Compiled, edited and constructed by Russell Dames   Updated every Sunday at 2 p.m.

Volume 1 © BahamasUncensored.Com

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PHOTOS OF THE WEEK - This week’s photos of the week are by Lorenzo Lockhart of the Bahamas Information Services, showing the Minister of the Public Service Fred Mitchell meeting with both the incumbents and the insurgents in the upcoming Bahamas Public Service Union election.  Left photo from left are Frederick Hamilton, Trustee; William McDonald, President; Minister Mitchell, Stephanie Braynen, Trustee and Gary Smith, Executive Vice President.  Right photo, from left are Michael Stubbs, candidate for Executive Vice President; Jeannie Gibson, candidate for Asst. Sec.-Gen.; John A. Pinder, candidate for President; Minister Mitchell, S.J. Miller, candidate for Sec.-Gen.; Katrina Marche, candidate for Vice President and Phillip Greenslade, candidate for Treasurer.

The first real use of that political capital came by the strategy of the Minister of Education backed up by the Government to draw the line on the issue of the loan guarantee scheme for money to go to university. If you click here you will see last week’s story on the issue.  The FNM made a complete cock up of the matter wasting virtually 100 million dollars without proper safeguards and putting in place a profligate scheme without the approval of the International Monetary Fund.  The country is already running a 186 million dollar deficit and revenues are off by 11 per cent from their projections.

But Bahamians were not hearing that.  They want their children to go to school and all they know is that their child got left out and can’t go.  The pressure on the Minister of Education and the Government is enormous.  But the temptation to go out and borrow some more money has so far been resisted.  That is the right thing to do for the country and this is the right time to do it at the start of the political term.  But the young people are grumbling that the FNM would have found the money and this is not the way for the PLP to treat them who put the PLP back in office.

To add to the confusion comes along that FNM Rasputin-like character, the many times JACKASS OF THE WEEK named Carl Bethel.  Mr. Bethel who was the country’s last FNM Attorney General (and a poor one at that) made a speech in Grand Bahama in which he blamed the PLP's indecision for the present crisis in loan monies.  Mr. Bethel is not a man known to think before he speaks but he would do well to remember that it is better to say nothing and be thought a fool than to speak and be confirmed as one.

In the midst of this PLP supporters are wondering what is in this new Government for them.  So far the Board appointments have not satisfied them, and no new jobs and no new consultancies for people who worked in the trenches.  And things generally just seem to be moving slowly.

In a telephone call to one Minister a friend at court told him that he was better treated under the FNM.  Reminds you so much of the children of Israel scolding Moses for taking them out of Egypt when they were the ones who wanted to leave in the first place.

But all of that is a part of Government.  As is the report that Ministers themselves are feeling tired and frustrated.  Frustrated that the PM won’t change their permanent secretaries which many of them see as the panacea of all ills in their Ministries, tired that the people don't seem to understand how difficult it is. They are said to be wondering aloud: what is the value of being in the jobs they have.  Those who are doubting ought to think about going back to the streets and marching for change in the hot sun as the alternative to where they now sit in their air-conditioned cars, with chauffeurs and aides.

Never fear princes and princesses of the land.  There is good to come. We must stay the course.  The economy of the country will turn around by careful and patient planning.  Something has always given in The Bahamas.

But that is the way it was in this week when Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell left the country for Johannesburg, South Africa to represent The Bahamas at the World Summit on Sustainable Development.  We report on that below.  Further, we report on how Ambassador Richard Blankenship got himself in a sweat by excluding sections of the press from a conference with some visiting congressmen to The Bahamas.

Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 31st August 2002 at midnight: 18,293.

Number of hits for the month of August ending Saturday 31st August at midnight: 84,463.

Number of hits for the year ending Saturday 31st August at midnight: 1,686,784.

THE KIND OF SITE WE ARE
    We were at it again trying to defend this site and how it has changed.  We don’t quite understand why we even bother.  The site is what it is.  But this week a particularly nasty commentary came filled with invective about the PLP and the editor of the site. We don’t quite know why some people when they are frustrated by their own stupidity and ignorance all they can do is wallow in invective.  It is like their brains go into their big toes.  Obviously this commentary came from a political ideologue who has a misconception of what were trying to build prior to the election. According to him, the site now sucks and all the people who write for it suck.  Well, guess what; he sucks too for his sucking attitude.
    The fact is that if you want to know what is going on politically in The Bahamas from a PLP point of view this is what you need to read.  No other site provides that information.  But we are not the PLP and we call the PLP down when that is necessary. Anyway we wanted to say that and ask you to continue to read the column.  We think its pretty good.  Keep those cards and letters coming. (cb)
 

MIKE CARTWRIGHT IN LONG ISLAND
    The story is just now being told of how James Knowles, the twenty year old veteran of Parliament was defeated in Long Island and Ragged Island constituency.  Mr. Knowles thought of himself as ‘Mr. Long Island’, never to be defeated.  Someone suggested that he at first decided that he would not run again for a fifth term telling then Leader of the Opposition Perry Christie that he could not stand the people of Long Island coming up to him begging him all the time.  Mr. Knowles began building a house in Abaco to signal that his political career was coming to an end.  But the scuttlebutt around Long Island is that he changed his mind after telling the now representative Larry Cartwright that he could have had the nomination from the FNM and then succeed him in the seat.  The reason, some said, was that he wanted to hold on so that his son could succeed him.  Others say that Mr. Knowles claimed that Larry Cartwright should have spoken to him first and gotten his permission before offering for the seat.
    The real reason that Mr. Knowles ran again, say some, is that he wanted to ensure that he had ten years of his salary as a Minister in order to get the Minister's pension when he reached the age of 55.  Mr. Knowles was only a Minister for some seven years out of the ten that the FNM was in power.  Of course, he has only Hubert Ingraham to blame for that.  Mr. Ingraham could not stand Jimmy Knowles but in the end Mr. Knowles proved to be one of his most faithful slaves.  So faithful that in the end Jimmy went down in flames and to defeat to Larry Cartwright a humble teacher who now sits as an independent in the Parliament.  But the headline talks about Mike Cartwright who is a popular businessman and store owner and who was a big supporter of the FNM and Mr. Knowles up to election 1997.  Mr. Cartwright reportedly refused to support Mr. Knowles this time.  Mr. Knowles was Minister of Agriculture and presided over the confiscation of a large quantity of chicken that was brought into the country reportedly without the necessary import permit.  They say Mr. Cartwright never forgave him and threw all his money behind his opponent.  By the way no one has seen hide nor hair of Jimmy Knowles since Election Day.  Too shame no doubt!
 

HENRY CRIES LIKE A BABY?
    They say that ever since the Free National Movement lost the Government on 2nd May 2002, some of the former FNM officials have forgotten who and what they now are.  Chief amongst them is the former President of the Senate J. Henry Bostwick, the husband of former Foreign Minister Janet Bostwick.  The now plain Mr. Bostwick it is reported in a pinch will take to parking his car at the Cabinet Minister's section of the Nassau International Airport.  Whereupon on one of his last visits, it was reported that the car was towed.
    Mr. Bostwick is said to have come back and found the car missing, checked with the administration and found that his car was in the compound for towed cars.  He made his way there and just as he got there and saw his car, he started those lachrymose glands a running like a baby about how people have been trying to embarrass him by towing his car.  They felt so sorry for him that the report is that he didn’t have to pay to get the car released.  We denied this story on his behalf but people keep insisting it’s true.  A call to Mr. Bostwick’s law firm could not get to the straights of the story.  We will keep calling.
 

HUBERT BUYS A BOAT
    Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham is absolutely contemptuous of the Bahamian people, its Parliament and its Prime Minister.  You all know of the two walkouts that he has had from the House once the Speaker would not let him have his way in the House of Assembly.  In his last intervention in the House, he said that he was a man with plenty of time, he has nothing to do and can do anything he wants.  And so the report is that he is buying or building a law office in Nassau and he is also searching for an office in Freeport.  But more importantly comes the report that he has bought a yacht at a dirt cheap price from Betty Kenning nee Kelly.  Ms. Kenning was a benefactor of the FNM and loves animals (any surprise she loves Hubert then, a political animal?) and she is a benefactor of The Bahamas Humane Society.  She gave the money to build the Olympic size swimming pool that Bahamian athletes now use.  But her husband John Kenning was rewarded with one post after another by Hubert Ingraham.  So we think that Mr. Ingraham ought to disclose how much the boat cost, did he in fact buy a boat from Mrs. Kenning and what if any was the quid pro quo for the purchase of the boat at a cheap price.  Was there some past consideration?
 
 

WHO IS COMING IN FROM HAITI
    Every week they are coming in from the north of Haiti.  According to Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell, they will keep coming.  The Bahamian people will have to come to accept that this is not a problem that will be solved by the Government with a guillotine that once and for all will stop the problem.  This is an on going problem that will have to be managed.  The policy of repatriations and round ups has been used by this country for the last 50 years.  It is a failed policy.  But often the Government has no political option.  And so it was that this past week, the Department of Immigration has started to check the identity documents of people on the streets.  The officers have been told that they are not to treat any migrant with indignity.  There were raids in the black belt as well as at Paradise Island.  And while Haitian migrants were the largest group, there were Americans caught in the dragnet and deported to the US as well for working without a work permit.  The government is also being careful that the property of Haitians is not stolen and lost in these exercises.  It is a difficult job.
    What was interesting were two comments that were heard on television in The Bahamas in the past weeks.  One was an interview with a migrant who was being deported who said that while he accepted that he had to go back to Haiti, he would be back in Nassau in two weeks time.  There was also the comment from Immigration Minister Vincent Peet that they were finding Haitian police officers amongst the migrants that they interdicted.  This raised eyebrows in Nassau.  Could this lead to a new period of militancy or did this speak to the desperate situation within Haiti?  Then there is the question of the opening of schools on Monday 2nd September.  Bahamians are getting to the point of hysteria about Haitian children in Bahamian schools.  And yet the law is clear, all children must get an education if they are under 16 regardless of their legal status in the country.  And so the country waits with anxious breath to see what will happen with the migrant issues as time unfolds.
 

BEC AND ITS POWER FAILURES
    We said in this column some weeks ago that the management of the Bahamas Electricity Corporation lied to the Bahamian public about the state of the electricity supply in New Providence.  The General Manager of the Corporation Bradley B. Roberts (not to be confused with Minister Bradley Roberts) announced that there would be no load shedding during the summer.  The month of August 2002 will go down in history as amongst the worst periods of load shedding, some two to three hours per day and without explanation or timing.  Every day your electric clocks are blinking when you return from work.  The question is can Mr. Roberts and his management team survive and should they?  That is a question that Al Jarrett, the new Chairman of BEC, must ask himself as he begins his work there.
    We have made it clear that the management must go.  The word is that the problem will not be fixed for at least three weeks because management forgot to order a particular part for one of the machines.  And further, the ultimate relief that they promise to come by January of next year will not in fact happen until late next year because of delays in the construction project. Management has not let the Government know this.  In the mean time, the Union is getting more furious as the day goes by.  Andrew Gilbert, a PLP and one of their members was fired by the Corporation for no reason and BEC is now engaging in a frivolous appeal.  The Government despite pleas has not acted to stop the appeal and reinstate Andrew Gilbert.  The situation is threatening to spiral out of control.  Someone needs to step in now so that we can have the lights restored for Christmas.  Tribune caricature by 'Sideburns'.
 
 

ROAD DEATH IN UNLIT AREA
    The Hon Fred Mitchell MP for the Fox Hill constituency today, Sunday 1st September,  expressed shock and sorrow at the untimely death by a road traffic accident of Elma Johnson, a matriarch of the Fox Hill community.  Mr. Mitchell said that what disturbed him is the report that Mrs. Johnson lost her life while walking to church in an area just in front of her home where repeated requests had been made of the Bahamas Electricity Corporation for proper lighting.  Those requests were never honoured.  Mr. Mitchell has asked his colleague the Minister for BEC the Hon. Bradley Roberts to initiate an investigation into the matter.
    Mr. Mitchell paid tribute to the indomitable spirit of Mrs. Johnson who lived a long and fruitful life. He said that the community would miss her.  Mrs. Johnson was a pioneer of the straw market, having been amongst the first women to begin selling local straw goods to visiting tourists.  She maintained a stall in the market up to her death.
 

BACK TO SCHOOL
    The children of The Bahamas return to school on Monday 2nd September.  And on that day there is likely to be disruption and not an inconsiderable amount of disorder.  With the best will in the world, many of the schools will not be ready for occupation.  This is a situation that has been in the making for at least six months. The Ministry of Works and the Ministry of Education simply did not get their acts together in order to ensure that the work would done to open the schools on time.  There is something known as the scope of works.  That tells the Public Works people what needs to be done at each school.  This was not done in some cases until last week.  So guess what?  The new Prince Charles School that will take all the senior high classes of L.W. Young will not be ready, although it will take students, doubling them up in the two existing buildings.
    The Minister announced that he has decided to close the T.G. Glover School as a safety hazard and join those students with the students in Albury Sayles School until additional classrooms or a new school can be built. This is not Alfred Sears’ best week but hang in there buddy!  Bahama Journal photo of T.G. Glover Primary School by Kristaan Ingraham.
 
 

MITCHELL’S BACK TO SCHOOL PARTY
    The children of the Fox Hill constituency were hosted to a back to school party by the Member of Parliament for the Fox Hill constituency Fred Mitchell.  The party was organized by the Fox Hill Branch of the PLP under the direction of Jan Davis, the wife of prominent businessman in the area Derek Davis. The children were feted to cake and ice cream and music and oh yes, they got books and pencils.  Thanks to all the donors.
 

THE HIRING FREEZE
    The press is on for jobs and more jobs.  But the fact is that there are no jobs to give, at least not in the public service.  There is a freeze on hiring in the public service and so no new personnel are being hired but nurses and teachers or other emergency personnel.  The Government is reluctant to carry out the decision of the FNM administration to lift the freeze because the revenues are not yet recovered from the fall off last year.  The Government wants to see where the revenue is headed near the end of the year before it starts talking about even replacing people in the public service.  Meanwhile elections of the officers of the Bahamas Public Services Union will be held some time before the end of the month.  It will be a closely contested election with the incumbent William McDonald facing the biggest challenge of his incumbency.  Two weeks ago the incumbent team of the BPSU visited the Minister for the Public Service Fred Mitchell and the next week the insurgent team lead by John Pinder visited the Minister.
 

NAT BENEBY TO HEAD FINCO
    It is probably the crowning achievement of his banking career. Nathaniel Beneby, the now Manager of the Freeport Main Branch of the Royal Bank of Canada, is to succeed Al Jarrett as the new Managing Director of Finco, the premier mortgage company in The Bahamas.  Mr. Beneby has been in the Royal Bank system since he was a boy out of school.   We congratulate him.  He is the son of Bishop and Mrs. Beneby of the Church of God of Prophecy East Street.  We congratulate him.  One of these days perhaps a Bahamian will get a chance to actually head the Royal Bank of Canada in The Bahamas.
 

THE NEW BOARD OF CIBC/BARCLAYS MERGER
    It has been no secret how we have opposed the merger of CIBC and Barclays in the Caribbean and The Bahamas as being anti competitive.  But it appears that the merger has gone ahead.  There still seems to be two hold ups: the line staff Union is still in a dispute over severance terms for some 300 possible employees and the Bank needs approval not to pay stamp tax on the transaction.  But eyebrows were surely raised when lo and behold who ends up on the new Board of the new company to be called First Caribbean: M. Teresa Butler, the former Permanent Secretary of the former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham who got generous retirement terms including a job for three years as the Chair of the Public Service Commission.  Another new member is Hubert Chipman. Of course Sharon Brown of Barclays today will end up being the Managing Director.  She is one of Hubert’s favourites too.  So he’s got them all together on the Board.  This tells you something about the political character of this merger in The Bahamas.  Not a PLP in sight.  Walter Wells, now number 2 in the CIBC Bank in Nassau, will move to Barbados to become its chief of retail, displacing Terry Hilts as the head honcho of the lending division and deservedly so.
 
