Compiled, edited and constructed by Russell Dames Updated every Sunday at 2 p.m.
Volume 2 © BahamasUncensored.Com
 |
| PHOTO OF THE WEEK - Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell was off to Africa last Sunday evening following an appearance at his constituency’s Ms. Fox Hill Emancipation Day contest (see photos below). The Minister travelled to Pretoria, the Republic of South Africa where he represented Prime Minister Perry Christie and The Bahamas Government at the inauguration of the second term of President Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday 27th April. It was an impressive ceremony, capped off with the military might of South Africa on full but still modest display. But the highlight must have been the fly past of two South African Airways Boeing 747s and one of the top-of-the-line Airbus 340s, low over the crowd and then in a high salute over the President’s stand. That evening, following a lunch prepared for thousands, the Minister joined the President and Mrs. Mbeki at the State Theatre for a performance by the artists of South Africa, including Letta Mbulu and Hugh Masekela. Then it was off to solid work with Foreign Minister Nkosazana Zuma to sign off on a bilateral agreement between the two countries on trade, tourism and cultural matters. That photograph of the signing in Pretoria’s Union Buildings on Friday 30th April is our photo of the week. |
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
THE PLP’S SECOND ANNIVERSARY
We want to congratulate the Progressive Liberal Party on the second
anniversary of its election to office on 2nd May 2002. We think that
all of the reasons why the people of The Bahamas chose the PLP in 2002
still
apply, and we do not find at all disturbing or material the reports that
Hubert Ingraham, the former Prime Minister is wanting to come back to lead
the FNM. We think that the PLP’s Chairman Raynard Rigby dealt with
it admirably in his press conference on Wednesday 28th April by simply
saying that the PLP did not give a hoot about whether Hubert Ingraham was
coming back or not. That is the FNM’s business, he said. The
PLP knows who its leader is and is satisfied with its leader.
There is an advertising blitz that is on the airwaves at the moment throughout The Bahamas. There is a campaign in the newspapers to beef up the public relations of the PLP. Many people complain that the party is doing good work but you can’t actually hear about it because the media is hostile to the PLP. We take a different tack. Our view is that what is being done hasn’t yet made an impact because this is the mid term, and we are suffering from mid term blues. No amount of public relations can solve that, just the effluxion of time. Further, with the job problem being an issue, it is only when the job’s issue is solved and the money starts to get to the young men will you hear the praise. We expect that to happen as soon as the Kerzners begin to fulfil their promise to expend another 750 million dollars on expanding their product at Paradise Island.
The Prime Minister must be praised for eliminating the oppressive fear of so many people in this country that we had an uncouth bumpkin for a Prime Minister. With the former one anything that came to his mouth he said, and anything he wanted to do, or any person he wanted to do in, off he launched. The sins caught up with him and he lost office on 2nd Many 2002.
While the PLP basks in its successes this year, and it should do so in a modest and low key manner, it must also try to remember to stick to the basics. That means that Members of Parliament must get back into their constituencies if they are not there or must remain engaged with their constituents. The PLP when it ran for office in 2002 promised that it would stay in touch with its constituents. The party was to be people focused. While the FNM concentrated on the building of buildings and how much money the Treasury was raking in and they were busy spending, the PLP said that people must come first. That is best evidenced in our view by the continuation of an effort to be connected to constituents.
The atmosphere in the country has changed. There is more consultation with various groups before decisions are made. You also get the impression that your voice and opinion now count as a citizen in the society. As the PLP begins to face the electorate for the next term, it must get the infrastructure in place certainly. It must get the jobs in the right numbers certainly. But just as certainly it must give people hope that their future is brighter and that their country is stronger. We think that this has much more to do with self esteem and confidence building than with just a job or a government contract. Those latter things are mighty important. Don’t get us wrong. The PLP is being accused in some quarters of neglecting to understand the basic needs in that area, but no one can accuse the PLP of failing to be sensitive to people’s needs.
Congratulations, PLP, continue to stick to fundamentals, and all will be well.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 1st May 2004: 48,905.
Number of hits for the month of April up to Friday 30th April 2004: 219,197.
Number of hits for the month of May up to Saturday 1st May 2004: 2,465.
Number of hits for the year 2004 up to Saturday 1st May 2004: 893,804.
BAHAMIAN
DIES IN IRAQ
The Nassau Guardian has reported in its Saturday 1st May edition that Bahamian
Norman Darling has been killed in Iraq. According to the Guardian
story by Raymond Kongwa, Mr. Darling, 30, was a member of the United
States Marine Corps serving in Iraq and presumably died during a suicide
bombing attack outside the Iraqi city of Fallujah. The story says
that Mr. Darling's parents Sidney and Madeline Darling were informed of
the death of their son by a team of officials from the US Embassy in Nassau
and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Darling was quoted as saying
that his son fulfilled a childhood dream by serving in the US Marines:
"This was something he really wanted... and he was happy. He loved
it, he was so happy, man, and I was happy for him. We saw his future
looking bright." Norman Darling is survived by his wife Kimberly
and daughter Kamron, his parents and two sisters. He was among a
number of Bahamians serving with the US armed forces in Iraq.
WHY
HAVE TIES WITH SOUTH AFRICA?
South Africa is almost certainly Africa’s richest and most powerful state,
south of the Sahara. Even if you count Egypt in for the military
might, as more powerful, South Africa is more industrialized and more successful.
Nigeria, while it has great oil wealth and a larger population, is generally
thought to be corrupt and disorganized. Not so South Africa.
The leader of the African world then is South Africa. That is the
view that has been espoused by Prime Minister Perry Christie. There
is great potential then in the relationship between The Bahamas and South
Africa. It behooves Bahamians now to work to see how in practical
ways the relationship can develop.
We cannot go to South Africa with missionary zeal,
but we can go to South Africa asking how we can help, and certainly asking
for their help. They are the only Black Country that is a part of
the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) the organization
that is trying to cripple The Bahamas’ financial system. We congratulate
the Government on the signing of the important bilateral agreement between
the two countries, and we look forward to great things coming out of the
relationship.
THE
DEFENCE FORCE AND CORRUPTION
One often asks the value of these Commissions of Inquiry where it appears
that it provides the stage for the most outlandish claims to be made by
people who are often more interested in grabbing headlines than in getting
at the relevant truth, and with a view to assisting the situation.
Such is the view that one must come to when you read the words of Staff
Intelligence Officer Edison Rolle, who testified week before last before
the Commission of Inquiry looking into the incident of drug corruption
on the Lorequin in 1992.
Mr. Rolle, without laying the foundation for his
outlandish statements said that the Royal Bahamas Defence Force should
be reviewed for corruption as a whole and not just a specific incident.
That is one hell of a statement to make as a serving officer and an intelligence
officer and it is also a hell of an indictment against his commander Davey
Rolle. A statement such as that left without a fuller explanation
and without some refutation by the Commodore of the Defence Force leaves
much to be answered.
