Compiled, edited and constructed by Russell Dames Updated every Sunday at 2 p.m.
Volume 2 © BahamasUncensored.Com
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
WE TOLD YOU SO
The
site had barely gone up a few minutes when the e mail traffic came flooding
in to take issue with the comment last week that George W. Bush (pictured)
would win a second term in office hands down. We ended our comment
last week with “Believe it! Brace for it!” Now we are in a position to
say, we told you so.
The fact that we can say we told you so does not give us any comfort. The Bahamas is a depressed place because of the loss of John Kerry, and this is expected since most Bahamians wanted Mr. Kerry to win. The feeling is that the Republican Party closets racism in buzz words and phrases; that they will cause instability in the region by seeking to invade and remove Fidel Castro; and by their continued interference in the affairs of Haiti on the wrong side. So last week’s comment reflected accurately what was happening in The Bahamas, where it had to be acknowledged that the status quo in America would continue for four more years and that those years are likely to bitter and tortuous and difficult.
The same can be said for the leaders of the region. Many of them no doubt felt what we expressed here: that the quality of the conversation would have improved under John Kerry, even though the underlying polices would not have changed. Now that conversation is likely to get worse. And every American that shows up in the region will be suspected of voting to keep racism, intolerance and hegemony at the forefront of their national policies. That of course would be wrong, there are many persons of individual goodwill in the United States but they will have a hard job to make themselves known in the hemisphere.
What makes the situation even worse is the fact that the Democratic Party has been considerably weakened by what happened in the last election in the U.S. The control of the Senate has moved more firmly into the hands of the Republican Party and so has the House of Representatives. The Black Caucus for which most people in the Caribbean have an affinity is now more neutered than ever before as a countervailing force. The leadership of the Democratic Party is in disarray, and given the kind of personalities you have running the United States now, there will be no consideration of dissenting views, and precious little concern for the rights of the world outside the U.S.
The polls showed quite clearly that most people in the world wanted George Bush to lose. The world blames Mr. Bush for the insecurity in the world, having lied to his own people about why he went into Iraq and having made the situation there considerably worse and more unstable. The President of the United States in the view of most people in the world put the world at greater risk of a conflagration. Following fast on that, is the inexplicable attitude of who was supposed to be a sensible man Tony Blair who simply followed along it appears in a vain attempt to regain Britain's past glory.
The John Kerry loss in the United States was of tragic proportions for the world. There are some who tried to argue that John Kerry had this or that fault; that it was something that he did or failed to do in the campaign. None of the above. The United States has simply become a right wing, self righteous country that supports the closet racism and disregard for national sovereignty.
The world must not lose hope, however. The last time there was this depressed feeling in The Bahamas was when the PLP lost the election 1997. People could not believe that the once mighty party of Lynden Pindling could be vanquished by a man who was so clearly bogus and crude. Yet that was what happened. But then in five years, that defeat which was so demoralizing was turned around in a victory that stunned the country and diminished the Free National Movement. That was the price they paid for arrogance.
Michael Manley once said after being routed by Edward Seaga's JLP in Jamaica, when he was asked if he thought that he could come back and win again: “We routed them before and we can rout them again”. Within five years, he was Prime Minister of Jamaica again, an office that he occupied until he had to resign shortly before he died of prostate cancer. That was the attitude the PLP had to take in order to win again. That is the attitude that the Democrats have to take.
It is hard to say whether one can turn back the clock on the advance of racism in the United States and the disregard for international political opinion. So much of how the country was built in its past had to do with the wiping out of the indigenous populations and the whole feeling of manifest destiny. But what we do know is that the country is diverse enough and large enough for there to be the ability of qualified leaders in that country to come forward and put their country back on track, to be a responsible world leader instead of a giant that simply steps on everyone.
This column is expressed in especially bitter terms because it reflects so much of what has come into our letters to the editor that cannot be repeated because of the vehemence of the response. But Bahamians must be responsible. These are people that we have to get along with. There is no way that we have the power to face a head-on collision. We are in the business of welcoming guests to our shores, and so we stay out of all of the confrontation. But never let it be said that the opinions of what is right and wrong are not known by Bahamians, and that there is not a sense of overwhelming depression as one faces the next four years and beyond in the relations with the great neighbour to the north.
The people of goodwill in the United States have a responsibility to get their act together, in order literally to save the world that may be, just may be irreparably damaged by this bad decision made on 2nd November.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 6th November at midnight: 60,211.
Number of hits for the month of October up to Sunday 31st October 2004 at midnight: 273,535.
Number of hits for the month of November up to Saturday 6th November at midnight: 48,252.
Number of hits for the year 2004 up to Saturday 6th November at midnight: 2,292,746.
FRED
SMITH LOOKING FOR A SEAT
Those of us who have been reading the newspapers recently in The Bahamas
will notice that Fred Smith (pictured in this Peter Ramsay photo) is back
in the news. Who is Fred Smith? Well, he is a sometime activist
who lives in Grand Bahama, who is also the perennial human rights chief
in that city. He has become somewhat mercurial in that when it suits
him, the human rights association and its agenda tend to disappear, then
when it suits him again the human rights agenda and the organization reappear.
Of late though there has been a long surcease.
The last time most people heard from Fred Smith
was when he led a vitriolic attack against Fred Mitchell, the now Minister
of Foreign Affairs because of some comment misinterpreted about Haitians
and crime in The Bahamas. Latterly though, he is now back with a
bitter comment about the Government and its supposed lack of action in
Freeport on the hurricane issue.
The thing about Mr. Smith is that while the words
and sentiments that he says often accurately reflect that of the community,
Mr. Smith’s motives are often questioned and his comments therefore get
ignored. Well, he is back in the papers again.
The talk around Freeport is that there is no doubt
about the fact that Mr. Smith is now shopping for a seat. That is
the reason for the new high profile. Sources close to him have been
saying that he really does not care what party offers him a seat.
He simply wants to be in the House of Assembly and if the PLP offers him
a good platform, he will take that and if the FNM offers him a better one,
he
will take that. What was that we said about motives?
There is little chance that Mr. Smith will get any
kind of offer from the PLP but the FNM, well that depends. Hubert
Ingraham, the former Prime Minister and now poised to come back as Leader
of the FNM within one year, has a visceral hatred for Mr. Smith, so it
is difficult to see how he will get past that. But as they say, politics
makes strange bedfellows and the truth is often stranger than fiction.
BLANKENSHIP
INTERVENES
Last week, one of our comments spoke about the strange habit of the former
US Ambassador to The Bahamas J. Richard Blankenship (pictured in this file
photo) to continue to try to intervene in the affairs of The Bahamas.
A diplomat’s life must be a special life and one that is sorely missed
because in the case of Mr. Blankenship, the interventions just keep happening.
On the day that the new U.S. Ambassador presented
his credentials in The Bahamas, Mr. Blankenship ensured that the headlines
were about him and an apparent rescue effort for the Red Cross. Then
there was the recent editorial by his friend Eileen Carron, the Publisher
of The Tribune that means to suggest that he is still keeping his hand
in. It has now gone further, just in case there were doubting readers
to this column. He has now written a column in The Tribune.
It was the very study in erudition from his position as the head of an
investment firm. Some speculated whether the piece was actually written
by him.
The whole column seemed to be to promote business
opportunities for himself and his new firm. What the article essentially
says is that The Bahamas government does not engender a policy and atmosphere
of selling off public companies to the private sector and we need to do
so, otherwise we are being left behind the great global trend. He
also believes that the Government should allow infrastructure in the country
to be built by the private sector.
Apart from the article being self-serving, it just
seems so inappropriate for a former Ambassador, not even out of the country
for two years yet to intervene in a situation where some might mistake
what he is saying as the policy of the United States government.
That is an issue that has already had to be clarified by the U.S. Embassy
here. The Bahamas government has not commented on it. The Foreign
Minister has not said a word. Perhaps that is best, just ignore it
and move on. But what it may be doing is to force the present Ambassador
to take a higher profile in his press relations than is necessary so that
the issue is clear who is the boss as far as the U.S. interests in this
country are concerned. But there is a pitfall there and that is too
high a profile might end up with the same criticism of his predecessor.
There is a fine line between public commentary in
the interest of your country and a comment that is perceived to be interference
by Bahamians in their internal affairs. Most Ambassadors do their
work quietly and behind the scenes by cultivating the Bahamians who shape
policy. That is what Mr. Blankenship did not recognize. In
a society as small as this one, and as nationalistically sensitive that
is just about the best way to go.
LESLIE
MILLER TACKLES THE RENT PROBLEM
There is a rent control act on the books in The Bahamas. But there
may as well not be rent control. The act and its strictures apply
only to properties in The Bahamas that have a value of $25,000 or less.
What precisely does that cover in today’s Bahamas where even in Bain Town
a 50 by 100 lot without a house on it costs 30 to 40 thousand dollars?
That means that there is effectively no rent control in The Bahamas.
Rent control is a controversial topic because it
forces the landlord to keep the property up to a certain standard and you
can charge no more than fifteen per cent of the value of the property as
rent per annum. What the economists argue against rent control is
that, over time, this will drive people out of the rental housing market
and housing for the poor will disappear. The act was brought into
force, however, in 1975 to bring some relief to the slum housing that existed
over the hill. There were people with no toilet facilities, no running
water and yet they were paying exorbitant rents. If you dared to
complain, the landlord would have you out the next day. On the other
hand, however, are the landlords who complain that in too many instances,
their rental properties are destroyed by tenants who don’t pay the rent
and don’t keep up the properties. They also argue that the enforcement
procedures in The Bahamas are simply too difficult.
The $25,000 value was set in the year 1975.
Enter into the breach Leslie Miller the Minister for Trade and Industry
who also has the responsibility for consumer affairs. He wants to
bring the act up to date so that the $25,000 in 1975 would be reflected
in today’s law at $100,000. He has started town meetings and as is
his style, a high profile campaign in the press to expose the slum housing
that many landlords fail to address. The pictures of dilapidated
housing from the Kemp Road area were particularly shocking. The town
meetings are designed to build a public consensus around this issue so
that the law can be amended and sent on to Parliament for passage.
Landlords have not yet had their say publicly but
you can bet that their boys will soon weigh in on the question especially
those right wingers who sit at breakfast in Lyford Cay remembering the
glory days, who call themselves the Nassau Institute. We hope that
this legislation comes soon. A resident off Kemp Road prepares
Sunday dinner just outside an overflowing outside toilet in this Nassau
Guardian photo by Donald Knowles.
SHUFFLING
THE CABINET
The rumours are once again surfacing that the Prime
Minister may be making changes in his Cabinet. The last time these
stories surfaced they came to naught. The pundits are not taking
any bets this time.
THE
REBIRTH OF CABLE BEACH – WILL IT HAPPEN?
For Prime Minister Perry Christie, Cable Beach is
a project that should happen on his watch. Paradise Island’s Atlantis
Hotel is a project that can rightly if not rightfully be put down to the
Ingraham Administration. But Cable Beach, the other tourist centre
on New Providence, is dying on the vine, with an unimaginative and visionless
operator in charge of the largest hotel complex there. The once shining
Crystal Palace has lost it sheen.
The Izmeralian group, headed by a young rich man
who is a permanent resident in Lyford Cay with that last name, has been
trying to put public pressure on Mr. Christie’s government to approve the
purchase and the accompanying deal that would revolutionize Cable Beach
to the tune of one billion dollars. It includes a convention centre,
a new road and a brand new hotel. The catch is the group appears
not to be interested in dealing on conventional terms. The Government
is interested in a comprehensive plan and the Izmeralian group is counting
on that hunger and their calculation of the Prime Minster’s personal political
need to have a project come off on his watch to turn the screws.
So far they have been successful at exciting the Bahamian public and in
scaring the bejesus out of the Kerzners of the Atlantis Hotel at Paradise
Island.
The report came out that Butch and his father Sol
were none to happy about a plan to compete with the same up market segment
that Paradise Island attracts. A plan by George Myers, operator of
the Radisson Cable Beach, surfaced that would go after the middle group
and leave the high end to the Kerzners. The government balked at
the Myers plan, reaching for the bigger and more comprehensive plan.
Phil Ruffin who has done nothing with Crystal Pace
but is a good friend of the Government poured some cold water on the whole
matter by telling the Nassau Guardian that the Izmeralian group simply
had not put down any money, and the talk is that the agreement for sale
is so unconventional that the group can literally walk away if they can’t
find the money. No one knows what the true story is. You can
bet, however, that the public pressure will be active on all sides.
It is jobs stupid! We simply hope that the project comes off.
MURDERS
MOST FOUL
While the total number of murders is down in the
country over last year, the murders in the last week have shocked the country.
There were the murders of the American woman and a young man at Cat Island.
They have the fellow who did it. There was the murder of two young
men who were stabbed at parties where people had come uninvited.
There was the vehicular homicide. There was the woman shot down as
she stepped out of a bus with her daughters. The daughters, one of
whom was shot, survived but the mother died. The shocker though,
was the murder of the teacher at S.C. McPherson High School on Tuesday
2nd November. It turns out that a man who was her neighbour turned
himself in and confessed.
What is clear is that all of these are spontaneous
murders and are in that sense domestic. They are probably not in
law murders at all but homicides that are probably manslaughter cases.
The question we keep asking is why in a country that is supposed to be
a tourism Mecca, and a land of peace and tranquility would this continue
to happen? It is clear that these people who are engaged in this
stuff pay no attention to the greater good.
The Bahamas Government clearly must seek to address
this issue lest our brand name gets further sullied by the lack of attention
to this critical issue. All of the governments of the Caribbean have
been seeking to grapple with the issue from Suriname to Bermuda.
Jamaica has had the hardest time on crime. Their tourist industry
has a superior product but can’t really get off the ground until they are
able to cut down on the 1,000 or more murders per year in Jamaica.
There is simply too much crime and too much gun
violence. Individuals bear some responsibility but also a part of
it is the climate of violence that is fostered by the United States and
all its emphasis resolving conflict through the barrel of a gun.
Caricom countries have called for the U.S. to do more to stop the export
of illegal weapons to the region. The matter has fallen on deaf ears.
There have been 31 murders so far for this year, that is 31 too many, and
we do not need to see one other picture of a murder victim or the perpetrator
in a homicide. What we want to see in The Bahamas is happy pictures.
