The cane toad has no positive ecological value in The Bahamas

BNT warns: Dead cane toads still poisonous

BY TANEKA THOMPSON
Guardian Senior Reporter
taneka@nasguard.com

Director of the Bahamas National Trust Eric Carey warned people who may choose to kill cane toads, an invasive species, to be careful how they dispose of the poisonous amphibians.

Carey said that residents should be careful not to dispose of dead toads in areas where they may contaminate the water supply and explained that even when dead, their bodies are still poisonous.

Last week Friday, environmental officials warned the public not to approach, relocate or sell the cane toad if anyone comes into contact with one.

Since the warning, photos have emerged on Facebook showing toads that locals have captured and killed.

Carey warned those who kill the toads themselves to be sure that it is not an indigenous species and to be careful how they dispose of the carcasses.

“If people want to kill them, [they should] know for sure it is a cane toad. It’s an invasive species that has no positive ecological value in The Bahamas. We don’t have preferred methods of killing them, obviously the safe method is to capture and freeze but you know people see it and just want to get rid of it,” he said.

“People are stabbing them with pitchforks and all sorts of brutal things. Are we concerned that people are killing them? Not necessarily, but they should still be disposed of properly and not be put in places where they may contaminate water.

“They still have the poison in them so you don’t want to throw them near a well. I would say put it in a garbage bag and put it in a garbage bin.”

Carey also said officials have confirmed that the toad has spread out of Lyford Cay into nearby Mount Pleasant Village.

Carey could not say if the toad has made its way to other areas of the capital but said it is likely considering the amphibian’s breeding practices.

“They’re going to spread,” Carey said on Thursday. “We now know they have been here since 2011 at least. Initially we were hoping they had only been here three or four months because that’s when people really started seeing them.

“We have a few people who have confirmed with dated photographs that they have been around since 2011 at least, possibly as early as 2010.”

Officials had originally thought the toad was introduced to The Bahamas earlier this year.

The toad can grow up to 10 inches in length. It is able to produce a toxin from glands lying just behind its eyes and is capable of killing small pets and causing severe skin reactions in humans.

Last week, Minister of Environment Ken Dorsett said someone who believes they have seen a cane toad should report the location to the BNT and Department of Agriculture; take a picture and email it to vhaley-benjamin@bnt.bs and call Sandra Buckner at 393-3821.

September 14, 2013

thenassauguardian

Caribbean Blog International

The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) is not a fascist party ...But there is a virulent fascist impulse that developed in tandem with the cult of personality ...around Sir Lynden

The fascist impulse in the PLP

By Simon
frontporchguardian@gmail.com

There is an entrenched conceit and pernicious lie which constitute the PLP’s claim of superior nationalism, most recently on peacock-like display over the past few weeks.

It is at minimum a sort of soft fascism which seeks to divide the country between the PLP, to whom God or history apparently bequeathed The Bahamas, and those supposed traitors who left or do not support the PLP or who fail to support its policies, or even oppose its wrong-doings.

There are various degrees of the conceit. Within days of each other, three of the party faithful gave voice to the full throttled, high-pitched, chest-thumping “we are better than you” nationalism of which the PLP self-adoringly indulges.

Consider this: Nearing the 60th anniversary of the party’s founding, a PLP-leaning columnist suggests that the party is the more nationalistic of the two major parties even as he has written of his party’s abandonment or mere lip service of certain liberal and progressive values.

Then, a senior Cabinet minister concluded a press statement with a rallying cry to “true-blooded Bahamians”. True-blooded is a synonym for full-blooded, which means, “of unmixed ancestry, purebred”, which invokes all manner of troubling overtones.

The most vile and repugnant claim came from junior minister Senator Keith Bell who attacked the FNM as treasonous and traitorous for comments the party and its leader made relative to the Cuban migrant affair.

Dr. Hubert Minnis has given considerable public service to the country as both a medical doctor and a politician. For the sake of his own credibility and decency Bell should apologize to the leader of the opposition.

While Bell is hardly known for intellectual acuity, certainly even he must be aware that the charge of treason is one of the most serious that can be levelled at a citizen. Treason carries with it the severest of punishments, even capital punishment.

Ludicrous

Bell’s claims are as ludicrous as they are malicious. Significantly, he was not asked to withdraw or apologize for his comments by his political seniors. But his words are not new for a PLP that has seen fit to wield malevolent tactics and rhetoric in attempts to beat opponents into submission.

In 1970 a delegation of PLPs travelled to Grand Bahama to apprise local party officials of their alarm at the direction the party was moving in terms of its abandonment of certain policies and the cult of personality mushrooming around an increasingly dictatorial Sir Lynden Pindling.

The delegation included Cecil Wallace Whitfield, Arthur A. Foulkes, Maurice Moore, Garnett Levarity and C. A. Smith, all veterans in the fight for majority rule.

The meeting was held in a school room at Lewis Yard, with a raised platform for the speakers and rows of folding chairs for attendees. The meeting opened with a prayer. Then all hell broke loose.

Having just invoked the Lord’s name, apparently in vain, a goon squad sprang from the front row. They shouted that there would be no meeting. Once on their feet they grabbed the chairs, folding them into bludgeons.

Then they viciously set upon their targets on the platform. They drew blood from Sir Cecil, bashing him in his head, and bruising others.

While a few in the crowd sought to stop them, officers of the Royal Bahamas Police Force looked on. They refused to intervene.

What is little known of the Lewis Yard event is that Sir Cecil suspected that something might happen. His instructions to members of the delegation were to keep their hands at their sides if they were attacked.

His reasons were both practical and philosophical. By refusing to return the blows, the delegates were demonstrating a commitment to the nonviolent tactics of the U.S. civil rights movement. Further, there would be no doubt as to the perpetrators of the violence.

On the way out of Lewis Yard, a close associate of Sir Lynden, who would later resign from the former’s Cabinet in disgrace, was observed in a trench coat, standing in the rain.

The scene foreshadowed events to come, including decades of intimidation, victimization, abuse of power and corruption by the Pindling regime.

It does not require of a leap of conscience or imagination to characterize what happened at Lewis Yard and the fascist impulse behind it.