The Minister responsible for the Defence Force the
Deputy Prime Minister Cynthia ‘Mother’ Pratt told the Bahama Journal on
Wednesday 28th April “our job is to clean up the Defence force to make
it the… respectable organization that it once was.” That to us means
that the existing leadership of the Force will have to go. Bahama
Journal photo of RBDF officer Edison Rolle at the Lorequin Commission by
Omar Barr.
A
NEW CHRISTIAN COUNCIL PRESIDENT
Rev. Dr. William Thompson is the head of the Bahamas Baptist Missionary
and Education Convention. That makes him the lead Baptist in the
land. It was somewhat unusual then for the head of one of the sub
groups of the Baptist Church to lead The Bahamas Christian Council.
Bishop Sam Greene was an outspoken head but he was the Head of one of the
sub groups the Zion Baptist Union. He had voice in all of the public
controversies during his years as Head of The Bahamas Christian Council.
Last year, he shocked the country by starting the debate on gay marriages
in The Bahamas. He said that if the Government tried to pass an act
to legalize same sex marriages, he would become a modern day Guy Fawkes.
That was the plotter in 17th century England who was executed for trying
to blow up Parliament while the king was visiting. Now Bishop Greene’s
term is finished. He cannot succeed himself.
Dr. William Thompson is now the head. Perhaps
this is a sign for reform in the Christian Council that is criticized regularly
by the more established denominations, viz. the Catholics, Anglicans and
Methodists that the constitution is overly democratic in that each small
Baptist church has a vote, a vote equal to the entire Roman Catholic Church.
The Roman Catholic Church barely participates. The Anglicans participate
on selected issues. The Council’s work is left to the smaller individual
church leaders.
Dr. Thompson told The Bahama Journal on Thursday
29th April about his work: “I think politicians and religious leaders should
be very involved because they are both segments of the community that are
working to improve society for human kind. We are both in the business
of service to our followers, one politically and one spiritually, but the
two together achieve the best results for the people we serve.” We
say it a different way. Politicians in this country can learn from
the church that is in the business of selling the future. It is intangible
but people buy into it and as a result shower their religious leaders with
huge buildings and material wealth in the hope and expectation that they
will be piling up plaudits in heaven. Bahama Journal photo of
Rev. Dr. William Thompson.
RIGBY
SPEAKS OUT ABOUT THE FNM
The PLP’s Chairman Raynard Rigby spoke at a press conference on Wednesday
29th April about the upcoming celebrations to mark the second anniversary
of the PLP’s ascension to power. He was asked about reports that
Hubert Ingraham was coming back to office. This was a fact that Zhivargo
Laing, former Minister for the FNM and Mr. Ingraham’s promoter, seemed
quite enthused about in his column of last week. He wrote that when
Mr. Ingraham talks people listen, picking up from the quote we gave last
week that Mr. Ingraham is considering making a comeback. Ho! Hum!
Mr. Rigby said it best for us: “The FNM has already demonstrated a degree
of nervousness from the former PM’s comments, and so it’s an issue for
them, not for us. We don’t care one way or the other. We have
a leader. We know who our leader is. He is Perry Gladstone
Christie. We are satisfied with his performance. The party
is solidly behind the leader.” Omar Barr's Bahama Journal photo
of PLP Chairman Raynard Rigby addressing the press.
GIOVANNI
STUART
The Sunflower concert was held Saturday 1st May at the Dundas Centre
for the Performing Arts. During the concert, artist Giovanni Stuart,
pictured, who is a new father, shared verses from his poem entitled, ‘Fetal’
- his ode to new life. Mr. Stuart has been affiliated with the Sunflower
Concert since its inception 5 years ago. Mr. Stuart is the award
winning executive producer of Bahama Brilliance; the creative director
of Literary Artistry; the author of an album of verse entitled, ‘PSALM
BiRD’. Photo by Peter Ramsay.
BLACK
TUESDAY PASSES QUIETLY
The 39th anniversary of the throwing of the Speaker’s
Mace out of the window of the House of Assembly on 27th April 1965 by the
founding Prime Minister of the country Sir Lynden O. Pindling passed quietly
this past Tuesday. On that same day last week, the South Africans
were celebrating their first ten years as a democracy and inaugurating
their new President.
In a real way in 1965 Black Tuesday was an expression
of Bahamian democracy at work. The Progressive Liberal Party mounted
a demonstration against the plans of the then governing United Bahamian
Party to establish constituency boundaries for the elections to be held
in 1967. The PLP argued that the boundaries were unfairly drawn.
To demonstrate their displeasure, they brought hundreds to Bay Street.
With the curious onlookers, thousands came to the street. Sir Lynden
grabbed the Mace of the Speaker and said that the Speaker’s mace is the
symbol of the authority of the people and the people are outside.
With that he tossed it out of a window that had been opened by Sir Milo
Butler, the first Bahamian Governor General who had complained in a staged
move that the House of Assembly was a tad warm.
The PLP led the party out of the House and kept
out for nine months. There was a mass rally at Southern Recreation
ground after the riot act was read on Bay Street calling for people to
disperse. Arthur Foulkes, then the Editor the Bahamian Times, the
PLP's propaganda paper named it Black Tuesday, after the day the market
crashed on Wall Street in the United States in 1929.
No one publicly mentioned Black Tuesday during the
week in Nassau, but in the schools, some teachers assigned the homework
question, what was ‘Black Tuesday’? Next year will make 40 years
since the event that saw the PLP come into power in 1967.
DEVARD
DARLING GETS A CONTRACT
The Minister of Sports Neville Wisdom was positively over the moon last
Wednesday when it was learned that Devard Darling, the survivor of a pair
of the sons of Dennis Darling, late of the Treasury, had been chosen as
the 82nd draft pick in the United States National Football League (NFL)
draft. It was thought that he would have been a bit higher but some
say lingering doubts about his health and long term prospects given the
way is brother died and his having sickle cell trait put him lower down
on the list. In any event he is now drafted by the Baltimore Ravens.
Devard Darling is clearly excited and so is the
Minister and we think the country. He made the decision earlier to
skip his last year in University. We hope he gets proper advice because
many a young man gets fooled by the quick wealth, then he gets injured,
his work life is over in football, he has no education to lean back on,
and the contract that he negotiated does not protect him from the harm
that came to him. So while the country is over the moon and planning a
Devard Darling Day, and an appearance before the House of Assembly on Wednesday
5th May, we hope Mr. Darling in the midst of the excitement is able to
make some sensible choices. If not him, his mama could probably help
him save his money. Bahama Journal photo of Devard by Omar Barr.
TRAFFIC
ACCIDENT CLAIMS OTHER LIVES
The taxi drivers are claiming that they are going
to lose income because of the seat belt law that is now to be enforced
from 20th May. If that happens, this will be the only country in
the world in which it happens. Seat belts have been shown time and
time again to save lives. The life that may be saved may in fact
be the life of a taxi driver.
The complaints of the taxi drivers remind you of
the fishermen who are against banning the hunting of grouper during the
spawning season of the fish. They would rather reap all the fish
today and have no fish at all to reap tomorrow. It is shortsighted.
