Published: Friday August 15th, 2008
This is the monthly press briefing on matters of Foreign Affairs that I promised:
Overseas Ambassadors:
There is still no Ambassador appointed to Haiti
The government should appoint an Ambassador to Haiti and should seek to settle the joint commission agreement negotiated by the PLP when it was in office as a step to resolving the problems of illegal immigration.
The government should say what it intends with regard to Cuba. With the Ambassador being recalled, who does it intend to send there and what does it plan with regard to the relationship with Cuba, including the eye programme which allowed scores of Bahamians to get free eye care. The programme has come to a stop.
We are again expressing concern about the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The last posting on the site is about 24th July. There is certainly much that has happened since 24th July. It does not anywhere report on the Foreign Minister’s meetings with the Spanish or with his British and Caricom counterparts in London in July.
In addition, the Government should update the public on the Schengen Visa agreement which abolishes the necessity for visas for Bahamians to Europe. In connection with this, there must be a stronger defence of its vision for the country’s trade relations and the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) which Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer of Antigua says will be signed on 2nd September.
Bahamians call me up all the time looking for assistance with regard to consular issues with countries that have honorary consuls. They ought to be able to rely on the Ministry’s website. The problem is that in two cases that I dealt with recently, the telephone numbers either do not answer or are not current, and the e mail addresses from the honorary consul get no response. These addresses and numbers should be updated but the Ministry ought to check these consular offices overseas and be sure that they are still operating and wish to serve The Bahamas. If not, others should be found to carry out the responsibilities.
The government needs to give full disclosure on the Proliferation Security Initiative which allows Bahamian ships to be searched by US authorities anywhere in the world for weapons of mass destruction without reference to The Bahamas. There was a report on the BBC’s website on this yesterday. The Minister in his statement in the House simply indicated that the agreement had been signed but no details have been disclosed. This is particularly important now that extradition arrangements are increasingly being scrutinized by Bahamians and criticized as an unconstitutional interference in the affairs of The Bahamas. Given all this government’s talk about accountability and transparency, there is a need for full disclosure and the agreement should be made public by laying it on the table of the House at the earliest opportunity.
The general criticism is that the government does not disclose information about what it is doing, and is contemptuous of public criticism. When similar matters were raised in the House, the then Acting Minister Tommy Turnquest promised that he would seek to provide answers to various inquiries but so far no answers have been provided.
Generally in Foreign Affairs, we have the view that this government has no interest in foreign relations. This disregard is evident by the lack of attention that I have noted here today. Foreign Affairs as an issue becomes more important as the nation and its people become more mobile around the world, and the Bahamian ought to know that when he or she travels there is assistance ready and available for him overseas. Bahamians could have counted on the PLP to always be available to give ready assistance. They cannot count on this government for that. The PLP presided over the largest expansion of diplomatic relations in the history of the country in its five years in office and opened two new missions, both of which the FNM threatened to close down when they came to office. (China 22nd March 2006, Cuba 17th July 2006) They have since resiled from the position but they have substituted that threat of closing down with inattention to Bahamian interests abroad.