CHINESE
AMBASSADOR LEAVES
It has only been 16 months, since the personable,
affable Ambassador for China to The Bahamas came to be with us. He
has left a great impression on the small diplomatic corps in The Bahamas
and on the Bahamian people generally. Not since Sidney Williams was
the U.S. Ambassador has an Ambassador made such a great impression on the
Bahamian people. We have never quite seen a Chinese man of this nature.
This is not your dour senior man in a grey coat but a man of mature years
who knew people and wanted to get to know the culture of The Bahamas and
to have China engage properly in a way to foster good relations between
the countries. When he said his farewell at the reception hosted
by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he ended his address with the words:
“God Bless You!” Interesting!
The reason for Ambassador Jiao's early departure
is a sad but human one, his wife is dying of cancer and he needs to be
with her in her final hours. Two nights later as he bid a formal
farewell to the Bahamian community, Prime Minister Perry Christie appeared
and told him that he had made a great impression on the Bahamian people.
As his parting gift, the Ambassador left $50,000 to help with the hurricane
relief effort. This brings a total of $150,000 for the relief effort
given by the Chinese Government to The Bahamas. We wish the Ambassador
well in his new life.
You may click here
for the farewell address of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The photo by the Bahamas Information Services' Derek Smith shows the presentation
of the cheque to The Bahamas by the Ambassador on Monday 1st November.
DR. GAIL
SAUNDERS
The University of the West Indies has conferred on Dr. Gail Saunders, former
Director of the Archives, now Director of Heritage for The Bahamas, the
degree Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa. That means it is an honorary
degree. This adds to the earned Doctorate that she obtained from
the University of Waterloo in Canada. The honorary doctorate is a
great honour bestowed on Dr. Saunders, and signals the recognition of her
work throughout the region on both the history of The Bahamas and of the
region. The degree is the second conferred upon a Bahamian; the first
was to Dr. Keva Bethel, former President of the College of The Bahamas,
six years ago.
Lady Marguerite Pindling held a dinner in honour
of Dr. Saunders in Jamaica on Thursday 4th November. The degree was
conferred the next day. Also in Jamaica for the occasion were the
Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell, Dr. Saunders’ husband Winston,
who is also Chair of The Bahamas Cultural Commission; Dr. Keva Bethel,
Rubie Nottage, Chancellor of the Anglican Diocese, Dr. Saunders’ brother
Terry North and her father Basil North. Bahamas Information Services
photo - Peter Ramsay.
HURRICANE
PREPAREDNESS
We
don’t quite know where the idea came from about the Government of The Bahamas
not insuring buildings, but it seems silly indeed. The issue arises
because there is so much analysis now about what to do post hurricane in
The Bahamas. The question is whether the Government would be better
off if it would simply insure its public buildings. The traditional
argument is that the bill for the insurance of Government buildings would
be too significant and so the better thing to do would be to simply pay
as you go from the consolidated fund. With the number of hurricanes
this year and the expected frequency of hurricanes that will inflict major
damage, the question arises, should the Government be rethinking the position?
Some have argued that if the Government does not want to pay a private
insurance company perhaps what it ought to do is to self insure by forming
its own corporation and paying money into a sinking fund each year out
of the budget. We say that the Government should simply insure its
buildings. Franklyn Wilson (pictured), the Chair of the College of
The Bahamas and who is also in the insurance business gave some thoughtful
consideration to this matter in an address recently at a seminar sponsored
by the Association of Tertiary Level Educators and we thought you should
read it. You may click here for the
full address.
JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT
The Minister of Youth Neville Wisdom has reacted
to a speculative story in The Tribune that charged that a young man in
the programme had been sexually abused by one of the directors in the programme
and that money had been misappropriated. The story appeared in The
Tribune on Monday 1st November. The Ministry said that the matters
had been turned over to the police but the evidence that they had found
that the matters were without foundation.
The Tribune is yet again engaging in the nastiness
of the gutter press like The Punch and The Source. It has definitely
gone down market. The Junior Achievement programme is one of the
most successful youth programmes in the country. The country is concerned
about youth engagement in society why would a responsible newspaper without
a shred of evidence want to ruin that programme by spreading a malicious
rumour as it has. Eileen Carron should be ashamed of herself.
LANDFALL
TRUMPETS IRS DEFEAT
Dr. Gilbert Morris, principal of the Landfall Centre (pictured) has claimed
vindication over the Centre’s argument that forced changes in the country’s
financial services legislation would not pass legal muster. In 1999,
The Landfall Centre argued that the tranche of new financial services legislation
would not survive legal challenge. This was part of an argument by
the Landfall Centre that because The Bahamas is a small nation-state is
no reason to capitulate without a thoughtful strategy based on law.
Last week, the American Internal Revenue Service (IRS) suffered defeat
in the US courts – its third court defeat in the space of two weeks – in
a case involving alleged use of abusive tax shelters.
A report on the website Tax-News.com said that in
the case in question, the IRS was ordered earlier this week by Judge Stefan
R. Underhill of the United States District Court of Connecticut to refund
TIFD III-E Inc, a subsidiary of General Electric Corp., more than $62 million.
In 2000, the Landfall Centre published an article
in Tax Notes International in Washington DC, which called into question
the legality of the financial services legislation, wondering “...at implementing
that which others design for their own purposes, whilst ignoring our better
instincts and home-grown ideas.” Please click
here for the full report.
BAHAMAS
OFF TO CARICOM HEADS
A Bahamian delegation has arrived in Port-of-Spain,
Trinidad to attend a special meeting of Heads of Government of the Caribbean
Community of Nations (CARICOM). Prime Minister the Right Honourable
Perry G. Christie is being represented as head of the delegation by Minister
of Foreign Affairs & The Public Service, the Honourable Fred Mitchell.
Minister Mitchell is accompanied by His Excellency
A. Leonard Archer, The Bahamas Ambassador to Caricom and by the Under Secretary
for Trade in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Philip Miller.
The special Caricom Heads of Government meeting
is expected to discuss matters aimed at moving forward the Community’s
plan for a Caribbean Single Market & Economy CSME and other matters
concerning governance issues in Caricom.
The meetings are to take place on Monday 8th November
and Tuesday 9th November, with the delegation to return to Nassau on Wednesday
and Thursday.
KELLY
BURROWS' NEW JOB
One time Grand Bahama hotelier Kelly Burrows is
back in the marketplace after retiring from the hospitality industry.
The former Senior Assistant Food & Beverage Director of Princess, then
Oasis Hotels has been appointed as General Manager for Tropical Shipping
in Freeport. Mr. Burrows started in the hospitality business as a
restaurant manager in Nassau in 1964, moving to Grand Bahama in 1973.
He is a long time vestryman at the Pro-Cathedral of Christ The King and
is married to Senior Education Officer Angela Burrows. Congrats!
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Bush’s Election
I couldn't agree more with your analysis of George
W. Bush. He will undoubtedly be more right wing leaning with all
of its hawkish tendencies. I personally feel that spells disaster
for all small nations and the world. The man and men of his ilk simply
don't get that anti-American sentiment was inflamed by the American capture
and subsequent occupation of an Arab nation. God help us all if he
wins on Tuesday. ‘The limits of tyrants are prescribed by those whom they
oppress.’
Kele’ Isaacs
This letter was typical of the many (see Comment of the week) received
just before and after the American elections. – Ed.
Yasser Arafat -
www.bahamasuncensored.com 31/10/04
‘…The Bahamian community sees Mr. Arafat's struggle in the same
terms as that of the Black South African against apartheid, and the brutal
suppression of the Palestinian struggle by the Israeli government. Many
Bahamians find it very strange in the face of the known persecution of
the Jewish people through the ages that this nation would engage in such
a brutal occupation without any idea where this is all going to end up,
and certainly it won't be with peace if it keeps up this way…’
“The Bahamian community...”? Speak for yourself Mr. Dames.
Arafat is a terrorist. The dictator Arafat does not speak for Palestinians
– and you do not speak for Bahamians.
Mark Da Cunha
To each, his own. One man’s terrorist is often another man’s freedom
fighter. – Ed.
THIS
WEEK WITH THE PM
<
FAREWELL
AMBASSADOR JIAO - Prime Minister Perry Christie proposes a toast as
the diplomatic corps gathered Wednesday evening 3rd November to bid farewell
to departing Chinese Ambassador Jiao Dongcun. Mr. Christie thanked
the Ambassador for his work in The Bahamas, noting the “useful and engaging”
recent state visit to China by the Prime Minister and Bahamian officials.
In addressing the farewell reception, hosted by the Chinese embassy at
the ‘East Villa’ restaurant, Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Honourable
Vincent Peet said that Ambassador Jiao was instrumental in furthering the
good relations, which exist between China and The Bahamas. He again
thanked the Ambassador for China’s most recent gift of an additional $50,000
to the Hurricane Relief Fund. 
In
addition to members of the diplomatic corps in The Bahamas, the reception
was attended by many members of Cabinet, senior civil servants, former
Governors General Sir Clifford Darling and Sir Orville Turnquest, former
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sir Clement Maynard
and former Minister of Tourism and Ambassador to China, Sir Arthur Foulkes.
Pictured from left are Acting Foreign Minister Peet, Ambassador Jiao, Prime
Minister Christie and Haitian Ambassador Lewis Harold Joseph.
> The Prime Minister addressed millions of religious believers across the world this week, through live television on the Christian 'Word Network' telecast this week from Bishop Neil Ellis Mount Tabor Full Gospel Baptist Church in Nassau. Mr. Christie used the opportunity to promote religious tourism to the country, telling his viewers of The Bahamas' "unashamed commitment to spiritual values and christian principles".
< Monies continue to come in to assist the
country with hurricane relief following the devastation in several islands
in the wake of hurricanes Frances and Jeanne. Bahamas Consul General
in Miami Mrs. Alma Adams travelled to Nassau this week to give a further
$20,000 from Bahamians resident in Florida and American friends of The
Bahamas. Mrs. Adams said that it is felt that the Florida community
will give still more. Prime Minister Christie, in concert with the
Chairman of the Fund, Minister of State for Finance James Smith, accepted
in gratitude.
Bahamas Information Services photographs by Peter
Ramsay.
 PHOTO
OF THE WEEK - The death of a young person, any young person,
generally sends shock waves through small communities like The Bahamas.
You see the picture of the deceased in the paper, and you see the innocence
and the glow of potential coming from their eyes. And yet all too
soon, young life has been snuffed out. It is happening with all too
much frequency in The Bahamas as HIV/AIDS takes its toll; as there are
more and more road traffic accidents, and as crime continues to be a problem
for the country. Yet the sudden death in senseless circumstances
always strikes the country as especially foul. Such was the atmosphere
throughout The Bahamas during the week as Bahamians sought to absorb the
news from Mandeville, Jamaica and from the most unlikely of places the
Seventh Day Adventists' University of the Northern Caribbean. On
Saturday 6th November, Joseph Darius Burrows left his home to get Kentucky
Fried Chicken for his wife and family. He never returned. Someone
got him, cleaned out his bank account, and killed him. His body was
found on the side of the road, one mile out of Mandeville with a blunt
force trauma injury to his head and a broken left hand most probably from
trying to ward off the blow. He was gone, leaving behind a
distraught University community, frightened Bahamians there, and a father
asking God, why his only son had been taken. Our photo of the week,
is that of Joseph Burrows, now dead at 22. Appearing with Mr. Burrows
in the photo are his wife and child. It is a very sad time.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell is in Jamaica today for the
memorial service. The Ministry’s statement is shown below (click
here). We also offer our condolences. That is our photo
of the week, and it was published in The Tribune on Thursday 11th November. |
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS
What
you expect from younger politicians is not right wing, errant nonsense
that is designed to get headlines without any idea about the consequences
intended or unintended. The country is clearly looking to the future
and from where its leadership is going to come. There is for example
constant speculation in the PLP about who is going to succeed the present
Prime Minister who says that he expects to be in the job until 2010.
But that presumes that (as we think likely) the PLP will continue to be
the Government and relevant to the times. The speculation also often
presumes that it will fall either to one of those in the present Cabinet
or in the present Parliamentary party. The speculation is good, even
though all the present aspirants for the office have to be careful about
this and the stability of their organization. What is interesting
is that you don’t often hear the speculation about the FNM and its leadership.
That says something about what the people feel about the future.
What we add is that the leadership of political parties does not have to come from the existing leaders. It could come from people completely out of the present limelight and system. And so that is why, despite the criticism by many of the attention paid in this column to extra parliamentary parties, we continue to think that it is important to watch the extra parliamentary parties, the leadership and understand what they are up to and try to shape their opinions. The fact is that many of today’s parliamentarians had to go a route other than their present political party to end up where they now are. Shane Gibson, the former trade union leader and now Minister of Housing, came to support the PLP after his terrible experiences with the previous Government and he has been a wonderful addition to the PLP. Fred Mitchell spent the years 1984 to 1997 as the leader of his own political party the People’s Democratic Force. He too is a wonderful addition to the present PLP. Perry Christie, himself, was an independent from 1984 to 1991 when he returned to the PLP. So that is why we think that you cannot dismiss Cassius Stuart (pictured), leader of a group calling itself the Bahamas Democratic Movement. His name should be familiar to most readers of this column.
So many people within the PLP have such high hopes and regard for him that one was pained to read during the week the foolishness and utter stupidity uttering forth from his mouth. His recent call in the press for the resignation of the Deputy Prime Minister and then for the castration of those who are rapists and child molesters is not worthy of him or any sensible person. This is the kind of stupidity and irresponsibility that defies logic but it is something that politicians on the make often feel they have to do.
The point we continue to make to Cassius Stuart is that if he is a man of the future, he cannot be arguing for retrogression and barbarism when it has been shown from time that these methods he now advocates do not work, are unworkable and will if utilized put The Bahamas in a category of barbaric countries to which we do not and should not belong.
He himself gets upset when he is called to account for statements that are clearly stupid and irresponsible. There is a history of this. Here is young politician who goes to a church convention and cynically using biblical language about sowing a seed, simply does what other political hacks before him did, seeking to buy favour with the church by giving them $1,000 or at least pledging it. We hope the church collected. That was foolish and ill advised. People were concerned about the highjinks in the House of Assembly where he and his partner chained themselves to the House property. They ended up being prosecuted by the FNM but the PLP withdrew the prosecution. Some saw that as a bad example to younger children in support of lawlessness. Okay, we forgave that on the grounds that it was a legitimate political action.