Minister of Transport Glenys Hanna Martin has delayed this matter long
enough. Let us enforce the law. Let the chips fall where they
may.
This week, the country was reminded of how sad the
traffic accident toll really is in this country. One Devaughn Coakley
travelling with his wife is dead. He was 43 and had five children.
The passenger in the back seat who was 18 is also dead. Mr. Coakley’s
wife was slightly injured and discharged. Two young people dead.
Now we have newspaper headlines on the front page, probably the only time
in his history that he made the front page of a newspaper. His mother
is in shock and mourning. His wife and children are left without a breadwinner,
and no matter what laments and calling on the name of the Lord the people
make, the fact is the man is dead by a means that was probably preventable.
The fact is there is too much speeding in New Providence,
too many cars and the seat belt law is just one small way to counteract
all of that. Superintendent Hulan Hanna of the Royal Bahamas Police
Force said that no one was wearing a seat belt in this accident.
MISS
FOX HILL EMANCIPATION DAY
This year is the 170th year since slavery was abolished
in the British Empire. By contrast, slavery ended in the United States
by proclamation in 1865, 31 years later. The people of the Fox Hill
constituency of the Minister of Foreign Affairs have been continuously
celebrating the event since that time. This year is a very special
celebration, and for the first time in years there was a beauty pageant
to lead off the celebrations. It was beauty as well as talent.
The community turned out in force with their representative
last Sunday to cheer the young women on. Jan Davis and her subcommittee
who worked under the direction of Chair of the Committee Charles Johnson
did an excellent job in putting the women through their paces and producing
an excellent show.
Special mention must go to Maltese Davis and her
dance training of the young women. The winner and new Miss Emancipation
Fox Hill is Dashanique Poitier (pictured). The runners up are: Yvrose
Valcin, first runner up; Leshanda Mcphee, second runner-up and Shekeitra
Lightbourne. Congratulations to all. Please click
here for a full photo spread of the pageant events by Peter Ramsay.
BATELCO
The Free National Movement issued a statement in
which it claimed that by opening up a cell phone store BaTelCo was unfairly
competing with the small entrepreneur. You may click
here for the remarks of Minister Bradley Roberts answering the FNM’s
charge that the Bahamas Telecommunications Company is unfairly competing
with small businessmen in the cellular phone business.
WATER
AND SEWERAGE
Abraham Butler, the former banking executive and
personnel manager of BaTelCo, is now the new Managing Director of the Water
and Sewerage Corporation. This is a surprise choice given that he
was the Chairman of the Corporation. That does not detract from his
competence, however. The Minister of Works Bradley Roberts made the
announcement last week.
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Why Waste Time on Rodney Moncur?
A letter writer to this column was quite scathing
of last week’s editorial on Rodney Moncur - Class Clown, Peripatetic Political
Jack-in-The Box. Arthur Philips argued:
“I can’t understand why you people waste time
on someone who clearly is not worthy of all the attention. He has
been a ventriloquist’s dummy all his life. Someone is always putting words
in his mouth. I doubt that Rodney Moncur knows which way is up, even
if you pointed it out to him. He needs to have head examined but
certainly does not need your column to waste time writing about his antics.”
Call for Official Commendations for Sgt. Meronard
Another correspondent wrote in praise of Royal Bahamas
Police Force Sergeant #106 Mitchelet Meronard. Sgt. Meronard is credited
with saving Mrs. Eugene Newry, wife of the Ambassador to Haiti from serious
injury during a robbery. Steine Campbell writes:
“It would be most fitting for Sgt. Meronard to
receive the highest award (similar to the purple heart) for his selfless
and courageous act in saving the life of Mdme. Newry. Can you please
make comments to this in your next editorial!!! Thank you!!
Our purpose is to serve, and serve well!!"
What actually happened in (the House on) Haiti?
One reader was apparently stunned and outraged over
the report of happenings in the House of Assembly when the Foreign Minister
rose to report on the robbery of Mrs. Newry. Dana Braynen writes:
“Did a sitting member of the House, and none
less than the Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs together with the official
opposition actually try to derail the Minister from reporting on his portfolio
and only relented when two Independents supported the measure and further,
only because they were made aware that the Minister was leaving the island
imminently? This must be the biggest story of the week that has not been
told.
"Imagine a shadow minister promoting the fact
that he had been duly informed by the Minister about a situation of national
importance and the fact that a press not known for its stringent adherence
to the precepts of the Treaty of Chapultepec had carried the story, as
indication that the matter had been sufficiently addressed for the electorate!
If this is indeed how events unfolded then incredible would be the appropriate
euphemism.”
THE
FOUNDATIONS BILL - A NEW PRODUCT
The House of Assembly has now passed into law a
Foundations Bill. This is a concept akin to a trust that comes from civil
law jurisdictions like France. The Bahamas and the United Kingdom
and the United States are common law jurisdictions. The trust evolved
in the common law jurisdictions. It is a new product that will allow
The Bahamas Financial Services Sector to further develop.
You may click
here for the remarks of Minister Allyson Maynard Gibson on the introduction
of the Foundations Bill in the House of Assembly.
THE
AMERICANS CANCEL
After months of what diplomats say was patient,
behind-the-scenes work and the expectation that the Caricom/US relationship
was getting back on track, the United States has done another silly thing
to insult the leaders of the Caribbean. Caricom has not yet made
a decision on the recognition of Haiti’s interim Government. No decision
is to be made until July 2004 at the meeting in Grenada. But the
U.S. wants to force the countries of the Caribbean to recognize Haiti through
the back door. They said that if Haiti were not invited to a meeting
they requested in Nassau on 3rd May with Caricom leaders they would cancel
the meeting. The Caricom leaders did not relent, the meeting was
cancelled. My way or the highway! Silly! How long, O
lord how long?!
THIS
WEEK WITH THE PM
The
press loved this photograph of Prime Minister Christie smiling with former
Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Hanna, former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham
and former PLP Deputy Leader B.J. Nottage taken in St. Matthews church
during the installation of Rev'd. Father James Moultrie as Rector.
Prime Minister Perry Christie is obviously in a
jovial mood (above) as he announces the engagement of international consultants
to prepare proposals for the redevelopment of downtown Nassau. Pictured
with Mr. Christie are Dr. Baltron Bethel and one of the international consultants.
The two twenty architectural students in the world, including two Bahamians
are to be used in the initial phases of the project.
Among the other photo-opps of the Prime Minister's
week was the opening of the Nazareth Centre, a collaboration between the
Government, the Roman Catholic Church and philanthropist Phillipe Bonnefoy
to house at risk children. Mr. Christie officially opened the Centre,
assisted by Minister of Social Services Melanie Griffin and former Minister
of Social Services Algernon Allen.
Mrs. Christie was also active in public this week,
shown below, right, at Government House with outstanding Bahamian students.