 

THE GAMING BOARD

    Prime Minister Perry Christie has announced the members of the Gaming Board.  The big news is that Kenyatta Gibson, MP for Kennedy, has been chosen as the Chairman of the Gaming Board.  This is the body that is responsible for regulating casinos and betting in The Bahamas.  This makes him a big shot but we trust he does not wear power on his sleeve.  Many of the younger politicians get carried away by power and they have to watch it.   The Prime Minister said that he intends to amend the law to expand the number of members of the Board.  Further, he announced that the casinos in The Bahamas between Freeport and Cable Beach owe The Bahamas Government some seven million dollars in taxes.  Question: why the hell don’t we collect the money?  Newly appointed Gaming Board Chairman Kenyatta Gibson MP is pictured at right in this Tribune photo by Omar Barr with Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe at left and Prime Minister Perry Christie, centre.
 
 

MORE BOARD CHAIRMEN
    While there has been big fanfare and announcements with all Boards, no fanfare and announcement for the fact that George Smith, who was condemned by the Commission of Inquiry in 1984 is now Chairman of the Hotel Corporation.  That incident is long past but the fact that the choice was proving controversial is what many think is the reason that the appointment was not made with all the public fanfare of the other announced boards.  Anyway George Smith announced himself this past week, telling The Tribune that in fact he is the boss of the Hotel Corporation.  And by the way, the Hotel Corporation has the Radisson Cable Beach up for sale.  The whole thing is an albatross, and the only one making money is George Myers the management corporation’s CEO for the Hotel.  The Government has decided to ditch the thing.

Back To The Top
 

CONGRATULATIONS ANTHONY KIKIVARAKIS
    The Prime Minister announced this week that Anthony Kikivarakis, partner in Deloitte and Touche, is the new Chairman of the Airport Authority, the owners of the Nassau International Airport.  Good for him.  He can help to turn things around.  Bad news though: 70 million needed to fix the runways that international airlines are complaining about.  Three thousand feet of it are already closed. And according to the PM some 200 million to upgrade the NIA terminal.
 

WHO’S FOR THE ENVIRONMENT?
    Everyone says that they for it but few people, let alone Governments are willing to walk the walk.  Now the talking shop that is known as the World Summit for Sustainable Development is meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa.  Heading the delegation is Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell.  He is accompanied by Koed  Smith, MP for Mt. Moriah and newly named Ambassador for the Environment.  Mr. Smith developed a reputation as an environmentalist when he stood up for Clifton Point and the preservation of the slave ruins on the western end of New Providence.  The PLP stopped the project by saying that any approvals granted by the FNM to ruin the ruins would be revoked when the PLP came to power.
    Now the PLP has a chance to show where its money and mouth really are.  In Joberg, it must stand with the developing world to encourage development that will not hurt the earth.  Of course it would be nice if it could get the United States on board the effort.  Philip Davis, MP for Cat Island, is also in Joberg.  From the technical side at Joberg for The Bahamas: Donald Cooper from the Bahamas Education Science Technology Commission (BEST) which Mr. Smith Chairs; Rochelle Newbold of the BEST Commission; Rhoda Jackson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mission to the UN in New York and Earlston McPhee of the Ministry of Tourism.
    The summit is heading toward its climax with the leader of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe speaking on Monday during the attendance of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair.  The two countries have been at odds over the policy of Mr. Mugabe of seizing farms owned by farmers of European descent in the country without compensation or lawful authority and using violence to do so.  Also at the summit, there is the development that the US appears to be alone in standing out against finite deadlines to accomplish the objectives of the summit.   U.S. President Bush is reportedly being reviled by many delegates for not attending the summit.  In answer, the US is said to be sending Secretary of State Colin Powell who is coming with a bag if money to give out.  The opening ceremony of the World Summit on Sustainable Development featured South African dancers in front of a giant globe, pictured in this AFP photo by Philippe Desmazes.
 

THE US AMBASSADOR IN A STEW
    Richard Blankenship may have bitten off more than he could chew this time.  He excluded or so The Tribune says that newspaper from an interview with visiting Congressmen looking into drug interdiction in The Bahamas.  The Congressmen visited last week (click here for the story last week).  There were furious editorials including a comment from Wendall Jones whose paper The Bahama Journal was also not invited, that it was discriminatory.  The Ambassador got lots of bad press this week.  But it appears that he was, as usual, unmoved by the public criticism.  It is interesting a public official who comes from a society that is press sensitive is insensitive to his bad press in The Bahamas.  The Ambassador called a meeting.  No word on who showed up to try and mend fences with the Ambassador.  But you can bet that despite all the sound and fury of The Tribune’s protests, Eileen Carron cannot resist being summoned by the bigger boss.  It’s in her nature – if you get our drift.
 

BLANKENSHIP UNAPOLOGETIC AND UNREPENTANT
    In a news conference Friday 30th August, US Ambassador J. Richard Blankenship was unapologetic and appeared unrepentant over the charges of excluding branches of the media from a recent news conference (see story above).  More than that, the intrepid, some say foolhardy Ambassador advised the head of a local media house who complained to “…get a life and move on and try to find other things to improve his reporting...”  Well.
    The Ambassador said that no apology for having not invited certain sections of the press to the news conference would be forthcoming and that the embassy would continue to “give exclusive interviews”.  Further, in what is sure to be interpreted as a thinly veiled threat, the Ambassador said: "Everyone is free to request time to talk with me and I've always felt free to do so.  Freedom of the press is very important, but with freedom of the press comes a responsibility… I will continue to look at the way people conduct themselves and when there are personal attacks I will probably not respond publicly to them but I will remember them...”  The representative of the “leader of the free world”.  Things that make you go, hmmm. Nassau Guardian photo of Ambassador Blankenship at his news conference by Farreno Ferguson.
 

ALI BUTLER BACK AS BOA HEAD

    Sir Arlington Butler was returned unopposed as head of the Bahamas Olympic Association in elections held this week.  Sir Arlington is the long-time head of that body and brushed off criticism that perhaps it was time for him to relinquish the post after serving for the past thirty years.  The remainder of the board was also returned unopposed, with the exception of one of the Vice Presidents where the incumbent did not offer.  Wellington Miller, head of the Boxing Federation won handily over Dr. Bernard Nottage who titillated the media for days with indecision over whether to contest for the presidency itself.  Yes, the same B.J. Nottage, ‘CEO’ of the routed political party Coalition for Democratic Reform.  Observers are saying “BJ couldn't win for dog catcher right now in The Bahamas…” and that “This unfortunate and seemingly ill prepared battle has squarely pegged him as a loser.”  We don’t know if we’d go quite that far, still… Nassau Guardian file photo of Sir Arlington.
 

$700 MILLION IN INVESTMENTS

    Minister of Financial Services and Investments Allyson Maynard-Gibson has disclosed that some seven hundred million dollars in new investments can be expected in The Bahamas over the next five years.  Minister Gibson was speaking to Tribune Business reporter Samantha Joseph for a story published in the Tribune's Business Section.  Minister Gibson was foreshadowing her Ministry's five year plan for advancing the nation's financial services sector and stimulating investment, which is due for release sometime soon.  Minister Gibson is pictured at right in this Tribune photo with members of the the new Securities Board at a news conference. At centre is the Chairman of the Securities Board Calvin Knowles with Vice Chair Patricia Hermanns at left.

YOUNG LIBERALS MEET

    The Progressive Young Liberals, the youth arm of the Progressive Liberal Party held its first meeting under the newly elected executive this week at the Sir Lynden Pindling Centre.  Front row from left are Dominic Williams, second Vice-Chair; Contanza Adderley, Secretary-General; Jamal Davis, Chairman; Peggy Johnson, third Vice-Chair and Tito Henson, Assistant Chaplain.  Back row from left are Dale Rolle, National General Council Member; Donica Farrington. Treasurer; Ebony Beneby, Assistant Treasurer and Omar Armbrister, first Vice-Chair.  BIS photo by Raymond A. Bethel.

FLAP OVER TENNIS SUSPENSION
   Two of the country's most talented and prominent young tennis players have been given two year suspensions from the sport by the Bahamas Lawn Tennis Association (BLTA) for conduct as yet unspecified.  Dentry Mortimer (pictured) and Lavaughan Munroe, both Davis Cup team members are the players suspended.  Both the players and the BLTA have remained silent on the nature of the supposed transgression, however insiders say that it may involve a hotel fracas of some kind.  Tennis sources have told this site that despite calls in the media for the public to know all, "There are some things that are just better left unsaid."

BODY BUILDING CHAMPIONSHIPS

The Bahamas National Bodybuilding and Fitness Championships staged its twenty-ninth annual competition this past week at the Sheraton Grand hotel on Paradise Island.  Here are some images from the competition.  From left: the husband and wife team of Aaron and Michelle Green, victors in the Mixed Pairs; Steve Robinson and partner Gina Mackey, second in the Mixed Pairs; Grand Bahamian bodybuilding guru Ray Whylly; veteran bodybuilder Della Thomas and long-time Abaco bodybuilder Arthur Eldon. Tribune photos by Omar Barr.

SIR LYNDEN ANNIVERSARY

    The nation marked the second anniversary of the death of Sir Lynden Pindling, Monday 26th August.  The Sir Lynden Pindling Foundation throughout the week, both issued and accepted donations.  Peter Ramsay's photo published in the Bahama Journal shows Marguerite, Lady Pindling laying a wreath at the mausoleum of Sir Lynden.
 

B.S. NOTES FROM GENEVA’S FREEPORT… PLUS
In this new format, the former News From Grand Bahama is renamed as above.  This signifies the initials of our senior correspondent from the nation’s second city, with the ‘plus’ for the many other sources from whom contributions are accepted. Ed.

Is Hubert Coming Back? – Last week former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham came to Grand Bahama and told the boys at Kristi’s that he was here to do some fishing and to drop off a boat for repairs (see story above) and when he returned he would take them all fishing.  However, most politicos are saying that the real reason for the trip was to touch base with the Ingrahamites still remaining in the defeated FNM and our reports say that there are yet many.   The question must be asked is a trial balloon being launched in Grand Bahama for the return of Ingraham?  Tommy, they say, just don’t have it.

Ken Russell Attacks Airport Tax -  High Rock MP and former FNM Minister for Works attacked the Government this week over the hike in airport fees at the Grand Bahama International Airport.  Mr. Russell said that the airport had twice before tried to raise the fees under the FNM and they had been rejected.  He condemned the Government for allowing the owners of the airport to raise the tax, now reported at fifty four dollars a head in departure and in-ticket tax.

Obie Responds – Minister of Tourism and MP for West End & Bimini shot back that former Minister Russell was bordering on untruth.  According to Minister Wilchcombe, Mr. Russell knows that the Government is in negotiations with the Port Authority and he should say nothing.  The airport tax hike, said Wilchcombe was in the works before the election.  Still, the hike produced much mumbling and grumbling among Grand Bahamians with Esper Major of Laker Airlines saying that with the current sluggish market the rate hike couldn’t have come at a worse time.

School Bus Contracts – With the opening of school coming tomorrow, Monday 2nd September, reports are that school bus contracts now reflect the change in Government.  Our sources say that one single FNM general has been left with a bus contract.  As of Monday when school opens at least two former contract holders said they would be prepared to sell or lease their buses to the new contract holders or form ‘strategic partnerships’.  Just another example of how Family Islanders who live together, work together.

Minister of Education Here Again – It seems that the Minister of Education Alfred Sears is setting up shop in Grand Bahama.  Minister Sears was back on the island today, Sunday 1st September where he addressed two Anglican congregations.  Minister Sears in the hot seat lately for the FNM inspired disaster at the School Loan Programme also came under fire for published views on pre-school education where he suggested the implementation of a mandatory pre-school education.  Critics are saying that given the understaffing of the primary schools and the financial constraints, why would the Minister venture into new ground.  Of course, given that logic, precious little would ever happen.  Still, the pre-school flap was virtually insignificant compared to the invective being launched at the Minister from all quarters over the Government guaranteed school loans.

Miami Shoppers’ Alert – Bahamians are being warned to be on the lookout in several shopping areas of Miami.  Several readers of this site have reported that rented self-haul trailers seem to have been targeted for burglary.  Similar experiences were reported from the 103rd Street Mall in Hiahleah and the Oakwood Mall in Broward.  Perhaps these malls will revisit parking lot security.

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PHOTO OF THE WEEK - This week’s photo of the week is the Bahamian team at The Bahamas desk at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa.  From left: Fred Mitchell, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Donald Cooper, Under Secretary at the Bahamas Environmental Science and Technology Commission known as BEST; Rhoda Jackson, Counsellor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, United Nations, New York; Earlston McPhee, Project Co-ordinator, Ministry of Tourism and Keod Smith MP, newly appointed Ambassador for the Environment.

Now why would this be particularly painful for Fred Mitchell?  Some of you may remember the picture of Fred Mitchell on the front page of The Tribune in 1981 urging Kiwanians to raise money to send guns to South West Africa as it was then known and to South Africa and their respective freedom fighting movements.  The idea was to raise money in The Bahamas to contribute to the struggle.  He was then part of the NGO known as the Committee on Southern Africa, which was headed by Beryl Hanna, the wife of then Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Hanna.   Money was in fact raised and sent to Zimbabwe’s now ruling party.

Zimbabwe gained its independence in 1980 and has had a land distribution problem since independence.  Mr. Mugabe failed to deal with the question of land distribution and as his unpopularity grew in his country has decided to play the race card.  That means that he has told his supporters that it’s the white peoples fault that Zimbabwe is failing under his leadership, and had them loosed on the white farmers that produced the food and foreign currency for the country to survive.  The result has been disastrous.

Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State appeared at the summit and criticized Mr. Mugabe’s tactics that he said has left people near starvation in Zimbabwe that was once a net exporter of food.  It was Mr. Mugabe’s adventurism by sending his troops on an expensive and useless exercise in the Congo that ultimately bankrupted his country.  Add to this the disastrous land policy, add it to the drought, and you now have starvation.

But instead of dealing with his problems, one means by which would be for him to step down from office, he has gone on the attack against Britain and the European Union and the United States.  He has accused them of being neo colonial masters.  He says the press is engaged in a conspiracy. Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, has described the charge as rubbish.  Mind you this is the same liberal press are the ones who helped get him to power.  It is a smoke screen for bad governance.   It is clear that Mr. Mugabe must go.

And so when the Foreign Minister returns home, he has some questions to answer: like what was he doing in the company of these people and what is his position and advice to the Bahamian Government on this situation.

We report this week on the stew that US Ambassador has gotten himself in with the press.  His remarks last week published on this site that a newspaper publisher must “get a life” and that he will remember any attacks against him in the press were interpreted as a threat to the press.  We keep suggesting that this Ambassador ought to speak softly if he is to succeed in his job in The Bahamas.

This week’s photo of the week is a picture of Fred Mitchell, Minister of Foreign Affairs with his team at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa.  We report on some of the events there and the Minister's address.  The Minister also made a statement to the Bahamian people on his return to Nassau.  Please click here for that statement.

Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 7th September, 2002 at midnight: 22,900.

Number of hits for the month of September up to Saturday 7th September, 2002 at midnight: 22,900.

Number hits for the year up to Saturday 7th September, 2002 to midnight: 1,709,684.

SIX BAHAMIAN KIDS IN AN ACCIDENT
    The Bahamas woke up on Monday morning 2nd September to the horrible news that six of its residents, all students of Saint Andrew’s School had been involved in a horrible road traffic accident.  The six had left a friend's house for home in the late evening, and then there was a road traffic accident.  One of them ended up in a coma, being described as clinically dead.  She is Vanessa Fox (pictured).  Two others are in a coma Jade de Jaham and Lisa Lawlor.  Three others are alive.  The accident happened early Saturday 31st August.  This is a tragedy.  The accident, however, highlights yet again the mayhem that occurs every day on Bahamian roads.  The police have an off again on again programme on speeding that we believe is the main problem on Nassau’s roads.  Further, it is not clear whether or not there is any proper driver education in The Bahamas.  The prevailing feeling is that the buying of driver’s licences is endemic so that no one on the roads today under a certain age is actually properly trained to drive.
    The causes for the accident were never explained but for such a tragic accident to take place there must have been an awful speed.  The vehicle was a high powered SUV.  The driver was 17 years old.  They were coming from a party in Lyford Cay.  The person who is clinically dead was sitting on someone’s lap.  Then it also raises the question what those kids were doing out at that time of night.  It also raises dare we say it, the role of drinking and driving and teenagers themselves and drinking.  There are now laws on the books that prohibit the sale of liquor to minors.  It is routinely ignored, and parents themselves seem to have a permissive attitude toward serving it at parties.  But we have to be careful here, no one is making an accusation that this was indeed a case of drinking and driving, but the accident itself merely causes us to reflect on what is increasingly the carnage on Bahaman streets.
 

