednesday February
23rd told the country that the Haitian community in The Bahamas and their
descendants along with the entire citizenry, have a stake in making sure
our borders are protected. We simply urge caution to all. This
is not a time to panic on these issues. This is a call to rationality.
The fact is the Haitians are here because the work is here and they fill
a niche in the labour market. They must be here legally,
and those who are illegal must go but let us try not to set upon Haitians
and make them responsible for all that is wrong within ourselves.
FOREIGN
MINISTER’S TRAVELS
Fred Mitchell, Minister of Foreign Affairs, is in
Jamaica today to join the Prime Minister in meeting with students at the
start of the Bahamas Week celebrations. He will return to The Bahamas
on Monday 28th February. He is joining the Prime Minister in Kingston for
the occasion. Last week, Mr. Mitchell hosted the students of the
Mt. Hope Medical School and the Roman Catholic Seminary in Trinidad and
Tobago at a reception in Port of Spain. The president of The Bahamas Students
Association in Trinidad is Zhivargo Rolle. This week Alfred Sears,
Minister of Education met with students in Trinidad to discuss the question
of the fees for medical students there. He was in Trinidad for the
installation of the new Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies.
Later in the week, the Foreign Minister joins John Rood, Ambassador to
The Bahamas for the United States, in Washington D.C. for a meeting with
the Florida Congressional Delegation. Ambassador Sidney Poitier will
be joining them for those meetings.
THE BOZENE
TOWN SAGA
As Cabinet Ministers arrived at their weekly meeting on
Tuesday 22nd February, they were greeted by the sounds and demands of the
people of Bozene Town, who were afraid that they would lose their homes.
You will recall that Landco, a Bahamian company, obtained from the Supreme
Court a certificate of title, that gave clear title to land on which hundreds
of home owners had been living. Some of them obtained mortgages from banks.
All had invested their life savings in their properties. The Quieting
of Titles Act by which this matter proceeded is considered by many to be
a pernicious piece of legislation that has been used by various and sundry,
familiar land sharks to steal the land of innocent persons who are in uninterrupted
possession of land. The legislation was meant to be able to provide a documentary
title insinuations where someone had been in long possession of land but
had no or partial documentary title. It has been used to perpetrate
many frauds on legitimate land owners. Suddenly, and without notice,
many people find themselves dispossessed of their lands. While there
is an advertising requirement to give those in actual possession notice
of another claim, the descriptions of the land can often be so obscure
that you don’t quite know it means the piece of property that you are living
on. Several areas in New Providence face this issue: Nassau Village
is one; the Harrold area is the other. The demonstrators sang, “We
shall Overcome”, “We Shall Not Be Moved”, the civil rights era songs from
the United States. The Prime Minister met briefly with them. The
Government was concerned that the matter had gotten out of hand, and MP
for the area Leslie Miller spent his whole day meeting with the land owners.
By weeks end, it was announced that the Attorney General's office has obtained
another 30 day extension so that the Government could see what it can do
to intervene. The problem is that no one wants to have any one profit
by using the statute as an instrument of a fraud. The only way to
set aside a certificate of title is on the grounds of fraud. There
is one interesting phenomenon that seems to come out of all of this, is
the development that the Government must do something. Most people, if
they have right, should have moved the court themselves to protect themselves.
It appears though that here is phenomenon in The Bahamas that you simply
complain that there has been an injustice even though you have slept on
your rights, and the Government is bound to come and save you. At the rate
we are going, everyone in the country will be on the Government’s dole.
It appears that the Government will have to acquire the land in the public
interest and then convey the title back to those in actual possession.
TWO PLP
STALWARTS DIE
We want to express our heartfelt condolences to
the families of two long time supporters who passed away during the past
week. They were both buried on Saturday 26th February. First there
is the well known businessman and stalwart councillor Tommy Thompson.