At Lewis Yard, Bahamian citizens, including three members of Parliament, were denied fundamental and constitutional rights including that of assembly and of freedom of speech. They were denied the protection of the state as a mob attacked and police officials stood by watching the beatings.

There is certainly no democratic impulse at play here. The democratic impulse is not frightened by the sort of dissidence exemplified by those at Lewis Yard, who had a difference of opinion as to the direction their party and the country should take.

At the time, one of the highest-ranking PLP ministers sought to diminish what took place at Lewis Yard, noting that such incidents were to be expected in Bahamian politics.

To ensure that those who disagreed with Sir Lynden and his court got the message intended at Lewis Yard, PLP MP Henry Bowen went on ZNS to denounce the dissidents as traitors.

Just to recall, he was denouncing fellow-PLPs who were considered as not only betraying the PLP. By calling into question Sir Lynden’s leadership they were supposedly also betraying the nation.

The charges were replayed on state radio in a barrage and loop of intimidation. Those attacked were allowed no right of reply. Over the ensuing decades the PLP relentlessly utilized ZNS as a major propaganda tool.

Monopoly

Even more diabolical, it kept a monopoly on the broadcast media. In the modern era autocratic and dictatorial regimes understood that the maintenance of political power demanded as much control of the media as possible. It is a fascist impulse to allow only one party line to be heard on state media.

Today still, many in the PLP firmly hold that those who may disagree with them are somehow traitorous and treasonous, even when they oppose wrong-doing in the party as did the Dissident Eight in 1970 and Hubert Ingraham and Perry Christie in 1984.

The PLP is not a fascist party. But there is a virulent fascist impulse that developed in tandem with the cult of personality around Sir Lynden.

Unlike the biblical Moses, Pindling, the Bahamian Moses, was set to enter the Promised Land. Thereafter the apotheosis of Sir Lynden, seen by many PLPs as an icon of the nation, whose very persona supposedly embodied the nation, was underway.

The fascist impulse has so invariably developed in parties of liberation and majority rule-cum independence, which almost as an original sin tend to equate the good of their organization and needs with that of a country.

To wit: What is good for the PLP is good for the country. And, the most full-blooded and patriotic Bahamians must be PLP or vote for the party. It is no accident that the PLP chose similar colors for both the national flag and their party flag.

Even as the PLP betrayed the national good whether through wrecking what promised to be a successful national airline or giving drug barons near carte blanche to ply their trade, the party betrayed many of its founding ideals.

Yet it continued, often quite successfully, to play the politics of nationalism and to demonize many who had a different vision of the national good and a more inclusive vision of a shared nationalism and common good.

September 12, 2013

thenassauguardian

Caribbean Blog International

Rodney Moncur's Struggles and Challenges

Adrian Gibson: Activist Rodney Moncur Tells Of His Struggles And Challenges

By ADRIAN GIBSON

ajbahama@hotmail.com

 

OUR NATION’S most outspoken Justice of the Peace, well-known political and social activist Rodney Moncur told me in an interview that he is struggling to survive and facing his own challenges even while fighting to assist so many of the poor, downtrodden and victims of seeming injustice. In what was initiated on Facebook and later resulted in an interview, Mr Moncur requested my assistance in bringing his personal causes to the fore. Rodney Moncur and I have been friends for a number of years and so I was happy to oblige him.

 

Over the years, I have developed a great respect for Mr Moncur, who has demonstrated that he is a man of his word, that he is a man of the people and that—regardless of the criticisms—he would fight tooth and nail for a cause that he believes in, even to his own detriment. I respect that. Moncur is an encapsulation of the saying if “one doesn’t stand for something, they would fall for anything” and so he takes various stands to express his approval or discontent with matters that the average citizen might ordinarily shy away from. He has made his political advocacy and public affairs campaigns an intimidating brand where, when one hears that Rodney Moncur has mobilized and is coming, it engenders a deep fear of public embarrassment/exposure as he takes no prisoners and does not mind if—to attain justice and a meaningful end—one refers to him as “crazy” or a “loose cannon.”

 

The nation’s foremost political/social activist has also kept up with the changing times. Unlike so many others in his age grouping who sit on the sidelines of social media, Moncur has taken a keen interest in social and digital media, developing what has become one of the biggest social media brands online today, with 5000 friends and 4000 followers on Facebook and throngs of Twitter followers who hang onto his every post or tweet (whether to praise him or vociferously criticise his statements). On any given day, Moncur has a slew of “breaking news” stories on his Facebook account, many times before traditional media outlets. However, whilst his Negro News Network (NNN)—as he calls it—has grown by leaps and bounds, the Justice of the Peace continues to face everyday struggles financially, “with the police” and in resolving personal matters even while seeking to march with a view to helping others. In disseminating his message, Mr Moncur merges his understanding of public relations via social media by also embracing traditional media outlets.

 

Over the period that I have known Mr Moncur, I have discovered that he is an avid reader and that he fully understands the law, so much so that some lawyers seek him out for clarity on certain points of law. Relative to any happening in the Bahamas over the last 40-plus years, Mr Moncur is a walking encyclopaedia who either has intricate knowledge of or a working understanding of the same, with copies of the reports of various Commissions, government undertakings, legislation and so on.

 

“I am struggling by the grace of God, hoping that if I can sell a piece of property I own, that what I owe to Royal Bank (of Canada) and Scotia would be paid off. I owe Royal Bank and Scotia about $20,000, more or less. I have a serious obligation to pay because both banking institutions have been very tolerant of my inability to pay,” Mr Moncur said.

 

“How I make a living? Well, I have a JP office open, where I provide community services,” he explained. “In addition to that, I’m a court process server, I do title research and I’m a cab driver. I’m trying to raise money to paint my taxi and bring it back on the streets. I had a mechanical issue and, thank God, that that has been resolved. However, the man I have chosen to do the painting of the entire vehicle told me that it would cost $1,500. At this stage, the vehicle is not licensed as I have one or two other issues to be resolved with it, the first being to bring it to the point that it will pass an inspection. It’s a very good vehicle, but it needs a face lift in order to provide the public and the tourism community with a good, clean vehicle and reliable services.”