FIRE AT ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE

    An entire school block at St. John’s College burnt to the ground in the early hours of Friday morning, creating a challenge for the Anglican Education Authority.  No cause has been determined for the blaze and no-one was injured.  The destroyed block housed the school cafeteria, the primary school computer lab, the year’s supply of teaching tools and materials, the school clinic, the primary school library and the school’s archives.  A spokesman said that the fire had cost the school some sixty percent of its’ “irreplaceable assets”.  Still, by Saturday morning, a scant day after the catastrophe a blueprint for the replacement of the destroyed block was under review. Bahama Journal photo by Kristaan Ingraham II.
 

MS. ELMA JOHNSON DIES
    The headline should more properly read that Ms. Elma Johnson was killed.  Elma Johnson was a matriarch of Fox Hill.  She was at the time of her death 87 years old and from all accounts going strong.  It was only last year after the events at the Straw Market on 4th September where she had been a pioneer that she appeared on the front page of the newspaper and the photo was reproduced in this column as amongst the first straw vendors to accept a cheque as a result of the appeal for aid to straw vendors.  Now she is dead and for what?  She was killed in a traffic accident on the Fox Hill road as she was crossing the street to go to church at her nephew’s church at Davis Street, Faith Mission Church of God.  Ms. Johnson was honoured by that church just last year for her contributions to the church.  She owned much of the land along the Fox Hill Road and had made sure that each of her children got a parcel of land, including the piece where the church stood to her daughter and son-in-law Bishop Austin Saunders.
    The people of Fox Hill and their representative when he was a Senator had complained to the Bahamas Electricity Corporation about the darkness in the street at night.  They did nothing.  It was not until Minister Fred Mitchell spoke to Minister Bradley Roberts and complained last week about the matter that an investigation was done and the lights were repaired.  BEC has a bad reputation in the country and Fox Hill in particular is always having to endure load shedding.  It has been particularly bad this summer.  The death of Ms. Johnson stunned the Fox Hill neighbourhood and has probably ruined the reputation of BEC forever in Fox Hill.  Ms. Johnson is shown accepting her payment from officials last September in this file photo.
 

DID THE WORLD SUMMIT CHANGE ANYTHING?
    As summits go, it can be said that it accomplished all of its objectives.  The word went out long ago that The Bahamas expected to send a high level delegation to the conference, otherwise we could not be taken seriously on the world stage.  Yet there was a great deal of ifyness about whether or not we would go.
    Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell would do well to organize his planning so that the Bahamian people would get a true sense and connection to what is going on at these conferences.  The Government’s information machinery and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not appear to be yet properly organized and administered to be able to carry out its functions for and on behalf of the Bahamian people.  One of the main things that means is that the Ministry must inform the Bahamian people what is happening.  While there was some attempt to get back to the Bahamian people what was happening in Johannesburg, it was not in our opinion nearly enough.  The Government must realize that it has to spend the money if it wants the profile of the Ministry and our reputation abroad to improve.
    One thing that the Minister was able to say was that the reputation of The Bahamas amongst all countries is good.  We must continue to ensure that the reputation remains intact.  The Minister made his address on the evening of Monday 2nd September.  He focused on tourism as our number one industry and the requirement that it must be protected.  He spoke about the concern that the Japanese continue to send nuclear waste through the Caribbean.  You may click here for his full address.
    We asked the question in the headline, did the world summit change anything?  It did and then again it didn’t but what is clear is that there is a concerted effort to organize behind certain objectives that will be better for the world.  That is noble and even if it just means incremental change; that too is good.  It better to have this stuff talked about, on the agenda and make people sensitive to all the possible changes we are bringing upon ourselves by our abuse of the natural order of things.  Then too it is better for the world’s leaders to keep talking as opposed to fighting. We think that the objectives of cleaner water, saving the fishery resources and sustainable tourism will all help The Bahamas.  So there is no doubt we ought to have been there.
 

MITCHELL’S SECRET TRIP TO ZIMBABWE?
    Reports reaching us say that Fred Mitchell, the Foreign Minister may secretly have visited Harare, Zimbabwe on the evening of Wednesday 4th September shortly after signing off on the text of the political declaration and the plan of action of the Summit on Sustainable Development.  No reason was given for the trip but it’s is believed that while it was essentially a private visit to an old school friend, the Minister took the opportunity to get first hand information about the state of Zimbabwe under President Robert Mugabe’s land reform programme.  The Minister now represents The Bahamas on the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG).  The Bahamas is the Caricom representative.  This group overlooks the question of democracy in the Commonwealth.  No doubt we shall have to discover more of what happened on that secret trip.
 

A VISIT TO BOWE-JOUBERT FARMS
    Alphonso Bowe celebrated his 40th birthday on Tuesday 3rd September.  He has a lot to be thankful for and we as a country it seems have a lot to be thankful to him for.  He is in partnership with a foreign investor, owner of the Executive Jet Centre at the Nassau International Airport, the rival to the Millionaire Jet Centre.  He is also it turns out an investor in several vineyards in South Africa and travels there often to watch over his investments.  The Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell during his visit to South Africa went to Cape Town to see the farms in which Mr. Bowe is the major investor.  Joining Mr. Bowe in South Africa in a separate investment on another farm as a neighbour is Jim Atkinson, a permanent resident of The Bahamas, who now lives in Freeport.
    The Minister was hosted by the Joubert Family; dad Jannie, daughter Tina and son Lannie who has a new born son who represents the seventh generation of his family on that farm.  According to the Joubert family, descendants of French Huguenots, the Bowe investment has brought new life into the business.  They are planning and planting and it is impressive.  Their hospitality is flawless.
    Al Collie is another Bahamian who has an investment in South Africa.  The Minister was pleased to be there and congratulated Mr. Bowe on his accomplishments.  The Joubert family seems a study in the transition that has taken place in ten years in South Africa.  Their lack of rancour as the changes have taken place and an embracing of the new reality of South Africa.  We wish them all well.  From left are Mr. Joubert, Mr. Bowe, Minister Mitchell and Tina Joubert.  We also show the company’s logo.  If you wish to order wines from the Bowe-Joubert farms, it can be flown out to you by e-mailing Tina at: tina@bowejoubert.com.
 
 

BUSH ON IRAQ LIKE US AMBASSADOR IN NASSAU
    The Bush administration has finally come round to allowing Colin Powell, the Secretary of State to be able to tell the allies of the US that they will not unilaterally act to bomb and invade Iraq.  We will see whether what Mr. Powell says is actually supported by an administration that has increasingly ignored the former General’s advice.  The Bush II presidency seems set on exacting revenge on Saddam Hussein even though there is so far no rational argument for such a war because Mr. Hussein survived George Bush, the father.
    The war drums are beating in Washington.  Chancellor Schroeder of Germany who looks now like he is going down to defeat in Germany in its elections this month has said that under no circumstances will Germany participate in a war against Iraq.  His view is that no compelling case has been made that Iraq has done anything more dangerous than since it was crippled by the world powers after 1991.  His political opponent agrees with Mr. Schroeder.  We are cynical.  Our best guess is that in the end not only Britain will capitulate, but so will all the world powers.
    The Americans have set up their Government like ancient Rome.  It was no accident that one of the war mongers in the Department of Defence Richard Armitage was quoted in the International Herald Tribune as saying that the US was the most powerful and influential nation on earth today and for all time.  Translation, the US will have its way.  The problem is that the statement is not one that can be scientifically proven because the feeling one gets is that the Romans were just as powerful in their day and in their times as were the British in their day and in their time.  The American civilization if you can call it that is just 200 years old and has not stood the test of time or mature polices.  The war mongering on Iraq seems a fatally flawed policy that will cost their country enormously in money and manpower.  But a war mongering they will go.
    What is instructive is that all this shows the mentality of those who run the administration in Washington.  Bahamians should not then be surprised at the interventions in this country by the US representatives here.  They do not care whether we are small and sovereign.  It is simply a question like George Bush says: you are for us or against us.  That is a false premise but in these days and times, who dares make that argument?  If you do, you are said to be against the US.  Former Prime Minister of Spain Felipe Gonzales described Mr. Bush’s statement as "banal".  We agree. The problem with that is the United States will never know who its true friends are, but maybe they are too big to care.
 

MARKING 4th SEPTEMBER

   It seems just like yesterday that the telephone calls came through that the Straw Market had burned down flat to the ground.  It left a hole in the middle of Bay Street.  Suddenly, the merchants on Bay Street were putting up money themselves and urging the Government to get it going again because the stores on Bay Street lost money due to the fact that the straw market was not there.  The Ingraham regime promised that they would replace the market but made a huge boo boo when they paved the site of the Market and made it a parking lot with no design for a replacement in sight.  The place that they wanted to put the market was deemed unsuitable by the US experts who thought that it was too close to cruise ships and therefore would pose a security threat.  This week Leslie Miller, the Minister who is responsible for the Straw Market announced that the market would be replaced on the site of the original market.  He said that plans are being drawn and when completed the 5 p.m. shut down of Bay Street will be done.  This is welcome news.  Now, Minister, let us see the plans before those rowdy women in the market come and get you.  The Minister made his remarks at a service of commemoration with straw vendors on Tuesday 3rd September. The Tribune photo is shown.
 
 

A FRIEND COMMENTS ON US AMBASSADOR
    A young PLP sent us, shall we call it a gently, an incensed e-mail because he thought that we ought to have addressed more vigorously the comments of the US Ambassador in his words last week to the Bahamian media.  You may click here for a report of last week’s story.  The correspondent said that the Ambassador should face recall from this country.  As we have said many times in this column, we just don’t understand the man.  Everything that he has done since he has been here has been to stub the Bahamian people in the face with his thumb, acting as if he is some satrap acting at the behest of some imperial overlord.
    Quite frankly, we don’t understand why Fred Mitchell, the Foreign Minister, just doesn’t call this guy in and tell him to shut his damn mouth.  But one supposes that would not be diplomatic.  But Nicki Kelly, The Tribune and Wendall Jones all seem to be on the warpath with this Ambassador now.  The latest salvo came from Mr. Jones, the owner of Love 97 and the Bahama Journal whose papers have been leading with headlines like ‘BLANKENSHIP’S BLUNDER’. Clearly The Tribune, Nicki Kelly and Mr. Jones think of this matter as a grave threat.  And instead of the Ambassador backing down and letting the thing go away, he has inflamed the situation by commenting on it further and commenting on it in such an inflammatory way.  This guy just keeps putting his foot in it.
    Later in the week addressing a group of visiting and Bahamian doctors, the ambassador “strongly urged” The Bahamas government to eliminate the import duties on medical supplies.   But you know the real tragedy is that some good work by someone who is essentially a decent man is going to be ruined if he does not get on top of this problem and close his mouth.  There may come a time when the noise just gets so loud from the Bahamian people that the Government will be forced to ask the Bush administration to remove him from the island.
 

THE PM ANNOUNCES NEW CABINET PROCEDURE

    Perry Christie as Prime Minister has been trying to find new ways to make the Cabinet more responsive to the needs of the country.  Part of that would seem to be the involvement of each Minister in the development of policies from other Ministries.  He also wants the public servants to commit to the policy advice that the public servant is giving behind the scenes by making public presentations that other Ministers can see and hear and understand.  To that end, the Prime Minister announced publicly that Cabinet meetings would begin with a new format.  The first few hours of the Cabinet meeting will have Permanent Secretaries and their technical teams come in and discuss the advice that they are giving on a particular subject.  Allyson Gibson, the Minister for Financial Service and Investment gave the first such presentation. Guardian photo by Donald Knowles.
 

BRENT SYMONETTE ON WHITE POLITICAL LEADERS
    Brent Symonette is a sad man or so said The Tribune as it reported what it called the deep disappointment and sadness that Mr. Symonette felt at the comments made by many Bahamians that because he was white he could not become the Leader of any political party in The Bahamas.  He made his comments on Parliament Street on Island FM on Sunday 1st September.  Mr. Symonette in his own words:

“It is sad that white young people have the issue of race or colour hanging over their heads, because it has nothing to do with colour but the content of character…

“The rumours may have arisen as a result of the UBP party which during its time was a predominantly white political party that was considered to have operated unfairly…

“Even the PLP Government they at this stage would not have a white leader, so  it should not be a surprise if that is said in the FNM, however whites would be allowed to join the actual party.

“I am convinced that the white minority can make a significant contribution to the country and there must be some reconciliation between the white minority and black majority."

Things that make you go hmmm!  Mr. Symonette should also speak about the fact that he attended a racially segregated high school in The Bahamas.  But we think that this is really calculated by Mr. Symonette to make race a dead issue to allow him to run for leader and then be Prime Minister.  That is why he keeps bringing it up. - Ed
 
 

NEW BAHAMAS MORTGAGE BOARD

    The Prime Minister has announced the new Board of the Mortgage Corporation of The Bahamas that will be responsible for overseeing a 20.8 million dollar housing plan announced by Minister of Housing Shane Gibson.  Heading the Board is Deputy Speaker of the House Anthony Moss who is also the MP for Exuma.  Other members of the Board are: Deputy Chair Terah Sweeting, members Elton Williamson, Rory Higgs, Aaron Rodgers, Rev. Ross Davis, Melissa Thompson, Darien Creary and Stephan Plakaris. Guardian photo by Patrick Hanna shows Mr. Moss at left with Mr. Christie centre and Minister Shane Gibson at right.
 
 

NEW COLLEGE OF THE BAHAMAS BOARD

    The College of The Bahamas has a new Board.  It is headed by Franklyn Wilson (pictured), Chairman of Arawak Homes, former MP and Senator and a trustee of Elmira College, New York.  The Deputy Chair is Jerome Fitzgerald, Chairman of RND Holdings; Dr. Leon Higgs, COB President; Rev. Angela Palacious, Simon Wilson, representing the Minister of Finance; Iris Pinder, Director of Education, Dr. Earl Cash partner at Higgs and Johnson; Audrey Roberts, international human resources consultant; Dr. Earle Johnson, Faculty Rep; Picewell Forbes, Alumni Rep and Jeremy Williams, student rep.
 
 

TRANSITIONS
Exchange control will be relaxed says Minister of State James Smith.  Under the new regime there will be increased limits for business, travel and also for investment overseas.  It’s about time for these things to be scrapped.

Central Bank Governor Julian Francis said that fundamental concerns remain for regulators considering approval in The Bahamas of the Caribbean-wide merger between Barclays Bank and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.  Final permission has not yet been given for the merger in The Bahamas though both institutions are said to be going ahead with the practical matters surrounding the ‘marriage’.  Mr. Francis was speaking on the Love 97 programme ‘Issues of the Day’.

A Ministerial team including Minister of Financial Services and Investment Allyson Maynard Gibson (shown right), Minister of Health Dr. Marcus Bethel (shown left) and Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe has held a town meeting in Exuma on the Emerald Bay development there.  Emerald Bay is scheduled to open in 2003, forever changing the face of Exuma.  Guardian photo by Donald Knowles.

Bahamian tennis star Mark Knowles (right) and his partner Daniel Nestor (left) have been eliminated from the U.S. Open in the quarter finals.  Sorry about that!

Renee Major of the Fox Hill PLP serves treats to some of the children of the Fox Hill area gathered for the PLP’s Back To School Fun Day held on the Fox Hill parade Saturday 31st August.  Though on his way to South Africa at the time, the Member of Parliament for the area Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell left behind stocks of school supplies for the children of the constituency.  The event was organized by Mrs. Jan Davis of Fox Hill. Tribune photo by Felipe Major.

