Last Week

ADDRESS BY FRED MITCHELL

MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

POLICE LEADERSHIP COURSE GRADUATION

POLICE COLLEGE

29 November 2024

Check Against Delivery

This is perhaps the most important address that I have delivered in my public life, since my capitulation to the attacks on the government’s proposals to join the CSME back in 2006. I consider you to be important actors in the future of The Bahamas.  In my many roles in public life from 1992 to now, from my work as a journalist from 1970 to 1986 and then my work as a lawyer from 1986 to 1992 when I entered Parliament, I consider this statement this morning to be of critical importance.

Let me start by thanking the Police College and your teachers from the United Kingdom who are here in The Bahamas for this course. I thank you most sincerely. We meet at the police college which was the gift of the British government to the Commonwealth of The Bahamas upon our independence.

I thank the leadership of the Royal Bahamas Police Force for allowing this course to proceed and for the kind invitation for me to offer these concluding remarks.  In fact, I prefer the word commencement to describe this occasion. This is a beginning, not an end. I apologise for the length of this presentation.

When I was here two days ago, I indicated that I had a long history with the Royal Bahamas Police Force. In fact I was around when it was not the Royal Bahamas Polce Force.  I had a maternal uncle Seigfried Wilson who was a superintendent on the force. I had a paternal uncle who rose to be deputy commissioner on the force.  His name was Wenzel Granger.

Major Granger lived in the building that was formerly the headquarters for the Security and Intelligence Branch at police headquarters.  I spent my days after primary school at that home doing my homework and playing in the police yard.

My very good friend the late Sir Albert Miller who also became Deputy Commissioner of Police lived in a house at the back of the  police yard.

Sir Albert had one regret  in his life and that was that he did not become commissioner of police. That was largely due to regime change in 1967. It was known that  when the PLP came to office, Salathiel Thompson would become the Commissioner of Police. Sir Albert was closer to the previous regime. He always talked about that regret but in the end, he was still hugely successful. And I repeat the story because you as future leaders of the force should come to understand the realpolitik of the force if you do not already know.

I got to introduce my police aides to Sir Albert Miller before he died. He started out as a recruit from Long Island and ended up as Deputy Commissioner and then became one of this country’s most successful businessmen, as Chair of the Grand Bahama Port Authority and Chairman of Focal and the Sunshine Oil group.  Through the introductions, I was hoping to inspire them about where they could end up and how they can succeed from the humblest beginnings.

I mentioned when I was here my meeting Grafton Ifill Senior after whom the conference room at the new SIB Headquarters has been named.  Mr. Ifill and I met regularly when he ran the force in Freeport. He told me that for the police force to be successful, it had to recruit men and women from each birth cohort. Because the police force had to be able to tap into each generation of citizens.

When I moved back to Nassau, the then Commissioner of Police Bernard Bonamy befriended me.  He had joined as a constable under the Commissionership of Colchester Whyms. He patterned his conduct as commissioner after Mr. Whyms. So one of  the practices during that time was the Commissioner’s tea break at 11 a.m. each morning. Each morning the upper echelons of the Force led by the Commissioner would  file single file over to the Senior mess for tea complete with officers serving tea with linen napkins and shell jackets.  It was quite a privilege to enjoy and witness. 

These relationships  were invaluable in shaping my views about public life and public policy. 

 There are others who helped shape my view and association with the force like retired superintendent and now Anglican priest Rodney Burrows who was Mr. Bonamy’s staff officer, retired Deputy Superintendent Michael Ellis and retired Assistant Superintendent Henry Weymess.  Mr. Weymess has just written a  book about his life and I urge you to buy it if you have not already gotten a copy.

I developed a relationship with Paul Rolle when he was Commissioner.  He reminded me then that I had helped with a paper when he was in law school.  Today he now serves as one of our ambassadors overseas.

One of the lessons here is relationships matter.

I wish to pay tribute to the women of the force.  I remember when they first started in 1964.  I met the first female recruit at a function in my constituency yesterday Anita Bethel Williams. I salute her today and all the other women who have served. Thank you for your service.

This necessary walk down memory lane today is to reinforce the value I place on relationships with the Royal Bahamas Police Force. I consider it the bulwark of national security. In fact, Mr. Ifill who spoke at the commissioning ceremony spoke to the role in particular of the security and intelligence branch in the conduct of the nation’s security.

