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Pathologist’s shock at ‘staged suicide’ evidence ‘ASSAULT
I’m dumbfounded By NICO SCAVELLA Tribune Staff Reporter nscavella@tribunemedia.net
A LOCAL pathologist yesterday said he was “dumfounded” at a suggestion from his South African counterpart that a woman found hanged in her Atlantis hotel room was embroiled in a “violent struggle” and sustained over 60 injuries before her death. Dr Kiko Bridgewater said it was “quite fantastic” for Dr Linda Liebenberg to suggest that South Africa native Carla Van Eeden sustained some 64 injuries before being strangled to death, as the body he saw days after the incident bore no evidence of such a claim. Instead, Dr Bridgewater said Ms Van Eeden’s “well-nourished” and “well developed” body was in “excellent condition” when he conducted the first of
two autopsies on the young woman, adding to his “surprise” when he read Dr Liebenberg’s extensive report. He maintained that Ms Van Eeden died from asphyxia due to hanging, and asserted that whatever Dr Liebenberg observed was likely the result of “postmortem artifact” that “mimics” bruising, which he surmised tricked his colleague into believing Ms Van Eeden was assaulted. Dr Bridgewater suggested that the aforementioned, coupled with Tardieu spots observed on Ms Van Eeden’s lower extremities, the likes of which he said could appear as bruising to the “untrained eye” and likely led Dr Liebenberg to an incorrect conclusion. Ultimately though, Dr Bridgewater said the key difference between the SEE PAGE THREE
ALLEGED sexual assault remains the most reported criminal activity on board cruise ships, according to international statistics. Data released in the United States under the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act (CVSSA), shows there were a total of 32 reported incidents from April 1 to June 30 - of which 26 were sexual assaults. Of these incidents, 20 involved passengers while six involved crew members. Royal Caribbean reported eight sexual assault incidents involving
passengers and one of a crew member, Carnival recorded nine passenger incidents and two involving crew while, Norwegian reported three passenger incidents and one crew while Holland America and MSC each reported one sexual assault involving crew. The numbers also show that during the specified time period, there were four reported incidents of alleged assault with serious bodily injury and two incidents of alleged theft of less than $10,000. The statistics are published on the US Department of Transportation’s website. SEE PAGE SEVEN
By RIEL MAJOR Tribune Staff Reporter rmajor@tribunemedia.net
RIGHTS Bahamas has called for an independent body to investigate allegations of police brutality and misconduct following the alleged assault of two young women by police in Exuma on Sunday. In a statement Rights Bahamas demanded a full, aggressive and transparent investigation be carried out immediately. “In recent weeks, there has been a highly concerning spike in the number of allegations of police brutality and misconduct in The Bahamas. This comes on the heels of a widely circulated and very alarming SEE PAGE NINE
BLACKOUT APOLOGY - BUT NO EASY FIX
26 ‘SEX CRIMES’ ON CRUISE SHIPS By RIEL MAJOR Tribune Staff Reporter rmajor@tribunemedia.net
OFFICERS MUST BE PUNISHED’
By KHRISNA RUSSELL Deputy Chief Reporter krussell@tribunemedia.net
FLAIR TO THE FORE CONTESTANTS of the Miss Bahamas Universe pageant have showcased their creativity, poise and elegance during the preliminary competitions. For a full report and more pictures, see the Weekend section, out tomorrow. Photo: Shawn Hanna/Tribune Staff
THREE Bahamas Power and Light generators providing nearly 70 megawatts of power to thousands of households in New Providence are offline, with one asset needing at least a month for repairs, The Tribune understands. This means that it could be another four weeks before consumers experience some normalcy in their power supply. While 24 megawatts of the 25 megawatts from rental Agrekko units have assisted with the generation shortfall, it has done little to disrupt extended periods of load shedding. SEE PAGE THREE
RANDY BEGS: END THIS NIGHTMARE By KHRISNA RUSSELL Deputy Chief Reporter krussell@tribunemedia.net
WITH operational costs mounting and revenue at an all-time low, Sky Bahamas CEO Captain Randy Butler told The Tribune he is fighting an uphill battle in an ongoing standoff with the Bahamas Civil Aviation Authority. In an interview yesterday, Captain Butler further suggested the effects of this standoff has had a
CAPTAIN RANDY BUTLER trickle-down effect, “creating more hardship on our team members, passengers,
industry business partners and charities depending on our assistance each month”. The airline has been grounded since July 8 over issues regarding its air operator certificate (AOC). He further revealed that Sky Bahamas’ ticket counter at the Lynden Pindling International Airport also had to be shut down. By all indications yesterday, it was his suggestion that there were issues
Nassau & Bahama Islands’ Leading Newspaper
SEE PAGE FIVE
RICHARD COULSON SHIFTING SANDS IN THE WAY WE SPEND MONEY
SEE PAGE 12
PAGE 2, Thursday, August 8, 2019
THE TRIBUNE
Fun at Fox Hill
AN ART and music exhibition was held yesterday at the Fox Hill Community Centre as a part of Fox Hill Day festivities. Top: Fox Hill MP Shonel Ferguson and Lady Ingrid Darling; left: Darius Arnette during his performance; right: Olive Mackey. Deputy Prime Minister Peter Turnquest and Fred S Ramsey were also present. Photos: Shawn Hanna/Tribune Staff
THE TRIBUNE
Thursday, August 8, 2019, PAGE 3
from page one autopsy he conducted on May 30, 2018, and the one Dr Liebenberg conducted a month later, was that he had a body that was “fresh”, while she had one that was “altered”. He also shot down Dr Liebenberg’s suggestion of there being some sort of scuffle between Ms Van Eeden and some unknown assailant, as he said he saw no evidence of Ms Van Eeden scraping her neck in a bid to get the ligature off, or even her nails breaking in the process. He said based on his findings, her pink acrylic nails were in “immaculate” condition, and that there was nothing found underneath her nails when checked. “It’s hard to imagine someone is trying to kill you and you’re just not making any effort to protect yourself,” he said. “You would grab for your neck to try and pull off the ligature or to try and pull off that person’s hand or whatever they’re using.” Dr Bridgewater’s testimony came during an inquest into Ms Van Eeden’s death in room 3583 at the Royal Towers at Atlantis in May 2018. Ms Van Eeden was found hanging from a green and white cellphone lanyard around her neck, which was in turn hanging from a garment hook on the back of the bathroom door. According to Dr Bridgewater, the lanyard was “double-looped” loosely around her neck. Dr Linda Liebenberg, who conducted the second of two autopsies on Ms Van Eeden on June 29, 2018, previously asserted Ms Van Eeden’s alleged suicide was actually the result of ligature strangulation and a “subsequent staging of the body” to “create the impression” she was hanged. Dr Liebenberg said the young woman also had “numerous” scratches, bruises and abrasions about her body, which were in keeping with a person who had been involved in a “violent struggle”. Dr Liebenberg also said Ms Van Eeden had “drag mark abrasions” on “large parts” of the rear of her body, as well as an area of bruising to the back of her neck. She surmised that the bruise at the back of Ms Van Eeden’s neck was not consistent with an injury inflicted by hanging, and posited that it could have been inflicted by a “rabbit chop”, a swift, sharp blow to the nape of her neck. Dr Liebenberg ultimately posited that Ms Van Eeden’s assailant
Pathologist dumbfounded by ‘staged suicide’ claims
had knocked her out, and once she was limp, utilised a “conveniently available” cellphone lanyard to stage the hanging with minimal difficulty. Ultimately, Dr Liebenberg said she was “taken aback” and “puzzled” when she discovered that the various injuries she found on Ms Van Eeden’s body were not recorded in the first autopsy report compiled by Dr Bridgewater. Taking the witness stand yesterday, however, Dr Bridgewater said he was “equally dumfounded” when he read Dr Liebenberg’s report, maintaining that the body he and his assistants observed was in “excellent condition” with no such scratches, abrasions or bruises. He insisted that he noted no “significant” injuries to Ms Van Eeden’s body. He said he saw no petechiae hemorrhages—small ruptures of capillaries that can be seen in someone who has been strangled; no intramuscular neck haemorrhages; nor any bleeding into the strap muscles in her neck. He also said Ms Van Eeden’s thyroid cartilage and hyoid bones—the latter of which he said “frequently” fractured in manual strangulations—were intact. Dr Bridgewater said he specifically checked Ms Van Eeden’s
SOUTH Africa native Carla Van Eeden genitalia to see if she was sexually assaulted, however, he said he saw no “tears” or “evidence of any sort of activity or abuse”. However, he noted that there was a dried ligature furrow/ groove and abrasion around her neck. He said the ligature was going upwards and backwards, the lower point being near the thyroid cartilage. He said the groove he saw was a “classic pattern” in someone who died by hanging. However, Dr Bridgewater maintained that Ms Van Eeden’s
“injuries” were the result of postmortem artifacts, which is essentially a change introduced to the body after death that is likely to lead to misinterpretation of medically significant antemortem (before death) findings. Dr Bridgewater suggested that postmortem artifact could occur due to the handling of a body. And he said it is a “phenomenon” that “frequently does happen”. For example, he said he has personally seen bodies fall to the ground, drop off shelves, gurneys,
and outside on the pavement as funeral directors are transporting them. He also said the embalming process can also result in the “false appearance” of a bruise or bruises. Dr Bridgewater also noted that while the body may be embalmed and/or refrigerated, such preservation techniques may slow down decomposition, but doesn’t stop it completely. Thus, he posited that the marks on her back, for example, may have been caused by the funeral directors dragging her in their attempts to move her from spot to spot in their facility. He also explained that as opposed to the morgue where he works that has “nice smooth surfaces” to place bodies on, some funeral homes use 2x4 planks of wood to place bodies on. As to the bruise to the back of Ms Van Eeden’s neck, Dr Bridgewater said its shape, which was “butterfly-like”, reminded him of the shape of the headrests used in the morgue and funeral homes. Thus, he theorised that the “bruise” was merely discolouration due to the embalming fluid not reaching that particular area of her body. And that likelihood, Dr Bridgewater said, was very “plausible”. The matter continues.
