Bahama Pundit

Swine Flu Outbreak Caused by Descendent of 1918 Pandemic Virus

by Larry Smith

“So vast was the catastrophe...that our minds, surfeited with the horrors of war, refused to realise it. It came and went, a hurricane across the green fields of life, sweeping away our youth in the hundreds of thousands and leaving a toll of sickness and infirmity which will not be reckoned in this generation.” -- article in the Times of London on the 1918 influenza pandemic.

One of the most devastating fires in human history began smouldering in March 1918 in the American midwest, and exploded that August to affect more than a third of the world's population.

New research confirms that the virus that caused the 1918 influenza pandemic is directly linked to the current swine flu virus, which has the potential to cause a new pandemic.

Scientists say the 1918 virus spread in pigs and eventually produced the current H1N1 swine flu virus, which has led health authorities to declare an international emergency.

PLP Contradictions Over the Pindling Legacy

by Larry Smith

Just over 20 years ago, a group of top British investigative journalists left their jobs at the Sunday Times to piece together the fantastic tale of the cocaine trade in Colombia, the Bahamas and Miami.

Their explosive 1988 book - the Cocaine Wars - described how Carlos Lehder, the Colombian cartel's transport chief, took control of an island in the Exumas "while the government of Prime Minister Sir Lynden Pindling did its best to help him feel at home."

The story goes back to the early 1970s. Within a year of independence, Bahamian police were warning that drug trafficking was a "serious«problem," a US Senate report noted, "and by 1979, that problem was a crisis....both narcotics smuggling and government corruption grew at an extraordinary rate."

Could San Salvador be Captain Kidd's Treasure Island?

by Larry Smith

My name is Captain Kidd, God's laws I did forbid
And most wickedly I did, as I sailed, as I sailed

I'd ninety bars of gold, as I sailed, as I sailed,
I'd ninety bars of gold, and dollars manifold,
With riches uncontrolled, as I sailed.

If you believe the noise in the market, the good folks of San Salvador have unimaginable wealth in their grasp, and are taking advice from an international media figure named Roberto Savio - an Italian part-time resident since the 1980s - on how to divvy up the spoils.

Lending a stamp of authenticity to the story, Dr Savio recently presented a document appropriately entitled "From Individual Greed to Collective Happiness" to a standing room-only public meeting in Cockburn Town. It offers a blueprint on how to share out billions in gold, silver and gems believed to lie in a collapsed cave at Fortune Hill, on the island's barren east coast.

Nassau Should Learn From Florence—Where Historical Tourism Earns Big Bucks

by Larry Smith

Several weeks ago Tough Call was in Savannah - a 200-plus-year-old city in Georgia that is about the size of Nassau, with an impressive level of historical preservation that earns billions of tourist dollars a year.

But Savannah can't begin to compete with Florence - a 2000-plus-year-old city in Italy that I had the opportunity to explore a few days ago. The past is overwhelmingly present throughout this historical treasure house of some 365,000 people - and it sends a crystal-clear message to Bahamians.

In Florence there is scarcely a modern building to be found and, in a curious reversal of conditions in Nassau, it is the contemporary buildings that are most likely to suffer from neglect. In Florence, a historic building (the earliest date back to the 11th century) is a ticket to affluence rather than an encumbrance to be razed under cover of darkness.

Privatisation and the General Strike

by Larry Smith

Union leader Robert Farquarson has raised the spectre of a general strike for the first time in 50 years, in a bid to derail privatisation plans for the Bahamas Telecommunications Company.

Workers blocked Bay Street and engaged in noisy demonstrations to register their concern over the privatisation process. BTC is the first public corporation to be put on the chopping block - although it has taken a decade for the axe to fall.

The threat of a national walk-out by some 45,000 union members was meant to invoke memories of the 1958 general strike, which shut New Providence down for almost three weeks. So it is worth taking a look at what happened then.

Sir Clifford Darling's 2002 book, A Bahamian Life Story, provides most of the background necessary to form an appreciation. In addition to his personal perspective as a strike leader, the book features secret reports by the colonial authorities, as well as contemporary newspaper accounts.

A Visit to Savannah and an Update on the Revitalisation of Nassau

by Larry Smith

"Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get." - Forrest Gump

SAVANNAH, Georgia— Live oak and magnolia trees drape the historic squares of this 18th century town, whose cobbled streets and museum-quality buildings attract hordes of movie producers and millions of visitors from all over the world.