 

On May 8th of this year, Mr Moncur’s Black Village home was destroyed by fire. According to him, the incident occurred in the “wee hours of the morning.”

 

On April 4th, Mr Moncur was arraigned on a single charge of committing a grossly indecent act, a hybrid offence contrary to section 490 of the Penal Code. It is claimed that between March 1 and March 29, he “intentionally and unlawfully” published a photograph on Facebook of the corpse of Jamie Smith, who died in police custody. At that time, Mr Moncur opted to be tried by a jury in the Supreme Court rather than a Magistrate, and was granted $7,500 bail, which two lady friends posted for him the following day after he had spent a night at Fox Hill Prison and enjoyed what he referred to as the best sleep he had had in a long time. He was initially told that a Voluntary Bill of Indictment would be served on him on May 10 to fast-track the case to the Supreme Court for trial. However, during his follow-up appearance with then Deputy Chief Magistrate Carolita Bethell, he was told that the Attorney General’s Office had decided to have a preliminary inquiry in Magistrate Court No 2 before Magistrate Constance Delancey.

 

In last week’s court appearance, Mr Moncur claimed that the police had “burned down his house.” He vehemently stated that one must note that his house was burnt down two days before his May 10th court appearance.

 

What is notable is that while Mr Moncur’s alleged offence only carries a fine of $150 if convicted, his bail was set at a whopping $7,500!

 

Relative to the fire that destroyed his house, the former DNA candidate for Bain and Grant’s Town stated:

 

“I had provided suspects to the police and the police have not informed me of their investigations. The Commissioner of Police (Ellison Greenslade) seems to ensure that I am not informed! How is it that the nation’s leading political activist and a JP’s home could be destroyed by fire and the policing agencies are not interested in concluding how it happened? My home was firebombed and had my wife and I been sleeping there, we would’ve been killed or seriously injured.”

 

“I am a patriotic, loving citizen. I believe you get good government by observing it and to the extent that it becomes necessary, providing critical support and—if need be—get placards and take to the streets peacefully but forcefully, without destruction to property or harm to fellow citizens or strangers. I have adopted the philosophy of political mobilization and demonstrations. Living in the inner city leaves one, from time to time, exposed to the political, social and economic injustices that people suffer. When people bring such injustices to my attention, I feel forced to take a solemn stand against oppression, corruption and injustice. As a JP, I have a greater responsibility to maintain peace and make sure that the authorities are not abusing the rights of citizens whilst assisting or maintaining law and order. I’m one of Her Majesty’s JPs for New Providence, Paradise Island and Arawak Cay and so when any injustices come to my attention, I sit down and write letters of complaint to the Governor General, the Prime Minister, the Attorney General and the Chief Justice. That’s what I do. Citizens come and complain to me about various injustices and, in my capacity as a JP, I write letters to various branches of the state. There are powerful forces who, from time to time, cannot take it.” he said.

 

“Recently,” he continued, “Rupert Roberts (owner of Super Value food store chain) complained to me about $70,000 that was stolen. He told me of his belief that some of the police may have gotten to the robber first and taken the monies, sharing it among themselves. Mr Roberts felt that he could find no resolution and so I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister and the PM replied to my letter. I take the same action if a poor Negro male comes to my office complaining about police threats against his life and so forth.”

 

Asked about his outlook on his court case, Mr Moncur replied:

 

“We’re seeing a powerful philosophy of gangsterism, Nazism, Gestapoism and Ton-Ton Macoute-ism as was being practised in Haiti now being carried out in our country. In the last five months, I have been subjected to gangsterism with the destruction of my home and with these charges levied against me. On three occasions now, the leading investigator has failed to appear in court to give evidence against me—on three occasions! This is justice being stabbed in its vital parts! It is an undermining of justice and whenever justice is undermined, anarchy and chaos will come to bear in one’s nation and we see a manifestation of this now with the high levels of crime and retaliatory killings in our society, because people have lost confidence in the administration of justice.

 

It was his opinion that it has “come about due to political gangsterism. Adolf Hitler was a criminal who got state power and used the law to murder and slaughter six million Jews and others of God’s people.”

 

He said Bahamians must be careful of who takes control of the state’s machinery.

 

“Relative to my case, a defendant should never acquiesce to a court dismissing charges against him, he must insist that the court forces a prosecution witness to bring his testimony under the penalty that they would be incarcerated. This is so to clear one’s name, particularly if innocent” he said.

 

According to Mr Moncur, he got his house “in February, 2000 under the FNM’s administration whilst in 2013 the house was destroyed under the PLP’s administration.”

 

Speaking about the fire, that consumed his house and many of his possessions, he said:

 

“I have had no sympathy from the government. My wife and I have committed no crime that would call for my house being destroyed by fire. At age 56, it has placed me at a great disadvantage. At this age, if I don’t own my own home at least I should be coming to the end of a mortgage. I have no house for me and my wife to call our own, independent from a house that my adult sons live in. No citizen should be subjected to arson. When I examine what took place and how the Prime Minister and Attorney General have not compelled the Commissioner of Police to move, I feel terrible. I didn’t want to live among them ya know. They have large, palatial homes. I’m not jealous of them. I was so happy with my five-room clapboard house in Black Village. But, even that was taken away from me and now everyone is pretending like this criminal act wasn’t committed against me.”

 

“You will also notice that no institution has condemned the burning down of my home. No member of the church has condemned it. My party—the DNA—has not condemned it. The Official Opposition—FNM—hasn’t condemned it. And, quietly, the governing party’s leaders are giggling, they are laughing over my great calamity. But, I gave no one any reason to burn me out. So, what must I conclude?” an emotional Mr Moncur asked.

 

“As it stands, the Commissioner of Police has levied charges in the courts against me. He doesn’t answer any of my calls and none of his senior officers do. As a citizen, am I not entitled to know where the police are in their investigations into the fire that destroyed my home?” he asked.