A distinction must be made here between our reaction to the criticism of the Deputy Prime Minister and the call for castration. The criticism of the Deputy Prime Minister is something with which we do not agree, but that is legitimate political comment that one expects from a politician. The call for castration though, is way out of line and not becoming of one for whom people have such high hopes.
The call from this column for the BDM's leader to find work is said as a kind of half joke. But it should be taken seriously in this sense, the Bahamian people ought to have a sense that this is someone who is preparing himself for something bigger, who is responsible and who does not shoot from the hip. It is about shaping the profile of someone who should have a future. That future should actually be part of the PLP. The PLP needs to have a future for those who are tolerant, pluralistic thinkers, not right wing ideologues and those who adhere to barbaric policies that have failed from the past. The choice for Mr. Stuart will soon be either the graveyard of political comic relief inhabited by the likes of Rodney Moncur or the constellation of practical leadership, joined by, say a Shane Gibson who is now in the mainstream. There is too much idiocy in this country that tries to pass for sensible comment on public policy.
No doubt these words will be viewed askance. The response will probably be, as most young men will say: “I will get there anyway.” That may well be true but the question always is how will you get there, and what will the be the quality of the leadership which you present? And if you get there having heard these words of truth. That is our responsibility. If you say you want to fight crime, as we all do, it is clear that we have to have a more muscular response to what is going on today. There is plenty of criticism to go around in terms how the police do and conduct their work, the role of the Criminal Detective Unit, how they relate with the community policing unit. Bahamans are plenty dissatisfied with what they have on the crime fighting front. That is all the basis of legitimate complaint.
The Bahama Journal in its editorial of Thursday 11th November wrote the following with which we agree: “The point we make is that opinions like the ones put forward by Stuart and others such, should – in this day and age – be treated with the contempt they so richly deserve... Surely nothing is ever to be gained every time some drivel flows; somebody rushes in to wipe it up. There are always better uses for the time one has on his hands. It should not be wasted in futile debate and discussion with those whose only occupation seems to be that of “grabbing headlines”.
Paul Moss, an attorney at law and a frequent critic of the Government on prison reform, also condemned the remarks. He dismissed it as a politician seeking headlines.
We happen to think that the Ministry of National Security has a number of initiatives by which they are seeking to solve these problems. That does not absolve them from criticism but one expects from the next generation of politicians some answers to the future. Those answers do not lie in the past.
Quite frankly it is simply embarrassing to hear such utter rubbish being played up as responsible public policy. The newspapers are only interested in sexy headlines. The politician in the making is just interested in getting his name in the newspaper at any costs - and yes, we do use Mr. Stuart's picture here. It is a shame but one guesses that's life.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 13th November 2004 at midnight: 63,308.
Number of hits for the month of November 2004 up to Saturday 13th November 2004 at midnight: 111,560.
Number of hits for the year 2004 up to Saturday 14th November 2004 at midnight: 2,356,054.
DEATH
OF BAHAMIAN STUDENT IN JAMAICA
The photo of the week this week shows the picture of Joseph Burrows, a
victim of criminal violence in Jamaica. You may click
here for that caption. This is a tragic and sad event.
This piece, however, is meant to address those remaining
students in Jamaica who may have thoughts of leaving or other Bahamians
who may want to blame Jamaica and Jamaicans for what has happened.
First, Jamaica faces grave problems on the crime front but so does The
Bahamas. But this is the first time that we know in living memory
that a Bahamian student has been killed in Jamaica. To be sure, we
remember the case of George Moxey known as ‘God Bless’ the musician who
was murdered in a robbery at a home in Jamaica in the 1970s. But
we must remember that The Bahamas is also the scene of horrific crimes,
as are many countries around the world.
Students who come to The Bahamas from other countries
have been complaining about attacks on the women who live on the campus
of the University of the West Indies and that of the College of The Bahamas.
Bahamian students have been killed in the United States by murder and other
equally tragic circumstances. No one would blame the U.S. and no
one would turn on the American people.
Jamaica and Jamaicans want the same things that we want for our people:
peace, a crime free life, economic progress. Indeed, Jamaica has
helped The Bahamas grow and prosper by educating generations of our young
people, many of whom have gone on to be successful leaders of this community.
So this is not to turn into an anti Jamaica or Jamaican thing. This
is a sad, individual event, which is so tragic it is almost unspeakable.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell reported
to the press on Friday 12th November, how he did not know what to say to
the father of young Mr. Burrows. The Minister had just been with
the group of young people in Mandeville three weeks ago at lunch and felt
this one particularly badly. This is Stephen Burrows’ only son.
He was named by his father out of an act of covenant with God. He
was given to his father for 22 years, and now his life has been snuffed
out.
We must weep for Jamaica, as we weep for the family
and must weep for ourselves and at all the wicked things that are in this
world. WE WILL STAND FIRM: Northern Caribbean University
President Dr. Herbert Thompson is shown comforting students
at the University, at an impromptu service held just hours
after the body of 22 year old Bahamian student Joseph Burrows was
found miles away from the University.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued the following statement upon the death of Mr. Burrows and Minister Mitchell is today, Sunday 14th November, in Mandeville, Jamaica to attend a memorial service at the University.
The Bahamas
Government through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expresses its profound
regret over the death of Joseph Burrows, a Bahamian student reported missing
in Jamaica and now discovered dead. The Ministry also expresses condolences
to the family of Mr. Burrows.
Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Honourable
Vincent Peet has confirmed that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Honourable
Fred Mitchell, now travelling in the Caribbean, has directly conveyed the
condolences of the Government to Mr. Stephen Burrows, father of the deceased
student, Mr. Joseph Burrows.
Minister Mitchell, on behalf of the Government,
has also spoken with the Foreign Minister of Jamaica and received assurances
from the Jamaican Government that a complete investigation will be carried
out and that no effort will be spared to bring those guilty of causing
the death of Mr. Burrows to justice.
The Bahamas’ Honorary Consul Designate to
Jamaica, Ms. Keva Hilton has been instructed to continue to monitor the
situation closely.
Mr. Burrows was in Jamaica studying at the
University of the Northern Caribbean at Mandeville and was reported missing
by his wife on Saturday 6th November, 2004.
Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs the Honourable
Vincent Peet noted, “We have been in touch with the President of the University,
Dr. Herbert Thompson who indicated that there is to be on a memorial service
at the University in Mandeville on Sunday 14th November. It is expected
that a representative of the government will attend that service.”
Minister Peet advised all Bahamian students
studying abroad to “exercise vigilance in their movements given the unfortunate
likelihood of crime across the cities of the world”.
JUSTICE
THOMPSON RECUSES HERSELF
The Bahama Journal reported on Wednesday 10th November
that Justice Jeanne Thompson has recused herself from hearing the Sidney
Stubbs bankruptcy matter. The Justice gave as the reason the fact
that the Government had just extended her tenure as a judge past the retirement
age of 65 pursuant to the powers of the Prime Minister under the constitution.
She did not want it to be seen that she was either acting for or against
the Government because of the benefit of an extension conferred upon her.
Each new twist of this strange and difficult case
must give the Free National Movement some comfort that maybe, just maybe,
they will have an opportunity to get another beating put on them by the
PLP in Holy Cross. They have gone to the trouble of trying to rouse
the population on the question of why Mr. Stubbs is still in the seat.
They have gone further and nominated the hapless Carl Bethel, their now
Chairman and the former Attorney General and defeated candidate for the
2002 election, to contest the seat. Their Leader out of the House
of Assembly Tommy Turnquest does not have the courage to run, even though
he finds himself in the anomalous position of being the Leader but not
the Leader of the Opposition.
The case of Sidney Stubbs is following two tracks.
One track is that of going before a Judge of the Supreme Court and asking
for the matter to be revisited and that he should be discharged because
of certain technical faults. This arises because the Court of Appeal
has ruled that they have no jurisdiction to hear an appeal. The other
is to go before the Privy Council to seek to overturn the ruling of the
Court of Appeal that they have no jurisdiction to hear an appeal and either
force that Court to hear the appeal or set aside the finding of the Court
below.
Things get curiouser and curiouser with this matter,
and the PLP simply hopes that there is no need to spend money on a bye-election
any time soon. The case is now to be heard in the Supreme Court by
the Chief Justice on Thursday 19th November.
REMEMBRANCE
DAY
The relevance of the annual ceremony fades in the minds of the Bahamian
population like those old soldiers. The politicians seem not have
any use for the ceremony. Hardly any of them come to it. The
fact that four marines died tragically in 1980 in the defence of their
country's interest does not seem to move and excite anyone.
The memorial was set up as a service first in the
Christ Church Cathedral by the ex soldiers of the British Legion to remember
their fallen comrades of the First and Second World Wars. The First
World War ended on 11th November 1917 and the day since then was known
as Armistice Day. It is a public holiday in the U.S. The British
and British colonies began to sell poppies to commemorate the red flowers
on the battlefield at Flanders in France where many of the fallen lie buried.
The present generation does not remember any of that and does not care.
But it is an occasion for the scouts to come out on parade, the young bands
to play and for the diplomats and Honorary Consuls to lay their wreaths
to the fallen dead.
What the generation before us did, men like Basil
Johnson, were brave acts indeed. They led lives of sacrifice and
discipline and we should never forget them. It is also a time to
remember the four Bahamian marines who died 10th May 1980 when Cuban MIG
fighters sank the HMBS Flamingo. And so we say, their limbs shall
not grow weary nor sight grow dim…in our going out and in our coming in,
we will remember them. Minister of Labour and Immigration Vincent
Peet stands behind Governor General Dame Ivy Dumont at the Cenotaph after
the official Remembrance Day Service at Christ Church Cathedral.
Minister Peet represented the Prime Minister. RIGHT - Minister of
Works Bradley Roberts represents the Prime Minister at St. Francis Xavier's
Cathedral's Remembrance Day Service. He is pictured at left with
Mr. Brent Symonette, representing the Leader of the Opposition and representatives
of the United States Embassy. BIS photos - Peter Ramsay. AT
LEFT - Minister of Financial Services & Investment Allyson Maynard
Gibson receives a poppy from members of the British Legion in this Nassau
Guardian photo. L-R: Charles Fisher, Legion member; Minister Maynard Gibson;
Matthias Munroe, Secretary of the Legion in The Bahamas and Percy Strachan,
Legion member.
MINISTER
IN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
The Minister of Foreign Affairs visited the Dominican Republic in October.
He was accompanied by Ambassador Leonard Archer, the Ambassador to Caricom.
The reason for the visit was to discuss fish poaching, expanded trade and
tourism between the two countries and to seek the accreditation of Ambassador
Eugene Newry as Ambassador to that country. The photo shows the Minister
being greeted at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Dominican Republic
with their Foreign Minister Carlos Morales. Señor Morales
is a frequent visitor to The Bahamas, and a friend of the Bacardi family
at Lyford Cay.
LADY
PINDLING IN JAMAICA
Last week Dr. Gail Saunders received an honorary
doctorate from the University of the West Indies for her work as an archivist
in the region. (You may click here
for last week's story) Lady Marguerite Pindling hosted the guests
to a sumptuous dinner at the renowned Pegasus Hotel in honour of Dr. Saunders’
achievement. The degree was conferred on Friday 5th November.
The representatives of The Bahamas Students Association
came to greet the party following the graduation ceremony and address by
Dr. Saunders. Pictured from left are Sergio Kerr, Cindy Simon, Elaine
Robinson, Minister Mitchell, Dr. Saunders, Lady Pindling, Dr. Keva Bethel,
Rubie Nottage and Akin Minnis.
U.S.
HURRICANE AID PACKAGE
The United States has announced a package of assistance
for Caricom countries following the hurricanes. The package is said
to be valued at some 2 million dollars to The Bahamas. There are
no details yet of exactly how this is going to be accessed and what precisely
it will be used for. One suspects that Ambassador John Rood in Nassau
will be instrumental in determining how this assistance is to be applied.
WHAT
IS ATLANTIS UP TO WITH PHASE III?
The Bahama Journal reported at the start of the
week that the Atlantis project Phase III has been put on hold. There
were then mixed signals from the company about it. The company said
that they had until 31st December to decide whether and how to proceed
with the final phase of the development of phase III. This has caused
the Government some anxiety. The Government is counting on the jobs
to be created by the enterprise at Paradise Island in order to get the
economy going and some pressure off its back from the young males and females
who are unemployed.
A Kerzner spokesman Howard Karawan, chief marketing
officer for the company, finally entered the fray to say to the Nassau
Guardian on Thursday 11th November that the project was very much on but
that there are likely to be some changes in the way they approach the project.
The project is expected to start its construction phase in June 2005.
The Kerzner group is said to be nervous about two
things. First the market appears to be changing and they do not want
to overreach themselves despite their original rosy forecast. Secondly,
The Bahamas Government is considering a project out at Cable Beach, which
intends to compete for the same high-end market.
The Kerzners are particularly unhappy and are rattling
their sabres to warn the Government off. Their proposition is a difficult
one: how do you ask a person who wants to invest one billion dollars in
a country that needs employment to get lost because the main competitor
says it doesn’t want any competition? Clearly, one has to look at
it seriously. Clearly, you can't dismiss it. The Bahamas Government
should watch very carefully what is going on at Atlantis in order to ensure
that the economic benefits are there for Bahamians.
JOURNAL
CLARIFIES ATLANTIS STORY
Just before upload of our second edition, we received
this clarification from The Bahama Journal:
I read your site religiously on Sundays and look
forward to it, so it should be no surprise for me as the editor of the
Bahama Journal to point out an error. Under the section titled ‘What
Is Atlantis Up To With Phase III?’, you state that “The Bahama Journal
reported at the start of the week that the Atlantis project Phase III has
been put on hold.” This is inaccurate. The story we ran on
Tuesday says only that Kerzner has expressed what have amounted to doubts
about whether to proceed with certain elements of the project.
The company said in a release last Monday that
it has until December 31 to decide whether to proceed with the remaining
elements of Phase III and has several key factors it will take into consideration
in making this decision, including financing, and whether the government
keeps certain commitments it made in the Heads of Agreement. I notice
that the Guardian made the same error in intimating that the Journal said
the project is on hold. We never did. Would appreciate the
correction...