The students are chosen each year for special awards by a group of the
same name headed by Senator Traver Whylly, left. BIS Photos by Peter
Ramsay.
 |
| PHOTO OF THE WEEK - As the PLP celebrated the second anniversary of its return to power, the Free National Movement was setting up to have a good bash at the PLP's expense. The FNM had a rally on Tuesday 4th May and in it they scored the PLP for being inept and directionless, a fact with which Bradley Roberts, the Minister of Works took issue later in the week at the House of Assembly. He said it was a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The FNM had a good turnout to their meeting but the steam was taken out of the meeting by the announcement from Kerzner International, the owners of Paradise Island’s Atlantis that they are expanding their project, amending their agreement and making their third phase a one billion dollar project rather than the 600 million they had announced at first. You may read the analysis down below but the picture of Butch Kerzner, the CEO of Kerzner International and son of Chair Sol Kerzner with Prime Minister Perry Christie as the company celebrated its tenth anniversary in The Bahamas spoke a thousand words. That is our photo of the week by Tim Aylen. It was only left to the FNM to lie about it and say they were the ones who actually cut the deal. Hmmm! |
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
OH BOY! THE BILLION DOLLAR DEAL
The Prime Minister Perry Christie sent a message to his Caricom
colleagues that he could not come to Antigua for their special meeting
2nd May to 4th May. There was a big announcement that he had to make
at home. And what an announcement it was. The Kerzner International
expansion at Paradise Island that was originally supposed to be 600 million
dollars in extent is now to be one billion dollars. It required Minister
of Financial Services and Investment Allyson Gibson to negotiate new terms
and conditions but the deal was done, approved by the Cabinet and the Prime
Minister on the second anniversary of his Prime Ministership and the 10th
anniversary of the Kerzners in The Bahamas. It was announced to an
awed nation. Nothing has materialized on the ground yet but there
is a feeling in the air of great expectancy and that things are moving.
The
investment is obviously good for The Bahamas but it is obviously not without
its worries. One must say that mainly it puts immediate pressure
on the Government to do something about the shoddy and run down state of
Cable Beach, and the refusal of Phil Ruffin who owns the Crystal Palace
and let it slip out from Marriott because of failing in upkeep, to reinvest
in the property. Mr. Ruffin should be made to sell his hotel, not
yesterday, not today but right away. The place is a dump, and it
is unable to keep people hired at the facility on a regular and sustained
basis. Often, guests check into the facility, and then check out
in hours to go to Paradise Island. Yet the Government is allowing
all that valuable capital to be tied up by someone who appears not to have
the slightest interest in the further development of the property or the
Bahamian tourism product.
The other point that needs to be made is that the sheer size of the Kerzner investment makes its influence disproportionate in the economy of the country. Pretty soon, the Kerzners if they don’t believe it already, will see themselves as the only game in town and begin to act like it by demanding this or that, and if they don’t get it threatening to do this or that. The Government in its anxiety to keep jobs will have to dance to their tune to keep them happy. Already, there is talk in the back channels and from the pronouncements of the younger Mr. Kerzner in the papers, it seems that there is a penchant for suggesting that things must go the Kerzner way or else.
But why complain about the air when there is nothing else to breathe? The fact is that it will provide an additional two thousand permanent jobs and thousands of construction jobs. That’s no small potatoes. It will help the employment of young males in particular who have problems training themselves for skilled jobs. The fact is; Kerzner’s investment is greatly needed.
We welcome the investment. The Progressive Liberal Party and its Minister of Financial Services Allyson Gibson and the Prime Minister Perry Christie ought to be congratulated for working this so that we have this deal. The FNM carpetbaggers were busy spinning their brand of lies over the week, led off by Zhivargo Laing, the former Minister who claimed in his newspaper column that it was the FNM during its last term that approved the one billion dollars investment. Mr. Laing as a professed born again Christian should know better than to write bold faced strangeness to the truth like that but it appears that there is a corrupted spirit in Mr. Laing that causes him to do anything for politics. We urge the PLP to keep the sense of balance that is required and let no man blackmail you into acting against the best interest of the country.
We also urge the Prime Minister and his colleagues to deal with Phil Ruffin. That monstrosity on Cable Beach must not be allowed to sully the good name of the tourism product of The Bahamas. The longer they wait to deal with it the worse it is going to get. The time to act on that is now while the country sees a good deal coming at P.I. and it knows that there is an urgent necessity to ensure that we have some balance at Cable Beach.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 8th May 2004 at midnight: 45,561.
Number of hits for the month of May up to Saturday 8th May 204 at midnight: 49,026.
Number of hits for the year 2004 up to Saturday 8th May 2004 at midnight: 939,365.
WHEN
SOLDIERS GET WEARY
There has not been a feeding frenzy like the one we are experiencing in
the United States today since the fall of the hypocrites who were trying
to get Bill Clinton when he was President. They ended up having to
resign for their own sexual peccadilloes. He remained President.
Then there was the feeding frenzy that resulted in the fall of the former
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. A country that is racist in so
many of its characters suddenly got a bout of conscience because he spoke
something that is just below the surface in the official campaigns of many
Republicans. The U.S. is in that way an amazing country. And
so after having made an obvious and huge mistake in going with their arrogance
and without cause and with deception into another man’s country, the United
States is suddenly in the midst of a feeding frenzy over the abuse of Iraqi
prisoners.
To say that the pictures of abuse are appalling
is an understatement. It betrays a mentality of fundamental disrespect
for the people of Iraq and for non-white people everywhere. It also
confirms that the looting of Iraqi national treasures that was permitted
by the U.S. armed forces just after they invaded the country was not an
aberration. We must now mount fresh witness to what is gong on in
Guantanamo where in clear violation of all the rules, the United States
government continues to hold people in inhumane conditions and without
trial.
Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, whose credibility
is already damaged for having misled the world on weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq when he spoke to justify the war at the United Nations, who should
have resigned to save his reputation, has now to get on his bicycle again
and use his remaining personal capital to defend a regime in Washington
that more and more appears indefensible on this point. These are
people who are running a campaign to discredit John Kerry, the Democratic
Party candidate who fought in a war for his country, while their President
got a bye sitting in comfort in the Texas Air National Guard. They
did a similar thing to Max Cleland, the former Georgia Democratic Senator
who had his legs and arms blown off in war but they portrayed him as a
coward.
Any country in this hemisphere has to be concerned about the nature and
quality of the people one is dealing with. What kind of morality
do these people have? Are they willing to do anything? When
we look at our own region does what has happened in Iraq now make more
credible the allegations of former Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide
about how he was removed from office?
An unlucky Bahamian citizen Norman Darling died
in the cause in Iraq. We reported it on this site last week.
It was sad for us to see a Bahamian die. We hope that he did not
die in an essentially a racist cause, an anti Muslim crusade and an attempt
to get at the oil reserves of Iraq. His life was too precious for all that.
This week he is to be buried. The United States Government has announced
that it will grant him citizenship of the country posthumously. That
is a good gesture.
As we look back on the week’s events in Iraq, the
continued death and destruction, the abuse of the Iraqi prisoners, all
we can do is shake our heads and say we told you so. Many now argue
that the United States has no moral authority in this matter, some say
they never had it, but certainly the entire sub strata of their invasion
strategy has been torn away by the week’s events.