In fact, that is the branch with which I am most associated because they are responsible for my personal safety and the conduct of my public life in most   intimate details. Much of my work as a minister could not be possible without their participation, input and management for which I am deeply grateful.

The Force is supposed to be politically neutral. However, we know the realpolitik of which I spoke. Neutral means you serve the government of the day, regardless of what your personal pollical views are.

I have been around for all the transitions from one Prime Minister to another: from Pindling to Ingraham, Ingraham to Christie, Christie to Ingraham and Ingraham to Christie and Christie to Minnis and Minnis to Davis. Those transitions have been seamless and peaceful.  Order was maintained and the transfers of power successful. When elections come around, the force  has a unique capability and capacity to predict the future.

I repeat the story of how impressed I was in 2002 when I first came to office as a Minister, with the independence celebrations looming, and the fact that all the planning had already been executed by the force and the civil service so that we the government had only to step up to the plate and perform our roles because all the planning had been done.

I was similarly impressed when the Four Seasons project was coming to Exuma which meant that a casino would be coming.  The officer in charge told me how the Commissioner would be sending in officers from the commercial crime section because they in their planning had anticipated that with a  casino coming commercial  crime might become a new dimension of criminal activity that was not then present in Exuma.

These might seem rather pedestrian references but the point is that the force is supposed to be an island of stability in a sea of troubles, always thinking ahead, planning ahead and maintaining a head when all the rest of us might be losing ours. 

It is against the background of that last comment I wish then to address the present public issues. You have heard me say with regard to all the recent assaults on the force, perhaps to my personal political detriment, that we cannot afford to allow the force to trashed.  It is all we have.  We have to clean up any corruption or perceptions of the same but we cannot in doing so throw the baby out with the bath water or allow the force to be defined by the actions of a few actors.

One of the reasons you are on this course is to help reinforce the institutional nature of this job and the role in governance of The Bahamas. It is to assist you in reinforcing your personal sense of self-worth and your integrity and the commitment to integrity.

I think when I act in my public life of what my brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces and other relatives, including what my mother and father would have thought and said when I act. My actions determine in many respects what other people will think of them.

Similarly, I can well imagine what you are all going through with regard to some of sweeping generalizations and inartful commentary that is passing around about the force and its men and women because of the actions of particular alleged bad actors. Each man or woman is responsible for their own actions.  They stand or fall on those actions. While the actions of others can reflect upon you, they should not sap your will to be true to yourselves and to the doctrines of integrity.

The Prime Minister has said the tree will be shaken until the bad apples fall. I support this.  However, whatever happens the Royal Bahamas Police Force must survive with its integrity intact.

I do not accept any description that says the force is systemically corrupt. The force does not in my view stand condemned by bad actors but it is our job to weed out those actors. I also caution in all matters to hear the other side and do not accept uncritically anything that is asserted in these days and times.

There are bad actors in every system and country.  No one has a monopoly on virtue and no country is free of corruption: big countries as well as small. There is of course the issue in this world of one rule of one group and another rule for another group and very often the country to which you belong, a small island developing state, is subject to doctrines of a double standard and constantly moving the goal posts.

This reinforces my personal view which is I cannot stop anyone who is more powerful than me, richer than me, smarter than me. I can only account for my own behaviour and integrity. I start always from the position, that you do what you have to do but I will do what is in my best interest.  The Christian bible says this: “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

There are  few further observations that  I wish to make.

If you have not seen the movie Bull Durham with Kevin Kostner, I think it’s worth seeing if only for this. It is about a baseball player in the minor leagues trying to get to the major leagues in American baseball. Kevin who is the protagonist of the movie will not ever get to the majors but he is able to coach and mentor a talented pitcher who will. He coaches the player about how to speak to the media.  He tells him that he is a spokesman for his sport so when he speaks to the media he has to remember that he speaks not just for himself  but for his profession. You should remember that.  Although you are not politicians as leaders of the force, you are public figures and subject to public scrutiny and commentary.

When you appear in public remember dress, language, image is sometimes everything.  When you speak, you speak for the force and for yourselves.

One of my aides was accompanying me on a visit to the Sandilands Primary School and when the visit was finished, he informed me that one of the little boys in school came up to him and said: “ You have best job in the world, don’t you?”

