...the relationship between The Bahamas’ first Prime Minister, Lynden Oscar Pindling and notorious swindler Robert Vesco

Wikileaks: Revealed - Secret Cables That Uncovered Concerns Over Pindling Link To Notorious Swindler

 
By PACO NUNEZ

Tribune News Editor



AS BAHAMIANS basked in the optimistic aura of newly-won independence, US diplomats were already showing concern about a number of worrying trends developing in the fledgling island nation.

Prominent among these, according to a new round of embassy cables released by Wikileaks, were the relationship between the country’s first Prime Minister and notorious swindler Robert Vesco, as well as claims that early PLP leaders propped up local businessmen as fronts for their own interests.

In 1973, the man Slate.com labelled “the undisputed king of the fugitive financiers,” was wanted in the United States on a number of fraud allegations and was implicated, as part of the Watergate scandal, of funnelling money to disgraced US president Richard Nixon in a bid to evade justice.

Of particular interest to US Embassy staff was a Miami Herald story on August 5, 1973, linking Vesco’s firms in the Bahamas with the purchase of a $450,000 home by Prime Minister Pindling.

According to one cable, the deal involved the sale of Pindling’s previous home and an office “at inflated prices” to firms controlled by a well-known local businessman closely connected to the PLP.

The businessman, according to embassy staff, had risen in a matter of months “from a nobody to owner of several local firms.”

All of the businessman’s acquisitions were financed through Vesco’s Commonwealth Bank, the cable noted.

“According to unconfirmed reports,” the document said, the businessman “was actually fronting for Pindling and other politicians when he bought several businesses.”

The cable added: “Figuring prominently in the sale of Pindling’s home and office building is Colombus Trust and Co, Ltd, a Vesco-controlled company.”

Another cable noted that in replying to questions posed by FNM MP Cleophas Adderley, Pindling said Vesco’s business activities are being conducted “within the confines of the law.”

“Mr Pindling made no comment on whether he thought these activities were detrimental to the country’s reputation. Questions about possible conflict of interest by the PM or his ministers were not answered.

When the subject of the possible extradition of Vesco was raised with Pindling at a press conference in July, another cable notes, “the Prime Minister replied that extradition was a judicial and not a political matter, and that Vesco was being treated as an investor until such time as he was thought otherwise.

“Mr Pindling said he knew Vesco socially. He said Vesco was . . . merely one of a long string of US investors active here. ‘I have no reason to view him in a separate light.’ Unquote.”

Other cables described a Bahamas working its way to independence as already beset by problems resulting from questionable banking practices.

One April cable, entitled: “Banking and corporate activities in the Bahamas damaging to US interests” said the United States is facing a series of “separate but related problems involving the use of Bahamian banks and corporations for illegal and/or questionable activities which are damaging to American interests”.

It mentions banks engaged in “questionable financing or in some cases clearly illegal activities.”

The cable said: “In most cases the persons involved have been Americans. Although the banks’ precarious financial condition has become evident, GOBI (Bahamas government) banking authorities have failed to move in good time to conserve assets because of political payoffs.”

“The second problem is the use of Bahamian banks and shell corporations for illegal stock manipulation and as a means of avoiding US and other stock regulations.

“The most notable example of this is Robert Vesco’s activities and that of IOS before him. Bahamian monetary authorities have declined to cooperate with the SEC and complained that its efforts to conserve the assets of Vesco’s firm constitute interference in Bahamian internal affairs. Again, there is evidence of local political payoffs.”

In an ominous preview of the damaging allegations that would come nearly a decade later, when the Bahamas was accused of being “a nation for sale” to South American drug lords, the cable noted that “one probe of the bank secrecy problem relates to reports the consulate general has received from IRS agents that narcotics traffickers in the US are depositing their profits in Bahamian accounts. Efforts to investigate this have been thwarted by local bank secrecy laws.”

The cable concludes: “Taken together, the problems outlined above are sufficiently damaging to a variety of American interests that the Consulate General believes they merit a systematic study by interested Washington agencies to see what measures may be available to us to protect these interests. It is proposed that a working group be formed by State, Justice, Treasury and the SEC and/or representatives of the Organised Crime Task Force to look into this matter.”