Convicted drug offender Samuel ‘Ninety’ Knowles cursed when it was announced yet again that Magistrate Carolita Bethel could not make a decision in his extradition case.  This is the fourth postponement.  This time it is put off to 27th September. Guardian photo by Patrick Hanna.

Caribbean Elections - Jamaica is scheduled to have elections before the end of the year, probably in late October or November.  Trinidad is having its third election in two years on 7th October.  There is now a hung parliament with 18-18.  Barbados expects to go early to the country to take advantage of the disarray of the Opposition there.  They are expected to
go in February of next year, one year early.  Belize is scheduled to have elections before August of next year.  We thought the Bahamian public would be interested.

GONE CRAWFISHING
    Did you see US President George W. Bush's  use of "crawfishing" during his news conference announcing his intent to justify force against Iraq to the UN?  The London Times researches in an OpEd piece: “To crawfish”, means to withdraw unreservedly from an untenable position, and quotes the Congressional Globe from 1848: “No sooner did they see the old British Lion rising up than they crawfished back to the 49th parallel.”
    An observation about the direction of language in the world and how it affects (and has over the years) The Bahamas.  The great many in this country tend to alternate in spelling and usage depending on who is the great world or colonial power of the time and now; finally, there is some contribution that speaks to us, except, of course, that to us there is a completely different meaning: that a crawfishing Saddam just doesn't give a damn.
 
 

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B.S. NOTES FROM GENEVA’S FREEPORT… PLUS
In this new format, the former News From Grand Bahama is renamed as above.  This signifies the initials of our senior correspondent from the nation’s second city, with the ‘plus’ for the many other sources from whom contributions are accepted. Ed.

Grand Bahama FNM Resists – The signs were all there this week that the FNM in Grand Bahama is resisting the will of the people in challenging the authority of the PLP’s lead person in Grand Bahama; Parliamentary Secretary Ann Percentie, MP.  Saturday saw a front page story in The Tribune reporting claims from Naomi, Lady Whitfield, manager under the FNM of the Office of the Prime Minister that Ms. Percentie had “effective assumed control of the office.”  Well.  Pray tell, what should a Parliamentary Secretary do, if not “assume control”.  Duh?!  There were also reports of a clash between Ms. Percentie and a hospital employee.  Turns out the employee is really a rude FNM partisan with an attitude.  All this prompted a direct an unprecedented call to our senior correspondent from none other than former Minister C.A. Smith, calling for fair reporting by Bahamasuncensored.com!  Really.  This is the same C.A. Smith who is said to have closed down a children’s recreational park in pure spite when he lost; removing and locking up toys and equipment. Hah.  Fair indeed.

They Just Keep Trying – Former Minister of Works, High Rock MP Ken Russell kept up his row this week with Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe over proposed increase tax at Grand Bahama International Airport.  Increases in departure taxes have been delayed.  Mr. Russell contends that the FNM was approached over the tax and turned it down.  Minister Wilchcombe reveals that the FNM okayed the deal before it left power.  Meanwhile, at least one major carrier is said to be threatening not to pay.  We’ll keep watching.

Questions For the Foreign Minister – Lovingly known in entertainment circles as ‘Caproni’, this week Mr. Dudley Capron now an apparent political observer wanted to know why the Foreign Minister went to Haiti and what is he doing in South Africa “while we have poor people catching hell”.  Well, Caproni, please read the relevant stories above.  It may also be of interest to know that the Foreign Minister goes nowhere without the consent of the Prime Minister and the blessing of the cabinet.

Political Activist Brian Seymour took to the luncheon circuit this week in his quest to derail the seemingly inexorable process of signing on to FTAA and WTO.  Speaking at the Rotary Club of Lucaya the (former?) CDR provocateur posited whether the government “has the courage to do what is in the best interests of the Bahamian people”.  Mr. Seymour felt that the country’s population was too small and salaries too high for any manufacturing trade and that we should be the “exception to the rule” in terms of signing on to FTAA / WTO.
Mr. Seymour also called for the reassignment of the Commander of the Defence Force in favour of someone prepared to “stop the Haitian boat people at Inagua”.

Sunland For Sale? – Newspaper reports circulated this week in the Nassau Guardian that the Board of Directors of Sunland Lutheran School was considering a sale of the institution and that offers were being considered from two Baptist organizations.  The school has been in financial difficulty lately, which has caused very public strains between the church’s overseer, the Board and the school administration.  Sunland is consistently among the top performers in terms of exam results.

Freeport News For Nassau – The Guardian Group has decided to bring the Freeport News directly to the Nassau market on a daily basis with printing Grand Bahama’s daily at the Guardian.  From left are Guardian Managing Editor Anthony Capron, Assistant Editor Lionella Gilbert, Operations Manager Gilbert Francis and Group General Manager Patric Walkes holding copies of the Freeport News’ inaugural Nassau run. Guardian photo by Farreno Ferguson.

Click on a heading to go to that story; press ctrl+home to return to the top of the page.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK - This week’s photo of the week is the Foreign Minister with students of Aquinas College who left Nassau for New York as winners of a Rotary debating contest that allows them to visit the United Nations.  From left are Aquinas College Principal Ms. Elizabeth Miller, 11th-grader and Prefect Alana Kemp, Aquinas College graduate TeShalla Clarke, Minister Mitchell, Deputy Head Girl Angelique Sawyer, Senior Prefect Janicka Curry, Rotary Club (Bahamas) Assistant District Governor Mr. Robin Brownrigg, and Chairman of the MUNS debates Mr. Charles Sealy II.

The story of excessive security is not new, and in this post 11 September climate it is worse than ever.  Fidel Castro, not known as a friend of George Bush or the Americans, made the point when he was leaving Monterey in Mexico last year that the Bush caravan had some 1200 persons in it.  It looked like he had landed in Mexico to declare war.  They fly in their own cars, their own food, their own ambulance and tons, tons and tons of weapons.

According to reports, New York on the streets was a total mess. The New York police were rude and uncooperative, and to every question asked they replied that the Secret Service had not informed them.  There were scenes of cars being searched by the US Secret Service officers that seemed the essence of insecurity.  Who was to say that the boxes that they were searching were not themselves armed with explosives and just as they moved one from the back trunk the alarm went off.  One suspects that part of it is just psychological, the overwhelming presence as a deterrent.  But one remembers all too vividly that when the assassination attempt was made on US President Ronald Reagan, the shooter was able to get off the whole magazine before the first Secret Service gun was pulled.  Their security, notwithstanding the overwhelming presence, appears to have holes.

Delegates at the UN were insulted that the US President does not following the tradition of other World Leaders after their speeches and stand behind the podium in the space reserved where he can receive congratulations for his speech.  As soon as his speech is delivered, he leaves the hall and so does his Secretary of State along with the entire staff.  They do not even appear until minutes before he is about to speak.  The whole thing smacks of contempt.

And yet the language of Mr. Bush’s address indicated an important change in policy.  The world is not out of the woods yet because the tone of the speech was threatening and bellicose.  The undercurrent still being that if the UN does not agree with the US, the US will go it alone.  But the reality is that US Secretary of State Colin Powell seems to have won the day and Mr. Bush’s policy now seems to indicate that the United Nations Security Council must sign off on a resolution that would be the legal pretext for the United States to proceed with the military action that they believe is necessary.  Their case is unconvincing.  The speech contained a litany of the same complaints against Iraq that seem now to be under control by the policy of containment the US now employs.  There is nothing that distinguishes Iraq from Myanmar (once known as Burma) or from North Korea.  The Pakistani President, the military dictator they now support, is just a kiss away from the Iraq dictator himself.  So there is no compelling case for plunging the world into war.  But we shall see.

The other positive indicator was the fact the United States will rejoin United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).  They left during the Reagan years because its policies did not please them.  Now they claim it has been reformed and so they are back.  Colin Powell denies that the United Sates is unilateralist but it sure does look so.  But the rejoining is good.

We report below on the Foreign Minister’s trip to the United Nations and speaking to Bahamians in New York.  We report on the assessment of the new Government and on how 11 September was marked in The Bahamas.

Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 14th September 2002 at midnight: 26,051

Number of hits for the month of September up to Saturday 14th September 2002 at midnight: 48,951.

Number of hits for the year ending Saturday 14th September 2002: 1,735,735.

THE GOVERNMENT’S PERFORMANCE
    No one will be surprised to hear that there is rising unhappiness with the pace of change since the PLP took office.  One of our supporters was busy predicting that this would be a one term Government if something did not change soon.  The complaint, things are moving too slowly, and the political enemies are still very much in charge of the country.

    But a more important warning came from the business community this week that is talking around its tables about the fact that no new money is coming into the country.  They hear a lot of talk and they have noted the report by the Minister for Investment Allyson Maynard-Gibson (pictured in this Tribune photo) that there are some 700 million dollars waiting to be invested.  But she continues not to have a permanent office, nor does the Ministry of Trade and Industry.  And the business community is not quite sure which of those Ministries is responsible for what.  That leads to some confusion.

    At the ground or working class level, there is unhappiness because many people thought that when the PLP came to office they would find work.  Some people are still walking around with their Minister friends but they have been grumbling on the side that their Minister friends have not done enough to help them find that all important Government job.  Everyone, it must often seem to the politicians, wants a Government job and the attitude is that the Ministers themselves are now straight but they have forgotten their friends.

    What do they do in this situation, when the country is in dire straits?
 

FOREIGN MINISTER ON US AMBASSADOR
When Fred Mitchell, the Foreign Minister returned to Nassau from Johannesburg, South Africa, he was asked some pointed questions again on the role of the US Ambassador Richard Blankenship.  Mr. Blankenship is the Ambassador about whom the Bahamian people have been complaining in recent months; who has been making interventions in and about Bahamian society that many Bahamians have found to be offensive.

The most recent intervention by the Ambassador led to a row between the press and the Ambassador about an exclusive granted by the Ambassador to question a Congressional delegation that visited The Bahamas.  The row turned ugly.  Publisher Wendall Jones claimed that Mr. Blankenship’s actions were discriminatory.  That complaint led to Mr. Blankenship saying that Mr. Jones ought to “get a life” and that he would remember those who criticized him.  The press cried foul and saw those words as a threat.

The Foreign Minister landed in The Bahamas and was faced with the inquiry about the U.S. Ambassador.  Here is Mr. Mitchell in his own words:

“The Bahamian people must ask themselves whether their level of discomfort with US Ambassador Blankenship has risen to the point where government must make an intervention.  It is my judgment that the situation has not reached that level.  One has to understand that once you take that position in public, you are in fact taking on the United States of America and that is the judgment we are always called upon to make when we make an intervention of that kind.

“Any unhappiness about public statements in a free society can be dealt with adequately by the Bahamian people themselves making known clearly what their views are.

“The Bahamian people once they make their views known, and we have heard the views, eventually it gets to their leaders and their leaders will make them known to The Bahamas government and say ‘ladies and gentlemen, it is time for an intervention at another level.’

“At the moment it is my view that any issue that arises out of any public statements or private statements can be dealt with at a level that is not public.  I try to make point that in a free society an ambassador, an individual has the right to say whatever he wishes.  We may disagree with the language or the tenor of the statements but it is presumably the view of his Government that diplomacy is conducted in this way.”

Well people you have heard the man, let’s start a petition—Ed Felipe Major's Tribune photo of the Minister (at right with aide) arriving in Nassau from Johannesburg and at a news conference immediately following in Nassau International Airport's VIP Lounge by Donald Knowles of the Nassau Guardian.
 
 

PM ON FOREIGN EXCHANGE
    There was this engaging picture of Prime Minister Perry Christie on the front page of the Bahama Journal on Tuesday 10 September by Peter Ramsay talking to Wendy Craig, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank.  Ms. Craig is very much the flavour of the month with the new Government.

    The Prime Minister was holding a press conference on Monday 9th September to announce the liberalization of the Foreign Exchange Control regulations.  The allowance for individual travel is now up to $3,000 per trip from $500.  The dollar card has been increased from $10,000 per individual per annum to $25,000.  But perhaps the most important provision is the elimination of the premium charge on investment dollars overseas.  The new limit is now one million dollar per person/entity for qualified investments.

    The Bahamas has long been a signatory to the protocols of the International Monetary Fund that commit the country on the recurrent side to loosen exchange control restrictions.  No one really concerns themselves with Exchange Control because US dollars are so freely in circulation in everyone’s pocket notwithstanding the requirement in law that Bahamian notes are the only legal tender and all US dollar notes are to be turned in to the nearest clearing house bank.

    The whole exchange control regime is defended on the basis that it preserves the value of the B dollar in that the reserves in US dollars at the Central Bank are carefully monitored to maintain a one to one relationship of US dollars to Bahamian dollars in circulation.  Bermuda has no exchange control and manages to maintain their dollar value.  The whole regime seems to have outlived its usefulness.  The question most people have asked is, why if the reserves are down in the face of a recession is the bank moving to do this at this time?  No answer in any of the public pronouncements.  The closest we can get is that getting rid of the administrative inconvenience is a politically good thing to do at this time.

    Owen Bethel of Montaque Securities told The Tribune on Wednesday 11th September that the Government ought to go further and eliminate the premium dollar investment requirement all together.  We agree.
 

MORE ON MUGABE
Last week, we reported that the President of Zimbabwe made a fool of himself in Johannesburg, embarrassing his hosts South Africa with his rantings against the so called neo-colonial oppressor.  We condemned those remarks, even as we agreed that there ought to be land reform in Zimbabwe.

Too often when a leader’s time is up, he is able to create political distractions by smokescreens such as neo-colonialism.  No one is fooled for a moment by Robert Mugabe.  His time is up.  He just doesn’t know it.  This week, Mr. Mugabe was at it again only this time at the United Nations.  Mr. Mugabe addressed the UN body.  Here is some of what he had to say in his own words:

“Finally, Mr. President, my delegation is happy to inform you that Zimbabwe has concluded the fast track land redistribution programme, which we introduced in July 20 in order to transfer land to the hitherto landless black majority.  It will be recalled that we had to face vehement protestations, bad publicity and misinformation from those who did not wish us well.  We remained resolute in the face of powerful forces determined to preserve vestiges of colonial privilege.

“The primary objective of our agrarian reforms is to redress the colonial injustice perpetrated by Britain whereby a minority of British settlers in 1890 seized our land and acquired our natural resources but never paid any compensation to our ancestors.

“By assuming its Independence in 1980, Zimbabwe had discarded the colonial yoke for all time and, therefore, will never brook any interference in its domestic affairs by any foreign power.  I appeal to this General Assembly to convey to Britain and especially to its current Prime Minister Mr. Tony Blair, that Zimbabwe ceased to be a British colony in 1980 after Prince Charles had gracefully lowered the British flag, called the Union Jack.  He should also please be informed that the people of Zimbabwe waged an armed revolutionary struggle for their Independence and stand ready to defend it in the same way.

“We want to be left in peace to carry out just reforms and development plans as we peacefully interact and cooperate with other countries within the region, the African continent and the international community.  We refuse to be an extension of Europe.”

On the face of it that is fine.  Except that he has a country that has widespread starvation.  He has a country where he has charged the Leader of the Opposition with treason, clearly on flimsy excuses and designed to imprison the Leader of the Opposition.  The whole idea in our view is to act in such a way as to create a smokescreen for bad governance and to make it impossible for the Opposition to operate freely.  And surprise surprise, you blame the British.  Mr. Mugabe must come clean.  He must resign.  Fresh elections must be called.  The Leader of the Opposition must be freed unconditionally – Ed.
 

BAHAMIANS ABROAD
    The Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell accompanied by the United Nations Ambassador Anthony Rolle and the Ambassador to the U.S. Joshua Sears and their wives all attended a gala evening put on by Bahamians in New York City on Friday 13th September.  The occasion was to mark the 90th Anniversary of the Nassau Bahamas Association Inc.  This is the association that is an umbrella group for all Bahamians living in the tri state - New York, Connecticut and New Jersey area.