BPL apology for blackouts but says there is no easy solution from page one Irate customers told The Tribune yesterday they have had enough. “I have lost 13 ceiling fans because we have one in every room. I have lost my fridge. I have lost my water pump. I have lost four of the old-fashioned air conditioning units,” said one Blair resident who did not want to be named. “This is ridiculous. It has been twice in one day. When I was leaving home at 8.20am to take my grandchildren to summer camp it went off and did not come on again until about 11.50am. Now I just got home to fix dinner and it is off again. “I might as well say it, they are going to cause someone to be killed,” the angry resident said. Another customer said
she could not understand why certain areas had faced several power cuts in one day. She questioned whether the load shedding was being split evenly. In a statement this week, BPL said it continues to vigorously pursue all avenues to address obstacles as extended load-shedding periods continued in New Providence last night. The utility provider apologised for its inability to offer the service it is paid to give each month. “The Bahamas Power and Light Company Ltd wishes to apologise to our customers for the power outages of this past weekend,” the company said in a statement released Tuesday. “We recognise the inconvenience such outages cause to our community, and we are working diligently to address the issues raised by ageing infrastructure and
a transmission and distribution grid in need of an upgrade. “While we are still investigating the causes for the outages, we can confirm that three of our major generation assets were out of service, which exacerbated the challenges we are facing during the summer months. The failure of these assets extended the periods of load shedding which we were forced to undertake. BPL management would like to thank the generation team for their continuing hard and brilliant work as they seek to return these assets to the grid. “We would like to assure
our customers that we are vigorously pursuing every available course of action to address these obstacles, in particular the rate reduction bond process, which will allow BPL to access a much-needed capital infusion at this critical time in our ongoing development. “We take this moment to look forward to the completion of the 132-megawatt power plant at Station A before the end of the year. The ability of the new station to provide base load generation will allow us to address some of the issues mentioned earlier, and will help BPL provide stable, reliable
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electricity to our customers in a safe and more affordable manner.” Following this statement, BPL released several load shedding announcements yesterday. Many areas were affected in the early morning hours when customers were preparing to head to their jobs. BPL said the power would be disrupted beginning at 8.30am. Another round of power cuts was announced and planned for 9.25am to
12.25pm. Some residents reported load shedding last night. Power cuts have been occurring this year as far back as mid-April and regular load shedding since June 19; BPL has been unable to definitively say when the situation is expected to get better however some officials have said to expect power cuts until October or November. Editorial View - Page 4
PAGE 4, Thursday, August 8, 2019
THE TRIBUNE
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Implement alert for Marco’s sake IT IS almost eight years since Marco Archer was murdered, a killing which shocked Bahamians at a time of too many killings. Few who were closely involved with the case – family, friends, investigators, reporters – will forget the horror of the 11-year-old’s death. First, he went missing, then five days later his body was found. It provoked an outcry across The Bahamas. How could this have happened? What kind of country are we if even our children are not safe? It has taken too long – but at last the MARCO Alert system is coming closer to reality - a reality that might save other children in future. Yesterday, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis announced the contract signing to implement the MARCO Alert system will happen in two weeks, at a cost of just over $3m. The system has had one false start already – it was rolled out by the Christie administration but it was unclear if it was ever used, and was swiftly marked down for an overhaul by the Minnis government.
In the event of a missing child, the MARCO Alert will send notifications alerting the public. With Bahamians alerted, there will be extra eyes to look out for a child in danger, extra voices ready to contact the authorities. Minutes can matter in such situations – and this alert will save precious minutes, and hopefully lives. We cannot pretend it hasn’t taken longer than it should have – Marco himself would have been an adult now if his life hadn’t been taken so young - but if the extra time means getting it right, then we look forward to a system that will make a real difference. Other parts of Marco’s Law are still in progress – such as the sex offender registry that will now go out to the public for consultation – but this crucial part of the jigsaw is now closer to reality. We hope there are no last-minute hitches and we can look forward to it being up and running in the near future. It’s time to see it through. For Marco’s sake, and for all the children whose lives could be saved.
Left in the dark again YOU don’t need us to tell you that BPL is continuing to have problems – many of you will have suffered power outages last night. Some might still be experiencing them today. We would love to report the end is in sight for the constant load shedding by BPL, but we cannot. Nearly 70MW of the company’s power is offline, and it could be another month before things improve. A statement from BPL yesterday said the company is “vigorously pursuing every available course of action to address these obstacles” before going on to say they are looking at a rate reduction bond process to bring in extra capital for the company’s development. Readers sweating in the dark, we would imagine, are less concerned about the
company’s development than they are about the company’s present – which is not up to the task. It is a statement that misses the point. Customers want to know what is being done now. Customers want to know when this will end. Customers want to know why exactly things have been worse this summer than last. Has more or less been spent on maintenance this year, for example? Vague excuses and explanations aren’t enough - why are these generators out of action? And what will be done for the customers who find appliances burned out by the constant on again-off again? The holiday weekend was ruined by BPL being unable to keep on the power. There’s a new weekend coming. Let’s not ruin another one, shall we, BPL?
Political deception EDITOR, The Tribune The FNM came into high office in May, 2017 based on Christie fatigue and the myriad of fools’ dreams and promises which it sold to the expectant electorate. The slogan: ‘It’s the people’s time’ resonated with most Bahamians. The PLP’s: ‘We believe in Bahamians’ had come to resemble a four lettered cuss word. The PLP and it’s erstwhile leader, Christie, had to go one way or the other. What did we get instead? In medical fields, Dr Hubert A Minnis (FNMKillarney), is highly regarded having assisted in the actual delivery of 5,500 infants. By extension, he would have been obliged to visually come into contact with that number of female genitals. What a sight! As a politician, however, he has demonstrated, big time, that 99.5% of the electoral promises made have yet to be kept or delivered on. I suggest that Bahamians were politically deceived. No, I am not suggesting anything of a criminal nature. I do suggest, however, that when those promises were made that it must have been in the back of their collective minds that “the big flam” was about to be foisted on the nation. As a trained criminal defence lawyer, I am disappointed that this regime has yet to address
the salient question of capital punishment. All of you remember Dr Minnis, in opposition, lashing the PLP because of crime and it’s failure to implement capital punishment. Minnis, a/k/a ‘Dr No’. He declared that once he was Prime Minister that murderers would face the full brunt of the law. Promise made, but promise not keep. Minnis, in my opinion, a colossal political ‘failure’ also promised that they would bring ‘rationality’ to Bahamas Power & Light. He and his juvenile team suggested mismanagement and possible corruption at BPL. There was a big bust up between certain then Board members and the ‘worst’ Minister of Works, again in my opinion, in the history of ministerial governance. None other than the PM himself appointed a committee to investigate. That committee has yet to report. Minnis, in opposition, touted ‘accountability’ and ‘fiscal responsibility’. They, too, in my view, were bogus promises. Minnis and a huge delegation went on a juncket a year or so ago and he promised to reveal the costs for the same. To this very day, we have heard nothing further. He promised to get to the bottom of OBAN but nothing yet. Is that project now ‘dead’ in the water? Minnis said that he would make affordable
building lots available and liberalise Crown Land issues. Apart from projects left in place by the PLP and Brother Christie, politically lousy as he was, Minnis and them people have yet to come up with the delivery on these promises. Unemployment is beyond comprehension. Crime and the fear of crime remain unabated and climbing. Fox Hill Correctional Centre appears to now have more leakage than ever before. After wasting big bucks to conduct an external ‘search’ for a Commissioner of Correctional Services (we don’t know what was expended and/or who conducted the same) they proceeded to appoint a relic of the institution, with all due respects. In my opinion the FNM and the PM came to office by politically deceiving the unwashed masses of Bahamians. They are now acting and playing smug and have evolved into highly arrogant political midgets. They have lost 99.5% of the trust and goodwill which you all reposed in them in 2019. They will pay a heavy price come 2022, God willing. God will hear, as He always does, the cries of the Bahamian people. To God then, in all things, even political deception, be the glory. Jr
ORTLAND H BODIE Nassau July 22, 2019
Military link to today’s data mining EDITOR, The Tribune AFTER World War 2, Fredrick Terman became head of Standford University School of Engineering. He brought personnel that work with him at Harvard University that created technology used in World War 2. The office of Naval Research gave the Stanford University Engineering Department their first contract. (microwave research). In 1951 he created the Stanford industrial park. The Stanford Industrial Park which eventually became Silicon Valley leased land to companies such as Lockheed Corporation, Hewlett Packard, General Electric, and other important technology companies. Mr Terman was an adviser to the Army’s Signal Corp R and D Advisory Council, the Air Force Counter Measure Scientific Advisory Board, a trustee of the Institute Defence Analysis, the Navy Research Advisory Committee, the Defence Science Board, a consultant to the US president science advisory committee. He was on the board of many big tech firms; Forever linking Silicon valley to US military. Silicon Valley has prospered on Pentagon money and US Department of Defence dollars from its inception to the present. The Stanford Research Institute was funded by US Military to create ARPA and DARPA which became the internet. The US surveillance industry was created at Stanford applied electronic lab. The NSA and CIA use Stanford to develop technology they needed. DARPA was one such project. Google started as a result of a research project funded by the US defence department while Larry Page and Sergey Brin was at Stanford University. DARPA was thanked in a White Paper for the creation of Google. Google