Mr. Thompson was 65 years old at the time of his death. He had reached
the heights in the tourism industry as a hotel manager. He ran into
the toughest of times in his field during the time that the Free National
Movement was in office. He tried his hand at running a Shell Service
Station. He was a strong Rotarian. His friend Winston T. Marshall,
a fellow labourer in the vineyard of St. Matthew’s Anglican Church, wrote
in the Nassau Guardian Thursday 24th said: “Those of us who really knew
him would know of his committed support of the Progressive Liberal Party
and how proud he was in having been named a stalwart councillor and his
disappointment of the party’s wilderness years and the joy of returning
to power.” May he rest in peace. Lydia Brown, 55, was a Mason’s Addition
PLP. She was a firm and committed supporter. No one ever doubted
that she was PLP. She had a kind face and a gentle disposition.
She will be sadly missed. The Prime Minister and Leader of the PLP Perry
Christie attended both the funeral services. Mr. Thompson’s service
was held at St. Matthew’s and Ms. Brown’s at St. Francis Xavier, the Roman
Catholic Cathedral.
THE WRECK
COMMISSION REPORTS
Almost eighteen months ago on 2nd August 2003, the
quiet of the Bahamian night at sea somewhere off Eleuthera was disturbed
by the crashing sound of two ships passing in the night and colliding.
The end result was four people were dead. The country was in mild panic
and the whole Government was mobilized to get the people back to shore
from what was supposed to have been a happy holiday weekend. A Wreck
Commission was convened by law by Minister of Transport Glenys Hanna Martin,
headed by Justice Joseph Strachan, retired RBDF Commodore Leon Smith and
Sir Durward Knowles. Their report is now in and the Minister of Transport
presented it to the House of Assembly on Wednesday 23rd February. She said:
“The collision resulted from the failure of the captains of each collision
ship to maintain a navigational watch at all material times. Both
captains failed to discharge their duties and contributed to the collision
and the failing of the deck hands caused it.” She said that the system
was also to blame: “ The system failed in that it permitted an unsafe number
of passengers to board the MV Sea Hauler and allowed the MV United Star
to depart with passengers without any approval of any kind. The Port
Department failed to adequately consider all factors affecting a realistic
determination of the numbers of passengers for whom approval should have
been given and failed to obtain vital information from passengers and other
persons before boarding them, and failed to carry out stipulations continued
in the approval letter by the Port Official and no fire and emergency drills
were conducted by Port officials.” This therefore condemns the boat
captains and the system of transport and its regulation. Change again
must come.
LET’S
LEGALIZE GAMBLING
Brent Symonette said something in the House of Assembly
on Wednesday 22nd February with which we agree. Gambling should be
legal in The Bahamas for all Bahamians. The only issue for us is
what should the tax regime be. The Member of Parliament for Montague
for the FNM was speaking on a bill on Casino Taxation. The chair
of the Gaming Board Kenyatta Gibson, the Minister for Gaming Obie Wilchcombe
all seemed to be in favour of a more liberalized view on gambling. We think
that the present situation where Bahamians cannot gamble is silly, hypocritical,
and simply something from the dark ages. The reason Bahamians cannot
gamble today is because the UBP government of the day was too weak to stand
up to the religious community over the matter when gambling first came
to The Bahamas in a big way in the 1960s. Now it’s time to consign
the policy to history. Every day thousands of Bahamians gamble freely
in the so called web cafés all around town. It just seems
ludicrous, that while gambling is illegal, everyone is simply doing it
and there is no enforcement of the law.
SUPERVALUE
EMPLOYEES REJECT THE UNION
The Nassau
Guardian may have had its revenge against the trade unions at last.
Well, the Nassau Guardian is unionized but it now appears that the Supervalue
Food store which has been fighting an action with the Bahamas Commercial
Stores and Warehouse Workers Union headed by Elgin Douglas. Mr. Douglas
succeeded in unionizing City Markets, the competitor of Supervalue.