Thanks,
Candia Dames
THE
GREAT SEX RAID
The week started out on Sunday 7th November with
the Royal Bahamas Police Force announcing that following a three month
investigation into Club Cabaret Seduction on West Bay Street, and following
numerous complaints from residents in the area, a raid was carried out
and several arrests made. Twelve people, all Jamaican women were
charged with indecent behaviour. Three pleaded guilty and are to
be sentenced next week after being remanded in custody. The others
are out on $500 dollars bail.
The Immigration Department said curiously enough
to the court that the Jamaican women all had status to be in The Bahamas.
That could not possibly be since they did not have work permits, and if
they were dancers in the club then they must have been working and therefore
acting in manner that was incompatible with their status.
The other curious thing is why would an investigation
into dirty dancing at a club take three months? What precisely were
the police investigating and collecting as evidence? Did they have
to go and see the naked girls every night for three months before they
had sufficient evidence to raid the club? Hmmm! Then Darrold
Miller made an interesting point; here you have adults in a place that
has a licence for music and dance, and to sell liquor, so what is the harm
precisely that is being done in this situation when there is murder and
mayhem and rape going on in the streets? Seems a little over zealous.
The police were pleased as punch that they got their
women, and now they can boast that they have three convictions to boot.
There was also a charge of someone with an unlawful firearm.
The final drama in the life of the Palestinian hero and patriot Yasser
Arafat played itself out in the bleak landscape of Ramallah on the West
Bank of Israel on Friday 12th November. After the dignified military
and state funeral in Egypt, the Palestinian people rushed over into the
burial site on the West Bank to say farewell to their fallen leader.
The Western press were busy trying to discount the
significance of the man. Some of them were busy talking about his
failings as a leader. Others in Western capitals tried to ignore
the event or to speak around the event. Nothing was more sad than
the display of those who went to war in Iraq, a war that they cannot win;
only they are the only ones who do not know it. The scenes of grief
and the outpouring of affection puts the lie to the claim by those who
lead the war that one dares not speak about that the man was irrelevant.
The controversy even found itself into this column,
where a letter writer described Mr. Arafat as a terrorist. Of course
as the editor pointed out last week, one man’s terrorist is another man’s
freedom fighter. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa hailed Mr.
Arafat as a patriot and great leader of his people. That he was.
That he was.
Stan Burnside penned a cartoon in The Nassau Guardian
on Saturday 13th November, which reflected the ambivalence of the event
to many. There is no such ambivalence here. Top left - An
Egyptian honour guard carries the coffin of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat
upon its arrival in Cairo late Thursday. Aladin Abdel Naby / Reuters
Top right - mourners swarm Arafat's coffin in Ramallah.
THE
COMEDIANS - A STORY OF HAITI
The British writer Graham Greene wrote the book
titled ‘The Comedians’ a long time ago. In it he catalogued the folly
of the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti. If he were around, he could
write another book and call it The Comedians part II. How else would
one characterize the utter foolishness of the policies of the present regime
in Haiti and their developed world patrons in the decade of the Jean Bertrand
Aristide’s ascendancy and his removal from office?
First both the developed world and the local Haitian
elites that now run the Government and who opposed and oppose Mr. Aristide
made a fundamental error in forcing Mr. Aristide from power in February
by military means. That means there will be no peace because Mr.
Aristide and his supporters will forever believe that they have been robbed.
Try as the little Caricom mouse did to encourage
the then Opposition now Government not to try to exact vengeance but to
break the cycle of vengeance that is the hallmark of Haitian politics and
allow Mr. Aristide to serve out his term even as their choice of Prime
Minister would effectively run the Government. They refused and instead
cavorted with the rebel murderers, and with the acquiescence of the developed
world forced Mr. Aristide out. They repeated the cycle.
At the last minute Caricom went to the United Nations
and begged for two things: either go in and stop the rebels from advancing
so as to allow the normal transition to take place or if the developed
world were unwilling to do so, authorize some nation that was willing to
do so.
Now comes the funny bit. You have now in power
a government that is supposed to be technocratic in nature, not political
and not partisan. Isn’t it funny though that all of the policies
end up restricting the right of Mr. Aristide and his supporters from participating
in Haitian politics? Mr. Aristide cannot come home. He has
been banished by his countrymen and by their developed world patrons from
this hemisphere. It is a policy used by slave masters to deal with
errant slaves. This from a Haitian interim administration that says
it wants reconciliation.
There is more. They arrested former Prime
Minister Yvon Neptune who helped them in their transition to power and
refused to abandon his country even when Mr. Aristide wrongly “agreed”
to leave Haiti. Despite the mouse Caricom asking and the United States
saying that it is demanding, Mr. Neptune remains in jail without charge.
Then the interim administration that says it wants friends in the international
arena, proceeded to attack one of the most respected Black leaders in the
world, immediately offending Caricom (which it says it wants to rejoin)
and the African Union. What a way to win friends! The U.S.
stays silent and so it is taken to mean that they accept these actions.
It gets funnier. Having agreed that there
is a need for reconciliation in Haiti, the interim administration has now
said they want to arrest former President Aristide on corruption charges.
Isn’t that a howl? You can just see reconciliation coming down the
pike, can’t you?
We are sure you are now rolling in the aisles with
laughter it is so funny. Meanwhile in Nassau a former Deputy Chief
of Mission in Haiti for the United States, solemnly gave his interview
to the Nassau Guardian as an exclusive in which he laid out how in his
view the departure of Mr. Aristide took place. He said he was there
and helped to preside over it. He said how the scene was set for
the departure. He insisted it was voluntary. He insisted that
it was a sad event and how the President was isolated behind his bodyguards
and how he gave over his resignation at the last moment in the original
copy just before he went on the plane. The U.S. official went about
facilitating the swearing in of the new President of Haiti.
We have never seen a departure so voluntary in all
our lives. We are all totally convinced. All our doubts are
gone. (Yeah right!) If this were not a true story, don’t you
think this would make a good sequel to Graham Greene’s original book ‘The
Comedians’?
SUPERVALUE
BOYCOTT
The Bahamas Commercial Stores Supermarkets and Warehouse
Workers Union has initiated a boycott of Supervalue for failing to come
to the bargaining table to conclude an industrial agreement between the
union and the company. We support the boycott and encourage shoppers
not to cross the picket lines. The Union is supported by the Bahamas
Hotel catering and Allied Workers Union which itself announced a picket
of the Comfort Suites Hotel for failing to come to agreement on a new contract
for the workers there.
GALANIS
IS EXASPERATED
The Progressive Liberal Party’s Senator Philip Galanis
has joined the critics who believe that the decisions of the Government
are being made too slowly. He was quoted in The Tribune Thursday
11th November as follows: “Our political leaders must also be more responsive,
transparent and accountable to the citizens whom they serve. While
political decisions should not be hastily taken, particularly if to do
so would be to the detriment of our country, many people feel that too
many government decisions are taking too long to be made and I agree with
them.”
CONGRATULATIONS
TO FRANKLYN WILSON
The complaint in The Bahamas is that you have tourism
as the major industry in the country but there are no Bahamians who are
involved in a meaningful way in the ownership and investment in the sector.
No major hotel is owned by a Bahamian. It is also said that investors
who are Bahamian don’t get the same treatment as foreign investors.
On all those counts, it seems things have changed. A Heads of Agreement
has been signed with a group headed by Franklyn Wilson, Chairman of Arawak
Homes and including Albert Sands of Rock Sound, Eleuthera for the redevelopment
of Rock Sound’s Cotton Bay Club. The deal was signed in the presence
of the Prime Minister on Monday 8th November. The deal is said to
be worth 300 million dollars. BIS photo of Eleuthera Properties
Heads of Agreement signing by Peter Ramsay.
WENDY’S
PASSES HANDS
The Solomon Group has announced that it has reached
a deal with the Tsavousiss brothers, the owners of Johnny Canoe cafe to
buy Wendy’s. Wendy’s founder in The Bahamas, Norman Solomon is getting
on in age and has Parkinson’s disease and is unable to provide the fresh
talent and money to keep the business going. The brothers are known
to be especially aggressive successful businessmen in the food area in
The Bahamas. Wendy’s is said to have peaked in The Bahamas in terms
of market penetration and Burger King is cutting significantly into its
business since Burger King was taken over by hotelier George Myers.
CARMICHAEL
COMMUNITY FESTIVAL
Member of Parliament John Carey celebrated with the constituents and residents
of Carmichael in the 1st annual Carmichael Community Festival. It
was indeed a festive occasion as scores of people from the community and
elsewhere came out to a treat of Bahamian food and culture. The Gerald
Cash Primary Steel Pan Band, Farm Road and Bain/Grants Town Marching Bands
performed to the delight of the crowd. On hand to share in the festivities
were the Prime Minister The Right Hon. Perry Christie, Hon. Bradley Roberts,
Hon. Neville Wisdom, Hon. Shane Gibson, Parliamentary Secretary Michael
Halkitis, MP Phillip Davis, Chairman Raynard Rigby and more. It was indeed
a day enjoyed by all. Students of Gerald Cash Primary School with steel
pans entertain festivalgoers at top and John Carey, Carmichael MP, with
Minister Bradley Roberts at right share a smile with a Carmichael constituent.
BAHAMIAN
BASKETBALLER IN OKLAHOMA
The last time we saw Rashad Moss was in Freeport,
Grand Bahama, but recently he turned up on the Internet at Northern Oklahoma
College Enid. Boy, Bahamians sure do travel. The 18 year old
6 foot 6 inch basketball player was featured on a recent edition of the
college's webpage 'Enid News Now' and we thought you'd like a look.
That's him on the drive. Please click
here. Enid News Now photo by ANDY CARPENEAN
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Two subjects in recent weeks seem to have aroused
strong feelings amongst our readership. The descent into death of
Yasser Arafat provoked strong comment both last
week and again this week. Also, the reelection of George W. Bush
to the presidency of the United States and our Comment
of The Week on that subject elicited several responses. Interesting
reading. You be the judge.
Arafat a terrorist?
To the gentleman who describes
Mr. Arafat as a terrorist:
What if your country were physically occupied
by people from a distant land, whose only claim was a 2,000 year old link.
What if your parental home were evacuated and settled by extremist redneck
Americans or Russians wielding guns. What if you could then not even
have the right of return, while members of the ‘master’ race from anywhere
on earth could come and settle into your land?
In my case (and that of most Bahamians),
the response would be one of continuance of violence against anyone who
supports the invaders, of any age or sex. In other words, I would
regard ‘civilians’ living on my parental land as legitimate targets.
Sir, your lack of balance is offensive
if you would then call me a “terrorist”.
Andrew Allen
We appreciate your comment. – Ed.
Thank you for your comment. – Ed.
That must account for the pall of sadness the next day in the Bahamian capital. – Ed.
Thank you for your comment. At least we are still free to say and write what we wish but we must guard against any further encroachments. – Ed.
Please re-examine the piece that was written. No such assertion was made about Mr. Bush. The column asserts that there is a belief about the Republican Party and Mr. Bush that the modern phrases are being used as a cover for the things that you object to the column asserting. That is quite different from asserting as you have suggested. – Ed.
Most persons who responded to the column did not read what it actually
said and so missed the point. It is also possible to be racist and
have Black people in your administration. Racism is a thought process.
Again no such assertion was made in the column. – Ed.
THIS
WEEK WITH THE PM
2004 GLOBAL LEADERSHIP SUMMIT - Prime Minister Perry Christie
addressed Pastor Miles Munroe's 2004 Leadership Summit at the Raddisson
Cable Beach Hotel this past week. The popular gathering annually
attracts leaders and aspiring leaders from sectors within The Bahamas and
elsewhere in the world.
UNITED
PENTECOSTALS PRESENT CHEQUE - The Prime Minister joined the Chairman
of the National Hurricane Relief Fund, Minister of State for Finance James
Smith this past week to accept a cheque from members of the United Pentecostal
Church. The Church also presented Mr. Christie with a medal and a
certificate of honour for his Christian stewardship. From left to
right are David Thomas (Overseer) Travis Grant Suffragan Bishop, Eric Barnes
(assisting Presiding Bishop), Rev. Larry Trotter Presiding Bishop, Prime
Minister Christie, Hon. James Smith, Hon. Glenys Hanna-Martin, Greg Minnis,
Overseer Of the Church in The Bahamas.
ESSO
CALLS ON PM - Representatives in The Bahamas of Esso, the gasoline
dealers, this past week paid a courtesy call on the Prime Minister with
some of their international executives. From left are Troy Simms,
ESSO Bahamas - Country Manager, Debra Sholes Exxonmobil Inter-America Vice
President, Mr. Christie, Jesse Tyson, Exxonmobil Inter-America President
and David Davis, Under Secretary, Office of The Prime Minister.
Bahamas Information Services photographs by Peter Ramsay.
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
THE TRANSITION OF FREEPORT
(Guest editorial by Sharon Zoe Smith)
The question is increasingly asked on the streets of Freeport what
will happen to Freeport when Jack Hayward and Edward St. George are no
longer around. That is no longer such a remote possibility as both
men approach their eightieth birthdays. For the past 28 years, a
troika has run Freeport: Edward St. George, Sir Jack Hayward and Sir Albert
Miller. They have done pretty well by the city, and made much of
the legacy left by Wallace Groves, the city’s founder. When Mr. St.
George and Sir Jack took over the Port in 1976, they were taking over a
company that seemed in the death throes in the sense that Wallace Groves
had fallen out with the PLP, made disastrous investments in the Far East,
and had come back to Freeport licking his wounds. Jack Hayward’s
father was one of the original partners. Edward St. George had come
to The Bahamas as a magistrate and as an attorney to the elder Hayward.
They both took the plunge.
The services of Sir Albert Miller had been procured a few years earlier when he left the Royal Bahamas Police Force, after the PLP made it clear that they wished him to retire and would not make him Commissioner of Police. It was one of those unfortunate decisions but he was on the wrong political side. It was of course a situation where good came out of bad because Sir Albert made his fortune in Freeport and his talent shone there. The two men recruited his services from Bahamas Amusements Ltd., the casino company in Freeport and made him the President of the Port and then Co-Chair of the Grand Bahama Port Authority with them. Together, they have been the public face of Freeport then for almost a generation.