LETTERS letters@tribunemedia.net usually worked with the US defence department. In 2003, Google signed a 2.1million dollar contract with the national security agency Google built a search engine for the NSA that can search in 24 languages. In 2005 inQtel the CIA venture Capitalist Vehicle sold over 5000 shares of Google. Google map technology was developed for the US military under the name Keyhole Inc named after keyhole satellite used by the US military. In August, 2013, the Guardian Newspaper revealed that The National Security Agency paid millions to cover the cost of companies such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook involved in the Prism Surveillance programme after a court ruled that some of the agency’s activities was unconstitutional. In June 2003, the Information Processing technique office posted request for help to build an ontology based system called LifeLog that built a profile of people’s activities – of people movement, email phone calls, shopping. It created controversy. Wire magazine on February 4, 2004 announced cancellation of the project. On February 4, 2004 Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook which now has similar capabilities. He moved Facebook from Harvard to Silicon Valley and got large capital from the US intelligence connected insiders (Peter Thiel cofounder of pay pal, Accel partners). Paypal cofounder created palantir a data mining software used by the NSA, CIA, FBI and other US intelligence agencies. It is hard to find a big tech company in Silicon Valley not connected to the US military or intelligence agencies. This is
not an accident of history. According to Yasha Levine author of “Survellance Valley,” the Secret military history of the internet, the internet was intended to be used as a tool of warfare against target population. In 1960s the US was facing insurgencies all around the world from Latin America to South East Asia. It was facing an increasingly volatile society. It had the anti-Vietnam war movement, black militancy and race riots in major cities. They saw this as a new kind of war. The combatants were civilians so a new kind of global insurgency. They believed the only way to fight and win the war was to develop a new information weapon, computer technology that could ingest data on people and political movements that combine options, economic data, criminal histories, photographs, telephone conversations. Some dream they can watch the world in real time and intercept threat before they happen.” The internet was intended to track, surveil and controlling a target population but today it is viewed as a tool of liberation. People are willing to surrender their personal data for the services of big tech companies. Silicon Valley did not miraculously appear by itself, but was seeded there by US military and intelligence agencies that require the technology to fight the information Warfare of the 21st Century. 5 G called the internet of things will increase data mining because a person’s personal items will be connected to the internet. I wonder why the US banned Huawei? BRIAN ELLIS PLUMMER Nassau July 21, 2019 N.B. Huawei is the world’s largest seller of phones and connected to China.
THE TRIBUNE
Thursday, August 8, 2019, PAGE 5
SKY BAHAMAS BOSS BEGS: END THIS NIGHTMARE from page one
paying employees, leading him to blast the regulator for “turning us around”. Asked if he was now facing a decision to lay off workers until the impasse blew over, Mr Butler placed blame on the BCAA saying: “How do you lay them off? “Every day we are thinking we are coming to work. If they had told us you are not going to be operating for two weeks or so then we could do that. We could pull the plug and close the doors and turn off the lights and the cost continues.
“But they have not done that; I have written and stood and begged and pled. I’ve been here. I have people from the outside write me, post on my Facebook telling me this can’t be right.” He also said: “I come here every day in the office looking at my phone because we have sent emails and letters to them asking them ‘what is going on BCA?’ and I am sitting here waiting for them to call me or send me an email or send me a letter and send me my AOC. “I have business to do. It is disrupting our reputation. I won’t talk about the cost,
the financial cost and the effect on people including your team members.” The situation he said has been exacerbated by the airline having to shell out additional funds to hire charters to fulfil prepaid reservations. Ultimately he made yet another appeal for the powers that be to intervene in a situation that has “so much at stake”. “I want my team to come here and maybe a group of us can call the minister and maybe even the prime minister and say 70 or 63 of us sitting here with our children on our laps and
planned for food and to do extra things to help with back to school. “School now is coming please if there is an issue with Sky Bahamas and it’s not fixed please tell us. All of us will roll up our sleeves here and fix it.” He said at this point he was simply hanging on to faith that one day the situation would have been resolved. Last month Transport and Aviation Minister Dionisio D’Aguilar declined to intervene in this dispute. Instead he urged Captain Butler to continue meeting with the BCAA and
“work out” his differences. At the time he said: “I believe, although I haven’t confirmed, that he had discussions with the regulator. I want to be very clear: No minister of aviation with any sense is going to intervene on a safety issue. “If Sky Bahamas has a matter before the Bahamas Civil Aviation Authority, it’s up to him to figure out how to get the necessary approvals in order for him to obtain his air operating certificate (AOC).” Mr D’Aguilar continued: “I don’t have the technical expertise to intervene on his behalf; this is something he
has to work out with the regulator. The aviation sector is highly regulated with a lot of technical standards and technical rules, which the regulator knows and the operating airlines know. “He needs to sit with the regulator and work out what difference he has in order to bring ease and calm to the matter, and put the regulator at bay to fulfill all of the requirements that he has.” The AOC is the permit required for an airline to carry fare-paying passengers. Richard Coulson - Page 12
I have been doing exactly what I told residents I would do, says McAlpine WHEN The Tribune canvassed the constituency yesterday, residents were at odds with their MP’s performance. Left, Edwin Strachan and, right Cadrin Hinzey. By DENISE MAYCOCK Tribune Freeport Reporter dmaycock@tribunemedia.net AMID a call for his resignation by executive members of the Pineridge Constituency Association, Pineridge MP Rev Frederick McAlpine says the chairperson has never reached out to him or invited him to any of their association meetings. He finds the push for him resign from the Free National Movement by newly elected chairperson Vernet Munnings and other executive members of the association “shocking, unfortunate, and unfair.” When The Tribune canvassed the constituency yesterday, residents were at odds on his performance with many defending the MP and his work while others cried out for him to do more in the community. “I don’t know who is pushing this issue, but from what I know and from what I gather from the residents of Pineridge, many of them are quite pleased at the manner in which I have been speaking up and speaking out for the residents, and the way that I have been representing myself as the legislator for the constituency - that’s my responsibility. I have been doing exactly what I told the residents I would do,” Rev McAlpine said. Ms Munnings - who was elected last month to head the association – recently told this newspaper: “We don’t hear or see anything from the member of Parliament. Only time we hear from him is when someone call and tell us he’s on social media. As it stands now, it’s as if we don’t have an MP.” She added: “He definitely should resign. That would be in the best interest of the people of the constituency.” Yesterday, The Tribune went into the Pineridge constituency to get feedback from residents about the call for Rev McAlpine to resign. Residents in the Back of
Town area believe that Rev McAlpine has been a “good representative.” A 63-year-old resident, who identified himself as Pudden Taim, said: “I am a PLP straight through, and I think McAlpine is doing a wonderful job. “He is doing a good job because he is looking out for his people, and although he is on the side of the FNM, and I am a PLP, he is doing a good job - he came in the back here and win over Doc (Dr Michael Darville) and Doc was a good man,” he said. A woman who identified herself as Ms Miller of Clarke Avenue, said that Rev McAlpine is helping the young and poor people in his constituency. “He opened a school for the children who did not graduate so they could get their diploma and get a job - he is doing good. “He is a man you can go to and sit down and talk to. And he understands the poor people and he is helping who he could help. I wish he had more so he could help more people. He is a good man,” said Ms Miller. Clement Roxbury, an elderly resident of Pineridge, does not think that Rev McAlpine should resign either. “He is doing a good job; he working hard for the people and I don’t think he should resign,” she said. Edwin Strachan, of Clarke Avenue, said that the only reason he voted FNM was because of Rev McAlpine. “I feel he has been a good representative. This is my first time voting for the FNM just because of him. I do not feel he should resign,” he said. Mr Strachan said that Rev McAlpine is a man for the people. “He speaks out for people. He speaks out for how we feel about everything when he goes to the House of Assembly, and he stands up and everything (that) I am thinking he says and that is one the of main
things why I support him (sic),” he explained. Mr Strachan also commended the MP for the implementation of the diploma programme at the Pineridge Education Centre. He said he plans to enrol when it reopens. “They (the FNM) want him to resign because they are the government and he speaks out against them. They don’t want one of their own speaking out against them...they just want him to ride the wave with them.” Cadrin Hinzey, Pineridge resident, stated that Rev McAlpine is doing a good job. He said he would still support Rev McAlpine he said if he ran as a PLP or as an independent. “No, I don’t think he should resign, he is doing a good job but we could get together more, but I know he is busy. He (is) doing a lot for us in back here; we want him to run for the PLP, or he could run as an independent,” Mr Hinzey said. In the Hudson Estates area, some young residents felt that Rev McAlpine could do more in terms of assisting them in finding employment. Keisha, 23, said that many persons are still unemployed and need jobs. “We suffering. They say ‘it’s the people’s time’ but I don’t see nothing, Since he come in power we could see the suffering,” she said. “We need opportunities for people to get a chance; people struggling, we need jobs,” she said. Ellema, 22, a father of two, said that he has been unemployed for the past year. “I can’t help my kids. I need a job. I am unemployed and have not worked in a year since the FNM come on. I feel it is bad because I am supposed to be the breadwinner for my children who need to eat, and they ain’t bringing in no jobs to help Bahamians.” He added: “The majority of young men around here