April 09, 2013

Tribune 242

Caribbean Blog International

In every way and in every segment of life the Bahamian's value system has certainly changed

The Bahamas' changing value system
tribune242 editorial


WE HAVE had several calls about our editorial of February 11, which for the first time revealed the name of an anonymous letter writer, whose identity excited political circles in 1962, but for 49 years remained a mystery. Today, few people would be interested in our mystery man, but in the political turmoil of the sixties, a British editor was threatened with prison for refusing to reveal his identity.

However, with the death of Paul Bower on January 24, memories of those few days in the Magistrate's Court in October, 1963 came flooding back. For several years speculation continued about the letter writer. Today, when it no longer matters, and few would care, we realised that we were now the last living person who knows the letter's author. For the sake of history we revealed it in this column on February 11.

The calls that we have received as a result of that column, were not about the mystery writer, now unmasked, but about the fate of Paul Bower when he refused to give the court the writer's name. No, he did not go to prison as threatened by Magistrate John Bailey, who when off the bench was one of his best friends.

The case ended suddenly when the Guardian owners decided to pay the plaintiffs' damages, and rescue their man from the edge of the cliff. Magistrate Bailey had refused the Guardian leave to appeal his decision of name or prison.

Mr Bower, who was Guardian editor from 1958 to August 1962 (two months before the case came to court in October), asked the magistrate: "What would happen should I refuse (to reveal the writer's name)?"

"You would be in contempt," the Irish magistrate replied.

"What would be the consequences?" Mr Bower pressed. "A fine or a prison sentence," the magistrate shot back.

"Ten days in Her Majesty's prison!" LB Johnson, one of the six PLP plaintiffs, demanded loudly. This exchange was followed by a luncheon adjournment. By the afternoon the case was over, Mr Bower had missed the arrow, the plaintiffs had their damages, and letter writer Bert Cambridge was still a mystery man.

Guardian lawyer James Liddell had argued that not only was the plaintiffs' complaints vexatious, but that what was being complained of before the court was the letter and its content, not the identity of the writer. But the plaintiffs were not buying that argument, nor was the magistrate. In a few weeks time there would be a general election, which the PLP were confident of winning - in fact they lost. Racism was a heavy card being played at the time, and the six PLP plaintiffs -- all lawyers - wanted to know which white man would dare question their integrity in an anonymous letter. What they did not know was that the writer was, like themselves, a black man, a former politician, whose character Mr Bower had described in glowing terms in court. Several of the plaintiffs were Bert Cambridge's friends. In fact he had given music lessons to one of them. Bert Cambridge's Orchestra was the hottest band in town in the twenties and thirties, and music was his career.

But what we find most interesting is the change over the years in public values. In those days it was seldom that one sued a newspaper for defamation, and anything over £100 in damages was certainly unheard of. And so for "An Open Letter to Mr Paul Adderley," published in The Guardian on August 21, 1962 the six lawyers -- Paul Adderley, Loftus Roker, Lynden Pindling, AD Hanna, LB Johnson and Orville Turnquest -- each asked for £100 for the damage perceived to have been done to their reputations, plus costs, which in those days would have been minimal.

However, thanks to the influence over the years of America's legal system where it almost pays to do oneself an injury in a public place and walk away with millions awarded by the courts, Bahamians have adjusted their opinion of their own worth.

In 1962, Orville Turnquest who became the Bahamas' Governor General, was not bloated up with his own importance. He obviously felt well compensated with £100 for the slight he had felt was committed against him. If he had known that it was his old piano teacher, he probably would have slapped him on the back, had a good laugh and they would have gone off to make music together.

However, today we see some of these complaints, many of them vexatious, and the value -- starting in the thousands --that persons put on their own worth and we wonder where they are coming from.

In every way and in every segment of life the Bahamian's value system has certainly changed.

February 18, 2011

tribune242 editorial

Bahamas Blog International

Malcolm Adderley, Melissa Sears - and PLP smears

Melissa Sears and PLP smears
tribune242 editorial:


FIRST IT was Malcolm Adderley, now it is Melissa Sears, and today as the years roll by the PLP party seems to have forgotten its purpose for existence, reminding us rather of the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamzov.