 

In reflecting over his years of political and social activism in the past juxtaposed to today, Mr Moncur said:

 

“When I think over my 40 years of political activism in the Bahamas, I can say that Pindling (former Prime Minister) never destroyed anything belonging to me and I fought Pindling left, right and centre so much so that Pindling had me charged—along with current Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Philip Miller—with sedition. We went on trial on the 15th, 16th and 17th of April, 1985. I was charged with three counts and he was charged with two. We were represented by the late Sir Kendal Isaacs and retired Supreme Court Justice Jeanne Thompson and we were unanimously acquitted of all the charges. In those days of intense political battles with Pindling, I never felt that Pindling would kill me or burn down my house. And I lived long enough to get a little wooden house. My wife and I worked to maintain the mortgage but during this administration’s term in office, it was destroyed and it seems like nothing will come of it. That’s dangerous and these kinds of acts, if a man isn’t praying, could compel him to lead a revolution. Bahamians should be able to express their political views and there should be no form of gangsterism inflicted on that citizen either by harming them physically, burning down their house or threatening their jobs.”

 

When speaking about his activism over the years and his future outlook, Mr Moncur said:

 

“As long as I live, whichever party comes to power, I will turn my sights on that party and I don’t care which political party it is. I’m always willing to give critical support and to picket if necessary. When Pindling was in power, we criticised. When (PM Hubert) Ingraham was in power, whenever we felt that his government wasn’t doing things in the interest of the Bahamian people, we criticized them and agitated. And, we will also criticize Christie. Nothing ever happened to me under Ingraham. In fact, the more I criticized Ingraham, the more he appeared to love me. I never believed Ingraham would tolerate any act of gangsterism being carried out against me and my house would’ve never been burnt down. In fact, under Ingraham, I got the damn house!”

 

As I listened to Mr Moncur talk about the three Prime Ministers that the country has had so far, I asked him who he felt was the Bahamas’ best Prime Minister thus far. He responded:

 

“Ingraham! He brought in a new culture to the country. He helped to cement the freedom of the press by opening the airwaves. He didn’t go as far as he could have, but we saw plenty radio stations opening up and Bahamians were no longer afraid to express their views. With all these stations, it made it easier to bring a government down. That was a major feather in his cap. However, I didn’t like that he sold Batelco (BTC). I think that that is his greatest political sin. But, Ingraham loved his people, he especially loved poor black people.”

 

Mr Moncur said that he is “looking forward” to his court case, which was adjourned to October 4th.

“You have to understand what the police did to me. They created the illusion that I did a grossly indecent act, which could suggest sexual impropriety. It was also designed to intimidate the public, especially Facebook users,” he said.

 

Asked why he allows certain disparaging comments about himself by readers to remain on his Facebook page, he said: “It is free speech. I am grateful that people come to read and I only delete comments or block a person if they get too personal. I don’t mind if they call me stupid or whatever. I know there are many persons who would wish to shut my page down. I’m very happy that I have a very lively page and I try to be as accurate and fair as possible. It’s fun, I like it! I rely on people as much as possible and hope that they are honest in their tips to me. If I had transportation, you would see even more reporting. Many times, newspaper folks wake up and check my page, I make their work easier.”

 

In my opinion, Rodney Moncur is an overlooked national figure who genuinely believes in the greatness of his country and who has served nobly in whatever capacity he has found himself.

 

...

 

September 09, 2013

 

Tribune 242

 

Caribbean Blog International

 

 

 

Philip Galanis on the Progressive Liberal Party’s (PLP) 60th anniversary - (Part - 2)

A response to Philip Galanis On ‘The PLP at 60’, pt. 2

BY KIRKLAND TURNER

This is the second part of my response to a recent column by Philip Galanis in which he describes the PLP as “The Bahamas’ first and some would argue only nationalist party”, and proceeds to list some “accomplishments” of the PLP.

Efforts at making propaganda fact 

Galanis lifts a list of accomplishments from some PLP election propaganda sheet which even the PLP leadership must not believe and he attributes them to the Perry Christie government between 2002 and 2007.  Only a blind sycophant could give any credence to the list.

Galanis’ rose-tinted glasses do not admit failure by his political party.  He claims that the first Christie government attracted some $17 billion in foreign direct investment, some $2.5 billion of which became tangible or real.  Attracting investment that is not real is a most peculiar concept.  It is more peculiar, in fact, than Galanis’ failure to accept that the five-phased development of Atlantis was approved by the FNM in its first term in office and is an FNM accomplishment.

Galanis claims Baha Mar as a Christie government accomplishment without acknowledging that the agreement signed by Christie’s government (with U.S. partners and financiers) faltered and was rendered void, and that a new agreement (with Chinese partners and financiers) had to be negotiated by the FNM government after 2007.

Galanis claims that the Christie government created 22,000 jobs between 2002 and 2007, about half the number created by the previous FNM government.  He forgot to say that the jobs created during the PLP’s term in office were overwhelmingly created on projects left in train by the FNM – at Atlantis, in Abaco and in Exuma.

Indeed, in Exuma, it was just the ribbon-cutting that was left for the PLP to do at the Four Seasons.  When that operation faltered in 2006 it was left to the FNM returning to office in 2007 to find a new hotel owner and operator in Sandals.  If Galanis can find an anchor project undertaken in Rum Cay or in Eleuthera during Christie’s first term in office he should advise Bahamians where they might find them.

Galanis is silent on Grand Bahama where the FNM attracted Hutchison Whampoa to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the development of the Transshipment Port, in redeveloping the Grand Bahama International Airport, and in the construction of the Our Lucaya Hotel.

Also on the FNM’s watch mega ship care and repair was developed in Grand Bahama, the Pelican Bay resort was constructed and new investment and technology was introduced into the island’s oil storage and transshipment facilities.  Christie’s legacy in Grand Bahama continues to be the closure of the Royal Oasis Hotel following the 2005 hurricane, a resort he was proud to open with the police band in tow, weeks after coming to office for the first time in 2002.

As Galanis seeks to give credit for development in The Bahamas he would do better to glance through the pages of the 40th Anniversary of Independence book assembled by Jones Publications.  The book records, among other things, the infrastructural developments of the past 40 years of independence.  The pictorial representation is incomplete but still if one were to stamp PLP or FNM on the lasting permanent improvements in our infrastructure they would overwhelmingly be stamped FNM.