- that’s why a lot of violence around here because young men are not working, ain’t nothing for them to do.” Hansell Collie, a resident of Pineridge, said that Rev McAlpine is not concerned about the condition of Pineridge. “He is not here for Pineridge, he is here for himself. The area of Pineridge is so run down but he don’t see it. The road in Hudson Estates in Pineridge is in a deplorable state. Instead of the MP requesting fixture he running on with foolishness and never asked for assistance in his area. “The association should have asked for resignation a very long time ago,” he said. “This is one of our worst MPs in history.” In response to Mr Collie, Rev McAlpine said that he has never supported him as the MP for Pineridge. He explained that Hudson Estates is a private subdivision and noted that the condition of the roads is the same as under two other former FNM MPs. “There is nothing that I can do - no more than to continue to agitate and
speak to those in charge,” he said. Rev McAlpine added: “Ms Munnings asking for me to resign is really a shocker because they just recently removed the executive team that they felt supported me. That team no longer contested them, they said that I was involved with the association, and now here is an association in place saying I am not active enough with them. First of all, since they won, none of them reached out to me to invite me to any meeting or to anything that they were having. “Secondly, Ms Munnings, and the association which is handful of people of the FNM, need to recognise I was elected to serve all the people of PR and not a select few. There are 5,500 plus registered voters in Pineridge. I campaigned saying if you elect me I promise I would be a voice for the people of PR, and by extension, now even GB. “At a time where a government is losing ground with so many people, and especially its supporters, you would think that they would try to be all
embracing and reconciling as opposed to being confrontational and trying to get me to resign. “If we are going to talk about resignation, why should I resign? Because I spoke the truth or because I believe in my opinion? I voted against VAT, I voted against the conflict of interest for the post office going in a sitting Cabinet minister’s (building). I voted against the extension of having so many foreigners to be welcome into the country when many Bahamians are hurting. If that is what they want to charge me with, and say I should resign for that - that’s interesting. “But you are not asking the person who misled the House of Assembly on the Oban deal to resign, or not asking persons who have been condemned by judiciary to resign. You are not asking people who have been seen blatantly to have a conflict of interest to resign, but you are asking someone that is speaking up and out for the people to resign - I just think it is unfair,” Rev McAlpine said.
PAGE 6, Thursday, August 8, 2019
THE TRIBUNE
MARCO ALERT CONTRACT WILL BE SIGNED IN TWO WEEKS By MORGAN ADDERLEY Tribune Staff Reporter madderley@tribunemedia.net PRIME Minister Dr Hubert Minnis yesterday confirmed the contract signing for the implementation of the MARCO Alert system will occur in two weeks. Dr Minnis made this announcement while delivering remarks at the re-opening ceremony of the Rolleville Police Station in Exuma. The prime minister noted since coming into office, his administration has invested “over $17 million in equipment and technology” for the Royal Bahamas Police Force. “These crime fighting and security investments include…
the implementation of MARCO Alert system to provide a secure and reliable network to disseminate information to the public (at a cost of $3,053,925.28). The contract signing for this will take place in two weeks,” Dr Minnis said. Other investments include $5.9m on a new fleet of police vehicles; $5.9m for the expansion of closed circuit television; $1.9m for ShotSpotter gunshot detection technology; and $304,000 for “a communications tower to upgrade communications” in New Providence and all the Family Islands. On Tuesday, National Security Minister Marvin Dames noted the dates have been “set” for the CCTV and MARCO Alert
contracts. “I think the dates have already been set for the CCTV contract and the MARCO Alert contracts,” he said at the time. “We are now satisfied with where we are with the contracts - all parties have accepted the contracts to date and it’s just a matter of signing and I think the signing date for both the CCTV and the body cams have been set and we’re working.” After the murder of 11-year-old Marco Archer in 2011, a law was enacted allowing authorities to send notifications alerting the public to missing children, dubbed the Mandatory Action Rescuing Children Operation (MARCO) Alert. While the system was rolled out by the Christie
administration, it is unclear if it was ever used and it was set for an overhaul by the Minnis administration. In June, Mr Dames said the government has committed $3.05 million over three years for the MARCO alert and a contract has been awarded to Multimedia Technology to facilitate the system. Mr Dames also said regulations relating to a sexual offender registry, also part of Marco’s law, have been reviewed by Cabinet and will go out to the public for consultation. “It is expected that a decision is anticipated sometime during the third quarter of this year,” he said in June. “An electronic registration would also need to be established that has the
ability to track and monitor convicted sex offenders and has the ability to notify the public of their home addresses and information about their convictions. “The system will use a combination of biometrics, information technology and tracking technology to monitor in real-time, register/check-in and record all information on sex offenders inclusive of location, photo ID, residences, aliases, offences and so much more. With such a system in place offenders will now be able to re-register periodically and/or check-in using kiosks which will identify them via biometrics. As such, the Ministry of National Security will issue a request for proposal sometime during the
third quarter of this year to invite potential vendors to provide a Sexual Offenders’ System Software for the government of The Bahamas.” A registry was introduced as an amendment in 2013 to the Sexual Offences Act after Archer’s murder by a serial child predator. The previous Christie administration never created the registry and observers have questioned elected officials’ commitment to the registry. Mr Dames said last year that the government would establish the registry before the end of 2018. The regulations were tabled in the House of Assembly last month. Editorial View - Page 4
PRIME Minister Hubert Minnis cuts the ribbon, along with National Security Minister Marvin Dames, at the official re-opening of the newly renovated Rolleville, Exuma, police station. Photos: Yontalay Bowe/BIS
Minnis opens new Exuma police station By MORGAN ADDERLEY Tribune Staff Reporter madderley@tribunemedia.net PRIME Minister Dr Hubert Minnis yesterday celebrated Exuma’s “economic expansion” as he delivered remarks at the re-opening ceremony of the Rolleville Police Station, which was renovated to “meet the demands” of the island. Dr Minnis noted renovations for other police facilities across the archipelago are “in the pipeline”, adding his administration
has invested over $17m in equipment and technology for the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) since 2017. The prime minister noted the Rolleville station opened in 1978, with a “fairly basic set up” - four officers and an open room with a desk and two holding cells. “Over the years, this facility became run down,” he said. “The substandard conditions became intolerable for officers. With Exuma having one of the busiest Family Island
airports and attracting increasingly more visitors, the Rolleville Police Station no longer met the needs of the populace. “When my government came to office, we pledged to develop an efficient crime fighting machine properly manned, trained and equipped to meet the demands of the 21st century. “Over the past fiscal period the government has invested in renovations for police facilities. “One of these is the Rolleville Police Station
which is now equipped with an interview room and proper cells to meet the demands of Rolleville and by extension the island of Exuma.” Additional renovations will occur in other Family Islands as well as New Providence. “I am happy to report that there are more in the pipeline including in New Providence, the South-Central Station, the Northeastern Station, the Internal Security Division and the Central Division. In the Family Islands, they include the South Andros Station and the Eleuthera Division, Governor’s Harbour Headquarters. “This administration is reversing the state of disrepair and neglect that we inherited.” He also touted the investments his administration has made in the police force since the last general election. “Since coming to office, we have invested over $17 million in equipment and technology for the Royal Bahamas Police Force,” Dr Minnis said. This includes $5.9m on a new fleet of police vehicles;
$5.9m for the expansion of closed circuit television; $3,053,925.28 for the implementation of the MARCO Alert System; $1.9m for ShotSpotter Gunshot Detection Technology; and $304,000 for “a communications tower to upgrade communications” in New Providence and all the Family Islands. He added members of the National Neighbourhood Watch Council will “shortly” travel to Exuma for the “training and implementation” of local groups. “To combat crime, we must continue to fortify our police force,” Dr Minnis continued. “Today’s reopening represents a further and considerable strengthening of the (RBPF). My government remains committed to improving infrastructure and providing the good men and women of the force with the necessary equipment to perform their duties optimally and professionally. “The importance of proper police equipment, functioning vehicles and well-maintained stations cannot be overstated. I am sure that the Rolleville police officers will find their
work easier to complete with a refurbished facility.” Dr Minnis also underscored his commitment to revamping Exuma’s airport and other local infrastructure. “Because Exuma is set for greater growth and economic expansion, my administration will invest in the infrastructure needed for growth in Exuma. “Toward this end, the construction of a new terminal and airside works at Exuma International Airport is planned to commence shortly.” He also lauded Exuma’s natural beauty, noting at the 2018 Our Ocean Conference in Bali, Indonesia, the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park won the “prestigious” Global Ocean Refuge Award for Most Effective Conservation of Marine Life. “Such an award is akin to winning an Oscar award or an Olympic medal. With this international recognition, Exuma needs the quality of infrastructure that will enhance the quality of life for residents and the visitor experience for Bahamians and international tourists,” he said.