No such luck with Rupert Roberts and Supervalue. Mr. Roberts who had signed
to recognize the union, later balked. He accused the Union of bullying
tactics. He and his daughter then set about seeking a poll and courting
the workers. The Nassau Guardian writes that of the 294 persons who
voted in the poll, only 50 of those voted for the Union. They were
shown with the boss in the press on Friday 25th February, grinning from
ear to ear at the success of turning back the union. It seemed a
most curious decision, and one must ask the question: “ what were they
thinking?” The comments from the employees suggested that they thought
that Mr. Roberts was a great boss, and that he was always looking out for
their welfare. They said that he continued to hire people even after
the hurricanes when other companies were laying off people. Mr. Roberts
who was also grinning from ear to ear said that he developed his company
without the Union. “They knew the Union could not help them, “” he
said. Things get curiouser and curiouser. Mr. Douglas said that he
was going to protest the poll. He claimed that there were several
technical irregularities which made the poll a flawed one. Even so,
the result 294 to 50 shows that there was serious disconnect between the
Union and the workers at Supervalue. The poll was taken and supervised
by the Ministry of Labour on Thursday 24th February. This would also seem
to be a major blow for the Bahamas Hotel Catering Allied Workers Union,
who support Mr. Douglas’s Union. It is a setback for the Union movement
in the country.
PLP SEMINAR
Chairman of the PLP Raynard Rigby led the PLP Branch
executives in a seminar on Saturday 26th February at the Sir Lynden Pindling
centre, formerly Gambier House in Nassau. The day long seminar saw Ministers
Glenys Hanna Martin, Fred Mitchell and Obie Wilchcombe speak to the priorities
in their Ministries. The Prime Minister was the wrap up speaker.
CARIBBEAN
SINGLE MARKET AND ECONOMY
The Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) may be coming
to a shop near you this year. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred
Mitchell speaking at a civil society meeting at the Ministry said that
the Government has decided to write a white paper on CSME to make known
its plans for joining Caricom. It will likely mean no free movement
of people, no monetary union, a transition to a common external tariff
and no to the Caribbean Court of Justice. The Minister said that
the country needs to become fully a member of Caricom. You
may click here for the Minister's full statement.
THE EMPEROR
BUSH
It really does seem to be a bit of pique to land next to another man’s
border and certainly within another man’s sphere of influence and tell
that man who comes from a country with thousands of years of history behind
it that he had better keep to the democratic path. That is what the President
of the United States George Bush said when he went to Slovakia to meet
with Vladimir Putin, the Russian President. The President politely
responded by saying mind your own business. But the fact that it could
be said, and that no one could advise the US. President of the U.S. that
it simply was not the proper thing to do is what boggles the mind.
Anyway, these are the times. Judge what he would tell a country like
The Bahamas.
MRS.
BERNADETTE CHRISTIE RECEIVES TOP ROTARY AWARD
Mrs. Bernadette Christie, wife of the Prime Minister,
was honoured by the Rotary Clubs of Grand Bahama last week
Saturday. Mrs. Christie received a Paul Harris Fellowship, the highest
award of the worldwide organisation. Mrs. Christie, centre, is shown
accepting the PHF Award. l to r, Dr. Bethel, Honorary PHF; and 2005
Paul Harris Fellows, Edwin 'Apple' Elliott, Mrs. Bernadette Christie, and
Rev., Bishop Godfrey Williams. right is Rotary District Governor
Roland Benson.
1) Dr. Doswell Coakley
& Mrs. Coakley and the PM
2) Mrs. Christie accepting recognition
as a Paul Harris Fellow from Rotary District 6990
Governor, Roland Benson and Dr. Marcus Bethel,
Honorary Paul Harris Fellow. PHF highest Rotary Award.
3) Mrs. Christie
Bahamas Information Services photos
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Haitian/African issue
As a Bahamian living abroad and committed to the advancement of
African pride among Blacks of African heritage no matter where they are
from, the reports out of my home have me quite disturbed. My people are
so caught up in geographic divisions that they ignore our historical unity.
Haitians and Bahamian Blacks are the fruit of the evil slave trade. Whether
conditioned by British or French influence our ancestors sprang from our
separate soils as a result of a unified scheme to enslave and degrade men
and women because of the color of their skin. That color was Black and
it didn't matter which part of the Black continent of Africa you were from.
Our Blackness was the one qualification that made us all equals
in the race for exploitation and oppression. Now to blacks raised under
the yoke of the unholy trinity of capitalism, democracy and religion, artificial
nationalist considerations prevents us from seeing that we are equally
despised as a result of the weakness inherent in division.
So our past tribal and religious differences prevented us from effectively
opposing the evil threat to our existence posed by the white slave traders.