It is clear that when soldiers have a sense that
they can treat their captives with disrespect, they get it from the leaders.
Some head must roll from atop the U.S. administration to make amends.
But after public appearances Friday 7th May by the U.S. Secretary of Defence
Donald Rumsfeld, it is clear that the Republican establishment will hold
on for dear life, regardless of the level of disgrace. When soldiers
get weary, they start doing stupid things, and what happened in the prison
is just one example. Photo of prisoner abuse from ‘New Yorker’
magazine. US Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld file photo.
DARLING
GETS HIS DAY IN THE HOUSE
Devard Darling, the new darling of the sports world in The Bahamas must
have had a wonderful day on Wednesday 5th May in Nassau. The House
of Assembly stopped its regular business to promote Devard Darling Day.
Mr. Darling is only the second Bahamian in the history of this kind of
thing to be drafted into the National Football League of the United States.
He was chosen as the 82nd pick by the Baltimore Ravens. (Click
here for last week's story).
The pictures of a potent young man with lots of
potential, with a charming demeanour beamed out from all the Bahamian newspapers,
and politicians crowded to be around him. If things work out, he
is sure to have himself some good money. But as we said last week,
a word to the wise! He should keep both his hands in his pockets
because there will be a perception that you are rich. At 22, you
simply don’t have the experience to deal with all the shysters coming around
asking for money; from relatives, to long long lost friends, to women,
to politicians. Keep your counsel, save your money. Youth and
strength last only for a short season. While you are breaking up
your body for the entertainment of others get as much as you can in salary
and endorsements and be as prudent as you can and save as much as you can.
It is the only way to survive for the long term. God bless!
Good luck! Devard is shown chatting with Deputy Prime Minister
Cynthia 'Mother' Pratt outside the House of Assembly on 'Devard Darling
Day' in this Bahama Journal photo by Omar Barr.
US/HAITI/CARICOM
The United States and Caricom are at loggerheads
again over Haiti. The Caricom Prime Ministers who deal with Haiti
as a core group met under the chairmanship of the new Prime Minister of
Antigua Baldwin Spencer. The Heads: Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago,
St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis and The Bahamas represented by its Foreign
Minister Fred Mitchell agreed to issue a letter to the Organization of
American States (OAS) calling for a meeting to discuss Haiti and the question
of invoking article 20 of the Inter American Democratic Charter.
Article 20 calls for the assistance of the OAS when there is an interruption
in the constitutional order of a country. The Heads hope by this
mechanism to get at the investigation that the United Nations has refused
to conduct into the removal of Jean Bertrand Aristide as President of Haiti.
The question of recognition of the regime in Haiti
by Caricom is in abeyance until July. The United States has been
trying to force the issue and this week it did so in a big way by inviting
the Prime Minister of the interim regime Gerard Latortue to visit Washington.
Then he called a protocollary (as in protocol or not a substantive meeting)
meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) so he could speak
to member states. All Caricom countries agreed in the end to attend
but only after the letter was issued.
St. Lucia and St. Vincent took the position that
under no circumstances would they participate in a meeting with the interim
Prime Minister. Suriname sent a low level delegate. The Caricom
countries are split by those who take the pragmatic view that they have
to deal with the people in power and those who are more ideological.
The Black Caucus in the US is split in two as well. But Maxine Waters,
the friend of former President Aristide and a member of the caucus, denounced
the visit of the interim Prime Minister to Washington calling him the head
of a puppet regime installed by the United States.
The former President of Haiti is scheduled to leave
Jamaica shortly for South Africa.
THE
CANADIANS COME CALLING
Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham came to The
Bahamas with his team on Thursday 6th May. He spent one night with
his Minister for the Francophone Denis Corderre and the Minister for International
Development Aileen Carroll. The team hosted a dinner at the Lyford
Cay Club for the Bahamian Foreign Minister and a number of his colleagues.
These included the Deputy Prime Minister Cynthia Pratt, Minister of Financial
Services Allyson Maynard Gibson, Minister of Housing Shane Gibson, the
Minister of Immigration Vincent Peet and the Attorney General Alfred Sears.
The Canadians were on their way to Haiti to visit their troops there and
to assess the political situation on the ground there as they prepare for
the next phase of the UN peacekeeping operation. The Bahamas has
said that it will not now be able to put troops on the ground in Haiti
until such time as the security situation improves there. BIS
photo of Minister Graham greeting Deputy Prime Minister Pratt and members
of The Bahamas Cabinet by Raymond Bethell.
A NEW ARCHBISHOP
Patrick Pinder is now the Archbishop of The Bahamas including the Turks
and Caicos Islands and Bermuda for the Roman Catholic Church. This
is a signal honour for the Bahamian people, a first for any Bahamian.
It has come to a smart and unassuming man. Thirty three years ago,
he was the product of single parent home, working his way out of St. Augustine’s
College. As he played on the fields of SAC, we wonder if he ever
thought then that this could have been.
The ordination of Archbishop Pinder took place on
Tuesday 4th May at the St. Francis Xavier’s Cathedral in Nassau, itself
only recently consecrated for the service of Roman Catholics here in The
Bahamas. The outgoing Archbishop Lawrence Burke was ordained Archbishop
of Kingston, Jamaica two days before the service in Nassau. Hubert
Ingraham, the former Prime Minister went to the service in Jamaica (see
photo below - Ingraham Coming Back).
The Bahama Journal reported that Archbishop Burke
was granted Permanent Residence of The Bahamas by the Government of The
Bahamas. He is a citizen of Jamaica. We congratulate both men.
Archbishop
Pinder is shown blessing the congregation after his installation at the
new Cathedral in Nassau in this Peter Ramsay photo.
NO CABINET
RESHUFFLE
The Prime Minister told a radio audience at the
start of the week that he has decided that he will not shuffle the Cabinet
for now. He said that a number of ministers are involved in projects
that are in midstream and that he did not want to interrupt that flow.
THE
PRIORITY WATCHLIST AND COPYRIGHT LAWS
The United States government has announced that
The Bahamas is back on the priority watch list of the U.S. Trade Office.
We are there because there is a copyright act in The Bahamas, which allows
for compulsory licencing. It works like this. If an entity
in The Bahamas wishes to use a copyrighted work, and the owner of the copyright
refuses to grant permission, the law says you can go ahead and use the
work, in this case a broadcast work by satellite, and simply pay a royalty
assessed by the Royalty Tribunal set up under the Act in The Bahamas.
The owner can then collect the fee from the Tribunal.
The U.S. has gone ballistic over compulsory licencing.
They say that they will blacklist The Bahamas, and start trade sanctions
if we don’t change the law. The former Government negotiated a change
in the text of the act. There was a row over whether the Berne Convention
on copyright admits to the Bahamian practice. But The Bahamas lost
the argument not because we were wrong in law but because the United States
simply used its power in the marketplace to force a result. One problem
is that signals in English off the satellite are not available to us legitimately,
and the U.S. owners refuse to licence them in English saying that we are
part of Latin America and have to take the Spanish language signals.
They say we are too small for them to bother with separate contracts for
us.