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THE TRIBUNE
Thursday, August 8, 2019, PAGE 7
US data reveals 26 ‘sex crimes’ on cruise ships from page one This crime data is tracked for major cruise lines with routes to the Bahamas, such as Carnival Cruise Lines, Norwegian Cruise Lines and Royal Caribbean. Alleged criminal activities on board cruise ships have increased for the second quarter of 2019. According to the CVSSA statistics, during the period of January 1 to March 31, there were a total of 25 reported incidents, 18 of which were sexual assaults. The numbers also show that during the specified time period, there was one reported incident of alleged assault with serious bodily injury and six incidents of alleged theft of less than $10,000. During the period of October 1, 2018 to December 31, 2018 there
were a total of 34 reported incidents, 22 of which were sexual assaults. The numbers show that during that specified time period, there were two suspicious deaths; two assaults; and eight incidents of alleged theft of less than $10,000. Up to September 30, 2018 there were 86 incidents reported – 60 of which were for sexual assault. In 2017, 76 percent of reported crimes on board Carnival vessels were for sexual assault; as was 68 percent of crime reported on board Royal Caribbean vessels. There was the same number of sexual assault incidents reported for that time period in 2017, out of 85 incidents. There was a total of 106 incidents reported for 2017. In 2016, officials recorded 92 incidents with 62 of them being sexual assault.
THE US Department of Transportation headquarters
CROWN WITHDRAWS ACQUITTAL APPEAL AFTER SUSPECT KILLED BY POLICE By NICO SCAVELLA Tribune Staff Reporter nscavella@tribunemedia.net
THE Crown has been forced to withdraw its own appeal of a man’s acquittal of a murder charge because he was controversially killed by police two months before the appeal could be heard. Trevor Cooper Jr was due to appear before the appellate court on July 11 for the Crown’s intended appeal of his acquittal for murdering Frederick Ferguson outside of a business on West Bay Street in February 2017. However, in the early morning hours of May 17, 23-year-old Cooper was one of three men fatally shot by police when they stormed a house just off the Eastern Road in search of a wanted suspect. The other two men who were killed were Jamaal Penn aka “Fool” and Valentino Pratt. With Cooper dead, the Crown withdrew the appeal, causing the matter to be dismissed by default. Cooper’s attorney Ryszard Humes confirmed the information to The Tribune this week. On May 17, police stormed a large home at Newgate and Commonwealth Roads in the execution of a search warrant. Penn, Pratt and Cooper, whom relatives claimed were unarmed, were shot to death. Police said that was the result of a manhunt operation in the area to locate a wanted suspect for a recent homicide and shootings in New Providence. Officers were able to
enter the property because they were granted a search warrant, Chief Supt Solomon Cash told reporters. Authorities said the three men were killed in an exchange of gunfire; it was said the trio opened fire on officers, who returned gunfire. At the time, Chief Supt Cash said police discovered 22lbs of marijuana and two additional firearms afterwards in a search of the property. In total, police said three weapons were recovered. Several people were arrested. However, in an exclusive interview on the Sunday after the shooting, several of Penn’s, Pratt’s and Cooper’s relatives questioned the manner in which police carried out their operation in the home because six children were present. The relatives, who were also inside the house during the police-involved killing, alleged that none of the men fired at officers, contradicting police reports that there was an exchange of gunfire. Also on that Sunday, a young boy who was present said one of the three men pleaded with officers not to shoot because children were in the house. “He was saying ‘don’t shoot, don’t shoot,’” one of the children told this newspaper. “He was holding me and police start saying, ‘put the boy down’, so he put me down and the police come up the stairs and round him and shoot him in his back. “And I had blood on my clothes ‘cause I fell down in the blood on the floor.” However, Police Commissioner Anthony Ferguson
FIVE INJURED IN TWO SEPARATE SHOOTINGS POLICE were on the scenes of two seperate shooting incidents last night. The first incident happened on Johnson Road where four people were shot, one reportedly in the chest. The second incident was on Lewis Street off East Street where a male was shot. The conditions of all of the victims are unknown. Separately, police in New Providence are looking for the suspects who committed two armed robberies on Tuesday and shot one victim. In the first incident,
shortly before 10am, two armed men entered a home on West Street off Meeting Street and robbed a couple of cash. Police said the male victim was physically assaulted before the assailants escaped on foot. Hours later, shortly after 10pm, a man was accosted by two armed men after he arrived at a residence at Sandilands Village Road, west of Wind Street. The man was shot to the upper thigh and robbed of a blue Nissan Bluebird, licence #AS0731. The victim was treated at hospital and later discharged.
subsequently defended the officers involved in the incident, calling them “very responsible”. When asked if he was confident the proper procedure was followed, Commissioner Ferguson said: “Let me say the officers who were on that operation were very responsible and very experienced officers. That is as much as I will say in respect to that.”
PAGE 8, Thursday, August 8, 2019
B
ALTIMORE, the largest city in Maryland and the epicentre of its political life, has seen better days. Now 290 years old, the city was still America’s second largest - after only New York - as recently as 1850. Baltimore would become home to hall of fame authors Edgar Allen Poe, Frederick Douglass, WEB DuBois, F Scott Fitzgerald, Dashiell Hammett, H L Mencken and Tom Clancy. Music legends Billie Holiday, Frank Zappa and Tupac Shakur called it home. And baseball home run king Babe Ruth, Supreme Court trailblazer Thurgood Marshall, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and famed surgeon (and current Housing Secretary) Ben Carson also started out in Baltimore. One-third of the city’s buildings have been granted a historic designation – the most for any US city. But there has also long been a dispiriting side to this famous city. The mayor signed the first formal American urban segregation order there in 1910. Since 1950, each 10-year census has revealed a diminished population. The white population dwindled from 81 percent in 1940 to 30 percent in 2010. The black population in the city rose during the same period from 19 percent to 64 percent. Poverty levels increased and manufacturing jobs faded. Four years ago, Baltimore’s homicide rate was 19 times as great as New York’s. And 93 percent of the victims of those homicides were black. In recent years, Baltimore has threatened or replaced Detroit or St Louis as America’s murder capital. It gets worse. In 2017, Baltimore’s homicide rate was 56 per 100,000 population. This was a higher murder rate than in El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras, three nations often cited for their high homicide rates amid
THE TRIBUNE
A city’s demise sparks another new low from the Oval Office
ELIJAH Cummings has been harshly responding to the President’s often racistsounding comments for several weeks.
STATESIDE with Charlie Harper ongoing civil war situations, rampant gang violence and corrupt, unrepresentative and repressive governments. So when US President Donald Trump last weekend went on the offensive
against Baltimore congressman and chair of the House Oversight and Reform committee, Elijah Cummings, it struck a nerve. Cummings is an imposing black figure whose West Baltimore district includes many
desperately dilapidated neighbourhoods and yet also features slightly higher than average overall annual income levels among his constituents. Cummings has been harshly responding to the President’s often racistsounding comments for several weeks. Trump fired back by in turn by calling Cummings a racist who should be spending his time fixing the myriad poverty-related issues in his “putrid, ratinfested home district”. Meanwhile, as Congress
departed for a lengthy summer recess and horrific mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso shocked the nation, Democrats and pundits of both parties began to bring fully out into the open the term “white nationalists”. Trump’s inability to avoid being tarred with a white nationalist brush, like so many of his difficulties, was largely self-inflicted. It dates to his sympathetic comments in the wake of a woman’s death during a neo-Nazi
rally in Charlottesville in August 2017. Now the spectre of white nationalism is a primary attack weapon for his opponents, even as the president unapologetically panders to right-wing, largely white supporters. The widely-respected, venerable Baltimore Sun newspaper has been a main news source throughout much of the city’s history and is known for its judicious opinions. But Trump’s attack on Cummings, and by extension his city, prompted the following editorial outburst: “We would tell the most dishonest man to ever occupy the Oval Office, the mocker of war heroes, the gleeful grabber of women’s private parts, the serial bankrupter of businesses, the useful idiot of Vladimir Putin and the guy who insisted there are ‘good people’ among murderous neo-Nazis, that he’s still not fooling most Americans into believing he’s even slightly competent in his current post. Or that he possesses a scintilla of integrity. Better to have some vermin living in your neighbourhood than to be one.” The Sun was clearly outraged. In a region and nation now so inured to insensitive, outlandish statements by its elected leader, it’s hard to know if the newspaper’s strong editorial will actually have any effect. One thing is for certain, though: Baltimore’s misery will continue.