Now our nationalist divisions keep us from unifying to uplift our Black
race from the bottom of the human chain because we believe we are doing
the right thing. In the words of T. S. Elliott " The last temptation is
the greatest treason, to do the right thing for the wrong reason."
(Name withheld)
Amen brother! – Editor
British Buses
While I am a resident here in The Bahamas and
therefore get all the news from other sources, I always log on to your
site each Sunday and have been generally very pleased with your commentaries
on weekly news items.
I would like to comment on the terrible incident
that occurred to three passengers on a jitney last weekend. I think it
is absolutely shameful that a bus driver, who has the responsibility of
his passengers who are in his care while they are travelling on his bus,
should be a party to the kind of attack and robbery that took place. I
hope, like the rest of the nation, that justice is served. It is all well
and good to tell people only to travel on buses on which they feel comfortable....
they may not have the option of choosing another bus or may not feel unsafe
when they board the bus. I am sure if those three people had any idea of
what was about to happen, they would not have boarded that particular bus.
Having said all that, I do feel that undue emphasis
has been placed on the fact that one of the passengers was British....
a resident of The Bahamas. What has that got to do with it? It does not
appear that there was any racial preference in perpetrating this crime.
I too am British. I see in your article that the lady in question
said there is no violence on English buses. If her statement has been correctly
quoted then all I can say is "What nonsense!" If she said she had not personally
experienced any violence on an English bus, then fair enough, she may well
not have done. But there are certainly incidents of violence on British
buses and trains.
The inclusion of an advisory to British visitors
may be advisable, as anyone travelling anywhere in the world should be
cautious. Nowhere is particularly safe these days but I do think that tourists
coming to the Bahamas feel they are coming to Paradise, where nothing bad
happens and that is a misconception. The Bahamas has its problems like
anywhere else, no more, no less.
I could relate some terrible incidents that have
occurred in London over the past few years, yet I feel quite safe when
I am visiting. The reality is that bad stuff happens and it can happen
anywhere and to anyone.
Keep up your good work!
Alison Hamilton
www.alisonfhamilton.com
We think you are right. – Editor
More information on Ms. Butler
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I feel
this would be a wonderful start. Since the letter I have spoken with
my grandmother and she has shared some new information with me. Her
big mama's name was Albertha Williams. Other family members that
she remembers are Emma Newbold (deceased), Drucilla Poitier and Joe Saunders
(Bimini). My grandmother was born in 1934. She says that she
never knew her father, but that she knows he was a white man. This
man forced her mother, Lillian. My grandma was a product of that.
Albertha (big mama) made Lillian give up the child. I thought it
necessary to send as much information as possible because so many years
have passed us by (1920's and 30's). This effort is for my family
and most important for my grandma. If you should get any leads please
forward them. Bless!
Khalieah
Please help anyone. – Editor
THIS
WEEK WITH THE PM
HURRICANE CHEQUES STILL COMING
<
Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne, which struck The Bahamas last autumn may
be fading into memory, but thankfully not in the memory of various friends
of the country who continue to donate to the national hurricane relief
fund. Minister of Housing Shane Gibson joined Prime Minister Perry
Christie this past week to accept a cheque from Dr. James Leininger to
go toward this worthy cause.
>
The Church Of God In The Bahamas, Incorporated spent the week in its annual
general assembly under the leadership of the general superintendent Bishop
Dr. Robert A. McPhee. Among the guests of honour at the assembly
was Prime Minister Christie who addressed the faithful.
CONGRESS OF EVANGELICALS - During the week, Mr. Christie also
attended the official opening session of CONECAR 2005. It was the
7th Congress of Evangelicals in the Caribbean.
Regional interface continued this week, with the Prime Minister receiving
a courtesy call from the Foreign Minister of Mexico, Luis Ernesto Derbez.
The Prime Minister and Mexican Foreign Minister are pictured at the Office
of The Prime Minister.
A VISIT TO S.C. MCPHERSON SCHOOL – A treat this past week for
the faculty and students of S.C. McPherson School who hosted Prime Minister
Christie at their awards night. Mr. Christie greeted by School Principal
Mrs. A. Storr; then presented gifts to students in recognition of
both academic and athletic distinction. The Prime Minister is shown
with the school’s Most Outstanding Academic Student Glathonya Sands.
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