10th August 2007
 

I want to thank all of you for coming this evening to this first Member of Parliament’s reception for the Fox Hill Festival.  As long as I am the Member of Parliament, I intend to hold an annual reception to mark the Emancipation of the slaves in 1834 and as part of the Festival.

I want to thank former Prime Minister Perry Christie with whom I worked for five years as his Foreign Minister and who facilitated these many events and scenes and of course for coming here tonight.  The success of foreign affairs is due to the good working relationship between the then Prime Minister and the then Minister of Foreign Affairs and the support of the Cabinet and our Parliamentary colleagues.

I wish to thank the Fox Hill Festival Committee headed by Charles Johnson and other members of the Committee for their work in making this year’s Festival the best ever.  They have done this in the face of efforts to disrupt their work and so the success is even more sweet.

Foreign Affairs is not a subject that many Bahamians embrace.  The Ministry's work largely is out of the sight of most Bahamians until they lose a passport or get arrested in some foreign country.  Then they call the Foreign Minister or the Foreign Ministry and wish him or the Ministry to solve the problem.  But the problems can only be solved if there is a good working relationship with Foreign Affairs colleagues around the world.  That means in part travelling to see them and work with them and their coming to our country.  It means ensuring that there is a network of contacts both diplomats and non diplomat working for The Bahamas around the world.   So the work of Foreign Affairs is at its most critical at the margins.  It is when that call that needs to be made for and on behalf of Bahamian citizens that people then see how important it is for us to have a face around world.  I do not think that our opponents appreciate that or want to see it.

Just this morning the Leader called me to assist a student who was stuck in Grenada with her passport having expired and we had to get on the telephone to try to resolve the issue.  It was only because of my contacts with my former colleagues that I as able to help. Having spoken to the now Foreign Minister, I think I have the problem resolved.

There were serious moments and lighter moments.  One lighter moment I remember is sitting at a Heads of Government Conference in Guyana with the former Prime Minister.  Barbados sits next to The Bahamas.  The Barbados Prime Minister's Barbadian accent is sometimes difficult to understand.   So when Prime Minister Owen Arthur would speak to Mr. Christie sitting right next to him, Mr. Christie would simply nod and yes of course.  Then he would lean over to me to translate.  He would ask what he said.

There were the serious moments when the then Prime Minister told the Chinese that the stadium project was so important to him and that he had come a long way and if it could not  be done to his satisfaction then he was prepared to postpone the issue to allow all details to be fully settled.  Our gracious Chinese hosts were happy to oblige and I thank them for their gift to our country.  I hope to visit their country soon as a private citizen.

Or the secret flight to Cuba alone in the aircraft to Havana to meet with the Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Roque to settle the issue with the Cuban dentists. This set the scene for the Prime Minister’s personal intervention with President Fidel Castro to ensure that there would be no objection to our deviating from our treaty obligations.

Or that fateful Sunday morning 29 February 2004 when I received a call from then U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell at home to tell me that Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide had decided to resign from office and was on a U.S. plane headed to an unknown destination.

The exhibition discusses my concerns about the future of foreign policy.  I am particularly concerned about the now Foreign Minister's statement that he may not go ahead with the visa abolition agreement that we patiently concluded with the European countries to abolish the need for Schengen visas for Bahamians to travel to Europe.  This was a major accomplishment and now the minister says the Cabinet is to review the matter because they are afraid that the other Eastern countries that joined the EU will get visa free access to the Bahamas. Surely on any cost benefit or other analysis the benefits are clearly in favour of the Bahamas.  I am concerned about the silence of the business community in the face of this decision.  The Bahamas must conclude this agreement.

Relations with the Caribbean need to be maintained.   I plan to go to the Caribbean to be sure that they are aware that the PLP does not support the disengagement of this country from relations with the rest of the region.  The cancellation of the Carifesta X and the reason given are not accurate and the rest of the region needs to know that Carifesta could have been done here in 2008 and it was because of the present Government’s own indecisiveness that it did not go ahead.

There needs to be a fuller articulation of the vision for Foreign Affairs and it cannot simply be to be friends with the United States.  That is a given, and relations went well during our term with the U.S.

I am concerned that the building owned by Bahamians since the 1930s in Harlem is at risk; we made a decision while in office to support its full repair and rental in support of the Bahamas American Association.  There appears to be a resiling from that commitment on the part of the Government.  It is an asset worth in its unimproved state at $650,000; it was bought with the monies of poor Bahamians in the 1930s, it can be improved and worth some 2 million dollars when finished but the Government needs to help.  This commitment cannot be abandoned.

I am also concerned about relations with South Africa and the report that the Diaspora conference that was to be jointly hosted by South Africa and The Bahamas for this region has again been postponed to February 2008 with no assurances that the figures to pay for it, will be carried forward into next year’s budget if the conference is postponed.  I hope that the present Prime Minister proceeds with the proposed state visit to South Africa and that the now Foreign Minister proceed with the plan to hold a session of the bilateral commission of the two countries in South Africa as planned following the Heads of Government Conference of the Commonwealth in the fall.

And so I hope that this respective this evening gives you some insight into what we were trying to do and it leads on the way back to compete our work and agenda.

Once again, I thank you all for coming.