This powerful soliloquy in the Russian novel is a deep, philosophical argument about God, free will and morality.

The Grand Inquisitor berates Christ for giving man the impossible burden of freewill, rather than security. He says that the so-call gift is no gift at all, rather this freedom to choose is a devastating, impossible burden.

People, said the Grand Inquisitor, should have been given no choice, instead, like automatons, they should just shuffle forward according to the will of their Creator.

"Nothing has ever been more insufferable for man than freedom!" concludes the Grand Inquisitor, a belief that seems to be gathering ascendancy within the Opposition party. Rather, like the Grand Inquisitor, the PLP offer their members security -- not freedom of thought. As long as they toe the party line, they will remain secure in the party fold. But get out of line and the Grand Inquisitor turns vicious -- out to destroy any idea of free will.

This tendency did not start recently, under what the electorate was duped into believing was to be a "new" PLP. It started way back in the days when Lynden Pindling returned from England, joined a party that he did not start, and quickly took over.

Malcolm Adderley, who, in the first week of this new year not only walked out of the PLP, but resigned as MP for Elizabeth, reminded his former colleagues that once upon a time in the distant past their party had the "distinction of being built by the blood, sweat and tears of hardworking men and women of humble beginnings, proud of their commitment to uplift the well being and standard of the people."

However, under the Pindling leadership, the party had lost its way. One man's dream replaced the dreams of the many, and for those who did not follow slavishly, political oblivion was the price they had to pay for having a mind of their own. Some of them, like Carlton Francis, a competent teacher, had difficulty finding a job to support their families. Mr Francis certainly was not acceptable in the government's educational system from which he had come and for which he was eminently qualified. Then there were the Dissident Eight, followed by Ed Moxey, and many others who didn't make the headlines, but certainly felt the pain of rejection and vicious scorn.

For seven long years Malcolm Adderley suffered stoically as MP for Elizabeth, until exasperated, he shook the dust from his sandals and walked out. In his farewell speech to the House, he talked of the souls of those who had sacrificed so much to build their party, but would ache as a "result of the venom and ill will that is displayed almost on a daily basis on any member who tries to correct its ills." He talked of the back-biting whispers and disrespect shown him.

And now it is the turn of a young woman, Melissa Sears, who like Mr Adderley was spotted by the party as a rising political star, and invited to join. Recently, for personal reasons -- not political -- she decided to step down as vice-chairman of the PLP. She made no fuss, she gave no interviews, she tried to keep a low profile so as not to embarrass her party. Persons close to her speculated that she had resigned because of disparaging remarks made by Opposition Leader Perry Christie. Mr Christie vehemently denied that he had made any such remarks. She remained silent.

And now the vicious party hacks, using the sophistication of the electronic age, are spreading unfair and untrue rumours to destroy this young woman. It is understood that this vehicle is being financially underwritten by two party hefties, one allegedly a sitting MP. We are not surprised by one of the names mentioned, but, if true, we are certainly surprised by the second. We gave him credit for being smarter than that.

The latest smear was imbedded on the cell phone of an FNM MP, allegedly from Ms Sears. It was an obvious trap. The MP knew that it was not from Ms Sears, because they did not have the type of relationship that was being suggested by the caller. All the sender wanted was for the MP to incriminate himself by falling for the bait, and answering the call. Instead, instinctively knowing that there was a plot afoot and guessing the source, he submitted it to the authorities for investigation. It is now being said that there is no room in the PLP for a strong woman. We say that as long as the Grand Inquisitor controls the party machine, there is no room for a strong man. The others will remain, tip-toeing around in craven fear.

Mr Adderley blamed Mr Christie for allowing PLP hacks to torture him right out of the party. It would probably be nearer the truth to speculate that Mr Christie is as afraid as his colleagues to have the smear-mongers on his case. After all the website has also given him a good flaying when it has suited those behind it.

If someone does not become more responsible in that party and respect the thoughts and opinions of others, that same irresponsible website is going to be the funeral site of the PLP.

April 30, 2010

tribune242

Bahamas Blog International