ANDREW ALLEN TRASHES THE U. S. INDICTMENT
This article first appeared in the Nassau Guardian 9 December 2024– Editor
Dear Editor,
The whole country appears to be in such a panic as a result of some allegations contained in an indictment from the Southern District of New York that an observer would think that we suddenly discovered that our institutions are rotten to the core.
Yet on the basis of what we have seen so far, it could merely be that a carefully planned entrapment operation has managed to expose weaknesses within individuals in various institutions in The Bahamas, rather than in the institutions themselves.
In fact, among all the hype, important questions (such as how any Bahamian police officer can realistically offer safe clearance to cocaine flights into an airport teeming with DEA and other US law enforcement officials) remain unanswered and apparently unquestioned by the public or media.
And there are well-established reasons for caution.
Anybody who knows anything about the United States’ politicized and serially abused prosecution system knows better than to take any mere indictment as evidence of anything, especially one emanating in the Southern District of New York.
Don’t take my word for it. Consider the opinion of the incoming president of the United States, himself a victim of the very same district’s “disgraceful political prosecution”, deemed by many thinking Americans (and not just his supporters) as a corrupting of the legal process for political ends.
Meanwhile, the outgoing president just took the opportunity to pardon his adult son for convictions relating to tax evasion, drug use and gun purchasing, claiming that he was the victim of political prosecution and a system that cannot be trusted to be fair.
Yet many of us here in The Bahamas are so ready to jump at the merest accusation leveled from abroad that you would think our entire nation had been convicted in a court of universal truth by the creator himself just because of some untested allegations in an indictment.
Contrast the reaction of our authorities and opposition to these indictments with their non-reaction to things that daily affect Bahamians.
Literally every week, there is evidence of a justice system that is broken and unfit for purpose in ways that affect only average Bahamians and seldom make international news. Yet these do not provoke shakeups of institutions or clownish antics by opposition politicians.
People with numerous criminal charges walking around the streets on bail using illegal guns to kill people is seen as so unremarkable by our leaders and media that they convince the population that it is a fact of life not worth upsetting our institutional or constitutional order to do anything about.
The country is awash with illegal guns, yet judges routinely give sentences for illegal gun possession that place it in the same category as petty theft, while politicians lecture Bahamians about “conflict resolution” as if the saturation of the place with illegal guns is not the crucial factor differentiating us from everywhere else where young men have “disagreements” (black eyes everywhere else, body bags here).
On the issue of police “corruption”, colleagues of mine who practice criminal law describe a pattern of abuse of detainees that is so routine (involving fish bags and telephone books) that even magistrates tire of hearing it. Yet no resignations of officials or clownish antics from the opposition.
Earlier this year, a senior officer was apparently caught on tape making compromising statements in a case related to the murder of at least four young Bahamians and was placed on “garden leave” (whatever that means). Again, no resignations of officials or clownish antics from the opposition.
Over the course of the last year, courts have handed down rulings of unlawful homicide of Bahamians in several cases involving police shootings. Again, no resignations of officials or clownish antics from the opposition.
And yet a mere indictment by a US District Attorney, where we have seen zero evidence apart from the televised, stage-managed routine about “corrupt” unnamed politicians, so excites us as to lead to the resignation of the commissioner of police and statements by government members and the departing commissioner himself that the whole institution is basically corrupt and needing reform.
If these indictments turn out to be the antics of people advancing their careers (or some “deep-state” interests) by destabilizing the government of The Bahamas, then its intended victims (the government and ultimately the people of The Bahamas) have done half of their work for them by leaping to self-effacing conclusions instead of taking them calmly and seriously while demanding due process not only for accused individuals, but for the country and its institutions.
— Andrew Allen