The character of the city has been such that if any businessman, investor, licensee wanted to come to Freeport or had a problem in Freeport that they couldn’t resolve, they simply ran up to Edward St. George, Jack Hayward or Albert Miller personally and the problem was either solved or they were told to get lost. They were the troika that people loved or loved to hate, with charges and counter charges of deals that were deliberately lost. This had one great advantage: the personal touch made it easy for things to be resolved. But the disadvantage is that you lived in a company town and the perception was that if you crossed one of those men, you were finished in Freeport. In the generation that they have been the bosses of Freeport, there is now a glow of paternalism that surrounds them and what they do.
It appears that the reputations of Edward St. George and Albert Miller were immeasurably enhanced as a result of their being in Freeport when the hurricanes struck. Hurricanes Jeanne and Francis wrecked the city in September this year. The power was lost, water was lost and Mr. St. George and his family suffered the same losses as the other citizens of the city. He predicted that the city would bounce back. The price tag, however, is formidable. People openly wonder whether the new leaders of the Port are up to it, if the older leaders of the Port are not around. They also wonder whether the older leaders have the energy or the inclination to start afresh.
Edward St. George is now recuperating from an operation in hospital, a serious operation. Age is simply age and it affects all of them. Sir Albert retired last year and is now back to help out for a short time as a result of the hurricane. People are asking what happens now, and the Government may soon get into the act because here you have an important centre of commerce for the country that may be facing a transition in the not too distant future.
The institutional partners of the Grand Bahama Port Authority are Hutchison Whampoa, a Hong Kong based company, claimed by the Chinese Government, and they simply look at the numbers. It is speculated openly that if they get control of the Port it will be a different story. No more running down the street to appeal to Mr. St. George or to Sir Jack or Sir Albert. The number crunchers in Hong Kong will have all the say.
The Port Authority that has the licencing function deeded to it from
the Government for 100 years from 1954 is owned exclusively by St. George
and Hayward. The other companies, the Grand Bahama Development Company
that owns the undeveloped land, the Airport Company, the Harbour Company
are all owned in partnership with Hutchison. The Government and the
people would want to know to whom does that company go when these men are
no longer on the scene. The answer to the question is a serious one
for The Bahamas. There does not appear to be any family member who
is interested in it or capable of taking over.
No heir apparent.
Should a Bahamian group be allowed to buy it? Should another foreign partner be allowed to come in? Should the Government buy it? Should it simply devolve like any other property to the heirs and successors whomever they might be?
The next generation of leaders are Bahamians: Willie Moss, the now President; Barry Malcolm, who is an open FNM and has designs on the Leadership of the FNM; Albert Gray, a Vice President of the Development Company and a former PLP Senator. Will it fall to them?
Many say if the Government buys it, this will effectively wreck Freeport as the city we know and bring an end to the efficiency that has been its hallmark since it began. The supporters of the Government claim that after the clear deficiencies in the city’s infrastructure and its lack of emergency plans, which caused the Government to have to come to the rescue of the city after the hurricanes with food and water, the Government needs to have more say in what happens there.
We will see.
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 20th November 2004 at midnight: 66,136.
Number of hits for the month of November up to Saturday 20th November 2004 up to midnight: 177,696.
Number of hits for the year 2004 up to Saturday 20th November 2004 at midnight: 2,422,190.
JUST
COS SHE FAT
In Bahamian musical lore there is an abundance of
songs about hefty women and how sexually desirable they are. There
is of course the song about the gussiemae so popular that the word was
translated into describing the Ingraham Cabinet for being bloated with
the politicians of the day. Then there is the song: ‘Just Cos She
Fat’. The songwriter says he likes it like that. The problem
is that the physicians and the Ministry of Health were telling us all during
the past week that it just isn’t right to be fat. 
They
announced that 65 per cent of the Bahamian population is overweight and
that we are paying a price for it with diabetes, hypertension and the resultant
kidney disease, strokes, heart attacks and cancer.
There was a high profile picture of the Minister
of Health Marcus Bethel getting his finger pricked to test the blood sugar.
The question that one asks: is this stuff really affecting the Bahamian
population in a mass level so that it begins to have some affect on the
population? You can judge this by what is happening in the popular,
mass restaurants.
There has been no change in the average fare: still
lots of rice and peas, macaroni, potato salad. No one eats greens
or salads and very little fruit is consumed. So the average diet
in The Bahamas is filled with lots of fat, lots of carbohydrates, lots
of sugars. There is very little fibre and very little of the unprocessed
grains.
Little children positively refuse to eat vegetables.
One supposes that has always been the story but with the parents being
as young and untrained as they are themselves, there is no one forcing
the children to eat what they are supposed to eat. Parents are simply
indulgent and march off to McDonalds. So you see these young women
and men, svelte and attractive in their youth, and within months of their
25th birthdays after packing down gobs and gobs of chicken-in-the-bag,
they begin to bloat up like balloons. They have a lifetime to look
forward in the case of men to big bellies. In the case of women,
fat hips. Put that together with the lack of exercise and you can
hear the heavy breathing and heaving just to make the most elementary steps
in their thirties and forties.
The Ministry of Health is trying to bring this health
crisis to the attention of Bahamians. We hope they begin to listen
soon.
THE
HARL TAYLOR STORY
By all accounts he is a brilliant man. He
is said to be a talented interior designer. He is having some success
with the marketing of the handbags that he makes for women that are sold
at Bergdorf Goodman in New York. Certainly all the ladies of quality
in The Bahamas are nothing if they do not have a Harl Taylor bag.
But over the past year, he seems to have been dogged by a spate of bad
publicity. The Tribune, armed with its own agenda, of course, has
been following every step of the way a charge brought against him of assaulting
a former customer. The designer has pleaded not guilty. The
latest salvo was the report that he did not show up for court at a scheduled
appearance in November. His attorney said that the designer was out
of the country on business and that he had been informed that the trial
was to have been adjourned. The Magistrate was apparently having
none of it and issued a warrant for his arrest.
The usual way that these matters are dealt with
is that when a court date slips, the defendant comes to court at the next
opportunity, apologizes to the court or explains what the situation is
that prevented him from returning and the warrant usually falls away.
Some magistrates have taken to fining defendants for wilfully refusing
to attend the court. Issuing a warrant of arrest, though serious,
is not something that most defendants in The Bahamas are afraid of.
The enforcement section of the Royal Bahamas Police Force for warrants
is so overworked – and at last count there were over ten thousand outstanding
– that it takes several days if not weeks for the warrant to actually get
processed so that the police can start looking for the defendant.
The result is most defendants simply deal with the matter before it every
gets to the court.
HUGH
SANDS STEPS DOWN FROM B.O.B.
Hugh Sands, a former Permanent Secretary in the
Ministry of Education and before that headmaster of the Government High
School, has left the office of Chairman and Director of the Bank of The
Bahamas. He has held the post for eight years. The Government
owns the majority of the shares in the Bank, which was rescued from failure
when the Bank of Montreal as it was first called pulled out from under
it and retreated to Canada. The Bank is said to have had impressive
growth during his tenure. No one faults his performance.
The background to all of this is, however, the fact
that Hugh Sands was a holdover from the regime of Hubert Ingraham.
PLPs were rankled by the continuing fact of his Chairmanship of the Bank.
His replacement is widely speculated in the press to be Al Jarret, the
former Royal Bank of Canada Banker, who some give credit for turning around
the finances of the Bahamas Electricity Corporation.
Others say Mr. Jarret will be a bad choice because
as a former working banker he will get too much involved in the day to
day running of the Bank's affairs and he has a history of contentious relations
with trade unions and workers. Some predict that this is sure to
lead to a clash with the Managing Director Paul McWeeney who has also been
good for the bank and has strong views about where the bank ought to be
headed. In any case, there is a changing of the guard. Without
a doubt, we wish both the outgoing and the incoming Chairman well in their
work.
A
NEW PHONE COMPANY STARTS
We thought that SRG was a dead deal. This
is the company that Hubert Ingraham's administration gave a licence to
compete with the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC) as part of its
privatization effort. BTC or BaTelCo as it was formerly known is
still wholly owned by the Government but SRG is now going ahead with its
plans to enter the voice telecommunications market. This now seems
possible after being able to successfully negotiate with BTC for the circuits
to communicate with the outside world. The way the Public Utilities
Commission (PUC) interpreted their licence was that they could only engage
in domestic telecommunications but not international without dealing with
BTC.
SRG has now gone out, announced that it will begin
offering telephone service as Indigo. They also claimed in their
statements that it was their coming to the market that led to BTC announcing
the slash in prices of their long distance rates. They say that they
will still be able to beat BTC’s rates. No doubt they are right.
The Government made a mistake in not privatizing
BTC. The shares ought to have been sold to the Bahamian public and
the Government should have divested itself of the company with the existing
management of the company having first choice to run the thing. The
whole privatization issue seems dead in the water, and BTC as an asset
is simply wasting way. You have Cable Bahamas chipping away steadily
at its revenue base. You now have SRG. The Internet service
offered by other companies is better than BTC’s. Its cell phone service
is sporadic and has too many dropped calls and not a comprehensive roaming
network. Indeed, the GSM system does not even work throughout The
Bahamas. Then you add to that the umpteen providers that offer cheap
long distance calling direct from their countries without regard to sovereign
borders and what has BTC got left?
SUPERVALUE
CHIEF ANSWERS THE UNION
It has been an all one-way conversation for weeks.
We have reported on this site the fact that The Bahamas Commercial Stores
and Warehouse Workers Union has been engaged in a running battle with Supervalue
to get an industrial agreement. The Union claims that it is the bargaining
agent for the employees at Supervalue. They have said that Rupert
Roberts, the proprietor of Supervalue is the villain of the piece.
They claim that he is deliberately frustrating their effort to unionize
the company.
Mr. Roberts was silent on the issue until this week,
in the face of the calls from the union for the public to boycott the stores.
This is a boycott we support. We do not support anyone who is preventing
a union from organizing a workplace. In fairness to Mr. Roberts though,
he should have his say. In a statement to the press issued this past
week, Mr. Roberts said that the Union has not demonstrated that they have
the majority of persons in the workplace. He said that his company
has obeyed all labour laws and obeys generally the laws of The Bahamas.
He said that Elgin Douglas who is the leader of the Union has been engaged
in bullying tactics. He said that the Union needs prayers.
Now there’s a negotiating strategy. Next move the Union.
THE
AMBASSADOR SPEAKS ON HAITI
Haiti is seen as a basket case, a failed state.
It is certainly the poorest country in the region. It started out
quite grandly in history when the slaves revolted against their French
masters and won their freedom in 1804. They have not stopped paying
the price in bad governance, bloodshed and the unremitting hostility of
the white world.
Today, Haiti's elected president stands ousted with
the co-operation of the developed countries of the world. France,
the colonial power that was ousted 200 years ago, is now back in control
of the top half of the country. The Caribbean Community, which embraced
Haiti so hopefully under Jean Bertrand Aristide is now standing aside,
not fully engaged. The Bahamas’ Ambassador Eugene Newry is waiting
in the wings in Nassau because the security situation in that country does
not permit him to live in Port-au-Prince.
This week Ambassador Newry made another impassioned
plea for Haiti while speaking at the Rotary Club. Mr. Newry said
that Haiti could be the breadbasket of The Bahamas. It is a theme
that he has sounded time and time again. It goes like this.
Bahamians have such a prejudice toward Haitians that they do not realize
that with an investment in the economic and political stability of Haiti,
Haiti has a price advantage in labour that The Bahamas does not have.
Bahamian farming could utilize cheap labour to supply cheaper goods to
The Bahamas. We think that it is an idea worth pursuing. But
first there must be peace.
FOREIGN
MINISTER TO BARBADOS
Fred Mitchell, the Foreign Minister of The Bahamas,
is visiting Barbados with other Caricom Foreign Ministers for a meeting
with the Foreign Minister of Brazil Celso Amorim. The Ministers will
discuss Haiti and the latest initiative by Brazil and the Rio Group.
At the last Caricom Heads of Government meeting
in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad on 8th and 9th November, it was revealed that
Brazil intends to begin a new political initiative, which would include
speaking to the political forces within Haiti and also with former President
Jean Bertrand Aristide. Caricom Heads felt that this was an important
initiative. Brazil wanted to brief Caricom and get its perspective.
A meeting was arranged with the Chair of the Council of Foreign Ministers
known as COFCOR. The meeting was scheduled to take place Sunday morning
21st November. The Minister returns home Monday 22nd November.
AT
THE MEMORIAL IN JAMAICA
The sad death of Bahamian student Joseph Darius
Burrows who was found dead in Jamaica following an apparent kidnap and
robbery comes to one kind of conclusion today, Sunday 21st November, with
the funeral service in Freeport. The Prime Minister Perry Christie
and the Minister of Education Alfred Sears are expected to attend.
Last week the 
Minister
of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell attended the memorial service for Mr.
Burrows at the school the University of the Northern Caribbean. There
was reportedly not a dry eye in the House. Students from the Bahamian
community at UWI Mona in Kingston went to Mandeville for the service.
During the week, the Jamaican police expressed confidence
that they were making progress in their investigation. They had a
picture from the bank machine where someone cleaned out the account of
Mr. Burrows. The school replaced the amount that was lost some 500
dollars Bahamian in total ($30,000 Jamaican) and added a further $30,000
Jamaican in the form of a gift to Mr. Burrows’ widow. The police
also are awaiting the results of samples from the body of Mr. Burrows to
come back from the lab in the hope that this might assist them in their
investigations. One additional consequence of what has happened is
that some students might be pulling up stakes and leaving the University
as a result of what has happened. GRIEVING - Mr. &
Mrs. Stephen Burrows, parents of the murdered student at top and his widow,
at right, grieve during the memorial service held in Jamaica. Photos
courtesy of Northern Caribbean University.
WHAT’S
HAPPENING WITH THE COURTS
The Bahama Journal ran a story this week that seemed
to raise the alarm with regard to the conduct of the prosecutions in the
Courts of The Bahamas. The Bahama Journal’s incredulity should not
be. This is a problem that has existed for years. The problem
about which the newspaper complained in its Friday 19th November edition
is the fact that several high profile murder trials were bungled by the
prosecution which led to the acquittal of the persons on trial. One
was the trial of Obefemi Gibson for the death of a Police Inspector who
was shot down during an armed robbery in Long Island. The other was
an acquittal, which arose because a police officer who was the main witness
for the prosecution was either unwilling or unable to come to court.
Constable Sean Ferguson did not appear. The prosecution rested its
case and the Judge Anita Allen directed an acquittal.