    The night was said to be a good one with an address by the Minister congratulating the members and officers of the Association for a job well done over the past 90 years.  The President of the organization is William R. Dames.  Ten men of Bahamian ancestry founded the organization.  Their names were: Austin A. Wilson, Rubin Clinton, Charles Sawyer, Bruce Roberts, Frank Russell, Robert Carey, Arthur Minns, Edward Brown, Henson Styles and Willie White.  They hailed from New Providence, Andros, Abaco, Cat Island, Eleuthera and Long Island.

    The constitution of the association was drafted in the home of Austin A Wilson and officially adopted on 17th September 1912.  Ten years later in 1922 membership was expanded to include women, and further it was expanded to include descendants, spouses and honorary membership to non-Bahamians.  The organization was incorporated in New York State as the Nassau, Bahamas Association Inc. on 6th July 1939.  In 1946 it bought a building that it still owns today at 137th Street in Manhattan in the midst of Harlem.  The Association has now paid off all the back taxes and is engaged in the process of refurbishing the building.

    The official history says that the organization was founded because the British Government could not be relied upon in the early 20th century to support the rights of Bahamians who had migrated here.  The organization was formed to assist Bahamians who migrated from The Bahamas to New York.

    Congratulations to Mr. Dames and his officers.  The Association also held a church service at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Manhattan.  The Association with such a rich history should not be allowed to die but what seemed clear is that there is a need to have young people enter its ranks, the organization must be relevant to the needs of the new group that has moved to New York if it is to continue.
 
 

THE DEFENCE FORCE COMMANDER
    Commander Davey Rolle, head of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force is just about at the end of one contract of five years and wants to begin another five years.  There is great resistance on the ground against this.  Most Defence Force officers, and even senior commanders are reportedly so demoralized over his leadership that they want him out now or they will be out.  He has been said not to be a good advocate of the Force and its needs, with hardly one working operational boat at the moment, except the transport ship and the two new boats commissioned under the FNM’s watch that can’t dock in any harbour except Nassau and Freeport.

    The younger Defence Force officers, almost with out exception, voted for the PLP because they wanted the PLP to replace Davey Rolle as the Commander of the Defence Force.  The officers voted for change, so there is no need for us to turn our backs on them. It is time to find Commander Davey Rolle a new job.
 
 

THE POLICE AND MRS. GRANGER
    Ruth Granger is 90 years old.  She was born a Mitchell and is the last remaining sibling of Fred Mitchell Sr. now deceased.  That makes her the Aunt of Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell.  Mrs. Granger is living out her final years in the home that her husband built and left for her in Chippingham just behind the Botanical Gardens.  Her husband William V. Granger rose to the rank of Deputy Commissioner of Police and served on many occasions as the Commissioner of Police during colonial times.  He died in 1976 so many people may not remember him at all.

    Notwithstanding that, it was special irony that one night some two weeks ago, police officers came pounding on the door of the widow Granger at 3 a.m. in the morning demanding that she open up.  She is an invalid and when she did not or more accurately took too long, they bashed the door down looking and demanding some one named Philip.  No identification, no apology for waking her up.  Then they proceeded to harass the housekeeper who sleeps overnight with her threatening to lock her up because she is Jamaican.  No apology when she was able to produce a Bahamian passport.

    While a complaint was made to the Minister and the Commissioner, these officers have issued no apology to Mrs. Granger and one is required at least.  It is not good enough to say that an investigation is being held.
 

MARKING 11TH SEPTEMBER
    The United States Embassy held observances in Rawson Square on Wednesday 11th September.  The occasion was to remember the victims of the World Trade Centre attack and the attack on the Pentagon Buildings and the crash of flight 93 and the loss of life. The ceremony was a simple one.  It lasted 25 minutes.  It was attended by the Prime Minister and members of the Cabinet.  The Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke on behalf of the Government.  He told the public that one sticks by one’s friends.  One reader of this site took that to mean that this was support of a pre-emptive strike on Iraq.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

    The Foreign Minister made it clear that The Bahamas has no view on Iraq itself.  What The Bahamas believes is that international disputes ought to be settled through the dispute resolution procedures of the United Nations.  And if the United Nations approves an action then in accordance with our responsibilities under the charter of the United Nations, we will be bound to support it.

    Mr. Mitchell said: “Today then as we mark this anniversary with our friend the United States of America, we affirm the values of our civilization – tolerance, respect for human life, the rule of law and the peaceful settlement of all disputes.  This attack on our civilization cannot stand.”  For once the United States Ambassador was graceful in his response.  Although, we thought that there were too many references to terrorism that has become a misused pejorative, in a letter written to the press the U.S. Ambassador had this to say:

    “I want to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks to Prime Minister Christie, Foreign Minister Mitchell and Excellencies from all Ministries of the Government of The Commonwealth of The Bahamas for their participation in today's exercise… Finally I wish to say thank you to the people of The Bahamas who have steadfastly given the United States their support during this difficult time."

     We believe that this is how an Ambassador is supposed to write, act and behave with grace and aplomb, not threatening and with bluster.  The Nassau Guardian showed the Patrick Hanna photo of the Ambassador and his staff at the observances in Rawson Square.
 

ORVILLE TURNQUEST ENDS AS CHANCELLOR
    During his tenure as Governor General, there seemed a clear conflict of interest between his position as Head of the State and as advisor to the Anglican See on questions of Law.  But Orville Turnquest, a long-time Anglican layman, would not give up the position despite the fact that Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham had reportedly advised him of the conflict.  Now on Thursday 12th September, Sir Orville has announced that he is retiring from the job after 37 years as Chancellor and 3 years as Vice Chancellor – a nice round forty years of legal advice.  That must surely be a record of some kind.

    Sir Orville was appointed Chancellor during the tenure of then Bishop Bernard Markham.  He has served Michael Eldon and now Archbishop Drexel Gomez.  Sir Orville said in his statement: “… in the Church as in all areas of society around us, time moves on, and another generation of Bahamians deserve an opportunity to serve and make their capable input on behalf of their peers in the Church.  I trust that my successor will appreciate the honour and gravity of the office of Chancellor and will work diligently with God’s help to fulfil the terms of that awesome mandate.”  Sir Orville is pictured in this file photograph during his tenure as Governor General.
 

A SALUTE TO DR. OFFFF

    There is no doubt that in his day and time Tyrone Fitzgerald Sr., aka Dr. Offff, was one of the great entertainers.  He was actually a marketing man for Heineken and then for Bahamas Blenders as his day job, but his real love was Junkanoo and music.  He wrote the song GET INVOLVED and he was the co-author before that of ‘Funky Nassau’.  The latter song lightened the hearts of many a teenager in the early seventies.  It got a reprise in the movie BLUES BROTHERS II released in 2000.

    Tyrone, known to his friend as plain ‘Off’ or as Rooney, is now ill, suffering from debilitating cancer of the spine and the ravages of the medical treatment.  But he is feeling a little better and his spirits are up.  He is now going into therapy.  His son Tyrone Jr., an attorney at law, his brother Edward and his friends are holding a banquet at $75 per ticket to honour him and raise funds for his medical expenses on Friday 20th September.  It is a worthy cause and you should turn out.

    Offff is from the Valley.  The PM was his representative, his friend and corner boy for many many years.  And so the organizing group together with Dr. Offff visited the PM on Monday 9th September.  The photo is by Peter Ramsay and was published in the Bahama Journal of Tuesday 10th September.
 

OBIE PINDLING DENIES RUMOURS
    Attorney Obie Pindling has categorically denied rumours linking him with money laundering and the years-old murder of ‘601’ nightclub manager Joy Cartwright.  Speaking to The Tribune in a front-page story, Mr. Pindling said, "It's all a bunk of lies… The talk doesn't worry me.  I know the facts and I know the truth.  I have done nothing wrong and I am tired of these smears."

    Mr. Pindling is the son of the late Sir Lynden Pindling, former Prime Minister and Lady Pindling.  In the Tribune story, he was quoted as describing Nassau as "the rumour capital of the world".  The story also quoted sources as saying that the innuendo surrounding Mr. Pindling's was the result of "a political conspiracy and a police vendetta".

    The denial by Mr. Pindling followed repeated veiled references to him the tabloid press and the release of a Florida federal indictment accusing two mafia men of involvement in a multi-million dollar money laundering scheme with a Nassau lawyer.  The indictment linked the alleged scam to the shooting of Ms. Cartwright, who was said to be a nominee of one of the companies set up by the lawyer. Tribune file photo.
 
 

TRANSITIONS

    BaTelCo as we know it has now officially gone out of business. Now the company is known as the Bahamas Telecommunications Company Ltd.  It is now an ordinary private company with its shares one hundred per cent owned by The Bahamas Government.  This is the final step before privatization of the company.

    Antiquities Board Announced - Prime Minister Perry Christie this week announced the members of the Board of The Bahamas Museums and Antiquities Commission.  The Chairman is former Cabinet Minister and Fox Hill MP the Honourable George Mackey.  Vice Chairman is Financial Analyst Owen Bethel.  Among the members is renowned Bahamian historian and archivist Dr. Gail Saunders, Michael Major, Cleophas Adderley, Dr. Leon Higgs of the College of The Bahamas, Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, Amanda Lindroth, Dr. Keith Tinker, Patricia Glinton-Miecholas, Gary Larson and Harl Taylor.  This is a blue-ribbon board heralding excellent prospects for the nurturing and preservation of the country's antiquities. It is a great pity, though, that the outgoing Chair Craig Gomez could not have been retained.
 

    Vanessa Fox, the passenger in the car crash involving six local Nassau teenagers was buried this past week.  Mourners marked the spot of the accident on East Bay street where the six crashed into a tree 1st September with flowers and a yellow ribbon.  Brent Fox, Vanessa's father, has called for a comprehensive driver's education programme. Guardian photo by Donald Knowles.

    Agriculture & Fisheries Minister V. Alfred Gray has been touring the islands, encouraging farmers.  Minister Gray is pictured in Cat Island (left) with farmer Sam Romer at right and Agriculture Permanent Secretary Camille Johnson, centre, being shown a crop of melons.  Also pictured standing from right are retired Administrator and farmer Christopher Stubbs, Cat Island Administrator Joseph Ferguson and packing house employee Jerome Stubbs.  BIS photo by Gladstone Thurston.
 

Back To The Top
 

FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER TO ADDRESS UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY SUNDAY
    Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations Sunday 15th September.  Minister Mitchell reaffirmed the stance of The Bahamas in international affairs.  Please click here for the text of speech, or you may go the archives of the United Nations for an audio or video version.
 

B.S. NOTES FROM GENEVA’S FREEPORT… PLUS
In this new format, the former News From Grand Bahama is renamed as above.  This signifies the initials of our senior correspondent from the nation’s second city, with the ‘plus’ for the many other sources from whom contributions are accepted. Ed.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Thank God for slavery!  If it were not for slavery we would have been in Africa suffering from famine and war.”   …Louis Missick
 

BRENT IS COMING TO TOWN
This week a reliable source has informed News from Grand Bahama that he has made contact with Brent Symonette over the leadership of the FNM.  He said Tommy is a nice guy but just doesn’t have it and Alvin is a lost cause.  So contact was made with Brent to come and meet the FNM faithfuls and polls indicate that Brent has wide acceptance among Grand Bahama FNMs.  We predict that within two months the whole picture of the FNM leadership would be made clearer.

RANDY ROBB AND DAMAGE CONTROL
Grand Bahama Airport’s Managing Director, Randy Robb, spoke to the Rotary Club in an attempt to contain the bad publicity the Grand Bahama Airport Company has received over the past weeks for trying to finance the new airport project by raising prices before the actual airport is constructed.  He told the Rotarians that if he had to do it again they would have marketed the whole idea of price increases differently.  He also told the Rotarians that the company is projected to lose approximately three million dollars this year.  Sources tell News from Grand Bahama that every time you turn around there’s a new expatriate face in a managerial position and it looks as if the Airport Company after having Bahamians run and manage the airport for all these years deem they (Bahamians) are no longer capable of running a small airport.  We would like to know what the Minister of Transport’s and the Minister of Immigration’s posture is on Bahamianization in Grand Bahama.

Below is a copy of a letter that was sent to industry partners who have been threatening not to pay these outrageous fees.

THE DAVID WALLACE ROAD SHOW
This week David Wallace and Michael Pintard, two defeated FNM candidates, have produced a comedy road show called “Election 2002’.  It highlights some of the tricks that Bahamians play on politicians from time to time.  It played in Freeport from Thursday to Saturday evening to standing-room only crowds.  It is a must see when it reaches the capital early next month.  The show heads to Eleuthera and then on to New Providence and judging from the attendance of people from political stripes it shows the maturity of our democracy in the Bahamas.

CDR CONVENTION
A large contingent of CDR members from Grand Bahama are expected to travel to the capital this weekend for the CDR Convention.  This convention will determine the future of the CDR and where it will be headed.  It is expected that all offices will be fiercely contested with the exception of that of the CEO, Dr. B J Nottage.   Sources tell News from Grand Bahama, “We are down but not out and don’t bury us yet.”

BACK TO SCHOOL MONEY
This week the Hotel Worker’s Credit Union was lending new members $1000 back to school money.  It seems that the Hotel Worker’s Credit Union is cash-heavy with little chance of making any real interest on the hordes of cash so they have embarked on this new vein to try to increase their business among members.  It seems, judging from the lines we have seen, to be working.

September is the slowest month of the year for hotel workers and most hotels are reporting occupancy levels in the teens so this will no doubt tide the hotel workers over until late December when business expected to increase.

TONGUES WAGGING OVER ‘MINISTERIAL’ FURNITURE
A former FNM Minister of Government and Grand Bahama MP is the subject of much tongue wagging around the community.  The former Minister is said to have furnished his new office to which he’s moved since the loss of his seat, with furniture from a Government office in Freeport.  It is said that in the hubbub of transition, the former MP simply directed that the Government’s furnishing be moved.  Well.  We shall watch this story for further development.

Click on a heading to go to that story; press ctrl+home to return to the top of the page.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK - The photo of the week is Fred Mitchell, Foreign Minister of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas as he delivered his principal statement at the United Nations General Assembly on Sunday 15th September.

The gist of the story is as follows:  Sidney Stubbs MP decided that all those with FNM leanings in the Bahamas Agricultural Industrial Corporation should go.  This included Geoffrey Stuart, the Acting General Manager and one-time candidate for the Free National Movement who Mr. Stubbs described in an offensive letter to Mr. Stuart as a “…pimple on the backside of the corporation...”  The Minister for BAIC Leslie Miller denied that it had to do with who was FNM or PLP but that it had to do with downsizing.  He backed away from supporting Mr. Stubbs in public but the public wondered how a lowly backbencher could ever have done what he did without Mr. Miller’s tacit support.  The country said a collective: “Yeah right!”  The case for the Government was not helped when Mr. Stuart issued a statement saying that he had been pressured to resign. [Miller is pictured welcoming back a BAIC employee in this Tribune photo by Omar Barr.]

Whatever happened, there are the two versions and then there is the truth.  The fact is that BAIC has been running a huge deficit and overdraft under the FNM’s watch.  That overdraft is said to have exceed $500,000.  The Corporation has just about $400,000 in net revenue on gross revenues of 1.6 million dollars.  So push at some time had to come to shove.  The question is how do you do this?  The issue was complicated by Sidney Stubbs, new to his job, uncertain and unused to having power in his hands, who without having a proper appointment and properly constituted Board, fired people peremptorily.  BAIC was in fact a site for many a sinecure under the FNM and so the weight of the downsizing fell on those persons. [Mr. Stubbs is pictured at right in this Derek Smith photo.]

The Prime Minister was livid because he had just come back from Grand Bahama where he had tried to explain the facts of life to one MP up there who has been accused of causing havoc by pushing political weight around.  And now to be embarrassed by another MP.  It appears that the actions of these junior MPs come at a time and present a view in the PLP and in the country that it is our time now and FNMs should be pushed out.

Perry Christie does not support that kind of cannibalism and neither do we.  The job of the PLP is to grow the economy so that there will be more jobs; not parceling up clerical and other ancillary jobs on the basis of party and other parochial concerns. The PLP’s Council on Thursday 19th September was a raucous affair with the PM himself under attack for being soft on FNMs and Sidney Stubbs being applauded for what he did.