On another occasion, we were in a grocery store in Fox Hill and three adolescent boys were standing watching the police aide as he watched me.  They all said that one day they wanted to be a bodyguard just like the officer. They wondered how they could get the job. He told them well the first thing is you can’t stand with your hands folded if you are a close protection officer. They immediately tried to change their posture so they could stand like he was standing.

I  told an earlier group of officers who worked with me how  close protection being an aide de camp or equerry is a well-worn path to success in the force because Paul Farquharson who ended up being Commissioner of Police was once the aide de camp to the Governor General Sir Gerald Cash.

I make also this observation and I thank the police officer from Atlanta whom I met a few days ago at the trade show here. She told me how things have changed in the way policing commanders work in her city. She said when she joined the force, you did as you were told and never questioned your leaders.  However, with the new officers  they always had questions whenever an order was given. She had to get used to that and learned as a commanding officer to bite her tongue.

We spoke about the difference between how we were raised and how you in your generation and below were raised. I was raised not to question my parents.  One of my mother and father’s favourite expressions was: because I said so.

So when my contemporaries raised their children they were raised in a more democratic and participatory fashion. They were able to question what their parents said. That means that you and those who came after you now question everything, and everything is subject to scrutiny.  Policing has to adjust to that aspect of public life.

There is a general election due in 658 days  from now.  The language of politics is more emotive and even violent today. That means our election campaign security and policing has to adjust to the new realities. God help us that we avoid any political violence in this country but the police force should be examining and thinking about the general election and what the new security thrusts will have to be to meet what is now being signaled about the future for politics and political action. The fact that the House of Assembly is unable to provide security of the person of members of parliament today, where an activist can barge into the House of Assembly and interrupt a press conference of the Leader of the Opposition and there is no deterrent or sanction possible or available.  There is a clear rule or law that a member of parliament is to have free and unimpeded access to the House of Assembly.

Lastly, I wish to discuss the international environment. The Bahamas is not even as large as Dade County in Florida is in the United States. In the scheme of a trillion dollar economy like our neighbour to the north, The Bahamas is small potatoes. Notwithstanding the public face that is put on when we meet face to face with other nations, the realities of how we are treated are oftentimes different and as a small nation we are forced to bite our tongues in the face of some outlandish claims. Lynden Pindling faced the same issue in 1984.

When the United States authorities make a claim, your countrymen usually accept uncritically what they say, and any government that seems to oppose what they say your countrymen get concerned that pre-clearance will be lost  to The Bahamas. Some of that is playing out today.

Here’s what a former Prime Minister of Canada said about life next to the United States: ““Living next to the United States is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant.  No matter how friendly and even tempered the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.”

Former Deputy Prime Minister and Governor General Arthur Hanna said it this way to a visiting South Korean Ambassador: “ We are both nestled next to giants and we are only as independent as the giants allow.”

I was in law school in 1984 when the Commission of Inquiry reported on similar allegations made by the American media about drug corruption in The Bahamas.  I received a call from the late Loftus Roker to tell me that following a come to Jesus meeting of the PLP in Chub Cay, Prime Minister Pindling had decided to reorganize the government and that as a consequence, a new ministry of national security was to be created with Loftus Roker as its first head. That Hubert Ingraham and Perry Christie would be dismissed. That Arthur Hanna was resigning from the government. That Kendal Nottage and Geroge Smith would be asked to resign.

I called Beryl Hanna, the wife of Mr. Hanna and mother of now Minister Glenys Hanna Martin, who was my very good friend to warn her what was to come.

I then called Paul Adderley who was at the United Nations in New York and asked him what he would do in the face of the  changes that were coming and that Mr. Hanna was leaving the government in the face of the proposed reorganization.  Mr. Adderley told me, he was weighing his decision but he said Pindling is going to win, and I want to remain in public life. The rest is history.

In the present circumstances, I do not expect any such drama but clearly there is a call for something of a dramatic nature to be done and it might involve the institution of which you are a part and of which you are being called to lead today and in the future. I hope to be a part of whatever the Prime Minister decides in the face of these present realities and will make my views known in the appropriate forum.

I leave you with this final admonition. It is not an original thought. It comes from Stevie S. He says : hold your head.

Thank you.

God bless you and your futures.

God bless the Commonwealth of The Bahamas

End