The political part of this matter is that most people
think that the last Government only passed the act to help Cable Bahamas,
the company to which the Ingraham administration against all good sense
gave the monopoly to operate cable television in The Bahamas. So
the act has now been passed by the present government in fulfilment of
the obligation, which the FNM did not carry out. The U.S. has indicated
that with the passage of the act, they will then seek to remove The Bahamas
from their blacklist. This is American foreign policy at its best:
threats and blackmail.
The end result of trade sanctions unrelated to copyright
issues would mean that 60 million dollars of crawfish that we sell to the
U.S. each year would be banned and thus jeopardize our fishing industry
here. But what does the U.S. care about that--- too bad, too sad.
A footnote; the satellite cards that are used in
The Bahamas for Direct TV access, widely marketed as a commodity by individuals
and satellite programming shops have all stopped working in The Bahamas
within the last two weeks. It appears that the company that produces
the signal has now effectively found a way to stop the pirating of the
signals. All those who have satellite dishes have had dead receivers
for the past week, when the old cards stopped working.
INGRAHAM
COMING BACK
The rumours in the irrelevancy of the return of Hubert Ingraham continue
to abound. All around the political halls is he coming the whisper:
is or is he not. From all accounts, the man himself is titillated
by the fact of the rumours and he is doing nothing to dispel them.
He is doing everything to encourage them. The current thinking out
of
FNM circles is that Tommy Turnquest has simply not enlivened the imagination
of the faithful. They want their champion Mr. Ingraham back.
They want a return to the glory days.
But what appears now to be a shining era, papers
over some real cracks and fissures in the FNM, which have simply not healed.
The expulsion of Tennyson Wells and Pierre Dupuch has left sore wounds.
If Mr. Ingraham returns, those wounds are sure to be reopened. By
the way, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell reported to the
media upon his return from Antigua that the Jamaican Government facilitated
the visit at Mr. Ingraham’s request to see former President Jean Bertrand
Aristide of Haiti now in exile in Jamaica. Mr. Ingraham is shown
being greeted by Archbishop Burke during the archbishop's installation
in Jamaica. Tribune photo from Norman Grindley / The Gleaner Company
SHANE’S
HOUSING RECORD
At the start of last week, the Prime Minister Perry
Christie stood with Shane Gibson, one of his most effective Ministers,
to officially commission a new housing subdivision. Housing is one
of the areas about which the new PLP is quite proud. In the two years
that Shane Gibson has been the Minister of Housing, some 583 houses were
built compared to just under 800 for the whole term of the Free National
Movement. The Prime Minister expressed some exasperation at the fact
the FNM dares to compare what they did with the PLP in this area and more
generally to push the propaganda that the PLP is not doing anything.
The facts are clear and speak for themselves. BIS photo by Peter
Ramsay shows Minister Gibson (partially hidden at left) with Deputy Prime
Minister Cynthia Pratt and Prime Minister Perry Christie at the opening
of 'Hope Gardens' last week.
FALLOUT
IN THE DEFENCE FORCE
Last week, we reported that Edison Rolle has made
certain irresponsible remarks about corruption in the Royal Bahamas Defence
Force before the Commission investigating a drug sting operation that went
wrong when the Royal Bahamas Defence force intercepted a Bahamas police/U.S.
DEA operation in Nassau Harbour in June 1992. The boat the Lorequin
was intercepted in the harbour searched by the Defence Force. In
the result the drug numbers did not add up and Defence Force officers have
been suspected of being involved.
The Commission consisting of former Justice Stanley
Moore, the Archbishop of the Anglican Church Drexel Gomez and former Deputy
Commissioner of Police Sir Albert Miller has been hearing testimony for
over a month now. Many argue that it is clear that the Defence Force
is in deep trouble, lacking leadership, purpose, direction and equipment.
Now this week following Mr. Rolle's revelations,
Mr. Rolle reports that he has been “excluded” from the base. For
many, this is a strange move. Mr. Rolle portrays it as victimization,
and it has apparently not gone down well on the base.
A writer to this column has written that the PLP
had better fix this. She argues that the PLP is already in danger
of losing the support of the Force because the PLP continues to keep the
present Commodore there that most officers thought they would move.
She adds, “Now it looks like you are attacking the whistle blower instead
of dealing with what he said.”
BASIL
DEAN’S BOMBSHELL
There is no doubt in the minds of many that the man who should have been
Commissioner of Police was Basil Dean. In the end, he had no prospect
of the job under the Ingraham administration, thought to be a PLP, and
so he took a better paying job as Vice President for Security at Atlantis
Resort on Paradise Island. Mr. Dean was thought to be the policeman’s
policeman, having the street smarts to spot the crooks and catch them.
Mr. Dean returned to the spotlight in what can only
be called a bombshell appearance at the Commission looking into the arrest
of the ship Lorequin and the way the Royal Bahamas Defence Force dealt
with the matter in 1992. On the witness stand on Wednesday 5th May
he said that he was appalled at the way the police handled the matter.
Mr. Dean said that Reginald Ferguson, now Assistant
Commissioner of Police had handled the matter poorly by allowing a junior
officer to go to the scene to take control of the drugs, which the Commander
of the RBDF refused to allow. He said that Mr. Ferguson should have
put a senior man on the job or gone himself. He said the same of
John Rolle, now Deputy Commissioner of Police and retired Commissioner
of Police Bernard Bonamy.
So where are we? The Royal Bahamas Police
Force thought that it was unscathed but it appears that not only is the
Defence Force in trouble but so are the police. We agree. The
security services in this country do not appear to be adequately equipped
to deal with the state of the country as we find it today. Photo
of Basil Dean from The Nassau Guardian.
PAT
BAIN’S ADVICE ON LNG
The President of the Bahamas Hotel Catering and
Allied Workers Union has been speaking out against the proposed Liquefied
Natural Gas (LNG) projects that at least three companies are trying to
get approved in The Bahamas. The companies: Tractabel, El Paso and
AES all have applications before US and Bahamian authorities to build a
facility in The Bahamas that would ship the LNG to the United States in
South Florida. One of the projects is for a facility in Freeport
Harbour, another at a facility in east Grand Bahama, and another at Ocean
Cay, just south of Bimini.
The environmental lobby in The Bahamas is opposed
to the LNG projects. The Government has not made up its mind but
there is said to be a concern about the environmental impacts of such a
facility in a country with a reputation as a tourism country. The
modernists in the country think it is all a bunch of noise over nothing.
The Minister for Trade and Industry Leslie Miller
who is responsible for the approval for the project is a promoter of the
LNG projects.
Mr. Bain has now weighed in saying that he does
not think that any project should be approved unless there is legislation
in place to protect the environment and there is the expertise in The Bahamas
to deal with the matter. He went further and urged the Minister to
withdraw from the promotion process saying that it appeared that the Minister
was promoting one project to the exclusion of others. He said that
he did not think that his elected representative should be doing this.
The remarks were reported sound on tape on the morning newscast of the
Broadcasting Corporation on Thursday 6th May.