Nationalists who promote the wellbeing and glory of one’s own fundamental values 

In three non-consecutive terms in office the FNM shaped the infrastructural landscape of our country: the new town centers in South Beach, Carmichael Road and Elizabeth Estates; the new government ministry complexes – education, health, customs headquarters, new courts in New Providence.   Then there are the Judicial Complex, Police Headquarters, and new C. A. Smith government administrative complex in Grand Bahama.

The new taxi call-up system at Prince George Dock and the hair-braiders’ pavilion also at the Prince George Wharf, the National Art Gallery and the Junkanoo Expo are all FNM accomplishments as are the extension and or upgrade of electricity, telephone and water services throughout the Family Islands, new community health clinics on eight Family Islands including Grand Bahama, Bimini, Abaco, Spanish Wells, Harbour Island and San Salvador and another in South Beach, New Providence; new schools, primary and secondary, in New Providence and also in Grand Bahama, Abaco, and Long Island, and expansion of other existing schools around the country.  A new airport terminal building and runway were constructed at San Salvador and the airport at Rock Sound, Eleuthera was acquired, the runway resurfaced and a new terminal building constructed.

A new international sea port, the new airport terminal building in Marsh Harbour, Abaco, the new government administration complex and the new community hospital nearing completion in central Abaco were all FNM accomplishments.  And the FNM dredged and deepened Nassau Harbour (over the objections of the PLP), built the new Nassau straw market, constructed new magistrates courts and acquired and began restoration of a new judicial complex in Nassau; commenced the three-phased redevelopment of LPIA opening the new U.S. Departure terminal and leaving the International Arrival Terminal to be opened weeks following the 2012 general election.

The new library and communications center at COB was realized by the FNM as were the new national stadium, the 20-corridor-plus New Providence roads and utility upgrade project and the new four-lane Airport Gateway Project.  The new adolescent and child care facility at Sandilands Hospital, the new emergency and operating theater wing at Rand Memorial Hospital in Grand Bahama; the new Critical Care Block now under construction at Princess Margaret Hospital, and new community hospitals under construction in Exuma are all FNM accomplishments.  The list is unending.

Social conscience in government

Socially the FNM has been responsible for fulfilling the PLP’s unfulfilled promise in virtually every sector of Bahamian life.

Since 1992 the FNM freed the airwaves and licensed private radio broadcasts, made access to cable television possible and introduced live T.V. coverage of meetings of Parliament from gavel to gavel.  The FNM introduced elected local government in its second term in office – a promise first made by the PLP in the 1950s while in opposition and reiterated again in 1968 as government but never brought to fruition.

The FNM privatized BTC and liberalized the communications sector.

The FNM also increased old age pensions, established a resident Court of Appeal and appointed Bahamians as justices in that court for the first time. They established the Industrial Tribunal, introduced minimum wage, introduced sick leave and enhanced maternity leave benefits, established minimum standards and conditions of employment, reduced the work week from 48 to 40 hours, increased the school leaving age from 14 to 16, removed discrimination from our inheritance laws and provided in law that all children, regardless of the marital status of their parents, have two parents. And the FNM created the Eugene Dupuch Law School where Galanis’ wife is proud to serve as principal.

The FNM also established the UWI Medical School faculty in The Bahamas, introduced unemployment benefits, introduced a prescription drug benefit and enacted a Freedom of Information Act. It is only left for the PLP to sign the appointed day notice to bring the act into force.

The FNM appointed the first Bahamian directors of Legal Affairs and of Public Works since independence, appointed the first women to the Bahamas Cabinet since independence, Doris Johnson having been dismissed prior to 1973. The FNM was also responsible for the appointment of the first female chief justice, the first female president of the Court of Appeal, the first female speaker of the House of Assembly, and since independence, the first female president of the Senate. In its second term in office the FNM caused 50 percent of the Senate to be comprised of women.

Galanis seems to believe that the PLP has a legacy in public housing. In reality the Pindling PLP government struggled to complete housing developments under development by the UBP government in Yellow Elder and Big Pond.

It was not until 1982 and the appointment of a young Hubert Ingraham to Cabinet that the PLP undertook new government housing projects – at Elizabeth Estates, Flamingo Gardens, Nassau Village and Palm Tree Estates in New Providence, and housing estates were undertaken in Freeport and in Eight Mile Rock, Grand Bahama and in Cooper’s Town, Abaco. Ingraham was dismissed from Cabinet two years later and the new government housing initiative stalled. It did not resume until after the FNM’s 1992 election victory after which new housing projects were undertaken at Millennium, Jubilee, and Emerald Gardens. The pace was improved under the first Christie-led government but the overall poor standard of construction of that government’s housing program dramatically curtailed its benefits. 

Unfinished agendas 

Yes, Galanis, there is an unfinished agenda for development in our country, but it is the FNM that has such an agenda. It is an agenda of the ‘good’ who, having been too young to be a part of the first revolution and having been forced out of the ruling party, became intent on their watch after 1992 on realizing the new long-awaited second revolution which they sought to achieve through improved social policies, enhanced economic opportunities, broadened Bahamian ownership in the economy and open, transparent and accountable government. 

The agenda of the PLP and in particular of this Christie led-PLP government is an unfinished agenda of obtaining privileges and benefits for a select few. It is an unfinished agenda that suggests that holding up those heroes of the first revolution imperfect – though they be – is sufficient. 

That is why Perry Christie could travel to Washington D.C., and talk about social justice on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech but remain silent on the shameful mismanagement of an investigation into alleged abuse in a Bahamas government detention center at home.

Yes, Galanis, the PLP is in dire need of new causes to champion. They can begin by recognizing the right of the opposition to a voice in Parliament. They can begin by championing open, honest accountability and transparent government.

They can begin by committing themselves to fiscal restraint, abandoning wasteful expenditure on useless or unnecessary expensive foreign travel, and on the granting of government contracts to politically-connected but unqualified contractors.

They can begin to act to create real jobs. They can begin by stopping the politicization of crime. They can begin by acting so as to bring honor to our name internationally.

Finally, in the spirit of championing causes and promoting transparency, Galanis might begin by telling the Bahamian people why he was denied his party’s nomination to return to the House of Assembly and why, following so promising a career start, he elected to leave the engagement of the renowned accounting firm which had trained and groomed him for leadership.