Baseball trades in sporting doldrums WE ARE in the midst of summer doldrums in the major American sports. NFL training camps are now all in full swing and team rosters are bursting with nearly 100 players each. Almost half of them will not ever play a down in a real pro football game, dismissed from the roster by the time the first real games are played a month from now. College football games are also weeks away. And though there are always a few truly interesting early matches to whet the appetite, most of the traditional powers play a fairly easy bunch of early games to warm up for their challenging league schedules. All the headlines have already been written about the NBA and its increasingly powerful megastars and agents. They’re all on exotic holidays, promoting films or shoes, or simply counting their riches. Hockey is in its annual summer hibernation, the NHL’s annual draft having passed without much impact except in certain hockey-crazed locales such as Buffalo and the major Canadian cities. What sports fans have for now is baseball. This season, MLB cancelled its traditional August 31 trading deadline, requiring teams to essentially decide by the end of July if their playoff chances were sufficiently enticing to trade for extra hitting, pitching or defence. There would be no more acquiring players for the last third of baseball’s 162-game season. This rule change has produced some interesting, almost counterintuitive results. Take baseball’s three richest teams. None of the Dodgers, Yankees or Red Sox made a significant move, although they were at the centre of much of the pre-deadline buzz. The Dodgers and Yankees are
THE METS traded for pitcher Marcus Stroman from Toronto. running away with their respective divisions, so their inactivity made some sense. The Red Sox, so successful this century after their famous futility for almost the entire last one, haven’t shown the punch or spark that led them to last season’s World Series championship. Maybe Boston has simply run up the white flag for this year, but the team is still loaded with talent. The Mets were also surprising, for a completely different reason. Totally written off a month ago amid team and management strife, the New Yorkers traded for a good starting pitcher, Marcus Stroman from Toronto, and gave away no one who will matter this season. Experts and observers were puzzled. But the Mets are on a terrific run now, having won 12 of their last 13 games, and are starting to talk about chasing down the Phillies and/or Nationals for a playoff berth. The Houston Astros pushed all their chips to the middle of the table, trading several top prospects to Arizona for Zach Greinke, a very well-paid
starting pitcher who gives Houston the best starting trio of pitchers in the game. Together with Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole, both of whom also arrived via trades, the Astros match up favourably on the mound with any playoff opponent they will face. American League pretenders Tampa Bay, Oakland and Minnesota made moves, but they aren’t getting to the World Series. Neither will the Cleveland Indians, though they dared to be great by swapping durable, talented but eccentric pitcher Trevor Bauer to Cincinnati for hitting punch and pitching depth from the Reds and San Diego. The Atlanta Braves got strong relief pitching help from Detroit in Shane Greene and probably strengthened themselves the most of any team in the National League. There’s still a lot of baseball left, but football is looming ever larger on the sports horizon. In September, action on the gridiron will return to the centre of almost every sports conversation. The doldrums will be long gone.
THE TRIBUNE
Thursday, August 8, 2019, PAGE 9
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from page one voice note, in which a retired Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) officer claimed that misconduct, beatings, forced confessions and perjury have been a pervasive and commonplace for years at all levels of the force,” the statement read. “(This week) Rights Bahamas received photos and voice notes of yet another case of alleged police brutality that occurred on Exuma. The information suggests that two young ladies were severely beaten by a highranking officer during a traffic stop. The incident allegedly left the women’s bodies riddled with bruises and lacerations. One had her eyelid torn open. We have also heard reports that the other officers used violence against the other passengers of the vehicle, to the extent that both needed medical attention.” The statement added: “The officer in question
must be relieved of duty until the results of the investigation and if found culpable, arrested and charged with assault. The police are warned not to employ the usual tactic of charging the victims with some spurious crime, in an effort to simply make the matter go away.” Rights Bahamas stated the world is watching including its international partners - Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. “We take any and all reports of human rights abuses very seriously and document each and every case into our international database. In 2018, we logged nearly 250 complaints against police officers,” the statement read. “...We also call on the commissioner of police to turn the findings of all such investigations over to the Director of Public Prosecutions. In a county that prides itself on being transparent and fair, we trust that
in cases where officers are found to be acting outside the laws of the Bahamas that charges be filed against them and that they will face disciplinary actions if found guilty.” Rights Bahamas stated the group will fully investigate the recent alleged police brutality and document all findings into its international database. “A copy of the same will be forwarded to the commissioner of police, the Corruption and Complaints Division of the Royal Bahamas Police Force, and the media.” On Tuesday, Minister of National Security Marvin Dames spoke about the allegations. He pledged to make public the findings of an investigation into the incident, adding there will be no “cover-up” if officers are found culpable of wrong doing. He also said a team was dispatched Exuma and started investigations almost immediately into the matter.
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THE TRIBUNE IN this 1998 file photo, novelist Toni Morrison poses in her New York apartment. Morrison was a pioneer of modern literature whose imaginative power transformed American letters by dramatising the pursuit of freedom within the boundaries of race.
Toni Morrison: American literary giant made it her life’s work to ensure black lives (and voices) matter by TESSA ROYNON Teaching and Research Fellow, Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford THE peerless novelist and cultural commentator Toni Morrison, who has died aged 88, never accepted the received wisdom about anything. In a writing career that spanned half a century – from the appearance of the first of her 11 novels, The Bluest Eye, in 1970,
to that of her last essay collection, Mouth Full of Blood, in February 2019 – she unfailingly cast in new light both aspects of human experience and moments in American history that, in our complacency, we thought we already knew. Morrison was born (as Chloe Wofford) in the depressed Rustbelt town of Lorain, Ohio, to a family of modest financial means and rich cultural and emotional resources. Her father worked as a welder at the
nearby US Steel plant and her mother was a key member of the American Methodist Episcopal church choir. Her grandparents – who had migrated north from Alabama and Georgia – were also a significant presence and influence. The music, storytelling and reading from the King James Bible that characterised Morrison’s childhood were to indelibly shape the values and aesthetics of her own writing. As the first member of her family to go to college, Morrison attended Howard University in Washington DC between 1949-53 (where she majored in English and minored in Classics) – and was shocked by the segregation and “colourism” she encountered. She went on to complete her MA in English at Cornell in 1955 and, after various teaching and publishing jobs, became a trade editor for Random House in 1968. Here, in the New York office, she reshaped the American literary scene by actively seeking out and promoting the fiction of black authors such as Toni Cade Bambara, Leon Forrest and Gayl Jones. She also edited the autobiographies of Angela Davis and Muhammad Ali. Morrison was able to focus full time on her writing after the resounding success of her third novel, Song of Solomon, in 1977. Reputed to be one of Barack Obama’s favourite books, this text – which focused on the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and 1960s – is typically Morrisonian in its mock-heroic blending of the Bildungsroman
(conventions about an individual’s progression to knowledge through experience), with classical epic paradigms, West African myth and African American folkloric wisdom. It is notably untypical, at the same time, in its focus on a male protagonist (the strangely named Milkman Dead – names and naming were always all-important to Morrison), and on friendships and family ties between men. The novel for which Morrison is best known, Beloved, was to follow in 1987 and next came her arguably underrated (because it was insufficiently understood?) masterpiece, Jazz (1992). Each of these continues the intense focus on individuals that both society and history have spurned or overlooked. These are those Morrison has called the “disremembered and unaccounted for”, that she initiated with her examination of the interior life of the abused “ugly” black girl, Pecola Breedlove, in The Bluest Eye. Both the exploration of an infanticidal, formerly enslaved mother’s quest for atonement in Beloved and the depiction in Jazz of the struggles and triumphs of a middle-aged couple, migrants from rural Virginia, in 1920s Harlem, epitomise Morrison at her uncanny best. Her work is unflinching in her attention to the brutal realities of innumerable black lives and attends equally to their creative resilience – combining broad historical sweep with an intimate knowledge of the individual human psyche.
Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993 and numerous other awards and accolades have followed. She is read, studied and revered in numerous languages all over the world. But our sense of loss at her passing should not blind us to the fact that for far too long she was at once a celebrity and insufficiently acknowledged – particularly in the more conservative wings of academia and the media – as a figure of universal (as opposed to “minority”) significance. Even now, there persists some resistance to including her work on “high literary” syllabi. She once observed wryly, at a book reading, that she was taught in the African American Studies departments, in Sociology and even in Law faculties, but rarely in the English departments of elite universities. There continues a failure to recognise the extent of her contribution to intellectual history that both her fiction and her extraordinary essays constitute. Her reclaiming of modernism as primarily a black experience, as well as her insistence that any distinction between the aesthetic and the political is a false dichotomy, and her illuminations of the way colonialism and imperialism consciously fabricated African culture and history as irrelevant, are among her greatest legacies. Morrison herself was acutely aware of the complex and sometimes insidious nature of her reception, repeatedly addressing this in interviews and comment pieces.