FRED
MITCHELL’S ANNIVERSARY IN FOX HILL
Every year since he has been working in the political vineyard of the Fox
Hill constituency, Fred Mitchell MP for Fox Hill and the Minister of Foreign
Affairs and The Public Service has held a service to mark the occasion
of the beginning of this work in Fox Hill. It borrows from a practice
of the Baptist Churches, which mark their pastors’ anniversary as a special
time every year for celebration and donations to the Pastor.
This year’s service for Mr. Mitchell was held at
St. Mark’s Native Baptist Church with Rev. Carrington Pinder presiding.
It marked the seventh year of Mr. Mitchell’s service in the area.
The funds collected were to be donated to the building of the community
centre for Fox Hill. We present some photos of the occasion.
STUART
AND SMITH BACK ON THE JOB
Louis Deveaux who is one of the best bass singers
in the country is also a businessman. He owns a trucking business.
He has now emerged as leader in that business. There has been a strike
by the truck drivers including blocking access to the Hot Mix Facility
at Arawak Cay. Brent Symonette, the FNM's spokesman on Foreign Affairs
in the House of Assembly, is said to be a shareholder in the company.
It appears that the facility is underpaying for loads that the truckers
bring to them.
The BDM, the extra parliamentary party, was at the
truckers' side when a press conference was called to defend the interests
of the truckers.
Now that’s the kind of thing we like to see, helping
the downtrodden, not attacking innocent politicians over things that have
no legs.
By the way, the leader of the BDM Cassius Stuart
who was accompanied by Deputy Omar Smith in the photo in the Nassau Guardian
Saturday 8th May celebrated his birthday with a grand event with the cream
of the young, beautiful and restless over the weekend. Happy birthday
Lord Cassius!
TRANSITIONS
New U.S. Ambassador
The United States President George Bush has announced that he has nominated
a new Ambassador to The Bahamas John D. Rood, another one of the good old
boys from Florida. He is a real estate man from Jacksonville, the
home of the former Ambassador J. Richard Blankenship. The nomination
now goes to the US Senate, and gives the lie to the propaganda put before
the Bahamian people that The Bahamas would not get a new Ambassador.
The new man is said to have better interpersonal skills than the last Ambassador
and so will probably serve his country well.
Peter Gordon Dies
Peter Gordon, former Director of Public Works has died in Nassau.
He was 68 years old. Mr. Gordon was born in Canada but raised in
his parents’ native Scotland. He qualified as an engineer, saw national
service in Britain and came to The Bahamas in 1980. He served with
distinction in The Bahamas government until his retirement in 1996.
He married the former Lynne Haddox (nee Walker as in daughter of C.R. Walker).
While the couple had no children of their own together, they had children
from their previous marriages who formed a close knit family. Mr.
Gordon was cremated and a memorial service held on Saturday 8th May at
the St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Kirk. He was praised by the Bahamian
engineering profession as a pioneer for the profession in The Bahamas and
as a mentor to many a young Bahamian engineer.
Korean Boats
The Tribune reported in its newspaper of Tuesday 4th May that the boats
that were claimed to be owned by Netsiwell, beneficially owned by Earlin
Williams, that caused all the controversy, have now been turned over to
their proper owners, Americans of Korean descent. The report is that
the U.S. State department intervened and the claim on the boats was released.
The boats are to be returned to their new owners and will leave The Bahamas.
No confirmation came from The Bahamas Government. Earlin Williams
who claimed to be the owner of the boats has been silent.
THIS
WEEK WITH THE PM
The
tales of Bro. Bookie and Bro. Rabbie as told by the Right Honourable Perry
G. Christie, Prime Minister, are keeping these Central Abaco School students
rapt with attention. The story telling was one of the more photogenic
interludes of two trips in two days this week by Mr. Christie to the island
of Abaco.
While in Green Turtle Cay, (bottom left) accompanied
by the Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe, Mr. Christie is shown with
the representative for the area, former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham.
The week began for Mr. Christie with a series of
prayer breakfasts staged to celebrate the second anniversary in power of
his Government. At left with the Prime Minister in this photo (bottom
right) is Member of Parliament Veronica Owen. BIS Photos by Peter
Ramsay.
 |
| PHOTO OF THE WEEK - Dominic Duncombe is a good photographer and a good writer. He is a serious study in contrast to many of his generation. This week, he excelled himself with a photograph that appeared in the publication that he works for The Tribune of Thursday 13th May. It was a picture of two Bain Town women celebrating special birthdays. It appeared under the caption: AGE IS BUT A NUMBER FOR AGNES AND JOANNA. There was a big party on Wednesday 12th May on Dumping Ground Corner in Bain Town for the two women. Joanna ‘Candy’ Hanna celebrated her 101st birthday and Agnes Williams celebrated her 96th birthday. Happy Birthday ladies! Bradley Roberts, their MP was also on hand for the birthday bash. This photo is our photo of the week. |
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
THE UNFOLDING SCANDAL
Last week in what was an unusual analytical piece for this column,
there was a contributed comment on the unfolding scandal of the treatment
of Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad, Iraq. There
is a lot of talk about it throughout the world’s press. We asked
the question last week: what kind of morality do the people who run the
United States have? You may click
here for a look at last week’s piece.
The United States appears to be in a muddle at what to do about this and at where they really stand. You have the President of the country and its combative Defence Secretary both saying to what extent they apologized and how embarrassed they were about the whole thing. But they immediately went on to obviate the effect of any apology by the President supporting his Defence Secretary in unequivocal terms, and then the Defence Secretary flying off secretly to Baghdad and holding what amounted to an unseemly political rally with the troops wildly cheering at what was ostensibly to make an act of contrition. But more importantly and quite contradictorily it seems to support what the troops are doing.
The European leadership is quite clear on the matter but for the quizzical Prime Minister of Britain who despite all the best warnings and advice in the world, and presumably a smart man, has told his press that he intends to hang in there with George Bush. He said in an interview that this is not the time to abandon your main ally. In contradistinction, the French President and the German Chancellor meeting in France on Thursday 13th May said that they would not commit troops to Iraq under any circumstances, and basically pronounced how shocked they were at the whole matter.
The U.S. as we said is in a muddle. The Secretary of Defence in his appearance last week on Friday 7th May before the Senate said that he thought that the instructions and rules about prisoner treatment were entirely consistent with the rules of the Geneva Convention. It turns out now that the sleep deprivation and other physical pressure tactics were approved by the Defence Secretary. This week as the Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace when asked on Wednesday 12th May at a Senate hearing whether if he saw an American soldier in the position of those Iraqis he would consider it a violation of the Geneva Convention, he had to concede that he would.
The U.S. officials have also decided that they are not going to release any new photos because they say their lawyers claim it would violate the rights of those who might possibly be charged. That is lame, and they should release them all right away. It is the usual trick to use the lawyers as an excuse for a good old fashioned cover up.
We make a more fundamental point here this week. It has to do not with the officials and their response to the whole scandal but with the soldiers themselves on the ground. One has to ask what would have caused these ordinary men and women to dehumanize themselves and their captives in this way. This coming from a nation that is steeped in the public rituals of Christian charity and morals.