September 07, 2013

thenassauguardian

Caribbean Blog International

Philip Galanis on the Progressive Liberal Party’s (PLP) 60th anniversary - (Part - 1)>>>

Philip Galanis on the Progressive Liberal Party’s (PLP) 60th anniversary - (Part - 1)

A response to Philip Galanis on ‘The PLP at 60’, pt. 1

By Kirkland Turner

Philip Galanis picked the wrong day to publish his piece on the Progressive Liberal Party’s 60th anniversary. Its publication in The Nassau Guardian coincided with the publication of Rupert Missick Jr.’s thoughtful article in The Tribune entitled “The Cuban Detainees and the Long Awaited Revolution”.

Galanis’ piece regurgitated the PLP propaganda line that “God gave The Bahamas to the PLP”. These words were actually spoken on the floor of the House of Assembly by a former member – a minister no less – and stand as stunning testimony to the frightening culture of entitlement and exceptionalism that has long corrupted the PLP.

It is a sickness with multiple delusional aspects that leads them, for example, to believe that rules which apply to other people do not apply to them, that ‘taking care’ of PLP cronies at the public’s expense is alright, that nobody loves their country as well as they do, that victimization of their opponents is justifiable, and that branding fellow citizens as traitors is also justifiable.

It also accounts for the persistent lie perpetrated against the FNM that that party was against independence when, in fact, the leaders of the FNM were passionate advocates of independence but were convinced that Sir Lynden Pindling was not the right person to lead an independent Bahamas. The Bahamian electorate thought otherwise and elected him and the PLP.

The FNM came to this conclusion for a number of reasons including the fact that while they were still members of the PLP they were beaten up in broad daylight by PLP goons who were ordered not to allow them to speak at a meeting in Lewis Yard. Their judgment that Sir Lynden was not the right person to lead an independent Bahamas was vindicated by events, some of which I shall refer to here.

A nationalist party?

In his column Galanis describes the PLP as “The Bahamas’ first and some would argue only nationalist party”. The most recent reference to the PLP and nationalists was by its current leader, Perry Christie, who termed his party a “black nationalist party”. He has not chosen to so describe his party since its re-election as government last year.

Perhaps that would be offensive to one of his Cabinet ministers and to the many wealthy white local and international sponsors whom he and his party so ardently court, in some cases with generous gifts of Bahamian land and other special considerations.

The dictionary offers a number of views on the term nationalist, ranging from the simple “an ideology which is pro-independence, pro self-rule or pro-separatist” to a more complex “an ideology that creates and sustains a nation as a concept of a common identity for groups of humans”. Nationalism, it is said, “seeks the preservation of identity, features and promotes the well-being, and the glory of one’s own fundamental values”.

While the PLP can justify itself as a political party that sought and achieved political independence for The Bahamas, the jury is certainly still out on whether its policies in government have served to create a common identity for the groups of humans living in The Bahamas and entitled to citizenship on July 10, 1973. Many would assert just the opposite.

Still others might claim that PLP policies facilitated the infiltration of a violent drug culture into our country in the late 1970s and early 1980s, contributing to the destruction of traditional family and social values, branding The Bahamas internationally as a “nation for sale”, and compromising the government which suffered the humiliation of being disparaged and criticized in the international community.

Two PLP Cabinet ministers were forced to resign their posts in the face of serious allegations of corruption, and then two other Cabinet ministers were fired because of their stance against corruption in high places. The government suffered a final humiliation when the serving Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy Leader of the Party A.D. Hanna resigned his posts not wishing to be aligned with so compromised a government. Surely this was not leadership by nationalists interested in promoting the well-being and the glory of our fundamental values.

As The Bahamas’ reputation suffered, the government’s pronouncements about our sovereign independence and our nationalism became more strident, even shrill. There are echoes of this in recent hysterical charges of “siding with the enemy” and “treason” belching from members of the present Cabinet.

Missick’s article goes straight to the heart of the matter. Speaking of aspiring revolutionaries who missed the “first revolution”, Missick suggests that some in this generation of imitator revolutionaries are satisfied to mouth “frothing, hyperbolic defense of nationhood and national identity” when in fact their noise is of a “generation desperate to fight a revolution, only it’s not the one that is actually theirs to fight”.

The sad reality is that when The Bahamas joined the international campaign against the illicit drug trade it was not from a position of principle or even one of strength but rather from a position of weakness, the PLP government and its leaders were so compromised as to be forced to accept the dictates of the world community.

Some may argue that The Bahamas’ agreement to “Hot Pursuit” and “Ship Rider” anti-drug trafficking arrangements agreed with the United States of America by the Pindling administration was the first surrender of Bahamian sovereignty. While positive developments, it is a sad reality that they were entered into by a compromised government anxious to demonstrate, even though late, a willingness to join the international anti-illicit drug war.

Similarly, a compromised Bahamas government was forced to negotiate and conclude the terms of the lease of the AUTEC Base in Andros from a less than ideal position.

Throughout the decade of the 1980s The Bahamas had only one profile internationally – drugs. It would take the election of the FNM to government in 1992 before The Bahamas could become a respected voice in the international community on a host of issues important to wider Bahamian national interests and national aspirations: protecting the environment, drawing international attention to the human, political and economic crisis in Haiti, achieving the Millennium Development Goals and campaigning to address and contain the epidemic of non-communicable diseases afflicting and killing too many in our population.

Strayed from founding principles

As to the bona fides of the PLP as a nationalist party, an objective look at the history of the PLP reveals that it was created by mixed race men, mostly out of Long Island. These men, but particularly Henry Taylor, had studied the formation and organization of political parties in the United Kingdom.

In writing the constitution for their new political party the founders adopted what they believed to be tried and tested rules and regulations for political parties including, for example, a requirement that the party meet in convention annually. As a result of the diligence of its founders the PLP had without a doubt one of the best institutional frameworks for political association in a modern democracy.