But on the other hand, there is a need for the PLP to take command of the Government, and there is the constant criticism that Mr. Christie is too slow at this.  Some argue that people voted for change and the execution of policy has to be carried out at the highest levels by the PLP's agents.  That is what political change means.  Mr. Christie has to find the balancing act between his trying to change the cannibalistic culture and getting the job done.  We don’t envy him the task.  But we say bring those people back on the job.  Mr. Stubbs should be told the facts of life.

The number of hits for the week ending Saturday 21st September 2002 at midnight: 23,134.

The number of hits for the month of September to the week ending Saturday 21st September at midnight: 72,029.

The number of hits for the year to Saturday 21st September at midnight: 1,758,869.

MAURICE GLINTON SPEAKS
    It is not quite clear exactly what he said since he was speaking extemporaneously. But Maurice Glinton, a prominent Grand Bahama Attorney, spoke to the Rotary Club in Freeport last week.  He made the claim some say that too much attention was being paid to the United States Ambassador who clearly had a mandate from his Government to destabilize our country by his constant interventions in The Bahamas.
    Mr. Glinton reportedly said that either the people of The Bahamas had not intellectually engaged him or the authorities of the country had not intellectually engaged the US Ambassador and that is why we are destabilized by his comments.  The view that has been espoused in this column is that there is at present nothing for the Government to respond to.  There are various rows with private individuals.  There have been no reports of any individual complaint to the Government about the interventions of the Ambassador.
    The country is a free country and Bahamians if they believe in their country can stand up and defend it.  But we do agree that the Ambassador does not tread an easy path.  His words are often insensitive and he refuses to be guided by clearly established protocols.  It will reach the point where his interventions will become counterproductive and he will have to go.  The U.S. State Department is said to be watching the situation very carefully.  Their problem is reportedly the same as the Government of The Bahamas.  The Ambassador is close to the Bush brothers and no one is sure whether or not making a complaint will result in anything more than things getting worse given who his friends are.
    But on the Bahamian side, the people of The Bahamas have a strange attitude.  On the one hand, you have the radicals who keep saying that the man has to go but make that case quietly behind the scenes.  Then there is the middle class who are offended by the interventions but as soon as they engage the man personally, their objections fade away in the reflected glow of power.
    And so what is a Government to do in the face of all that?  The question is as the Foreign Minister said: do we wish to take on the United States of America?  That’s it plain and simple.  There may be a point at which the Government will have to intervene, but surely that point is not over what we have seen so far.
 

ARE WE GOING TO WAR?
    In the game of chess there comes a time when your opponent makes a move and he gives a warning that if you are not careful you are about to lose the game.  The opponent makes his move and then utters the word: “Check!”.  One such moment came in international affairs when the Iraqi Government, totally vilified by the U.S. Government and its bellicose President George Bush, made the decision that it would allow UN weapons inspectors into their country unconditionally so as to put to bed once and for all that they had the ability or the desire to cause wanton havoc on the world.
    The American President who had been persuaded by an intelligent case by his Secretary of State Colin Powell (pictured) that the UN was the place to put his case was not too pleased by the Iraqi response.  He immediately rejected it but couldn’t quite since he had boxed himself into a corner with his appeal to the United Nations.  The problem with Mr. Bush is that he does not make an intelligent case to the world.  There is too much bluster and personal animosity for most nations to take his words seriously except that we all know Mr. Bush has an arsenal of, dare we say it, weapons of mass destruction, and he is capable of using those weapons whether or not the rest of us agree.
    This column has said many times before that the case has not been made to take the world to war on the flimsy pretexts that are now being plied by Britain and the United States.  The policy of containment is a sensible policy that is working.  And some relief needs to be given to the people of Iraq who are suffering because of what is being done by the west.  Our view is closer to that of the French Government that the United Nations must be the body which acts, if any action is to take place.  The world then watches to see whether notwithstanding all of this, we are to be plunged into war just as our economy is seeing the first sputtering signs of recovery.
 
 

PM ON NEW HIRES IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE
    The Prime Minister has said that there will be no new hires in the public service because there is an 11 percent drop in the revenue and he does not want to risk expanding the service with the United States in a mode that might lead to a war against Iraq.  He made the comments as he announced the names of the new Housing Commission in Nassau on Thursday 19th September.
 

HEALTH INSURANCE: AN URGENCY
    It has happened again.  We talked about a friend of this column who suffered a heart attack in the spring and had to have an angioplasty at the Doctors Hospital.  He was served right away because he had insurance.  But that is not the end of the story.  Now he is back in hospital with no insurance.  He cancelled the insurance because he claims that he could not afford it.  The insurance company after his illness hiked the premiums to a level that he could not afford.  And so now he is faced with having to wait on the public system in order to pay for his health care.
    The stent that was put in to open up the blood vessel in the heart is becoming occluded and needs to be irradiated but the equipment is not in Nassau and he has to go to Miami.  There may be a need for a bypass, a fifty thousand dollar operation.  That brings us again to pressure the Government to move quickly on National Health Insurance.
    There was an article in the press last week that indicated that the National Health Insurance Commission has begun its work and they are saying that health insurance cannot be provided unless there is a rise in taxes.  We still say that health insurance in this country ought to be driven by the private sector.  It should be mandatory in law for all employers to provide it through private insurance companies - a health insurance programme paid for in part by the employer and then by the employee.  The private insurers should then have to contribute to a pool to pay for those citizens who are not working so that their health insurance needs can be accommodated.
    We need to hurry because if our friend were unable to get public assistance, he (and many, many, others in a similar posistion) would soon be a dead man for something that is apparently easy to correct.
 

THE CRYSTAL PALACE
    Something clearly has to be done about the Marriott Crystal Palace Hotel on Cable Beach in New Providence.  The place is quite simply a dump.  It appears that the policy of the place is simply to fire employees, lay off staff and defer maintenance.  The place owes the Bahamas Electricity Corporation, the telephone company and some seven million dollars to the Government of The Bahamas in taxes for its casino earnings.  The problem is that the Government has been lenient because they would rather have the place open than closed.  But with owner Phil Ruffin firing people left, right and centre every day and apparently refusing to reinvest in the place, it has become a disgrace and shames the reputation of the country’s tourism product.  Something must be done.
 
 

VISITING BAHAMAS HOUSE
    Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell visited the former home of the Nassau Bahamas Association in New York on Monday 16th September.  He was hosted by President of the Association William Dames.  The building is located at 225 137th Street in Harlem in an area that is part of the Harlem conservation zone.  That means that you can’t tear the building down.  Right up the street luxury condos are for sale, and the building in its present rundown state has had an offer of $650,000.  This is an asset that should be saved and we believe that The Bahamas government should contribute to its salvation.   How that is to be done is another thing, because at present the Association is rent by disputes about who are the correct Board of Directors and charges and counter charges of record tampering.  It is a building that the new Chair of the Museum and Antiquities Corporation ought to come to New York to see and we have no doubt that the Foreign Minister will be inviting George Mackey the new Chair to come and visit to see how he can help.

    Last Friday 13th September, the Foreign Minister attended the 90th Anniversary banquet of the Association and posed with Gerald Roberts, a retired Bahamian contractor in New York and uncle of Youth Minister Neville Wisdom and Wendell Edgecombe, the former Rev. Fr. Cletus Edgecombe of St. Augustine’s Monastery.

    The Minister also took a photo with the President of the Association William R. Dames, Elva Russell-Rolle, wife of Ambassador to the UN Anthony Rolle, Mr. Mitchell, Ambassador Rolle, Rhoda M. Jackson, Counselor Bahamas UN Mission United Nations and Ambassador Joshua Sears, Ambassador to the United States.
 
 

VINCENTIAN PM VISITS

    Dr. Keith Gonsalves is on a visit to The Bahamas.  Dr. Gonsalves, the Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines arrived in Nassau yesterday, Saturday 21st September to speak to the graduating class at the Eugene Dupuch law school held Sunday evening.  He was greeted at the airport by Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell. Photo by Peter Ramsay.
 

TOWARD SALT TOLERANT POTATO PLANTS
    Bahamian scientist Dr. Kenneth V. Richardson of the Ministry of Agriculture has published research concerning the response of potato roots in conditions of extreme salinity.  Dr. Richardson’s article is available in the report in Potato Research, published by the European Association for Potato Research.
    A further study by Dr. Richardson detailing degradation in the roots of sweet potato has been accepted for publication in the Journal Tropical Agriculture, published by the University of the West Indies, Trinidad.
    Dr. Richardson is a Ph.D. in Agricultural Botany and has been invited to do post-doctoral research at the Scottish Crops Research Institute (SCRI), Dundee, Scotland.  He is presently seeking funding in order to participate in the research studies.
    According to Dr. Richardson, the islands of the Bahamas present some exciting challenges for research into plant adaptations to stress conditions such as heat, drought, salinity, and soil infertility.  “Soil and ground water salinity,” says Dr. Richardson, “is a major environmental constraint to agricultural productivity, particularly in the southeastern islands of the Bahamas… Bahamians need to be directly involved in agricultural research and related activities that promote sustainable land management, a healthy environment and improved food security.”
 
 

TRANSITIONS
Coalition for Democratic Reform (CDR)
You remember them, the political party that was headed by Dr. Bernard Nottage, ran in 25 seats in the last election and all lost their deposits because they got less than one sixth of the votes in their constituencies.  Well they are holding a convention and of the one hundred persons who showed up there was no disagreement amongst them that Dr. Bernard Nottage should be reelected their leader.

Aids Cases Falling
Dr. Perry Gomez said that the number of new infections in The Bahamas continues to fall because of an excellent programme on Aids Education in The Bahamas.  But he voiced concern that part of the reason that the mortality rate is not falling as rapidly as it should is that even professional Bahamians are afraid to take the medications for fear that they will be discovered to be HIV positive and there will be the stigma of discrimination against them.

Changes to the Bar Call Ceremony
It used to be that being called to the Bar in The Bahamas was a big big deal.  Not so any more, at least not for the country.  It is true for the families but no more front-page pictures and quotes from the speeches of the newly called about what magic they are going to work on Bahamian society.  Now the Chief Justice has announced that he thinks the ceremony is too long, at least that is how we translate the following words of circumlocution by the Chief Justice, that the ceremony is  “prodigal of time”.  No word on how the changes will take place.  But the Chief said that the call on Friday 13th September was the last in its present format.

Religious Tourism a Coming

Neil Ellis, the Bishop at Mt. Tabor has made himself a wealthy young man through the grace of God and a large congregation.  He has also got a lot of influence that comes with it.  He invented the phrase “A Fresh Wind Is Blowing” that carried the PLP back into office.  He spoke up for Perry Christie as the anointed one.  He has been trying to move the direction of tourism to some promotions for a lucrative market by inviting religious tourists to The Bahamas.  Essentially it means tourists come here for religious conventions.  The PM was sold on it and now so is Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe.  The Minister has announced an initiative to try to attract religious tourists to The Bahamas.  By his side for the announcement, you guessed it – Bishop Neil Ellis. Guardian photo by Donald Knowles.

Changes in Junkanoo
The Minister of Culture Neville Wisdom has announced that from now on Junkanoo parades will be named after prominent Junkanoo personalities.  The Boxing Day parade this year will be named in honour of Tyrone “Dr. Offf” Fitzgerald, now ailing from terminal cancer.  The next parade for New Years will be named after Paul Knowles, the founder of the Roots Junkanoo group who is ailing from a debilitating muscle disease.  We think that it is a good idea.

New Board Named
Ken Dorsett, an Attorney, has been named the Chairman of the Housing Commission for Nassau.  Other members of the Commission are Denise Wilson, a trade unionist with BCPOU; Desmond Sands, hotel executive; Pastor Helen McPhee, former banker; Mario Bannister, businessman; Delene Wilmott, a teacher; Jeff Moncur, a Certified Public Accountant.

St. John’s Appeal

The Archbishop Drexel Gomez has appealed to the public surrounded by his priests at the St. John’s College Principal for three million dollars to rebuild the burnt down St. John’s.  A fire destroyed a major building at St. John’s just after the Church reportedly went against advice and cancelled the insurance for the school. Guardian photo by Farreno Ferguson shows from left Ms. Marie Roach, Director of Anglican Education; Bishop Gilbert Thompson, , Archbishop Gomez, Fr. James Palacious and Ms. Cleomi Woods, principal of St. John's College.

Rev. Charles Simmons has a son
The Rev. Charles Simmons was the closest thing to a son that the late Archdeacon William Thompson ever had.  He is a priest and he is intellectually equipped for the job of an Anglican Priest.  Fr. Simmons preached the sermon in New York last Sunday 15th September to a church full of Bahamians and their friends at St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church in Manhattan.  He talked about the value of immigration to a country.  But the real reason for this story is the fact that his first child was born, a son to himself and his wife.  The son is Charles Simmons Jr. and all reports are that despite a difficult labour, mother and son are doing well. Congratulations!
 

LET BISX DIE
    In the razzle-dazzle of the booming stock exchange, some people decided that it would be a good idea to start a stock exchange in The Bahamas.  The shares were sold at $125,000 per pop.  The exchange was ‘de-mutualized’; a fancy term that meant that it could be owned by those persons who were selling stock on the exchange.  But something went terribly wrong with their predictions.
    The Government did not follow through with getting rid of exchange control.  The Government did not float registered stock and privatize companies owned by the state through the exchange.  Stock markets around the world lost their lustre.  There was collapse all around.  That collapse is now imminent with BISX.  The Exchange came to the former Government last year with a proposal, they wanted two million dollars in charity money to keep the exchange going.
    The adherents of this corporate welfare said that it would blight the country’s prestige if the Exchange failed.  The Governor of the Central Bank weighed in by suggesting that they might not get two million but half a million. The Government has changed and still the pressure is on for the corporate welfare.
    What is amazing to us is the fact that many of those asking for corporate welfare would object to giving poor people who need help a direct gift from the taxpayers.  Enter into the fray Ethric Bowe, the former Chairman of the nearly defunct Coalition for Democratic Reform (CDR), he wrote a letter to the press published in the Bahama Journal 17th September 2002.  Here he is in his own words on the subject.  The headline was ‘LET BISX DIE’:
    “BISX is supposed to be the bastion of the free enterprise system.  BISX is owned by the elite few.  BISX is not going to benefit the average Bahamian.  Like any other business with problems, BISX should be allowed to die with dignity…  I bet the same people who want us to throw our money away in BISX are the same people who are opposed to National Health Insurance on the basis that we cannot afford it.  I bet they are the same people who think that we should not subsidize farming… Another impediment to trading on BISX is the high trading fees.  When you figure in the fees, it is difficult for normal people to trade shares on BISX and make money.  It is cheaper and better to trade over the counter.  BISX will surely die and lose any money the Bahamas Government injects into it to prop it up.  BISX should be allowed to die gracefully.” (Well said – rd)
 
 

MARK KNOWLES CONTROVERSY
    Mark Knowles, the Bahamian tennis pro, would hardly seem to be a controversial fellow but these days it seems everyone is in some controversy or other.  The letter writer was Harold S. Munnings Jr. MD, aka ‘Harry’.  Dr. Munnings was responding by way of letter to the editor to an article headlined ‘KNOWLES BLASTS BANNED PLAYERS’.  The letter was published in The Tribune dated Tuesday 17th September 2002.  Here is Dr. Munnings in his own words:
    “Mr. Lockhart (Julian, Trib sports writer) reported tennis pro Mark Knowles as saying that he is “very disappointed in the irresponsibility and lack of maturity from amateur tennis players Dentry Mortimer and Lavaughn Munroe.  Knowles is reported as claiming that he has never done anything to embarrass the Bahamas or the BLTA or the Davis Cup team.
    “I have witnessed what I consider shameful behavior on the tennis court by Mark Knowles on two occasions.  The first was during Davis Cup doubles against Chile.
    “Knowles just seemed to give up, seemingly refusing to make any effort to return play against his surprisingly strong young opponents.
    “My friends and I were embarrassed in the stands, reduced to hoping that Knowles would at least finish the match and not simply walk off the court.
    “The second occasion was about eight weeks ago, during a live international broadcast of a doubles match partnered with Danny Nestor.
    “A bad line call came, such as happens in many sports all the time, and I watched in horror as Knowles walked over to the umpire and cursed him out.
    “The commentators who were up to this point praising Mark Knowles were aghast.
    “This shocking and shameful outburst was capped when, at the end of the match Knowles strode past the umpire without a word.  Nestor and the other two players each stopped to shake the umpires’ hands.”
    Things that make you go Hmmm! —RD Tribune photo by Omar Barr.
 

