EDITOR, The Tribune.

THE 1980s drug era was one of the darkest times in our modern history. The Bahamas was thoroughly shamed on the world stage, our name dragged through the mud and the country branded a “nation for sale”.                       

The recent US Grand Jury indictment of alleged Bahamian drug smug- glers, including senior law enforcement and high ranking officials, has been compared to that notori- ous era. In fact, the details of this new scandal reveal it to be far more serious than that earlier dark time.

Back then, certain mem- bers of the Pindling Regime were accused of what amounted to turning a blind eye - accepting bribes for looking the other way while Colombian drug dealers used remote islands in The Bahamas as transshipment points to smuggle cocaine into the United States.

According to the new indictment, what is unfold- ing today is far more egregious than convenient blindness, in at least five ways:

1. Far from just looking the other way, senior police officers, government officials and at least one high-ranking politician are said to have been actively involved in the smuggling of tons of cocaine through The Bahamas into the United States.

2. Adding insult to injury, these officers and officials allegedly disrespected the trust placed of their US colleagues under the OPBAT partnership, giving Colombian drug dealers sensitive secrets entrusted to them by the dEa and US Coast Guard regarding interdiction plans and strategies, potentially placing US operatives at risk. This includes disclosing the location of Coast Guard vessels to drug traffickers. The potential for catastrophic consequences for The Bahamas if US service persons were to be made vulnerable and harmed by drug traffickers as a result of these disclosures is too terrible to contemplate.

3. Among those accused is the Bahamian police officer in charge of airports and ports, who is said to have facilitated the transport of drugs through our official ports of entry and exit. The allegations include smuggling on US-registered aircraft. The threat to our pre-clearance privileges is obvious.

4. Whereas in the 1980s, the drugs moving through The Bahamas benefitted Colombian cartels - that is to say, non-military private illegal interests - it is claimed that Bahamian officials are now actively involved in transporting cocaine for the benefit of FARC, a far-left guerrilla army and terrorist organisation which is on the US foreign terrorist list and accused of a decades-long campaign of bombings, murder, mortar attacks, kidnapping, extortion, and hijacking in Colombia. Bahamian officials consorting with terrorists is a whole new level of threat to our relationship with the United States, to whose currency ours is pegged by virtue of the Americans’ friendship and generosity - which can easily be revoked.

5. At least one drug smuggling operation involving the tainted Bahamians included a weapons transaction to help terrorist FARC members transport weapons from Florida into The Bahamas. Given the recent plague of violence involving high-powered weapons, this is especially shocking. It would appear that corrupt police and defence Force officers, and perhaps high-ranking politicians, are actually fueling the violence that is claiming so many lives on our streets.

For all these reasons, the drug scandal of the 1980s pales in comparison to what this indictment alleges. These disclosures really are the most significant threat to the reputation of our nation since independence.

Clearly, the government’s lukewarm response will simply not cut it. No legislation that sees Bahamians appointed by local politicians to operate in secrecy will fix this. We need a full and transparent Commission of Inquiry, including foreign judges, to lift the veil on this whole sordid mess. Nothing short of this has even a remote chance of restoring our national reputation.

Pindling was man enough to do it. our current Prime Minister must find similar fortitude. International news story after international news story chronicles our national shame on a daily basis. The cat is out of the bag. No more half measures. We must meet this challenge fully or be named and shamed as a nation for sale, forever.

DILSEY GIBSON

December 8, 2024.