The past 60 years, regrettably, has demonstrated that a constitution creating a strong political party framework is not enough. In fact, it has proved inadequate to ensure that those who came to lead the party in government would be progressive or liberal. And, it proved, sadly, that the party’s name and constitution were inadequate to keep the party’s leadership transparent, accountable or dedicated to good governance.

Galanis should not be surprised that the PLP decided to jettison their constitutional requirement to meet in convention annually. The PLP has often enough jettisoned its principles – particularly when principle interfered with self-aggrandizement, personal advantage and privilege.

Galanis makes a plea for his party to remain progressive and liberal ignoring the fact that those labels are anathema to a party whose primary interest is securing place and position for a selected few connected individuals.

Party history vs. the record

Galanis was careful to list the development of virtually every national institution during the 25-year leadership of Lynden Pindling as PLP accomplishments without acknowledging that these were quite simply the basic requirements of nationhood.

To call one’s country an independent nation and to seek to interact with other nations on the world stage without establishing a central bank, a defence force, a national social security scheme and a tertiary level learning institution would be to contradict the meaning of nationhood.

Galanis, in a glib piece unworthy of the training he received as a chartered accountant and once aspiring leader in one of the most prestigious international public accounting firms, seeks to erase from the national memory the terrible damage to this country caused by visionless, self-interested and corrupt leadership in the PLP.

In a contrived sentence which may or may not actually admit to the official corruption that sullied The Bahamas’ reputation internationally throughout the 1980s and which fatally wounded the legacy of the first prime minister of an independent Bahamas, Galanis said that the Pindling era came to an abrupt end in August 1992 when the PLP government was defeated by the FNM led by Hubert Ingraham.

Democracy stifled in the PLP

Galanis chose to ignore a history that records that following political victory in 1967 but before independence in 1973, the dictatorial self-interested obsessed leadership of the PLP had long dispatched the founders of the party. Perhaps they were inconveniently neither black enough nor educationally refined enough for the young black barrister who wrested control of the party soon after its founding.

By 1965 two free-thinkers among that British-trained lawyer group – Paul Adderley and Orville Turnquest, together with U.S.-trained engineer Holland Smith and businessman Spurgeon Bethel – made their exit from the PLP already concerned that they could never influence or change their party’s leadership. Adderley would return to the PLP, married to the “ideal that could have been” and incapable of aligning himself with others who had made the difficult decision to stay the course in a new party committed to true democracy.

By October 1971 the Dissident Eight – Cecil Wallace Whitfield, Arthur Foulkes, Warren J. Levarity, Maurice Moore, Dr. Curtis McMillan, James (Jimmy) Shepherd, Dr. Elwood Donaldson and George Thompson – also exited the PLP. Given the political environment of the time, their departure from the PLP meant almost certain political death. Most would never see the inside of the House of Assembly as sitting members again.

They left nonetheless because the dictatorial traits they saw growing in their charismatic leader and the personality cult being nurtured around him troubled them to the core of their democratic souls. Cecil Wallace Whitfield famously echoed the U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in his address to the PLP convention during which he announced his resignation from the party proclaiming: “Free at last! Free at Last! My soul is dancing!”

With much of the democratic soul of the PLP having been forced out, the PLP led the country into independence with one of the most conservative (read least progressive or liberal) constitutions agreed for any former British colony in the Caribbean.

The “progressive and liberal” PLP delegation to the Independence Conference rejected an opposition proposal to give Bahamian women full equality and opposed it again in 2002 when the FNM government attempted to correct it. Also, no other Caribbean constitution is so encumbered by requirements for referenda to amend entrenched clauses.

September 06, 2013

thenassauguardian

Caribbean Blog International

Philip Galanis on the Progressive Liberal Party’s (PLP) 60th anniversary - (Part - 2)>>>

Cuban detainees at Carmichael Road Detention Centre have reported that their situation has improved ...since news broke of alleged beatings and mistreatment at the facility

 

 Miami Group Notes “Improved Conditions” At Detention Centre

 The Bahama Journal:




Miami-based human rights group members, who have launched relentless attacks on The Bahamas following allegations that Cubans were abused at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre, say detainees are reporting “improved conditions” at the facility.

Democracy Movement Leader, Ramon Saul Sanchez said over the past three months he has heard nothing but bad things from Cubans detained at the detention centre, but since news broke of alleged beatings and mistreatment, the remaining detainees have reported that their situation has improved.

“We’re not getting complaints of any mistreatment. In fact, they say they are treating them better in the detention centre itself,” he said.

“However, some [detainees] in the high security of the prison [are complaining that the conditions] are not proper for someone not charged of a crime. The environment is bad for them. They are saying that although the water is very bad and can’t be consumed the treatment is better on the part of the guards.”

Last week, Democracy Movement held a string of interviews with Cuban and other former detainees to hear their stories of alleged abuse and mistreatment in The Bahamas and elsewhere in the world.

Testimonies came from Mauricio Valdez and Randy Rodriguez who were being held at Her Majesty’s Prisons (HMP) and who were granted asylum in the United States last week.

According to Mr. Sanchez, the men noted that they were not allowed to shower for 15 days while at HMP and that they had to urinate and defecate in a slop bucket that was only taken out every two days.

Now that those two men are in the United States Mr. Sanchez said he is more concerned about the Cubans who were left in The Bahamas, but he noted that based on what he has heard so far things at the centre are getting better.

Even though that may be the case, the Democracy Movement spokesperson said they will not stop their protests until the government releases the full details of investigations into alleged abuse at the detention centre.

An alleged report, which was leaked last week, noted that at least five RBDF officers admitted to abusing and beating the detainees on several instances.

Government officials have maintained that the investigation into abuse allegations is not complete.

Allegations of sexual and mental abuse by the officers were also levied by some detainees, but Mr. Sanchez said this is just the tip of the iceberg and said his group will not stop until the full report is released.

“We want to refocus our effort in demanding from the Bahamian government to disclose the investigation,” he said. “We also want them to make available to the press, those [Cubans who] are still detained in The Bahamas and somehow demand from the Cuban government to make available the victims [who were] sent back to Cuba, so that all their testimonies can be obtained. We need to know what happened to them.

“The results have to be made public and the investigators must have no restraint in that.”