Greater Savannah is about the same size as Nassau, and it is a model of architectural preservation, restoration and adaptive reuse. But since this is still America, the park bench where Tom Hanks sat to deliver his opening lines in the movie Forrest Gump is one of the city's top visitor attractions.

Almost every gift shop offers copies of Clint Eastwood's 1997 film, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which portrays Savannah's eccentric Southern society through the lens of a celebrated murder trial. And tour guides will mention these cinematic novelties in the same breath as Savannah's actual history.

Who The Hell Was George Campbell?

by Larry Smith

Shipping is the lifeblood of the global economy. And while most people know that the Bahamas is a major flag of convenience (with over 1600 vessels registered), few are aware that one of the world's greatest ship designers once called our islands home.

George Campbell left his imprint on an entire global industry, but moved about largely unnoticed - and nowhere more so than here. In fact, when his estate recently gave $10 million to the College of the Bahamas, most Bahamians had never heard his name, although he had lived in Nassau intermittently since the late 1960s.

His contribution to industrial development goes back to the dark days of the Second World War, when the first mass-produced freighter - known as the Liberty ship - helped win the war and drove the resurgence of global trade afterwards.

But Campbell had nothing to do with the Liberty ship - a simple 11,000-ton freighter fitted with a crude reciprocating steam engine capable of pushing it at a leisurely 10 ½ knots. Mass produced in American shipyards to a British design, these ships delivered the troops and supplies that were crucial to the Allied war effort.

The Story of South Eleuthera

by Larry Smith

ROCK SOUND: Other than sun, sand and sea, South Eleuthera's attractions are rather modest - a landlocked ocean hole where you can feed the snappers, an 87-year-old fig tree spreading along the highway, and a historic Methodist manse.

The Mission House dates back two centuries, and has been meticulously restored as a museum and community centre. The work has been driven by Peter MacClean (a retired British helicopter pilot who looks every bit the part of a Methodist minister) and his wife Pat (who sold land on Eleuthera in the 1950s for Sir Sidney Oakes). A foundation, led by Chandra Sands (daughter of the late Rock Sound entrepeneur Albert Sands), has raised over half a million dollars to support the project.

Plans to operate this two-storey frame house on the waterfront are now being drafted with the help of the Antiquities Corporation. The Mission has seen a lot of history in its time, and among the items featured in its museum will be obsolete medical equipment. That's because in 1942 the building became a clinic, courtesy of American industrialist Arthur Vining Davis.

Davis was chairman of Alcoa, the world's biggest producer of aluminium. He was also one of the famous 'three tycoons' who triple-handedly created Eleuthera's 20th century economy. The other two were a New England clothmaker named Austin Levy, and Pan American Airways founder Juan Trippe.

America's CIA Legacy

by Larry Smith

"We went all over the world and we did what we wanted. God, we had fun." -- Al Ulmer, chief of the CIA's Far East division in the 1950s.

There was just one book on my holiday reading list this year - the 700-page Legacy of Ashes published recently by Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times investigative reporter, Tim Weiner.

It is an utterly absorbing history of the United States Central Intelligence Agency - from its foundation after World War Two to its recent humiliation after asserting that Iraq bristled with weapons of mass destruction.

Weiner presents on-the-record accounts taken from recently declassified documents as well as the personal recollections of those involved. And the bottom line is that “the most powerful country in the history of Western civilization has failed to create a first-rate spy service (and) that failure constitutes a danger to the national security of the United States.”

Wow! When Tough Call was a leftist college student in the early 1970s, the CIA was considered omnipotent - a mythical monster whose tentacles reached out to control the world. We believed it was capable of the most extraordinary things, and we detested its power and influence.

Going Down Burma Road

by Larry Smith

Goin' down Burma Road...ain' ga lick nobody.

For most Bahamians Burma Road refers to the 1942 riots over pay for the men who worked on the wartime air bases in Nassau. Two rioters were killed by British troops, more than 40 people injured and over a hundred arrested, but those unprecedented events also led to long overdue reforms.

The name 'Burma Road' had currency because of what went on at the same time on the other side of the world. In Southeast Asia work was underway on the real Burma Road so that the Allies could move troops and supplies into China to fight the Japanese.

Construction of that Burma Road began in December 1942. Cutting through mountainous territory in the north of Burma, it was considered a remarkable engineering achievement. The Bahamian equivalent was in the vicinity of Blake Road, which runs from Caves Point to the former pine barren that became Windsor Field - and later our international airport.

Explosives were used to cut through the limestone hills behind the caves to provide fill for the new airfield. But there are more significant parallels between what is going on in Burma today, and what took place in the Bahamas 65 years ago.