Back To The Top
 

CASSIUS STUART ATTACKS THE PM
    Cassius Stuart has risen from the grave.  Mr. Stuart is the Leader of the Bahamas Democratic Movement (BDM).  The party fielded eight candidates in the last election, won no seats and each lost their election deposits.  But Mr. Stuart soldiers on.  He should be in the PLP but nevertheless, to each his own.
    Now comes a letter to the press in which he fires one across the bow of Prime Minister Perry Christie.  Mr. Stuart is not too happy with the Farm Road Pilot project that mobilized the police to clean up the area and deal with some of its social problems.  Mr. Stuart said that taxpayer money is being used to help Mr. Christie's political campaign in the area, Mr. Stuart said:
    “Mr. Prime Minister, you tell the Bahamian people why is it that only Farm Road was chosen to be a part of the study.  I would like to remind you that Farm Road is not the entire Bahamas and crime is not restricted to Farm Road alone Crime is not a national problem and it should be addressed on a national level.  The Prime Minister is doing the very same thing that he himself preached against.  If this is the type of leadership we can expect from Mr. Christie, then I would like to say there is no difference between the PLP and the FNM.  Just as the Leader of the BDM stood up against the evil within the FNM, we will stand up against the PLP if foolishness like this persists.”
    The PM is shaking in his boots no doubt -- RD
 

THE PM AS A VALLEY BOY

    Winston “Gus” Cooper (pictured in a Guardian photo by Donald Knowles) and Doyle Burrows were honoured and feted by their Junkanoo Comrades at a banquet on Saturday 14th September in Nassau at the Crown Ball Room, Paradise Island.  Present for the occasion the quintessential Valley Boy Prime Minister Perry Christie.  He too was honoured for his contributions.

    The Prime Minister spoke and said of his colleagues: “The Bahamas cannot imagine the measure of contributions both gentlemen have made to their country.  It is good to see Gus get honoured because he has been a pretty unhappy camper what with the Saxons winning Junkanoo too many times for his liking and the feeling that Percy ‘Vola’ Francis, the Leader of the Saxons Junkanoo group was getting all the kudos. Valley Boy Drameco Archer is shown in this Guardian photo by Donald Knowles presenting awards to the Prime Minister, Mr. Burrows (second from right) and Mr. Cooper, at right.

    Also in attendance was Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Tommy Turnquest.  Reportedly he caused no waves at his appearance despite his posing for a picture with the Prime Minister (see Peter Ramsay photo). The pundits noted that it was good to see the PM show up at the Valley Boys function.  The PM was miffed at the Valley Boys lack of support when the FNM was in power and was said to be surprised that they suddenly wanted to embrace him again.  And then there is that testy problem of him representing Mason’s Addition, the home of the Saxons.  Presumably he got Vola’s permission to attend the function. (Just joking-RD)

    Prime Minister and Mrs. Christie are shown in this Peter Ramsay photo with their daughter Alexis at the Valley Boys Banquet.
 

MICHAEL JORDAN TOURNAMENT

    Wingee is back in town.  That’s the nickname that they give to Michael Jordan in Nassau at the Casino because of his reputation as frugal tipper of the dealers.  Mr. Jordan was leading the Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational Golf Tournament at the Ocean Club Golf Course at Paradise Island.  Felipe Major of The Tribune staff showed a picture of Mr. Jordan trying his hand.
 

DR. OFFFF HONOURED
    Last week we told you about the show that was being put on to raise funds for Tyrone Fitzgerald aka Dr. Offff by his kids and big brother.  Dr. Offff who is the co-author of ‘Funky Nassau’ and the local hit ‘Get Involved’ was honoured on Friday 20th September at the Rain Forest Theatre of the Marriott Crystal Palace.  It was a good show, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the House as the Prime Minister described the outpouring of love from the people of the Valley and The Bahamas for Dr. Offff.  Also present for the occasion was Mrs. Christie, herself a Valley Girl, daughter Alexis and Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell and Minister of Trade Leslie Miller.   Dr. Offff is suffering from cancer.  Kudos to his son Tyrone Jr. for his organizing efforts.
 

THE D GRADE
    The Ministry of Education and its Director for some inexplicable reason issued another one of those progress reports about Bahamians and how well they were doing in school.  There has been an increase in the average grade they said to D.  This brought howls of protest from across the community with Vince Ferguson, former Principal f Aquinas College saying that the grade averages were misleading anyway because they stopped certain people from taking the exam.  The D grade is disgraceful in and of it self and nothing for any of us to be crowing about.  But it just shows you what problems we have.
 

TROUBLE WITH SCHOOL CHILDREN
    Ministry of Education officials were alarmed at a report that sent them scrambling up to Grand Cay’s all age school in Abaco.  The report is the children at the school saw something on the Internet that showed them how to suffocate themselves and put themselves to sleep without actually killing themselves.  But something went horribly wrong: Doctors, police and social workers went scrambling with Ministry of Education officials to find out just what the hell that was all about.  Luckily, there have been no deaths involved at Grand Cay.
 

A FOOLISH INSURER
    The Tribune carried a story in its business section on Tuesday 17th September under the headline: CAPITAL LIFE LEAVES HEALTH INSURANCE. The story says that Capital Life centred in Barbados is withdrawing from the group health insurance market in The Bahamas.  The quotes came from Ken Marshall from his office in Barbados.  He says that they have been losing millions in The Bahamas since 1987.
    Mr. Marshall said: “I think there needs to be a total re-education in The Bahamas on the proper uses of insurance plans.”  Mr. Marshall said that policyholders appeared to seek medical advice on minor discomforts just because they are in a health plan leading to exceptionally high losses.  He claimed that frequent visits to US hospitals for care had also forced up costs for the insurer, who in turn face “sky high” bills because of “over utilization”.
    Now, we don’t know what you think of this comment, but it is foolish.  It means that Bahamians must not use the plan so the company can be profitable.  Duh!
 

B.S. NOTES FROM GENEVA’S FREEPORT… PLUS
In this new format, the former News From Grand Bahama is renamed as above.  This signifies the initials of our senior correspondent from the nation’s second city, with the ‘plus’ for the many other sources from whom contributions are accepted. Ed.

Our Lucaya
    This week the Our Lucaya Casino deal has suffered another setback… Word is that the group that was to operate the Casino for the hotel has run into a major roadblock and it is unlikely that the casino will open anymore this year. This spells trouble for the whole Lucaya strip including the Port Lucaya Marketplace merchants who have been suffering massive losses.

CDR Convention
    Grand Bahama sent a large contingent of delegates to the CDR convention, September 19th – September 22nd.  Elected to the national board was Mr. Ben LaFleur as northern region chairman. Mr. LaFleur spoke to the Saturday evening open session of the convention where he reminded the PM of his promise to consult the Bahamian people on all matters of national importance including the sale of BaTelCo.
    Mr. LaFleur described BaTelCo as being generation property and said privatization was “like selling generation property without the consent of the entire family”, he went on to say that if at the end of the day he had to sell Batelco it should not be sold to any foreign interest because of national security reasons.
    The convention, held under the theme ‘Still We Rise’ saw Charles Maynard beat out by one vote Phenton Neymour for the position of deputy to ‘CEO’ B.J. Nottage.

Algernon Allen
    Mr. Allen along with Mr. Lawrence Glinton was the surprise guest at last night’s session of the CDR convention being held at Workers House in Nassau.  Many delegates believed that this was nothing more than Mr. Allen’s way of saying to the Bahamian people that he is back and he intends to make a bid for the leadership of the FNM.
Word is that Mr. Allen feels that to do nothing would give Brent Symonette to great a lead for the leadership race for the FNM, although Mr. Symonette announced his intentions there is a movement actively engaged in recruiting support for his leadership so Mr. Allen had to make some sort of statement to the country.

Symonette & FNM Leadership
    Insiders report that Brent Symonette has been offered the role of Leader of Opposition Business in the House, if only he will stand down against Tommy in the upcoming race for leadership at the party’s convention.  It is against this backdrop that CDR sources say Algernon Allen was really playing FNM politics at their convention, talking about offering CDRs prime positions in the FNM for their support and trying to show that Tommy Turnquest doesn’t have the vision to make the kinds of deals the party needs.

Maurice Glinton
    Mr. Glinton was on ZNS radio and TV this week weighing in on the US ambassador.  He said we must meet the ambassador head-on intellectually in a sensible way because he has had the chilling effect of intimidating not our average citizen but our public institutions including the courts and he called on those in authority to intervene and in the meantime Bahamians should simply ignore him and when he becomes ineffective his bosses in the US will simply recall him.

FNM’s On Victimization
    FNM’s met with MP’s Grant of Lucaya and Russell of High Rock to plan a strategy for the FNM’s that claim they have been victimized by the government.  It seems that the FNM’s did not tell their supporters that the jobs were political appointments and were good only as long as the party was in power.
    Ask a Mr. Johnson from a local cleaning company what happened to him and his contracts after the PLP lost in 1992?  Ask Mr. Culmer and Mr. Bowleg what happened to their bus contracts in 1992?
And they must forget the poor Government employee at an office in the National Insurance Building in Freeport who – suspected of being a PLP – was actually put out on the porch, desk and all!

Representative Russell?
    Yes, we couldn’t believe it.  It was the same Ken Russell MP, former Minister in the FNM Government, current representative for High Rock who just this past week, refused to speak to one of his own constituents.  Never mind that the constituent in question is a former high-level member of this website.  Shame, Representative Russell, ‘ignoring’ your own constituents is not only bad form and bad manners; it’s just no way to get re-elected… If that even matters.
    Meanwhile, in the “surprise, surprise” category, the same Ken Russell, alone among the FNM politicians attending, just couldn’t take it last week at the dramatic performance of the play ‘Election 2002 - If you don’t laugh you’ll cry’.  The show is put on by FNMs David Wallace, former MP for West End & Bimini and Michael Pintard, former failed FNM candidate.  It pokes fun at, you guessed it, the FNM’s 2nd May defeat.  Reports are that Mr. Russell is so sensitive that he could barely wait for the intermission before beating a hasty retreat out the side door.

Click on a heading to go to that story; press ctrl+home to return to the top of the page.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK - The photo of the week is a picture by The Tribune photographer Omar Barr of former MP for Kennedy Dr. Bernard Nottage at his party’s convention on Saturday 21 September with former Minister Algernon Allen of the FNM.  The two are strange bedfellows.  Mr. Allen was said to have been angling all week for a berth at the CDR’s convention and he spoke in general terms about the need to get together.  But we hope Dr. Nottage does not go to sleep on that offer.  Mr. Allen was always a picture stealer, headline grabber, and idle poet.  But to both gentlemen, nothing plus nothing still gives nothing.

No reason or explanation was given.  The column did not appear on Tuesday 24th September in its usual spot and there was just silence.  Not even the journalists in the country, nor any other newspaper raised a hue and cry over the fact that it appeared that the leading Bahamian journalist had been summarily fired from her job.  The story is that Mrs. Carron has been trying to find a pretext to dismiss Nicki Kelly for at least a year.  That is the line that Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell gave in his speech in Fox Hill. Once it became clear that her columns were not supporting the FNM, Nicki Kelly’s goose was cooked.

Mrs. Kelly led a crusade against Hubert Ingraham and his boorishness.  She led a crusade against Tommy Turnquest and Dion Foulkes and the corrupt charges against them.  She led a crusade against the FNM’s vindictiveness and its inability to get up off the ground.   She contributed to its defeat.  That was too much for Mrs. Carron to stomach. [Mrs. Carron is pictured at right in this file photo]

Eileen Carron is a racist.  She is the only one of the children of the late Sir Etienne Dupuch with that problem.  She cannot stomach nor abide black people.  She being of mixed ancestry has a visceral, internal and irrational hatred of all that is black and anything that smacks of PLP.  There is no logic to her thinking, no reasoning with her on Blackness and on the PLP.  If it has that label on it, it is automatically wrong.  She carries this tragic sense of inferiority everywhere she goes.  And this is a phenomenon that is a hang over from the days when the social order was determined by what your colour line was.  With that pecking order out the window, there are still some anachronisms like Eileen Carron who are around to nurse old grudges and wish for the old days.

The Tribune ran a story on Friday 27th September to counteract what the Foreign Minister had to say about Nicki Kelly in his meeting in Fox Hill.  Mrs. Carron said that the reasons why they parted company had nothing to do with her opinion.  She said: “I have frequently disagreed with what she wrote, but I always supported her right to express her views.”  And we add that we are sure she does support her right to express her views, just not in The Tribune.

Old habits die hard, and Eileen Carron has a day of reckoning to come for her irrational anti-blackness, for her illogic and for her insipid intellect that has promoted intellectual dishonesty.  Arthur Foulkes is now to replace Nicki Kelly on Tuesdays.  Nicki Kelly is said to be moving on to write for Wendall Jones at the Bahama Journal.  And that’s that.  Sir Arthur of course will, we suspect, be subservient to the Eileen Carron line, and so we are back to insipid journalism again.

Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 28th September at midnight: 27,147.

Number of hits for the month of September up to Saturday 28th September at midnight: 99,215.

Number of hits for the year up Saturday 28th September at midnight: 1,786,016.

A correction: Last week, we misprinted the name of one of the leading Bahamian citizens in New York; he is Mr. Wendell Edgecombe.  We apologize.

FATHER CHARGED FOR MURDER OF HIS SON

    Garth Ricardo Rolle has been charged with the murder of his four year old son Ackiem.  The boy had been missing for two months. The country is upset.  The workers at the Ministry of Works where Mr. Rolle works cannot believe it.  Mr. Rolle was said to have been in police custody on Monday 23rd September when he led them to the exact spot where the remains of the young boy had been placed.
    Two months ago when the boy went missing, the father told a different story.  He said that he left the boy on Independence Day in the car sleeping when his car stalled in front of the Mable Walker Primary School in New Providence.  When he got back to the car, the boy was missing.  The search then began.  Suspicion was on the father from the start and now he has been charged.
    Now the question: what in God’s name could a four year old boy have done to deserve death in these circumstances?  We have to await the trial for the full answers to this particular case.  But the social workers are telling us more and more about the horror stories that they have to deal with in dysfunctional family situations.  Some of them precipitated by the infidelity of parents to each other, and the fact that children who are thought to belong biologically to one parent turn out not to belong to that parent at all.  But no matter what, there is no excuse to kill any human being, let alone a four year old boy. Ackiem's body is shown being removed from the bush in this Guardian photo by Patrick Hanna (top); Garth Rolle, Ackiem's father, is pictured clutching a Bible while being led to court in handcuffs (right). (Felipe Major / Tribune)  In the inset, a policewoman restrains an angry mob which gathered and attempted to pelt Mr. Rolle.
 

FOREIGN MINISTER BRIEFS HIS CONSTITUENCY
    The PLP troops are getting restless. One of the reasons why the dismissals of the seven persons purported to be FNM supporters at the Bahamas Agricultural Industrial Corporation (BAIC) [click here for last week’s editorial] was so popular is that PLPs perceived that Sidney Stubbs was acting in a way they would like to act, firing FNMs and replacing them with PLPs.  We described that as cannibalistic behavior and we do not support it.  But everywhere you go, the generals of PLP MPs and Ministers are complaining and so are some PLP MPs that they have no patronage to dish out, and that it is time to fire FNMs and give PLPs a chance.
    The PLP generals are saying people are walking up to them asking them why nothing has been done for them.  This is a typical problem when there are scare resources.  Instead of concentrating on expansion of the economy, we try to cannibalize each other, replacing one set of dispossessed with another set.
    Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell’s update to the PLP in Fox Hill then must have been remarkably out of step with that thinking.  He gave a frank address about where we are now and told the group gathered there at his branch meeting, that there is a freeze in public hiring that will continue until the revenue position improves.  And he said that the Government must try to ensure that the safety net is there so people do not starve at work.  You may click here for the full address.
 