Mr. Sanchez said he is hoping that the Bahamian government finally agrees to sit down and talk with them to clear the air on this issue once and for all.

But in the meantime he said the group has delivered testimonies from alleged victims to The Bahamas Consulate Office in Miami, Florida.

He said the group is still waiting to have a meeting with Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell.

03 September, 2013

Jones Bahamas

Caribbean Blog International

The long awaited revolution in The Bahamas

The Cuban Detainees And The Long-Awaited Revolution

By Rupert Missick Jr

THERE are a generation of Bahamians, men in particular, who in their minds missed out on their opportunity to make revolution … not necessarily “the revolution” or “a revolution” but any revolution.

 

They have a subconscious fear that they will close the final chapter of their lives as tepid footnotes in the annals of our history.

 

You see, they were old enough to have fed on the godlike words of Martin Luther King Jr, to drink the prophetic sermons of Malcolm X and bathed in the hot bath of Newton and Seal’s Black Panther Philosophy but were too young to do anything about it other than channel their teenage and collegiate angst to sympathize and dream of the day when they too could really speak truth to power.

 

They read the fiery words of CLR James and Fanon and believed that one day, when they had their turn in directing the wheel of the nation’s progress, that “Wretched of the Earth” would become the basis of their national and foreign policy.

 

They envied the testicular fortitude of Fidel Castro, Jomo Kenyatta and Nelson Mandela and promised themselves that when it was their turn, they would be no less of a man than they were.

 

This was the generation who, as doe-eyed children looked upon Butler, Pindling, Hanna and Foulkes on the platforms of the Southern Recreation Grounds as they clung to the hem of their mommy’s housecoat.

 

These are the ones who sat at a distance when the founding fathers heatedly debated Independence under the shade of their newly hard fought for political power.

 

But when they came of age, their bodies eager to convert that potential energy into a kinetic force of progressive postcolonial action, they found that the Caesar of the day, unlike his Roman counterpart, had indeed surrounded himself with fat, sleek-headed men.

 

They found a Bahamas that was no longer willing to, or at least did not see the need to march, to rebel, to revolt and even if they did, who would it be against?

 

The colonialist, beaten and worn by the blitz and the strain the colony placed on their purse, were gone and happy to leave; the white men who ran Bay Street, while an ever present and available scapegoat had been virtually castrated and became, in their estimation, regrettable partners in building this new nation.

 

The country to the north that Cuba and Jamaica had once defied was now sacrosanct and the source of most imports and the reason behind most jobs.

 

They found themselves in a place where the sexiness of the physical struggle against oppression was gone and the romance of a postcolonial world was a smouldering ember in the campfire of greater men than they were.
 

They woke up with the reigns of political power, and by extension the means to direct economic power, in their hands.

 

So, now, if their revolution would come, it would come for them.

 

They were now faced with being actors in a more difficult kind of revolution. This revolution would require a more existential change; a revolution of consciousness, a revolution that would require them to abandon their new found comfort and launch into unchartered waters.

 

It required them to be creative, to reject the perpetuation of paternalism, of tribalism to teach a new reality to a new people.

 

But they failed. It was too abstract for them; it was not the kind of fight they were looking for.

 

This was a fight that was complicated, required work and had no clear enemy. In fact, in this fight sometimes they were the enemy and other times the people were the enemy. But how could you ever admit that out loud?

 

No, better resurrect the ghosts of the enemies from the decades before, the “hidden, outside forces” that they wanted to fight in the 60s and 70s.

 

Perhaps the biggest opportunity of their lifetime would have been to transform the Bahamas’ constitution into a progressive, modern document that could have been the envy of the hemisphere.

 

But through negotiations between tradition and the status quo we were served a bland report which amounted to a watered down porridge of convenience, necessity and compromise.

 

With the more “radical” positions on the Constitutional Commission beaten back by “reality”, this great post-colonial Bahamian generation now faces a future where they will die with their Queen or her successors reigning over them, a bicameral parliamentary system with an appointed senate, and a final court of “real adults” in London to correct their judicial errors.

 

In this regard I found the juxtaposition of our Prime Minister standing in the same spot where a great man once drew the attention of his nation to the “fierce urgency of now” and exhorted the world against taking the “tranquilizing drug of gradualism” heartbreaking.

 

I don’t know if that generation will ever understand what they missed, what they had, what they let slip through their fingers.

In the United States, activists like King, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers never had the kind of power that the men of their same generation had in the Bahamas.

 

Even today, there is no constitutional power in the United States which is comparable to the power which Mr Christie wields here at home.
 

What could Rep John Lewis, the last living speaker of the original March on Washington, who as a 23 year old led and organized the march from Selma to Montgomery, who faced down the dogs, hoses and state troupers of Southern racists, who is now only three years older than Perry Christie, what could he have done for his country and his people if he possessed the kind of constitutional powers that Mr Christie has now.

 

Mr Christie’s grand appearance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and his call to stand up for “dignity” and “social justice” is punctuated by his laid back response and acquiescence to the counterintuitive, self-destructive approach his minister has taken to handling the controversy of the brutal beating of illegal immigrants at home.

 

Today the language that we hear surrounding the controversy of the Cuban detainees, the frothing, hyperbolic defense of nationhood and national identity, the subtextual suggestion that those who fail to defend the abuse of the detainees are somehow ashamed of their skin colour, the accusations of aid giving to the enemy and promises that political opponents will be crushed, these are the death rattle of a generation desperate to fight a revolution, only it’s not the one that is actually theirs to fight.
 

Our great post-colonial generation missed a teachable moment where honesty, forthrightness and transparency could have not only shortened the length of this issue but could have served as an excellent counterpoint to the malignant dishonesty prevalent in our society.

 

Instead, they hunkered down, wrapped themselves in our flag and warmed themselves with anti-colonial rhetoric.

 

These words neither protect nor advance our nationhood. They are just words and they will never fill the hole that their lack of creativity and courage will leave behind in our society.

 

It’s cheap invective that in the long run means nothing significant to either the world or the future of this country.

 

But in the end, it’s red meat for the base; it’s a pleasant distraction from the work of the long awaited revolution.

September 02, 2013

Tribune242

Caribbean Blog International