What is more, it appears that the young soldiers themselves do not feel that they did anything wrong at all. Not if you were to judge from the first interviews given by at least one of the soldiers and another one of the soldiers' lawyers. They trotted out the oldest excuse in the books: they were ordered to do so. Others are now seeking to use the killing of a young American by his captors as an excuse for what the U.S. soldiers did.
The officials have tried to explain away this reprehensible behaviour by suggesting that it was lack of training, too much pressure and there were too many prisoners. That of course comes back to them for launching a war that they were ill prepared for, that they were warned against doing, that they lied with regard to its objectives, that had murky objectives, and that was doomed to failure because of the nature of the area that they were entering. But it can’t be explained away by lack of training in the military. The training that it must refer to is home training.
One sees why then this is the same people, whose ancestors were able to wipe out the aboriginal populations in their country without concern, lock up Japanese citizens during the Second World War as suspects without trial without concern, enslave millions of Africans without conscience, and still continue with discrimination against the African descendants today. There is much that can be found to explain the insensitivity to all of this. It all comes down to a danger that exists amongst many young people in the U.S. who see other nation’s peoples as less than human because they are poor.
Further, the individual soldiers who gave the excuse that they were ordered to do so were clearly ignorant of history, and their own law. It is no good to say when carrying out an unlawful order that I was ordered to do so. That is not a lawful excuse. That is what the Nuremberg trials after the Second World War were supposed to have shown. German soldiers were executed and imprisoned for crimes committed during that war, when they answered charges by saying that they were following orders.
All of this is depressing for us in the Caribbean region. We have only our moral right to exist and our intellectual acuity on which to depend for leveraging our existence. It is therefore of some note that we see the signs of the America we know in the Opposition ranks in the United States that has finally found its voice to denounce this kind of authoritarianism that has no regard for people it apparently perceives as of a lesser race. We can only hope that these voices become reorganized and will work diligently at withdrawing the United States from this silly mess in which it has gotten itself, so that all the good that the nation has the potential to do can once again get back on track.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 15th May 2004: 68,986.
Number of hits for the month of May up to Saturday 15th May 2004: 118,012.
Number of hits for the year 2004 up to Saturday 15th May 2004: 1,008,351.
Come
on! Come on! Come on! Come on!
A
NEW LABOUR SURVEY TO BE DONE
The Government announced last week that a labour
survey is to be done to determine within the month what the real rate of
employment is in the country. Last year’s survey revealed an unemployment
rate of 10.8 per cent up from the previous year. The evidence is
there of a further rise in unemployment with more unskilled young workers
unable to find jobs. We hope that whatever picture is revealed that
the jobs start getting going and soon to put youngsters into a job, some
of them for the first time.
HEALTH
INSURANCE REPORT IS IN
Dr. Perry Gomez and his team delivered the report
on national health insurance to the Prime Minister on Monday 10th May at
the British Colonial Hilton. In presenting the report, the Doctor
pointed out that some 340 million dollars are expended on health care in
The Bahamas annually. The Government of the Bahamas picks up the
tab for 48 per cent of that amount.
It is hoped that if the plans are approved the National
Health Insurance Plan can get implemented within 24 months. This
is ambitious. The critics who are against socialized medicine have
not yet weighed in. That is what caused the last plan under Sir Lynden
Pindling to fail.
We await with some concern the details of the report
to be made public, particularly as it relates to costs and taxation of
the individual. But for now it is left to us to congratulate the
Doctor and his team for the completion of their report. One hopes
that some plan will emerge which will stop this incessant demand for cookout
money to pay for health bills that can never be paid for by cook outs.
Prime
Minister Christie (centre), Minister of Health Dr. Marcus Bethel (right),
Parliamentary Secretary Ron Pinder (left) and Permanent Secretary Elma
Garraway (second from left) pose with Dr. Perry Gomez (second from right)
and members of the Blue Ribbon Commission on National Health Insurance
at the British Colonial Hotel. BIS photo Peter Ramsay.
DEFENCE
FORCE GETS ONE BLOW AFTER THE NEXT
Last week, we commented in this column about one of the side problems as
we see it with the present Commission of Inquiry looking into events at
the Royal Bahamas Defence Force. We have had over the past weeks,
the spectacle of one person after the next who appears to have something
on
their chest, or some vendetta against another individual, simply using
the Commission of Inquiry as a means of pouring venom on persons who may
or may not be innocent. This week, the situation became even worse
with the testimony a police officer Sgt. Philip Moxey attached to the intelligence
unit of the Drug Enforcement Unit of the Royal Bahamas Police Force on
Wednesday 12th May.
Sgt. Moxey (pictured in this Nassau Guardian
photo) claimed that on 29th June 1992 he received an anonymous phone call
from a male voice on the phone, a phone call that he did not think to trace,
and a voice that to this day he has not identified, that said that a crew
member of the RBDF boat Inagua sold some of the drugs taken off the Lorequin
and sold it to Samuel ‘Ninety’ Knowles (see
story below as to who Knowles is) for the price of $11,000 per kilogram.
Sgt. Moxey went on to call the names of persons
who were said by the anonymous informant to be connected with it.
The transfer of the cocaine is said to have been connected with one Chucker
Thompson, a shady character known to the police. It was said that
when Mr. Thompson refused to pay for the drugs several officers of the
RBDF showed up at the Thompson residence and searched for the drugs in
the presence of his wife. It was further claimed that three officers
Sham Burrows, Gerard Cash and Lucious Fox were all concerned with removing
the drugs.
The Commission asked Sgt. Moxey why the matter was
never followed up by him. That is a good question. But we raise
a further concern. The names of the officers have now been called
in connection with selling drugs. How do they recover their reputations
in the face of these unsubstantiated and protected allegations? It
seems to us that something is totally wrong with that. But that of
course that is the downside of one of these all encompassing inquiries.
Knowing the penchant of the United States authorities
to believe gossip, no doubt the old ‘pull the visa’ game will be exercised
against the persons accused without any trace of any further evidence.
And so one must ask the question what if sleeping dogs had been left to
lie. This procedure does not seem to be getting at anything other
than further sullying the names of the police and the defence forces.
ARTHUR
FOULKES RESPONDS TO THE NASSAU INSTITUTE
We stand four square behind the response of Sir Arthur Foulkes, the former
Ambassador and now Tribune columnist, in response to an attack on him by
that collection of misfit racist opinions that emanate from the Nassau
Institute (The Tribune Tuesday 11th May 2004). We charitably call
them a right wing think tank. This body is supposed to be in the
Thatcherite mould that is resisting all forms of so called collectivism,
seeing socialist shadows behind every attempt at poor people to organize
themselves for their own benefit, and every attempt by the Government to
intervene in the economy for the benefit of the dispossessed. They
oppose all attempts by groups to influence public policy except their own.
Sir Arthur identified their officers as Joan Thompson, Ralph Massey, Rick
Lowe and Maurice Marwood. They seem to have the tacit support of
some person in the United States government as well.
The institute accused