The police were rather lamely indicating the next
day that they would cause an investigation to be done as to why the officer
did not show. The problems are far reaching. They have to with
the quality of the talent in the Attorney General’s office. It has
to do with the management of the office. It has to do with what exists
on the police force which should be embarrassed after the Commission of
Inquiry on the Lorequin condemned the police for botching the investigation
into the disappearance of the drugs on board that ship in 1992. It
also has more broadly to do with what appears to be a general breakdown
everywhere in the public service: no regard for rules, nor regard for the
work ethic, no regard, no appreciation for process. It is Bahamas
wide. It is endemic. The Government has so far failed to come
to grips with the problem, and under the PLP, the public servants have
the view that there is a more permissive attitude, where anything prevails
and where there are no consequences for any action. Where does one
begin?
DON’T
DO IT BRENT: THEY DON’T WANT YOU
The Tribune quoting reliable sources on Monday 15th November says that
Brent Symonette, the son of the last white leader of The Bahamas Sir Roland
Symonette, is thinking about making a run for the leadership of the FNM.
There is known to be widespread dissatisfaction with the present leadership
but no one wants to countenance the return of Hubert Ingraham. It
is sure to divide the party.
The party is to have a convention to decide who
will chart the course of the FNM for the next two years, starting in May
2005. The last leadership contest ended with Zendal Forbes being
crushed by Tommy Turnquest after Brent Symonette was bullied out of the
race by the former Prime Minister who told him that it just wouldn't fly.
Mr. Symonette himself keeps raising the issue of
whether a white man can lead The Bahamas. We say: it isn’t a question
of white or black but of competence and whether you represent the interests
of the Bahamian people and what they see in themselves and for the interests
of their children. If Brent can pass that test then so be it.
But you know that if Tommy Turnquest who is phenotypically adequate for
the job but can’t past the test on the other scores, just imagine Brent.
The FNM is not interested in Brent; they only want
his money. File photo - Peter Ramsay
SIDNEY
STUBBS REVISITED
This whole situation with Sidney Stubbs, the MP
for Holy Cross, who demonstrated the worst kind of political judgement
by allowing himself to be declared a bankrupt on 31st March 2004, is like
a nightmare out of control. Each week, there is some new headline.
On the front page of the newspaper, Mr. Stubbs seems to aid and abet his
own destruction by the continued display of unapologetic arrogance while
his hand is in the lion’s mouth, viz. a picture on the front page of The
Tribune coming out of court, cell phone to his ear.
The case was supposed to have been heard before Chief Justice Sir Burton
Hall, the original Judge Jeanne Thompson having recused herself.
That was supposed to be Thursday 18th November. That got postponed
and now it is to be heard some time next week. The original arguments
will be on the point of jurisdiction: does a judge have the jurisdiction
to hear the case again? Once those arguments are disposed of, then
there is the question of the substantive matter: was Mr. Stubbs served
with the legal papers properly or at all? Was there the basis for
a bankruptcy proceeding in law? Was the absence of prescribed rules
for bankruptcy fatal to the case of Wayne Munroe and his client so that
their case should have failed ab initio (from the start)?
The Free National Movement finally seems to have
awakened from their Rip Van Winkle-like sleep evidenced by a report in
The Tribune of Saturday 20th November that they plan to petition under
the Parliamentary Elections Act to determine Mr. Stubbs fitness to be a
Member of Parliament. Immediately one must be suspicious of the bankruptcy
proceeding itself with Wayne Munroe being the lawyer who caused the bankruptcy
to be effected and now it is reported that he is helping the FNM with their
case against Mr. Stubbs.
The FNM has already nominated Carl Bethel, their
Chair, to be the candidate for the bye-election should there be one.
George Wilson, the former Secretary General of both the PLP and the FNM,
and a man who ran as an independent in the bye-election in Cat Island in
1991 has announced that he is running again should there be a bye-election
in Holy Cross. The PLP is said to be quietly putting in place a contingency
should Mr. Stubbs fail in his most recent effort. Tribune photo
- Felipé Major
SILBERT
MILLS GETS IT WRONG IN ABACO
Silbert Mills, the Chief Councillor in Abaco, was
quoted in the Nassau Guardian of Friday 19th November as saying that the
Government is doing nothing to help with hurricane relief in Abaco.
He bases that on the fact that the customs house and dock in Abaco remain
un-repaired after the hurricanes hit in September. His comment is
clearly wrong. It is also unfair.
The fact is the matter of the dock at Marsh Harbour
is being addressed. The fact is that help and hope are being given
to the people of Abaco every day in the way of food stuffs, water, duty
free exemption, repairs to houses. Mr. Mills is way out of line.
But what is worse to us is the silence of the Government in the face of
such obvious exaggerations and untruths.
Where is the voice of PLPs when FNMs make such grossly
unfair statements? Mr. Mills has a radio station, and will be cutting
the behinds of PLPs every day in that city Marsh Harbour. Where is
the ability of the PLP counteract this propaganda? Not one PLP has
been given a licence to operate a radio station since we started this term.
We are now in 2004, two years and six months since taking office and not
one.
UNEMPLOYMENT
RISES
A report in the Tribune of Friday 19th November
on the latest Labour Force and Household Income Report [2003] says that
the unemployment rate in The Bahamas rose 1.7 percent from 2002-2003 through
loss of jobs for workers between 25 and 35 years old. A growth rate
of 3.5 percent in the absolute number of persons employed between 2002
and 2003 was most attributable to women whose absolute employed number
grew by 4.7 percent against a growth of 2.7 percent of the total number
of men employed. The report by the Department of Statistics traces
the growth of the total number of people employed in The Bahamas from 149,915
in 1997 to 173,795 in 2003.
PUBLIC
SECTOR REFORM
What to do to fix the public service is part of
the responsibility of the Minister responsible for the Public Service Fred
Mitchell. This week in pursuance of that remit, he convened in the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs the Civil Society consultation group where
persons from non governmental organisations (NGOs) and the private sector
gather to give advice on the development of public policy.
There was a full house on Thursday 18th November
because the Prime Minister was the chief speaker. Some useful ideas
emerged. The Prime Minister pronounced himself pleased. Almost immediately
though, there was the criticism that the Government needs to take a bit
of its own medicine. The view of many was that the reason why there
is so much sloth and indecision and lack of execution in the public service
is because the political directorate sets the pace for lateness, lack of
resolution and indecision. If they only knew the real story of the
lateness, lack of resolution and process in the public service itself,
but no doubt the Government intends to get on top of the issue. You may
click
here for the remarks of the Prime Minister and here
for the remarks of the Minister for the Public Service. Bahamas
Information Services photo - Peter Ramsay
FRIDAYS
SOON COME
Prime Minister Perry Christie officially opens 'Friday Soon Come' restaurant
as hundreds of guests attend the ceremony topped off with a Junkanoo rush
out and a performance by Visage Friday Nov. 12, 2004. Prime Minister
Perry Christie poses with Friday Soon Come restaurant manager Nakeria Simms,
left, and Miss Teen Bahamas 2003 Shenique Whymms after officially opening
the restaurant on East Bay Street. (Vision Photos/Tim Aylen)
Minister of Foreign Affairs and The Public Service Fred Mitchell is often in the headlines having to do with some national or international effort in the pursuit of the country's goals under his ministerial area. Our keen eyed photographer was wandering through Fox Hill this past week and came upon a very different Fred Mitchell. Fred Mitchell the member of parliament was caught carrying out what we'll call 'Government on the ground'.
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Cassius is No Christie, Mitchell or Gibson
For the life of me I can't understand this site’s
predilection with Cassius Stuart! Mr. Stuart has consistently proven
that he is ill-suited for any leadership position in this country, yet
your site continues to endorse and promulgate the view that this man can
some day lead a national political party – this is ridiculous!
Mr. Stuart’s comments concerning castration were
so belligerently barbaric, stupid and ignorant that any hope that these
last four years have matured him was completely lost. Mr. Stuart
hasn’t shown me (and I'm sure the rest of The Bahamas) why I should pay
any serious attention to his ideas. In fact the only thing he has
shown is that he should be avoided and that his only place is outside of
Parliament.
Your comments do have some merit though in stating
that the future leadership, ‘of political parties does not have to come
from the existing leaders. It could come from people completely out
of the present limelight and system’, however all the men you named as
examples of this transition (Shane Gibson, Fred Mitchell and the Right
Hon. Perry Christie) were men that represented national ideals and national
sensibility while they were out of the party limelight. I think the
most controversial of the three you named was Fred Mitchell, whose most
ardent critics had to admit was still sensible; the same can’t be said
of Cassius Stuart, the man simply aint sensible and until such time can’t
be taken seriously!
Cassius Stuart's comments should have made him
your ‘Jackass of the Week’!
Kele’ Isaacs
Amen brother! Amen! And we will consider your nomination of
Mr. Stuart for Jackass of The Week. – Ed.
Response to column on Bush
Hello, enjoy your website, though not always
in agreement.
If you feel that ‘most people that read your
column’ did not understand your point, perhaps you may wish to clarify
your point. Interpretation wins out over intent every time, and there
does seem to be confusion about the message from your readers (though I
understand your message). Perhaps occasionally your message may get
lost in introductory sentences before getting to the heart of the matter,
such as the point with your lead article today [Sunday
14th November ‘Comment of The Week’] on young politician Cassius.
Three paragraphs establish your point of view before explaining what was
in question.
Only a suggestive point, and not meant to be
criticism. Thank you, and please continue your message.
Tom Inskeep
Thanks for the observation. It is the style though. – Ed.
Black Voting Rights
Comment ça va Ed.?
This is from your reader in France!
Because of a rather pompous and ill-informed respondent to your column,
I felt compelled to forward some information sent to me by a friend in
Los Angeles. It is laughable that so many don’t really know the truth.
It is utterly ridiculous for someone to claim the civil rights struggle
has been won, and Black Americans should now be seeking redress in some
sphere other than political. Many don’t realize the ability to vote
by Black Americans is not an enshrined law but something permissible and
must be extended occasionally. Ignorance is bliss! C'est la
Vie! A la prochaine!
Paul Richards
The correspondent forwards an attachment that has been making the
rounds on the Internet for the last few years. It has since been
branded something of an ‘urban legend’ by those citing ‘The basic right
of all Americans to vote, regardless of race, is guaranteed in the Bill
of Rights and can't expire with the Voting Rights Act.’… But the fact that
the e-mail caused such a stir tells us something. – Ed.
Lights, Traffic, Accident ---- Grand Bahama
It behooves me to bring to your attention that
fact that site where that horrific accident where three young ladies in
Grand Bahama met their demise is still without proper signage.
It seems that the arrow made of reflective
material that serves as a warning that the road takes a sudden 90 degree
turn is down again.
I feel after the assessments were made
of the area by ‘officials’, some street lights, cat eyes and more signs
would have been erected by now.
I would like to make an appeal for the
powers that be to do the right thing and make this curve more safe and
user friendly for all road users.
The roadway leading to the eastern end
of the island is filled with potholes, sorry craters and need to be fixed
as well.
Many street lights and traffic lights around
Grand Bahama are still off, when will the Grand Bahama Power Company make
them functional? Are they trying to cut cost?
While I am addressing traffic lights a
caution light is needed badly at the junction of Settler’s Way East and
Balao Road (heading into the Heritage Subdivision). This site is
a mishap waiting to happen.
Coco
We will bring it to the attention of the Min. of Works and the Port
Authority. – Ed.
THIS
WEEK WITH THE PM
It was a busy and public week for the Prime Minister, which began with
the official opening of a reverse osmosis water production plant in Exuma.
The water plant is part of the effort to bring the infrastructure in Exuma
up to par with the demands of the large new Four Seasons hotel that is
exploding the population and the economic opportunity on that island.
The opening also gave Mr. Christie the chance to again expound on the necessity
of careful forward planning for the country if The Bahamas is to continue
to provide and improve the excellent quality of life for Bahamians.
The Prime Minister was joined at the opening by the Minister of Works Bradley
Roberts, shown at right in the photo and Antone Austin, General Manager,
Aqua Designs Bahamas Ltd., operators of the facility. Please click
here for Minister Roberts' address.
While in Exuma, Prime Minister Christie visited the Livingstone Coakley High School, named for the former Minister of Education. This group of L.N. Coakley girls shyly gathers around as Mr. Christie engages them in conversation.
Back in Nassau, later in the week, the Prime Minister joined officials of the Church of God of Prophecy for the groundbreaking on a $1.5 million children’s ministry building to be constructed at the rear of the Church of God of Prophecy Tabernacle on East Street.
Mr. Christie delighted the church’s elders by recounting how he, as a little boy, was fascinated by the size of the tabernacle as seen from the back seat of his father’s taxi-cab. “The Church of God of Prophecy has been an icon in the Over the Hill community for many years…” The Prime Minister called on the church to continue its important work with the young of the country.
The South African High Commissioner to the nations
of the Caribbean Community, His Excellency Thanduvise Henry Chilliza paid
a courtesy call on the Prime Minister this past week. There was talk
in the newspapers of The Bahamas as a ‘gateway to the Caribbean’ from Africa.
The relationship between the two countries has become particularly close
since the year end official visit to The Bahamas of South African president
Thabo Mbeki.
Credit
Suisse Courtesy Call – Executives of one of the oldest offshore financial
institutions in The Bahamas, Credit Suisse, paid a courtesy call on the
Prime Minister this past week. Shown from left to right are Mrs.
Carmen Gomez, Under Secretary Office of the Prime Minister; Mr. Peter Leppard,
Managing Director of Credit Suisse; Prime Minister Christie and Antoinette
Russell, Vice President and Head Of Trust Services at Credit Suisse.
Bahamas Information Services photographs by Peter Ramsay.
COMMENT OF THE WEEK
JOHN MARQUIS BITE YOUR TONGUE
A piece published in The Tribune on Monday 22nd November by John
Marquis, The Tribune’s Managing Editor was insightful. Indeed it
is published in a section by that paper that appears on Mondays called
INSIGHT. We have accused The Tribune of having a racist subtext,
being tendentious, and not being able to be objective about the PLP.
If anything proves that, it is the piece done by Mr. Marquis last week.