She frequently mentioned the initial New York Times review of Sula, for example, which implied that such a powerful writer ought really to focus her attention on something more important than the lives of black women in the Midwest. In a 1983 interview with literary critic Nellie McKay, she famously insisted that she was “not like James Joyce, not like Thomas Hardy, not like Faulkner”. Such comparisons at that time, she believed, obscured her specific commitment to black politics and aesthetics. Never resting on her laurels, throughout her professorship at Princeton, her guest curatorship at the Louvre in 2006-07, in her retirement and until the very end, she remained profoundly alert to the way her books and essays were read, (mis)understood and (mis) represented. In her role as public intellectual and fearless social commentator, she was prescient about the racist violence that precipitated the Black Lives Matter movement and prophetic about the regressions the Trump era has entailed. Although her unwavering commitment to social justice and radical change perhaps occasionally led her to over-explain – in the forewords she wrote for the Vintage reissues of the novels in the early 2000s, for example, or in her final novel, God Help the Child, which lacks the pitch perfection of its predecessors – we shall ignore her wisdom about power (and how to subvert it) at our peril. A recent documentary film, The Foreigner’s Home, depicts Morrison drawing parallels between the trauma undergone by captured Africans transported on the slaving ships’ Middle Passage to the Americas, the experience of black residents of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and the current worldwide migrant crisis. The very making of such connections, and the way she deploys her customary stunning oratory to expose uncomfortable truths about the nature of “home” and “homelessness”, epitomises all that will endure about the phenomenon that was Toni Morrison. Above all, the insights of this film insist, as does her fiction implicitly, and her Nobel Prize lecture explicitly, that the future is “in our hands”. The power and the responsibility for making the world a better place lies not with the great artists whose passing we mourn, Morrison always maintained, but with ourselves – the readers and thinkers who have so much work still to do. theconversation.com
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Thursday, August 8, 2019, PAGE 11
TV’S COLIN TROTMAN JR DIES, AGED 57
By RASHAD ROLLE Tribune Staff Reporter rrolle@tribunemedia.net
TRIBUTES poured in yesterday for veteran producer Colin Trotman Jr who died at 57. Trotman was the assistant general manager of tv production at ZNS. The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) also offered condolences to him. He was a former member of the National Disaster Preparedness Committee. “During the construction of our present facility, he ensured that data connection was installed for live feed, thus ensuring that NEMA could broadcast live, 24 hours. He was committed to excellence,” said Captain Stephen Russell, head of NEMA, in a statement. “We will remember Colin for his professionalism as he served on (various) emergency support function groups. His willingness to learn and to assist others as well as his sense of humour will always be remembered.” Journalist and talk show host Jerome Sawyer paid tribute to Trotman in a post on Facebook yesterday. “You taught an overzealous ambitious young reporter the virtues of a steady head and tongue - even when under fire,” Mr Sawyer wrote. “You showed me that my talent
COLIN TROTMAN JR and passion were enough plain and simple. “You got me to understand that being a leader meant recognising that everyone was important regardless of what side of the camera lens they worked on. You taught me the art of transforming an idea into a production - there’s no ‘clock’ when there’s work to do - and everything you do should be a masterpiece. “In 1998 you edited my award-winning story that captured the CNN World Report’s Best Political Story. Never once did you seek recognition, instead you were just grateful that I was being recognised for what you always knew I had inside of me. To my colleague, friend, mentor, and teacher - thank you. Keep those cameras in heaven bright until we meet again.” Kevin Harris, director of Bahamas Information Services, said that Trotman died from a heart attack yesterday.
OFFICIALS TO BOOST EBOLA AWARENESS
By RASHAD ROLLE Tribune Staff Reporter rrolle@tribunemedia.net
THE Ministry of Health is enhancing its Ebola preparedness protocol after the World Health Organisation declared a recent outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern”. Health Minister Dr Duane Sands said yesterday that though it is highly unlikely the disease will be seen here, it’s imperative that health officials prepare for any possibility. The Ebola crisis has been accelerating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where more than 500 children have died in the last year. Dr Sands, pictured below, said: “The World Health Organisation put out a directive that this was a public health issue of international importance so all member countries had to modify their preparedness plans. ‘We had a national Ebola policy that was dated 2014, so what we’ve been doing is meeting with all the stakeholders. We just had our fifth meeting by video conference with Andros, Eleuthera, Exuma, Grand Bahama, Bimini, customs, police, immigration and it’s just discussing the strategy for identification, isolation, notification and how the Bahamas would respond in the unlikely event of a patient with Ebola making its way to the Bahamas.
“The risk is low but we have to be prepared. It’s important that you bring best practices into effect, you need to retrain people and teach them how to put on personal protection equipment. They need to discuss where the isolation spots will be if needed, determine what an immigration officer should do, or customs officer or police officer in the unlikely event they encounter a visitor with Ebola and it really is a matter of educating, educating, educating.” Officials are in the process of selecting isolation centres on every island. Since the Ebola outbreak of 2014, health professionals have learned a lot about how to manage the disease, Dr Sands said, noting vaccines are now available although their general use has not been sanctioned. “The Ebola vaccine even though it is being used has not been approved,” he said. “It is not sanctioned for general use even though it is being used in Congo and surrounding countries with good results. We don’t know all we need to know about safety and efficacy but you have all this drama about vaccines in general. When you have a situation where you have a diseased that carries a 50 to 90 percent risk of death, we tolerate side effects from a vaccine but if you now talking about using it globally you need to know what the risk is.”
PAGE 12, Thursday, August 8, 2019
I
HAVE been reading about a new Sand Dollar - not the physical sea urchin, but an immaterial financial concept based on digital technology. We will never see a Sand Dollar to hold in our hand, just a numeral in an account statement. The digital Sand Dollar is a work-in-progress by our Central Bank. It will not be a separate currency from the Bahamian Dollar, unlike the Bitcoin and its many competitors. It can best be described as a procedure, a process to allow Bahamian Dollars (B$) to be transferred more easily and cheaply than at present, whether by a shopper to a merchant, a diner to a restaurant, or a company to an employee, with the longrange objective to “ensure minimum levels of access to banking and payments services to geographically remote parts of The Bahamas.” This clearly implies
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Shifting sands in the way we spend money a sharp reduction in the use of cash and even cheques. To reach these admirable objectives and make the procedure work, a great deal of technology must be put in place, as when Paypal was first created. It’s all summarised in reports and press releases from
the Central Bank, but of course is far too complex to be understood by the typical end users. The Central Bank on May 30 signed an agreement with a technical services firm named NZIA Limited, enjoying close links with IBM and a digital specialist in Singapore.
NZIA will now be analysing the potential market for the Sand Dollar procedure in Exuma and figuring how best to introduce it. The Bank chose Exuma for a trial run, presumably because it has fewer bank branches and ATMs per capita than New Providence and yet a large enough population (about 8,000) and commercial activity for a meaningful experiment. NZIA, with the Bank firmly behind it paying installation expenses, will undertake a major campaign to convince Exumans that it’s really easier
than carrying cash around or writing cheques and cheaper than using a card. As I see it, the required steps must include the following: Identifier log-in: every individual user must have a confidential way of accessing his bank account. Since cards will not be used, a PIN code must be memorised to tap into a computer or smart-phone. (For those few Bahamians still without a current account, apparently the Central Bank will provide one.) Two-way street: every transaction will have two ends - the originator with
his PIN and the counterparty recipient with an electronic link, not a clunky physical verifier device. As soon as the technology is in place, Governor Rolle tells me the Bank will put its publicity department to work devising the brochures and online pictures explaining how it will work. I foresee one of our expert graphic artists creating a new family of stick-figure cartoons. They will be needed - even in sophisticated Sweden, I understand the older generation has been slow to evolve away from cash usage.
Govt right to rule out direct aid to Sky Bahamas I HAVE often urged that our domestic airline routes be privatised, with Bahamasair sold off to an investor-owned company. Recent events show that privatisation alone is not the answer for a successful airline business. Sky Bahamas is owned by Capt Randy Butler and other Bahamians and now seems on the verge of collapse, an unhappy outcome for an airline that was always my favourite choice for Georgetown, Exuma, with three reliable daily round trips. Capt Butler puts the blame on government, pointing at unfair subsidised competition from Bahamasair, as well as wrongful suspension of the essential operating licence by the Civil Aviation Authority. But any impartial
observer cannot avoid speculating about either extreme family misfortunes or bad management practices. The fleet has shrunk to two aircraft making fewer flights, with passenger complaints about delays and cancellations. The once key destination of Freeport was abandoned last year, although Sky’s competitor Western Air operates its principal hub there, with its own terminal facility. Further, Sky’s debt service obligations to Lynden Pindling International for landing fees and passenger charges are only partly paid. As the continued licence suspension has killed off operating revenue for several weeks, it’s hard to see how Sky can survive
CAPT Butler puts the blame squarely on government
unless helped by “strategic investors”, who Capt Butler claims are in negotiation. Any such result may not restore Sky as an independent operation, but leave it simply swallowed up as part of a bigger airline, possibly Western, as neither American nor Delta are likely interested in offering a bailout. Government quite rightly will remain aloof from direct aid to Sky Bahamas’ owners but will want to see a solution giving fair employment to the trained pilots, flight attendants, ground crew and mechanics who served Sky so well. And the decks will then be cleared for arranging a Bahamasair privatisation, using local capital and expertise.