 

DEFENDING SIDNEY STUBBS
    There was a torrent of e-mail traffic back and forth and public discussion amongst PLPs about last week’s editorial on the firing of BAIC employees by Sidney Stubbs.  Mr. Stubbs is terribly popular amongst PLPs but it appears not so popular amongst PLP leaders for having embarrassed the Government and giving the FNM the first real issue upon which they could hang their hat.  Fortunately, Mr. Christie dealt with the matter decisively.  Now comes the question of Mr. Stubbs’s true appointment to BAIC.  Mr. Stubbs was said by the Bahama Journal to be in office and to have been officially appointed.  There did not seem to be any official confirmation of that so the country is still asking: is he or isn’t he?  The Minister for Trade and Industry who is responsible for the Corporation has flown off to Brussels to participate in the talks for the second round of the Contonou Agreement between the African Caribbean and Pacific Countries and the European Economic Community.  There is no word from him.
    Friends of Mr. Stubbs say that this is no time for the PLP to play principled.  Mr. Stubbs quite simply needs the work.  He has bills to pay and the PLP owes it to ensure that all of its MPs are able to sustain their development.  The feeling is that had Mr. Stubbs been given public ministerial support then things would not have gone adversely.  But there appears to be one fundamental rule in politics that all politicians ought to know and Mr. Stubbs apparently did not.  That rule is when you are in trouble; you are in trouble by yourself.  When you are doing well, all your “friends” are with you.  It is a lesson that Mr. Stubbs would do well to remember, and further that power is a temporary thing and you ought to be judicious in its use, not bumptious in its use.  One day it’s me; the next day it’s your turn.  q.e.d.
 

RHODES SCHOLAR COURTESY CALL

    Christian Campbell is only the second Bahamian Rhodes Scholar. You may click here for a previous story on Mr. Campbell.  Mr. Campbell left The Bahamas on Saturday 28th September for Oxford University in the UK where he will do a Masters in English.  He is also a PH D student at Duke University in the US.  Smart boy!  He is a poet too.  A credit to mom Helen and father Chris and deceased grandfather James.  Good luck!  He paid a courtesy call on the Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell on Monday 23rd September. The photo is by Derek Smith of BIS.
 

INVESTOR DISPUTE IN THE BERRYS
    We have said in today’s editorial our belief that Eileen Carron is a racist and that she is intellectually dishonest.  She has been on an unrelenting campaign to dismiss the PLP again on the grounds that there is no new PLP.  In order to do that she has to paint a portrait of the PLP as victimizers.  It turns out of course that she is the number one victimizer having fired Nicki Kelly as a columnist for her political beliefs.  So her moral authority on that is out the window.  This week, she was trying a new tack.  She carried a front page headline on Thursday 26th September: ‘INVESTOR: I’VE HAD ENOUGH’.  The story then went on to say that a man Ricardo Pitrone and his girlfriend Jill Garrood were leaving Great Harbour Cay in the Berry Islands where they were living and building a house.  The reason they gave is that they had been prevented from working on their own home by the Department of Immigration.
    The story does not quite go that way but it was carried on the front page, and deliberately designed by the wicked Eileen Carron to distort the truth and smudge the PLP.  The Minister for Immigration Vincent Peet ordered an immediate investigation.  The preliminary facts reveal that this was a couple that were in breach of the home owner's permit that they were granted when they obtained a series of work permits to build other   facilities in the Berry Islands.  They were also building a dock for commercial purposes.  But worse, they ran out of community good will.
    The Tribune's own newspaper was full of stories by the local residents telling the Government to get rid of these two obnoxious people.  Mr. Pitrone was described as a “very arrogant man”.  The couple was also described as “condescending with an insufferable attitude to Bahamians”.   Said one resident, “We are not against investors.  We are just against Rick Pitrone’s foolishness.  I have complained many times about these people.”  The surest way to not get to stay in The Bahamas is not to get along with the people in a small community.  A good deal of the folk in the Berry Islands seem to be saying good riddance to Mr. Pitrone and the woman he describes as his “significant other”.   (What’s that ?—Ed.)
 
 

ALGERNON ALLEN RISES FROM THE GRAVE
    In a political sense they say he does deals with the devil.  He is known in these circles as Mr. Machiavelli.  His political mind is a twisted as a corkscrew and he will do anything for a headline.  On the other side is the man who would be king.  Who like Hamlet broods and can't make up his mind to be or not to be.  And then suddenly like a peripatetic jack in the box he pops up announcing that despite what you see and hear he is in fact decisive and he has the master plan.  The Coalition for Democratic Reform held its convention and some 100 hardy souls came to hear the great leader Speak.  Hamlet and Machiavelli – what a pair.  They shook hands for the cameras.
    Bernard Nottage, (pictured, top, at the podium in this Tribune photo by Omar Barr) the man who would be king, attacked Perry Christie for being indecisive.  This from a man who took two years to make up his mind whether he was leaving or staying in the PLP, and who took five months to decide whether or not he would continue to lead the CDR. Then there was Algernon Allen, the former Minister of Idle Poetry, Mr. Machiavelli to the end.  He was there for a front page story.  They say that Dr. Nottage couldn’t shake him all week long.  He appealed to unity and for the CDR to be inclusive.  How did he get up in CDR’s business?  We thought he was an FNM.  Oh well.  As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows and now, it appears interesting photo opportunities.
 
 

VIOLENCE IN BAHAMIAN SCHOOLS
    The Minister of Education Alfred Sears had his hands full before he left for Jamaica with Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe to represent the Prime Minister at a symposium in Kingston, Jamaica.  A school master went to correct some boys for their suspicious behavior at the C.I. Gibson’s school on Friday 20th September.  Most of the boys dispersed but one of them set upon the master.  The attack left the master injured with stitches to his head.  He was beaten by one of the panes in a broken window in a school bathroom.  This is said to be the tip of the iceberg of reports of violence throughout the school system of The Bahamas.
    The Teacher’s union president Kingsley Black (pictured Donald Knowles / Guardian) said it must be nipped in the bud.  The Minister went to the school on Monday 23rd September to assure the teachers about efforts being made on their safety.  The boy 17 years old has been expelled from the school and is now charged with causing grievous bodily harm to school master Prince Dean.   It is yet another sign that major efforts must be made to deal with not only violence in the schools but the inability of young men in particular to deal with conflict resolution and anger and just in general to discipline their behavior.  Meanwhile, this week, Commissioner of Police Paul Farquharson visited R.M. Bailey high school students in an effort to dissuade them from criminal violence.  Photo Omar Barr / Tribune.
 

MEANWHILE IN SAN SALVADOR
    Benjamin Thomas, a teacher at the San Salvador Central High School, has been suspended from his duties after he was arrested Monday and charged with five counts of indecent assault with five male students.  The Ministry of Education has sent a crisis team to the school to talk to the children.  The man is Jamaican and 65 years old.  The boys range in aged 13 to 17.  He pleaded not guilty before Magistrate Jordan Ritchie.  Interesting aside, speaking at Mr. Nebo Baptist Church in Nassau on Wednesday 25th September, Superintendent Marvin Dames of the Central Detective Unit told the Church that The Bahamas was a society “under chaos”.  But he added that it is not yet to the point where it can’t be fixed.
 
 

BARCLAYS CIBC MERGER
    Things went right down to the wire.  Barclays and CIBC were playing a high pressure game to force The Bahamas Government to sign on the dotted line.  In the end, we were the only hold outs. The Bahamas that has 30 per cent of the business wanted the workers to be protected.  Terry Hilts (CIBC) and Sharon Brown (Barclays) tried to bash the Government into submission.  No dice.  The government held out to the end and got a deal to protect the workers from this new anti-competitive behemoth in the Caribbean that will be misnamed First Caribbean Bank.  Don’t like it.  Don’t agree with it!
 

ADDINGTON HOUSE BLESSED AGAIN

    It was the home of 11 out of twelve Bishops.  It sits on what used to be called Bishop Hill just down the ridge from Government Hill. That is right across from CIBC on Shirley Street.   It was a distinguished building that the Anglican Church allowed to run down.  Now the church has saved itself by saving the building.  Colin Saunders, architect became a priest.  He was commissioned by the Bishop to restore the building and along with contractor Penn; he has done a good job.  The building was officially opened by the Prime Minister on Friday 27th September. It was blessed by Archbishop Drexel Gomez and of course the last resident retired Bishop Michael Eldon was there as well.  The photo is by Peter Ramsay.  The building is to be used as the HQ for the church.  Retired Bishop Eldon is seated; standing from left are Prime Minister Perry Christie, Archbishop Gomez, former Diocesan Chancellor Sir Orville Turnquest and Suffragan Bishop Gilbert Thompson.
 
 

FEEDBACK
Minister’s Visit With Bahamians in New York
Beryl and Wendell Edgecombe, prominent members of the Bahamian community in New York have written about the impact of the Minister’s recent visit there.

“The Bahamian Community is most appreciative of the time Minister Mitchell spent in the celebrations surrounding the Nassau Bahamas Association 90th Anniversary.  Many Bahamian Nationals and Friends of the Bahamas attended our 90th Anniversary Dinner Dance and Church Service at St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church.  The Reverend Charles Simmons was the celebrant for the church service.  After the service many Bahamians hurried over in heavy rain to hear Minister Mitchell's address to the United Nations General Assembly.  Those who attended were very proud of Minister Mitchell.  Minister Mitchell gave an excellent speech, very powerful and very confident.
The visit of the Minister with the people was something very much lacking for many years.  His visit, greetings and words of encouragement were very much needed and most timely in helping to heal the Bahamian Community after so many months of turmoil. Word around town is that Minister Mitchell's time and visit was most appreciated by Bahamians in the tri state area and a visit that was long overdue.
Thank you Minister Mitchell, and we look forward to another visit in the future.”

Beryl and Wendell Edgecombe
 

More On Ambassador Blankenship
In response to our enquiries on how Bahamians feel regarding US Ambassador Blankenship’s public comments about Bahamian life, this from Bernadette Louella Robins:

“Bahamians continue to complain about the US Ambassador's ‘interference’ in Bahamian national affairs.  However, we fail ask ourselves why is it important for the US to place an ambassador in The Bahamas.  If we dare to answer the question, the response would be ‘to protect U. S. interests’.  Then another question would be, ‘what are the US interests in The Bahamas?’  The response is that the US has a myriad of interests in The Bahamas.  Some of which are, US citizens living and working in The Bahamas, US companies operating in The Bahamas, and the geographical proximity of The Bahamas to the US which creates a border defense issue - illegal drugs, illegal immigrants, criminals, terrorists etc.

If we were to consider a social factor such as crime, it is in the US best interest that crime in The Bahamas be kept at a minimum.  Firstly, they do want an unstable country on their doorsteps because an immediate consequence would be the migration of people from The Bahamas to the US and the possible change in political ideology (democracy to dictatorship)

Another complaint Bahamians have is that of the ‘attitude’ of the US Ambassador.  It is indeed amazing that none of our professors at COB and the other higher education establishments has responded to this complaint.  The answer is very simple.  The US Ambassador is an American negotiating the best possible ‘deal’ for his country.  His communication style is typical of American businessmen who are ignorant of cultural differences.  We are also ignorant of cultural differences. If we are going to collaborate with him on some issues, and if we intend to defeat him on other issues, we have to recognize his style and use them to our advantage. Firstly, we have to recognize that the American style includes but is not restricted to the following:
(1) Americans deal straightforwardly or impersonally
(2) American decisions are based on cost-benefit analysis
(3) American decisions are influenced by special interests
(4) Profit is the ultimate aim

We should deal with the issues.  For example, the transshipment of illegal drugs through The Bahamas.  How do we solve it?  Of course it is a moral issue but we can have billboards, radio and television advertising, pencils, textbook covers, bookmarkers, computer mouse pads, dealing with this issue.  Where are the funds coming from?  How about the US?  The US Ambassador has access to financial, human and technical resources that we need.  IT IS IN THEIR BEST INTEREST TO STOP THIS ACTIVITY. IT IS ALSO IN OUR BEST INTEREST TO STOP THIS ACTIVITY.  Work with the US and make it better in The Bahamas.” Ambassador Blankenship is shown with Police Commissioner Paul Farquharson presenting a certificate to Bernard Bonamy Jr. for completion of an FBI training seminar Friday 27 September.  Farreno Ferguson / Guardian.
 
 

Back To The Top
 

GRAND BAHAMA WOMEN’S BRANCH
    Ms. Carla Cleare is being installed Sunday 29 September as the new president of the Women’s Branch of the Progressive Liberal Party in Grand Bahama.  National Chairman Bradley Roberts is to address the gathering on ‘PLP Women On The Move’, saying that “victimization has no place” on the PLP agenda.  Please click here for Mr. Roberts’ address.
 
 

B.S. NOTES FROM GENEVA’S FREEPORT… PLUS
In this new format, the former News From Grand Bahama is renamed as above.  This signifies the initials of our senior correspondent from the nation’s second city, with the ‘plus’ for the many other sources from whom contributions are accepted. Ed.

We told you so/ Driftwood
On Friday the 27 of Sept The Royal Oasis and Casino announced that they were as of Monday 30 September cutting back on their casino hours from 6pm to 2am to reflect the down turn in their business.  However, on Saturday a further statement was released to the press that the decision to close had been rescinded.  We believe that this was after the intervention of government officials who met with the Driftwood principals and told them that they could not make any variances to their casino operation without first receiving the approval of government.  However, we believe that the resort finds itself in serious cash flow problems and is in need of a cash infusion that would take it through this slow period in the hotel and casino business.  So we say to the Grand Bahama Port Authority or the Bahamas Government to standby for the bail out or the whole project might collapse.  This after the hotel spent 4 million dollars on closing off the road and placing a pool in the middle of Sunrise Highway.  Which was supposed to make the property more attractive and easier to sell and now we know that the sales and marketing of the property has not been up to scratch, which is said to be headed by an expatriate.

Morale at the property is said to be at an all time low and just recently the casino workers were given a recognition agreement for the formation of a gaming union.  The first in the country; this was brought about because of the abuses and bad treatment to the employees that gave birth to this union.

We have been telling you for months now that this project was severely undercapitalized but no one was listening.

Guns Guns

This week an American citizen pleaded guilty in the Magistrate’s Court for having in his possession a large collection of guns.  He told the Magistrate that he was a gun collector and did not know he had to have a license for the guns.  He was found guilty and fined $140,000 or three years in prison as of Friday he was unable to pay the fine so he was remanded to Fox Hill Prison.  Now comes word that the man might be a U.S Agent working undercover. We’ll wait and see the outcome. Freeport News photo of police with collection of guns.

Servant and Not the Master Biggety Talk
Just three short months after being appointed Minister of Youth Neville Wisdom is said to be beside himself by going up to the Abaco Regatta last weekend, telling the Regatta goers and organizers that he doesn’t want to hear no Jamaica music played around the Regatta and he doesn’t want to see any French fries being sold but only Bahamian food. He reportedly went on to say that any boat that wanted to sail in the Regatta would be allowed to sail.  These were the reports that were heard over ZNS radio this week in Grand Bahama.  We say to the Minister, it is not what you say but how you say it. However, well intentioned you might be you should now speak like a Minister.  Secondly, where is the funding for the transport of the boats to Abaco going to come from?

Symonette Leader/ FNMs Speak
“This country is not ready for white leadership…we can’t go back there at least not yet.” These were the words of FNM supporters at breakfast this week, who told News from Grand Bahama if they were asked publicly they would all deny saying it.  Another comment made: “Brent maybe the smartest of the lot but you need delegates to win the leadership and Tommy has the numbers, so Brent if he wants something he must settle for Tommy’s deputy.” So for the time being Brent forces must stand down and allow Tommy to fall along with the party flat on its face and then he will be able to rise