It is useful in that it shows the political bankruptcy of the institution
on Shirley Street. It just happens of course that political bankruptcy
is the marketing tool that makes them successful. Every Tom, Dick
or Harry who wishes to oppose the PLP or the Black cause in The Bahamas
can gather under the rubric of The Tribune. In that regard it is
often a haven for intellectual dishonesty, twisted logic and certainly
political dishonesty. There is no history that they cannot rewrite,
no nuance that they can miss to twist, no subject upon which they can fail
to savage the PLP, the Black cause and the national patrimony of the Bahamian
people. All of it; yes all of it, while making themselves a handsome
profit within the Commonwealth of The Bahamas that they so love to hate.
Mr. Marquis came to The Bahamas in the 1960s just about the time that the Progressive Liberal Party had come to office. He is British and is now one of a number of British citizens who run The Tribune. Some of them do not even know who the principle actors are in the country, yet they run one of the nation’s leading papers. Mr. Marquis says he was 25 years old at the time.
The PLP had come to office after continuous rule by a white oligarchy and before that the white British Colonial class since 1729. The influence of the majority population on the body politic at an official level was denied except to the one or two persons who managed to break through the otherwise impregnable phalanx of power and racism that existed up to 1967. Mr. Marquis claims in his article that within the first three years of the PLP's regime the country was wracked by fear and intimidation. He said that he was called upon to speak at a Rotary function and that he laid it out for all to see, that The Bahamas was a frightened society. Mr. Marquis left shortly after that period and returned as the mature man that he is today. Today, he claims that while there was some improvement brought about by the changes made by the FNM from 1992 to 2002, the situation is much the same in that again the PLP is back in power and people are still afraid to put their names to a quote in the press or to source a story in their newspaper. He says that this is because they fear that they will be victimized by the Government.
What Mr. Marquis blames on the political party the PLP is not to be placed at their feet at all. It is rather a part of a cultural problem in The Bahamas. Indeed, in their own rooms in The Tribune, we could tell the stories of reporters who felt that they could not or would not voice a dissent about the editorial policies of The Tribune for fear that they would lose their jobs. And if there is anything that demonstrates that they are right, one had only to see the demise of Niki Kelly who was unceremoniously dumped from her duties as a columnist when she became – shall we dare say – too PLP oriented in the last election. It obviously did not fit in with the editorial and marketing strategy of The Tribune. Need we also remind them of how Stan Burnside ran afoul of them as a cartoonist and had to depart for the Nassau Guardian because of the feeling that they wanted to interfere in his opinions.
The Bahamas is neither a frightened nor scared society. It is a developing society. Development does not come overnight. Freedom of speech and the loftiness of being able to discuss in the open intellectual ideas no matter where they lead is not something that comes overnight. But even in developed societies we still see how people who speak out are victimized by the powers that be, viz. the dismissal of the persons who took the photographs of the coffins of American servicemen coming home from Iraq.
Surely, one simply has to look at the discussion on homosexuality, the gay marriage controversy to see the level of intimidation that is practiced in this country, largely through ignorance. This comes from family members of the individuals who speak up. It comes from the church that should be welcoming them. Even with that people still spoke up and spoke up on the record. But in the debate, the most enlightened of all of those groups were the politicians, who simply said that in a society such as ours we have to welcome all, provided they do not break the law.
The Bahamas is simply a small place. It suffers from the same problems that any small society does. There is a lack of anonymity. There is a lack of independence of existence. The job mobility in the society is not very good. You have no place to go once you lose your job in The Bahamas because the opportunities are simply not there. If you are strong willed you simply are a problem in a small society.
And yet through all of that, there appears to us to be a fairly vigorous debate in the country on all fronts. The fact of the PLP being able to break through the institutionalized racism to become the Government. The fact of it being able to be defeated by the FNM. The fact of the defeated PLP being able to come back from the grave almost. All of this was done peacefully. There are still voices that don’t support the PLP. They can be heard loud and clear and they are not insignificant either. So yes, Mr. Marquis, there is some way to go before we sleep, but surely your article was way over the top. You are an example of the success of freedom of speech in this society. You continue to stay here even though you appear to despise the very society and the people who have allowed you to make such a good living.
Number of hit for the week ending Saturday 28th November 2004 at midnight: 67,120.
Number of hits for the month up to Saturday 28th November 2004 at midnight: 244,816.
Number of hits for the year 2004 up to Saturday 28th November at midnight: 2,489,310.
CABINET
SHUFFLE
The Bahama Journal was at it again with speculation
about the Prime Minister shuffling his Cabinet. In its edition of
Monday 22nd November, the Journal put out what it said was the considered
view of experts that they had gathered on who should be shifted to where.
The Journal has the Deputy Prime Minister moving
to a new portfolio of Health and Social Services. Bradley Roberts
to a new Ministry of National Security, which would include Immigration.
Melanie Griffin, now Minister of Social Services becoming a Minister of
State. Vincent Peet becoming the Minister of Tourism. In their
published view, Obie Wilchcombe is to become the Minister of Works.
Fred Mitchell is to become the Minister of Education. It goes on
and on like the game of musical chairs.
The Journal claims that the Prime Minister has already
informed his colleagues about the changes he proposes to make including
telling Allyson Maynard Gibson that she is to become the Attorney General.
This is all in the land of speculation and the public would be foolish
to be put any stock in any of it. It is said that the devil finds
work for idle hands to do.
ST.
GEORGE IS ILL
The Grand Bahama Port Authority issued the following statement on Thursday
25th November:
Edward St. George, Chairman of the Grand Bahama
Port Authority Limited, underwent heart surgery in the United States in
early November. The operation was successful, but due to complications,
he has had to remain in hospital. His wife, Lady Henrietta, and his
family are with him and they are grateful for the concern expressed by
persons throughout Grand Bahama and The Bahamas. In the absence of
Mr. St. George, the GBPA management team will be headed by Sir Albert Miller,
co-chairman and Mrs. Willie Moss, president.
We add our concern over Mr. St. George's well being.
Please click here for last week’s
comment and you may click here for a letter
to the editor this week on the subject.
BEC
AND BTC CONTRACT TALKS
For a time there during the past week, it appeared that Union Leaders in
the country at the public utility companies had simply lost it. Dennis
Williams, the leader of the electrical workers union, was on the front
page threatening to black out the country if industrial matters were not
resolved. By Saturday morning's press 27th November, the matter seemed
to go away and there would be no strike after all. The matters were not
major and Mr. Williams should be careful not to cry wolf too many times.
The BaTelCo workers were also incensed, so they
took their lunch hours off, closed down the various BaTelCo stations to
burn the counter proposals for a new contract made by management. They
claimed that management had withdrawn some 70 percent of the gains that
they made up to now on the ground that privatization was coming.
No one knows where that dispute is going. But we have said many times
in this column, BaTelCo is a wasting asset. It is declining in value
every week, as more and more services encroach on what it once had a monopoly
to do. The public sector unions have to recognize that fact even
as they negotiate for their workers. Nassau Guardian photo of demonstrating
BaTelCo workers.
ARTHUR
HAILEY DIES
The Nassau Guardian reported that Arthur Hailey,
the author of the 1968 blockbuster book and movie ‘Airport’ died in his
sleep at Lyford Cay where he and his wife had made their home in Nassau.
He died on Wednesday 24th November. Mr. Hailey was 84 and had been
suffering from dementia for about three years. He had had a stroke
about two months ago, and it appears that he suffered another stroke in
his sleep. His wife Sheila pronounced herself satisfied with the
way he lived his life.
According to the Nassau Guardian Mr. Hailey was
born in Luton, England in 1920 of a humble background. He wrote 11
novels that were published in 40 countries and 38 languages, which sold
over 170 million copies. He was married to his wife Shelia for over
50 years. When they moved to The Bahamas in the 1970s, the couple
was the toast of the town. His novel ‘The Moneychangers’ included
a character in the book called Dr. Timothy McCartney. He was named
after Dr. Timothy McCartney, the psychologist in Nassau who is now lecturing
at Nova Southeastern University. Mrs. Hailey told The Guardian that
her husband was not a religious man and that there would be no funeral.
She gave this poem written by her husband to The Guardian:
Over
my helpless, mute remains
Please do not play barbaric games,
Nor cast a superstitious nod
Towards some non existent god.
Instead respect my intellect,
Which made me thoughtfully reject
Man’s wishful vain, deceiving scrimmage
Creating Gods in his own image.
I’ve relished life; on earth found “heaven”,
Known love and joy, received and gained.
I do not need Elysian vales-
The stuff of flimsy fairy tales!
I’d much prefer that you, my friend,
Conclude my story with “The End”
SEAN
MCWEENEY GETS A BY PASS
The Tribune of Thursday 25th November reported that
the former Attorney General Sean McWeeney aged 53 underwent open heart
surgery to perform a heart by pass operation on Wednesday 24th November.
The operation was reportedly performed in a Florida hospital.
Mr. McWeeney was a confidant of former Prime Minister
Sir Lynden O. Pindling, having served as Chairman of the Progressive Liberal
Party during the critical years for the PLP following the report of the
1983 Commission of Inquiry. Mr. McWeeney is also a close confidant
of the now Prime Minister Perry Christie helping out in various informal
and formal consultative roles. He is married to Senator Cyprianna
McWeeney. Mr. McWeeney also served in the Senate during the time
that he was the Attorney General.
BANK
OF BAHAMAS DECLARES A DIVIDEND
On Thursday 25th November, the Bank of The Bahamas
announced a record net income of 2.284 million dollars for the fiscal 2005
first quarter, up by 4.75 per cent. Earnings were at 19 cents per
share. You may click
here for last week’s comment on Bank of The Bahamas. Click here
for today’s letter to the
editor on the subject. The report appeared in the business section
of The Tribune Friday 26th November.
FOREIGN
MINISTER OFF TO DEFENCE CONFERENCE
Fred Mitchell, the Foreign Minister, will travel
to Barbados for the third time in three weeks on Tuesday 30th November.
Mr. Mitchell will be filling in for Minister of National Security and Deputy
Prime Minister Cynthia Pratt at a UK-Caricom Security Conference.
He will return to the country on Thursday 2nd December.
GRANVILLE
BUTLER III
During the 59th session of the General Assembly
of the United Nations Granville Butler III was the youth representative
for the Bahamas Government in the third committee of the UN. Mr.
Butler gave an address on behalf of the youth of The Bahamas in an important
theme for youth and the world. Mr. Butler is a university student
in New Jersey and is the grandson of the late Stalwart Councillor and Commissioner
of Currency Granville ‘Smiley’ Butler.
RECEPTIONISTS
WEEK
Last week was officially declared Receptionist Week
in The Bahamas. The week was so declared by Prime Minister Perry Christie
to be able to uplift the work of receptionists in the country. The
Receptionists Association was formed in 1999. They came to make a
courtesy call on the Minister for the Public Service Fred Mitchell on Thursday
25th November at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From left to right:
Sandra Curry, Government House; Terrol Gray, F.I.U; Elfreda Gray, Transport;
Janet Mackey, Transport; Muriel Lightbourne, Local Government; The Hon.
Fred Mitchell; Evelyn Knowles, Vice President of The Bahamas Receptionist
Association, Beverly Bethel, Burns House Ltd. and Sheniqua Brown, Agriculture
& Fisheries.
DRIVERS
TAKE A COURSE
The drivers of Ministers of the government were
part of a three day course in their work sponsored by the Ministry of the
Public Service and the Public Service Training Centre headed by Ophelia
Cooper. The drivers attended the course, which included a review
of General Orders, the security aspects of their job and protocol and attitudes.
The Minister for the Public Service presented certificates for the course
on Friday 26th November at the end of the three day course. Minister
Mitchell is shown presenting the training certificate to his driver, Mr.
Kenneth Christie.
BAHAMASAIR
ON TIME
Tennyson Wells, the Independent Member of Parliament
who represents the Bamboo Town constituency, spoke passionately about the
need for politicians who, when they are in a position to help people to
do so, because, he argued, you never know when you are gone from political
power how you have to face the same people that you failed to help.
He also admonished the Prime Minister with regard to what is to happen
to Bahamasair to “make a decision”. He said that the Prime Minister
would never ever be right all the time but he should make a decision and
move on.
The remarks came in the debate on a resolution to
guarantee the borrowing of 3.4 million dollars to complete the purchase
of two 737 200 series jets. These jets that are the third and fourth
youngest of the over eight hundred in service around the world are to replace
the jets purchased by the Free National Movement government for which they
could not even present a technical competency certificate at the time of
their purchase.
The Minister responsible for Bahamasair Bradley
Roberts had a particularly good day during the debate on Wednesday 24th
November. Query after query made by the Free National Movement was
answered and criticism after criticism was refuted. The resolution
was passed just after 9 p.m. You may click
here for the Minister’s full address.
Bahamasair is the national flag carrier and there
is some debate about whether or not the Government should continue to spend
money on the airline. The airline is seen by many to be a necessity
to outlying Family Island communities but also as the last lifeline for
the tourist industry. The airline has never made money in the classic
accounting sense, and has accumulated losses of 120 million dollars in
its history since it was established in 1970.
The public has become somewhat apprehensive about
flying the airlines that perform the outsourcing services for Bahamasair
on various routes because of concerns over the lack of regulation of those
airlines. Recently one of the airlines crash landed in the waters
off south New Providence. Eight people on board had to be rescued
after the plane ran out of gas just before its scheduled landing at the
Nassau International Airport.
The annual report of Bahamasair asserts that it
has an 83 percent on time record.
DISASTER
RELIEF CONTINUES
Just about each day, newspaper stories document
the continuing work of the Government and others in disaster relief for
those across The Bahamas affected by hurricanes Francis and Jeanne.
Two photographs in particular this past week drew our attention.
THANK YOU – Sixty-eight year old Ural Russell, a resident of
Grand Cay, Abaco who in 1999 lost his home to fire and who suffered yet
another blow during Hurricane Francis and Jeanne, is pictured right a happy
man as he stands on the concrete surface of his new home being constructed
by the Ministry of Housing under the Disaster Relief Programme. Pictured
left to right are: Leila Green, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Housing
and National Insurance; Mr. Melvin Seymour, Undersecretary, Ministry of
Housing and National Insurance; the Hon. Shane Gibson, Minister of Housing
and National Insurance, Mr. Luther Smith, National Disaster Relief Co-ordinator,
and Mr. Russell, who expects to be in his new two-bed room/one-bath home
by Christmas. BIS Photo By SIMON LEWIS
TOYS FOR THE HOLIDAYS - Determined to get on with the work of
restoring hurricane ravaged West End, the Florida faith-based group known
as The Eagles Wings Foundation recently completed their 6th trip with practical
assistance for West End. Among the supplies brought the Eagleswings
were lots of toys for the children of West End. Above Mr. Lewis,
Mr. White and Mrs. Lewis distribute the toys from a vehicle after arriving
in West End. BIS Photo by Greg Christie.
