Bahama Pundit

Earth Day Reflections on the Bahamian Environment

by Larry Smith

In the early 1970s I was a fresh-faced college student totally absorbed with counterculture politics and the new environmentalism in America.

We grew our hair, wore tattered clothes, spoke in ways that horrified the old folks, liberated ourselves sexually, and ridiculed the straightjacketed behaviour of the previous generation. This cycle of cultural rebellion peaked in 1970.

And that was when Earth Day happened. A grassroots-inspired "national teach-in on pollution and ecological problems", it involved tens of millions of Americans across the country, all passionately protesting corporate and governmental abuse of the environment.

Together with our scepticism of big business and big government, my generation shared a new and very emotional interest in nature. That first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 marked the beginnings of a mass movement to curb pollution, conserve resources, protect wilderness and cherish biodiversity. We saw planet Earth in its totality for the very first time.

Christie's PLP has Returned to its Undemocratic Past

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

On Jeff Lloyd’s radio talk show last week Monday, PLP Chairman Raynard Rigby said that he was not there to talk about the FNM’s “foolish propaganda” but to deal with issues. Mr. Lloyd had asked him about FNM complaints over the availability of parks for public meetings.

It may come as a surprise to Mr. Rigby that while there are many burning issues facing the Bahamian electorate in this election, none is more important than confronting his party’s threats to our democracy.

Opposition complaints about the undemocratic practices of the PLP Government are not foolish propaganda; they are a central, fundamental issue. Democracy is indispensable to the orderly progress and development of the country and the freedom and security of its citizens.

To undermine the independence of the judiciary is to attack our democracy; to intimidate citizens in the exercise of their rights and freedoms is to attack our democracy; to victimize citizens, especially the most vulnerable, is to attack our democracy; and to engage in unfair election practices is to attack our democracy.

Bahamas Government Incompetence on Taxes & Transport

by Larry Smith

For years there have been calls to restrict vehicle imports in order to reduce Nassau's traffic congestion and tackle rising fuel costs and environmental concerns.

Energy & Environment Minister Dr Marcus Bethel has drafted the country's first-ever energy policy, which is expected to address the transportation sector in terms of fuel conservation, alternative energy and pollution control. But it has yet to be publicly discussed.

Meanwhile James Smith, his colleague over at Finance, says little can be done about the rising number of vehicles on our roads that burn ever more expensive fuel because the public treasury relies on import taxes.

Critics say this conflict of interest underscores the government's astounding incompetence in failing to devise both a sensible long-term tax policy and an effective traffic strategy.

Public Funds & Political Interference as the Bahamas Election Approaches

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

In response to criticisms that there may have been political interference and manipulation in the recent promotions in the Royal Bahamas Police Force, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Security Cynthia Pratt is quoted by The Bahama Journal as asking: “When is there not politics involved?”

According to The Journal, Mrs. Pratt then queried whether the police consider it political interference when the political directorate gives the Force money for cars, weapons and other necessities.

Cabinet ministers and others in the present administration seem to have difficulty with our system of government and the separation and delimitation of functions between the various authorities and agencies of the state, even the foundational concept of separation of powers between the three principal divisions of the state itself.

Land Wars Continue on Rum Cay

by Larry Smith

A pivotal ruling has been made in one of two injunctions filed by prominent Bahamians over the past year in an effort to stop foreign speculators from carving up and selling thousands of acres of disputed land on the 45-square-mile island of Rum Cay.

The land wars have fueled a controversy that involves powerful Nassau lawyers (on both sides of the political fence), the few dozen poor and formerly enslaved inhabitants of Rum Cay, wealthy second home owners, and a bevy of foreign and local fortune seekers.

A March 26 ruling by Supreme Court Justice Jeanne Thompson extends one of the injunctions and awards costs to attorney Craig Butler, a grandson of the late governor-general Sir Milo Butler, who is representing the family's claim to more than a thousand acres in the west of Rum Cay.

The ruling also appears to validate the Butler claim, making it more difficult for other claimants. Rum Cay has been at the centre of a maze of competing land claims in recent years, with several developments underway - some spurious, some real.

Judicial Independence and the Rule of Law in the Bahamas

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

The debate over the independence of Bahamian high court judges has exploded again, and with a vengeance. There can hardly be a more important issue since it is about the rule of law and goes to the very heart of our democratic governance and the protection of our rights as citizens.

The administration of Prime Minister Perry Christie has shown little regard for the conventions which are so important to the proper functioning of our parliamentary democracy and to its own proclaimed code of ethics.

Mr. Christie, who knows better, has allowed some of his ministers to violate the most fundamental conventions and rules of cabinet government without even the mildest of reprimands. These violations have been pointed out repeatedly in this column.

The Bahamas, CARICOM and the 50th Birthday of the European Union

by Larry Smith

"Leave this Europe, where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the corner of every one of their own streets, and in all the corners of the globe." Franz Fanon, the Wretched of the Earth, 1963

An amusing Associated Press photograph caught my eye recently. It showed the French president, Jaques Chirac, rubbing noses with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, at a celebration marking the 50th birthday of the European Union.

The fact that this ceremonial summit and public show of affection took place in a new Berlin - the capital of a reunited Germany at the centre of an integrated Europe - is the most powerful reminder yet that the horrors of the first half of the 20th century are behind us.

The European Union had its start in the aftermath of the most destructive war in human history; a war that killed 60 million people - including the murder of some 20 million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and other unfortunates in the Holocaust.

Political Victimisation in the Bahamas

by Sir Arthur Foulkes

On a visit to Inagua last year, I had the opportunity to chat with a man who was introduced to me as one of the sons of Wellington Smith. Having regard to the experiences of his early years, I was pleased to see that he had become a confident and intelligent gentleman. Still, there was a trace of not bitterness exactly, but something more like a steely defiance.

Back in the 1970s many Bahamians who had aligned themselves with the fledgling Free National Movement were viciously victimized and intimidated by powerful people in the PLP and their henchmen.

The powerful ones seemed to think that it was a mortal sin for anyone to dare oppose the ruling party and that they were justified in their efforts to break the will of their opponents and to punish them for their audacity.

Some of the worst cases in this brutal campaign took place at Inagua. The case of Wellington Smith was perhaps the most egregious.