Bonds now listed on BISX - overcoming political indifference ANOTHER example of the more enlightened policies being followed by our Ministry of Finance and Central Bank is the announcement that government bonds (officially Bahamas Government Registered Stock, or BGRS) are now listed on BISX. Awaited ever since BISX was founded 20 years ago, it took the initiative of Minister Turnquest and Governor Rolle to overcome the political indifference and bureaucratic inertia that stalled this logical move. BISX chief executive Keith Davies is naturally elated at the success of his long campaign. Now, over $3 billion principal amount of bonds are added to the All-Share Index, nearly doubling its value from the corporate equities and debt securities already listed. The BGRS’ original listing fees and eventual trading fees will provide a revenue increase to fund improved BISX trading platforms and education and publicity campaigns. Once BGRS trading begins in early November, about 200 outstanding BGRS tranches will be available, all with the same “Bahamian Triple-A” rating but with different interest coupons and maturity periods. Thus, the differing yields to maturity will cause each tranche to trade at a separate price,
BISX chief Keith Davies so that a true transparent “yield curve” will soon evolve. This will set a benchmark for prices of all lower rated corporate or agency bonds, and encourage active trading. Although present publicity speaks only about improved management of public debt and lower costs for bond trading, I hope to see a spill-over into the capital market for equities. With the present 11,000 small shareholders in APD, I estimate there must be close to 20,000 total BISX equity investors, and Government policy is clearly in favour of wider wealth ownership. One positive step in this direction would be granting a two-year business licence exemption to any viable company that “goes public” with a distribution plan to attract at least 5000 shareholders. Doubtless other incentives could be offered, without ever the socialist measure of compelling public ownership.
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Thursday, August 8, 2019, PAGE 13
‘The Bahamas’ own street philosopher’
PAGE 14, Thursday, August 8, 2019
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40,000 FORCED OUT OF THEIR HOMES IN COLOMBIA’S DRUGS WAR BOGOTA, Colombia Associated Press ILLEGAL armed groups have forced some 40,000 people to flee their homes as they fight for control of drug trafficking routes in Colombia’s Catatumbo region bordering Venezuela, Human Rights Watch said yesterday, The international watchdog published a 64-page report on abuses committed against civilians by armed groups in the mountainous area. The situation reflects the significant security challenges that Colombia faces after the government signed a 2016 peace deal
with the FARC guerrilla group, leaving a void that has been filled by smaller armed groups that have moved into Catatumbo and other remote areas unleashing a new wave of drug-fueled violence. In the report called “The War in Catatumbo,” Human Rights Watch says three armed groups are fighting over drug routes and coca plantations abandoned by FARC rebels in the region, including the Popular Liberation Army, the National Liberation Army and a small group of former FARC fighters. These armed groups have expelled thousands of rural
dwellers from their homes, murdered community leaders and forcibly recruited children into their ranks, according to the report, which also includes interviews with children who have been forced to work harvesting coca leaves, the raw material for cocaine. “The 2016 peace accord between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia presented a landmark opportunity to halt the serious abuses and atrocities associated with a decades-long armed conflict,” the report says. “Yet in practice, the
government does not exercise effective control over all territory in particular areas reclaimed from the FARC.” Catatumbo is about the size of Rhode Island. It borders Venezuela and in 2017 it produced about 15 percent of Colombia’s coca crop, according to U.N. figures. The mountainous region has been used by drug traffickers as a staging point for exporting cocaine. Human Rights Watch accused Colombia’s government of “not meeting its obligations” to protect civilians in the area, which include an estimated 25,000 Venezuelan
migrants. The organization said migrants fleeing economic hardship in Venezuela have been forced into sex work in Catatumbo and are also harvesting coca leaves in a desperate bid to feed their families. The report said there were 231 homicides in Catatumbo last year or twice as many as before the peace deal with the FARC was signed. “As armed groups fight for the void left by the FARC in Catatumbo, hundreds of civilians have been caught in the conflict,” said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director of the group.
Trump gets rough ride on visit to Dayton and El Paso EL PASO, Texas Associated Press AIMING to play the traditional role of healer during national tragedy, President Donald Trump paid visits yesterday to cities reeling from mass shootings that left 31 dead and dozens more wounded. But his divisive words preceded him, large protests greeted him and biting political attacks soon followed. The president and first lady Melania Trump flew to El Paso late in the day after visiting the Dayton, Ohio, hospital where many of the victims of Sunday’s attack in that city were treated. For most of the day, the president was kept out of view of the reporters traveling with him, but the White House said the couple met with hospital staff and first responders and spent time with wounded survivors and their families. Trump told them he was “with them,” said press secretary Stephanie Grisham. “Everybody received him very warmly. Everybody was very, very excited to see him.” Trump said the same about his reception in the few moments he spoke with the media at a 911 call center in El Paso. But outside Dayton’s Miami Valley Hospital, at least 200 protesters gathered, blaming Trump’s incendiary rhetoric for inflaming political and racial tensions in the country and demanding action on gun control. Some said Trump was not welcome in their city. There were Trump supporters, as well. In El Paso, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke spoke to several hundred people at a separate
PRESIDENT Trump speaks to first responders as he visits the El Paso yesterday as demonstrators hold up signs telling him he is not welcome.
gathering. O’Rourke, a potential Democratic 2020 presidential rival, has blistered Trump as a racist instigator, but he also told those in his audience the open way the people of his hometown treat each other could be “the example
to the United States of America.” Emotions are still raw in both cities in the aftermath of the weekend shootings. Critics contend Trump’s own words have contributed to a combustible climate that has spawned
death and other violence. Trump’s motorcade passed El Paso protesters holding “Racist Go Home” signs. And Trump spent part of his flight between Ohio and Texas airing his grievances on Twitter, berating Democratic lawmakers, O’Rourke and the press. It was a remarkable splitscreen appearance for TV viewers, with White House images of handshakes and selfies juxtaposed with angry tweets. Trump and the White House have forcefully disputed the idea that he bears some responsibility for the nation’s divisions. And he continued to do so Wednesday. “My critics are political
people,” Trump said as he left the White House, noting the apparent political leanings of the shooter in the Dayton killings. He also defended his rhetoric on issues including immigration, claiming instead that he “brings people together.” Some 85% of U.S. adults believe the tone and nature of political debate has become more negative, with a majority saying Trump has changed things for the worse, according to recent Pew Research Center polling. And more than three quarters, 78%, say that elected officials who use heated or aggressive language to talk about certain people or groups
make violence against those people more likely. In Dayton, raw anger and pain were on display as protesters chanted “Ban those guns” and “Do something!” during Trump’s visit. Holding a sign that said “Not Welcome Here,” Lynnell Graham said she thinks Trump’s response to the shootings has been insincere. “To me he comes off as fake,” she said. Dorothee Bouquet, stood in the bright sun with her 5-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son, tucked in a stroller. She told them they were going to a protest “to tell grownups to make better rules.” But in El Paso, where more protests awaited, Raul Melendez, whose father-in-law, David Johnson, was killed in Saturday’s shooting, said the most appropriate thing Trump could do was to meet with relatives of the victims. “It shows that he actually cares, if he talks to individual families,” said Melendez.
PUERTO RICO BRACES FOR YET MORE PROTESTS AGAINST LATEST GOVERNOR SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico Associated Press PUERTO Ricans braced for more political turmoil today as the third governor in a week took charge of this US territory still divided over who should lead the economically struggling island of 3.2 million people. The swearing in of Justice Secretary Wanda Vázquez as governor was expected to spur renewed protests since many Puerto Ricans see her as an extension of Ricardo Rosselló, who resigned the governorship after weeks of street demonstrations demanding his removal. Vázquez sought to calm the anger in a televised statement late Wednesday, saying she feels the pain Puerto Ricans have experienced in recent weeks and vowing to unify the island and bring much needed stability. “We have all felt the anxiety provoked by the instability and uncertainty,” she said. “Faced with this enormous challenge and with God ahead, I take a step forward with no interest other than serving the people as I have done my whole life.” Vázquez, who has worked
THE SWEARING in of Justice Secretary Wanda Vázquez in the government for more than 30 years, stepped into the position Wednesday when Puerto Rico’s Supreme Court declared that the assumption of the office on Friday by Rosselló’s pick, Pedro Pierluisi, was unconstitutional. “Puerto Rico is living its most important juncture of its democratic history,” Supreme Court President Maite Oronoz wrote in her opinion. “The summer of 2019 will be remembered as the moment without precedent in which Puerto Ricans — of all ages, ideologies, backgrounds and creeds — threw themselves into the streets to demand more from their government.”
The court settled the political dispute over who will lead Puerto Rico after its establishment was knocked off balance by the huge street protests spawned by anger over corruption, mismanagement of funds and a leaked obscenity-laced chat in which Rosselló and several top aides disparaged islanders. Vázquez, a 59-year-old former prosecutor, is the second woman to be governor and is to serve out the remainder of Rosselló’s term until elections in November 2020, but at least some of those involving in the anti-Rosselló protests are calling for her ouster, too.