THINKING
ABOUT AFTER THE SUNSET
If you read this column before on the movie with
Pierce Brosnan called ‘After the Sunset’ and filmed in The Bahamas and
more particularly bits in Fox Hill, you would have seen a generally favourable
review. But the film has not done that well since its general release
and there is almost no talk about it in Nassau itself. One true true
Bahamian view of the film was found in a cartoon commentary by The Tribune's
cartoonist Jeff Cooper on Thursday 25th November.
ANOTHER
CHAPTER IN THE SIDNEY STUBBS SAGA
The Chief Justice has ruled that the order of bankruptcy
handed down by Justice Jeanne Thompson on 31st March 2004 against MP Sidney
Stubbs should stand. Mr. Stubbs had gone to court to have the matter
set aside on the grounds that he had not been served with the summons.
The Chief Justice seemed to dismiss that application on the grounds that
he was not entertaining an appeal, and therefore he had no jurisdiction
to go behind the facts of the case, which were already deposed by the affidavit
of service. Having turned that back the Chief Justice then said that
he would not hear the question of an annulment of the bankruptcy action
until he was convinced that there was not an active appeal before the Privy
Council in the matter. This effectively puts the litigant Mr. Stubbs
to an election it appears, or in chess terms in check.
Thomas Evans Q.C, who is arguing the case before
the Court said that even though there was a petition for leave to appeal
before the Courts, that did not constitute an appeal. The Chief Justice
did not seem convinced but left the matter to be dealt with at another
day. It would then seem that he would only hear the petition for
annulment if there is no action before the Privy Council. The question:
if the petition for leave before the Privy Council constitutes in the eyes
of the Chief Justice an appeal, then the annulment matter is dead unless
he withdraws the Privy Council appeal. Given the record of the decisions
at the local courts, it would seem especially difficult to rely on a decision
in The Bahamas. Further, if it is not an appeal then there is a problem
with the constitution.
The Court of Appeal has already said there is no
jurisdiction to hear an appeal. The constitution also says that in
order for Mr. Stubbs to get an extension to remain an MP, he has to have
an appeal open to him. If he wants to remain then there is only an
appeal to the Privy Council and the petition for leave must arguably be
an appeal, otherwise the seat must be vacated immediately. The problem
the public asks, (particularly the swing voters who sided with the PLP
in the last election) is how long will the PLP continue with this, inflicting
bad publicity on itself over this? The feeling of many is that the
matter should be cut away and gone. The party wants to stand behind
its MP until he has exhausted all legal avenues out of a sense of fairness
and loyalty. It also does not want to fight a bye election at this
time. However, there must come a point when the damage being inflicted
by this in bad publicity overcomes the loyalty and fairness questions.
Some also argue that if Mr. Stubbs is right about
the fact that the deposed evidence on service is false then there is also
a larger issue at stake that must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of
the law. The Chief Justice went further in our view than it was necessary
and struck out several affidavits deposed by 180 constituents of Mr. Stubbs
who claimed to have an interest in restoring Mr. Stubbs to full membership
in the House. He said that he thought that the affidavits were an
abuse and irrelevant. We agree. He also said that he felt they were
an attempt to intimidate the court and might constitute a contempt of court.
We do not agree there. The remarks seemed gratuitous but were yet
another bad piece of publicity for the embattled Mr. Stubbs and thereby
the PLP.
BAHAMIAN
EXPATRIATE NY LAWYER DIES
A correspondent to this site forwarded the following piece from the
website www.nylawyer.com about the untimely death of Bahamian expatriate
Kim Barry. This is very sad. Kim Barry’s mother Brenda Barry
is well known in The Bahamas. Her uncle is the Secretary to the Cabinet
Wendell Major. She was by all accounts a bright person. Our
condolences to the family. – Ed. A memorial service was held
Tuesday 23 November at New York University School of Law.
November 23, 2004
Kim Barry, a research fellow at New York University
School of Law, died Saturday after she was hit by a truck last week as
she crossed a Greenwich Village street. She was 35.
"Her death is a loss to her family, our community,
and higher education," said NYU President John Sexton, who knew Ms. Barry
both as a student and as a colleague. "She was a person of manifest intelligence,
energy and charm."
Ms. Barry was born in the Bahamas and graduated
magna cum laude from Georgetown University. She went on to the Fletcher
School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University; the Institut Universitaire
de Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva, Switzerland; and NYU School
of Law, where she was a Dean's Scholar and a Law Review articles editor.
She was elected to the Order of the Coif when she graduated magna cum laude
in 1998.
As a student, she served as a research assistant
to Professor Ron Noble, secretary-general of Interpol. Through law school
clinics, she traveled to Eritrea to work on international development and
represented Alabama death row inmates.
Ms. Barry clerked for Judge Betty Fletcher of
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and entered private practice
in Seattle before returning to New York University as a Katz Fellow and
associate counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice. At the Brennan Center,
she worked on democracy and poverty projects, including an effort to restore
voting rights to felons in Florida.
She also served as a special assistant to Mr.
Sexton, with whom she taught an honors seminar for undergraduates.
As NYU School of Law's first Furman Fellow, Ms.
Barry spent the past year researching the legal and political dimensions
of citizenship and international migration.
She is survived by her mother and father, Brenda
and Grahame Barry; a grandmother, Rosetta Major; two sisters, Tracy and
Tina Barry; and her companion, Gavin Butler.
BAHAMIAN
CHRISTMAS IN NEW YORK
New York City is to experience a sampling of Bahamian
folklore this holiday season with a special. The first Bahamian Christmas
in New York concert will take place Friday, Dec. 3, 2004 from 6pm at St.
Bartholomew’s in midtown Manhattan and is free to the general public.
Bahamian interpretations of traditional Christmas
music, including ‘Ma, Ma Bake The Johnny Cake’ will be performed by operatic
baritone Cleveland Williams, composer/bass Franz Hepburn, Bahamian diva
Valerie Pyfrom and the equally dynamic pianist and soprano duo, Lee and
Joann Callender, complemented by the rhythmic sounds of the goatskin drum
performed by Neil Symonette. Franz Hepburn, JoAnn Callender and Cleveland
Williams are shown rehearsing in Nassau for the performance, with Lee Callender
at the piano in this photo by Peter Ramsay.
NATIONAL
YOUTH CHOIR’S NEW CD – PERFORMANCE TODAY
The Bahamas National Youth Choir has released a new CD entitled, ‘A
First Christmas Album’. The choir performs this afternoon, Sunday
28th November, beginning at 3 pm, at the grounds of the Children’s Emergency
Hostel. This past week, selected members of the Choir called on Prime
Minister the Rt. Hon. Perry Christie to present a copy of their CD.
Members of the Choir and their director Cleophas Adderley are pictured
with the Prime Minister in this Bahamas Information Services photo by Peter
Ramsay.
ELEUTHERA
LAUNCH PARTY FOR 'SEASHELLS'
LAUNCH
PARTY - Left to Right Front Row: Mr. Thomas Sands, Director of Sales
EPL, Hon. J. Oswald Ingraham, Speaker of the House of Assembly and M.P.
South Eleuthera, Ms. Chandra Sands, Mr. T. Albert Sands, President EPL,
Ms. Monique Smith, Executive Assistant EPL, Mrs. Claudia Sands, Mrs. Natasha
Sands. Left to Right Back Row: Mr. Wim Steenbakkers, Director of
Operations EPL and Mr. Adam Boorman, Horticulturist EPL.
Just a week after the official signing of the Heads
of Agreement with the Government of The Bahamas, Eleuthera Properties Limited
(EPL), on the evening of Wednesday, November 17, 2004, hosted a cocktail
reception at the Four Points Restaurant in Rock Sound, Eleuthera, to introduce,
SeaShells at Cotton Bay, its new 1,500 acre resort community development,
to the local community. The development is expected to revitalize
Eleuthera’s economy and marks the first time that a majority Bahamian funded
and managed group has invested on this scale.
A news release from the company said that in 1986,
EPL entered into negotiations to acquire the holdings of South Eleuthera
Properties and the Cotton Bay Club. In 1992, said the release, this
group made “a gallant effort to revitalize the economy of Eleuthera, however,
its initiative was not supported by the government of that day. EPL
then sold some its holdings to another entrepreneur, whom it felt possessed
access to the financial resources and expertise to reverse the local economic
trend. Again, the government of that time did not grant favour to
that group and the island of Eleuthera slipped deeper and deeper into depression.”
The Director of Operations, Mr. Wim Steenbakkers,
expounded on the features of the 220 acre first phase of the development.
He highlighted that the resort residential community will comprise 114
estate lots, with choices of Beachfront, Ocean view, Caribbean view, Ocean
and Caribbean view as well as interior lots, varying in size from 2/3 of
acre to 1½ acres and a 69 room boutique hotel, based on a villa
concept, reminiscent of the old Cotton Bay Club, and a grand club house.
He noted that February 2005 is the anticipated start for construction of
the club house.
DEACON
RICHARD DAVID MOSS DIES
Deacon Richard David Moss, Senior Deacon at Mount
Carey Union Baptist Church in Fox Hill has died. Deacon Moss was
73. He is survived by his wife Lillian, five sons and four daughters.
He was a former president of The Bahamas Taxi Cab Union and a former president
of The Bahamas Tour Operators Association.
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
On Sir Albert Miller
I want to salute Sharon Zoë Smith for a
insightful article on the future of Freeport (Last week’s column).
She should write on the subject again. I agree with the implication
that the hero of what will happen to Freeport will end up being Sir Albert
Miller. In a way, the piece is a great salute to him. Clearly,
the opportunity provided to Sir Albert by leaving the Police Force shows
that the Lord works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.
Sir Albert has done a good job, and in spite
of those naysayers in Freeport who would criticise him, everyone can see
that he will have to be the one now to steer the company and the city through
the present crisis of Mr. St. George’s illness and a complete recovery
from the hurricanes. I wish him well. Ms. Smith’s editorial
last week was very fair to Sir Albert, but I believe that this will be
the greatest role he will be called upon to play.
My advice to Sir Albert is to use the opportunity
well. I know he would probably prefer to stay retired with his children
and grandchildren but sometimes life calls upon you to perform great tasks
that are not written in any script. I am sure that he will succeed
with God at his side for the betterment of the people of Freeport and The
Bahamas generally.
B. J. Carroll
I thank you for your comment. The article, which some have
called prescient, has caused some consternation in some quarters.
But Freeport was in a very solemn mood this past week with the knowledge
that the Chairman was gravely ill yet no formal announcement was made until
mid week. The column was timely. We agree that Albert Miller is in
the right place at this time. Editor
About Al Jarrett
and the Bank of The Bahamas
I wish to take issue with a statement in last
week’s column about the future of the Bank of The Bahamas if Al Jarrett
is to take the helm. I think that his history at the Royal Bank of
Canada and at Finco shows how he has helped many people of ordinary stripe
to succeed in life. He is a man of strong convictions but his underlying
philosophy is that he believes in the small man. I have no doubt
that he will take that sympathy for the poor and the underdog with him
to the Bank of The Bahamas.
I expect that he will respect the expertise of the Managing Director
Paul McWeeney and together they will make a great Bahamian dynamic duo.
Jerry Robinson
Cay Russell, Not Silbert Mills
Please correct your article Silbert Mills is
not the present Chief Councillor for Central Abaco.
Mr. Cay Russell is the present Chief Councillor.
I think you should apologize to Mr. Silbert Mills
and double check your information next time, maybe even the two dailies.
I look forward to your correction. I am new reader that enjoys your website,
but now I will have to think twice about information given.
Mr. Silbert Mills owns a radio station, not Cay
Russell. In Mr. S. Mills defense those two persons do not get along
because Silbert does like Cay's tactics like most Abaconians. I look forward
to your response
(Name withheld)
You are right. Apologies. This column is written from
London and it is based on public sources. The error derived from
an error in the press on whose story the matter was based. We apologise
unreservedly. – Ed.
THIS
WEEK WITH THE PM
BEAMING - The highlight of the Prime Minister's week surely
was sharing in the presentation of an international award for community
policing given to the Royal Bahamas Police Force by the International Association
of Chiefs of Police for its Urban Renewal Programme. The programme
is Mr. Christie's brainchild from his days as Leader of the Opposition.
Mr. Christie is shown (above) beaming with pride, along with the Commissioner
and Deputy Commissioner of Police and the leaders of the Programme.
Front Row: Assistant Superintendent Carolyn Bowe, Commissioner of
Police Mr. Paul Farquharson, the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister,
Deputy Commissioner of Police Mr. John Rolle. Second Row: Assistant
Superintendent Stephen Dean, Inspector Mary Mitchell-Rolle, Inspector Kmberly
Taylor, Superintendent Keith Bell. Third Row: Inspector Craig
Gaitor, Inspector Noel Curry (Grand Bahama) and Inspector Robert Simmons.
Fourth Row: Sergeant 1490 Ricardo Richardson and Inspector Bruce
Arnett.
RED
ROSE - The Imperial Life Assurance Company of Canada is one of the
major financial institutions in The Bahamas and perhaps the major corporate
supporter of the fight against HIV/AIDS. Each year, the company sponsors
major fundraising balls in both Freeport, Grand Bahama and in Nassau.
Above, Prime Minister and Mrs. Christie pose with supporters of the initiative
in Grand Bahama at the Red Rose Ball, held Saturday 20th November.
From left are Mrs. & Mr. Guy Richard of Imperial Life, the Prime Minister,
Dashwell Flowers, Imperial Life; Mrs. Christie and Eunice Morris of Morris
Professional Travel. Bahamas Information Services photo - Derek
Smith
RED RIBBON - Back in Nassau, the following week this past Saturday 27th November, the Prime Minister and Mrs. Christie are shown at right entering the Red Ribbon ball.
Among other items on the Prime Minister's public agenda this past week
were a courtesy call from officials of the University of the West Indies,
below right and a photo op. with students touring the houses of Parliament,
bottom right.
Bahamas Information Services photographs (except where noted) by
Peter Ramsay.
