The long road to the privatization of the Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC)

The long road to privatization
By CANDIA DAMES
Guardian News Editor
candia@nasguard.com

One dozen years later, tone of BTC debate unchanged


In 1999 when initial attempts at privatizing the Bahamas Telecommunications Corporation led to massive demonstrations that saw protestors clash with police, former Prime Minister the late Sir Lynden Pindling noted that “double-talk on the privatization of BaTelCo has caused mistrust, chronic insensitivity — and

lack of respect has bred contempt.”

He opined that this was “fueling sustained civil disorder.”

“Much of what used to work is breaking down,” Sir Lynden said. “Civil society is manifestly under the gun in more ways than one. We cannot go on this way. Quite obviously, we cannot succeed this way. In the interest of peace, sanity and democracy in industrial relations, the time has come for all parties concerned to step back, take a deep breath and reassess the situation and, after reassessment, a new beginning can be made.”

More than a decade later, we are at a similar point. The latest efforts of the Ingraham administration to sell the state-owned telecommunications company have resulted in a degree of civil disorder, and industrial relations are again strained.

But unlike in 1999, the Government of The Bahamas today is on the brink of inking the final deal with a partner to purchase, not 49, but 51 percent of Bahamas Telecommunications Company’s (BTC) shares.

The road leading to this point has been long, uncertain and at times treacherous.

It was on February 11, 1998 in a communication to Parliament that the Ingraham administration formally announced its intention to privatize BaTelCo.

But that announcement was no surprise.

Manifesto II outlined the Free National Movement’s recognition that the rapid technological advances being realized in the production and supply of utilities, such as telecommunications services, made it increasingly difficult for public monopoly providers to remain at the cutting-edge of technology.

The Ingraham-led government was — and still is — of the view that it is the private sector that should be the main engine of economic growth and development, and that as far as possible, the role of government should be limited to that of providing those services which the private sector is unwilling or unable to provide, and ensuring that there exists an environment conducive to broad-based economic growth and development.

It was anticipated that the government would proceed to privatize the corporation during 1999.

But privatization plans date back even further, according to Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham.

In 1997, under another incarnation of his government, he said at an FNM rally that, “Before the FNM came to office, the PLP government was secretly negotiating to sell BaTelCo to Cable and Wireless of the United Kingdom and they said not a word to the Bahamian people about it.”

Addressing the recent Bahamas Business Outlook forum, Ingraham repeated the statement.

Today, we are told the Ingraham administration is just days away from concluding an agreement with Cable and Wireless for the majority of BTC’s shares.

BTC has come a very long way in its growth and development, although it is still lagging behind on some telecommunications advances.

BTC evolved out of BaTelCo, which grew out of the Telecommunications Department. That department dates back to 1892. It was on June 9, 1966 that Parliament passed the Bahamas Telecommunications Corporation Act, transforming the department to a corporation.

While the players and the approach to privatization are somewhat changed since the late 1990s when the buzzword was on everyone’s tongue, much of the language is the same.

At that 1997 FNM rally, Ingraham underscored that neither the government nor BaTelCo, from its own resources, can keep up with technological advances in telecommunications.

It’s a point he has made repeatedly in this most recent attempt to privatize.

In the late 1990s, the thinking of the Ingraham administration was to keep a majority interest in BaTelCo in Bahamian hands.

“I propose that we make available a minority interest in BaTelCo to a communication giant,” Ingraham told rallygoers. “That is why I propose we keep ownership of the majority of BaTelCo in Bahamian hands.”

Ingraham said at the time that he did not want to put this country in the position where it has to sell BaTelCo because the government is broke, and as a result receive less for the full monopoly.

“I do not want this to happen for The Bahamas,” he said. “I want us to remain ahead of the game.”

THE GROUND WORK

In February 1998, the government secured the services of the London-based telecommunications group Deutsche Morgan Grenfell to advise it on the privatization of BaTelCo.

Then Deputy Prime Minister Frank Watson told Parliament that the government expected to complete the privatization of the corporation within 12 months.

The Bahamas, he said, was in “the enviable position” of being able to earmark and commit all the proceeds from the sale of the shares in BaTelCo to national debt reduction.

Today, the government expects to get $210 million plus stamp taxes from Cable and Wireless for 51 percent of BTC.

While initially the prime minister had indicated the money would be earmarked to build a badly needed hospital, the rough economy and the resulting strain on government finances have led to a change of plans. The government intends — as it did in 1998 — to use the proceeds to pay down the debt.

Watson, who at the time was the minister responsible for public enterprises, said it was not possible for a publicly-owned facility, such as BaTelCo, to indefinitely maintain an effective monopoly in telecommunications.

“Continuing attempts to do so will undoubtedly be swept aside by the tide of technology, competition and market liberalization,” Watson said.

This communication to Parliament followed demonstrations in Rawson Square by BaTelCo workers, wary of privatization.

Watson advised that the government remained “resolute in our commitment and firm in our determination to move forward with deliberate haste in the privatization of BaTelCo.”

Before privatization could happen, the government needed to embark on a downsizing exercise, which proved highly controversial.

In June 1999, it was revealed that the cost of separation packages distributed to disengaged BaTelCo workers was $66.2 million.

Watson revealed in the House of Assembly that other benefit payments due to workers based on the terms of the disengagement agreement amounted to $55 million.­

Additionally, employees received from the pension fund their entitlement of $24.2 million.

When it was all over, the total number of employees remaining at the corporation was 1,086, including 713 in New Providence, 182 in Grand Bahama, and 191 in the Family Islands.

Watson said at the time the government was “sympathetic to the employees who are being separated from BaTelCo, many of whom have given years of outstanding, dedicated and faithful services.”

“However, we are faced with the stark reality that the nature of the workplace is changing and changing rapidly, fueled principally by the dynamic advances in telecommunications technology,” he said.

“It is our duty to ensure that The Bahamas is prepared for the challenges that lie ahead.”

Watson also advised that, “Despite the challenges which were encountered over the past several months, we are essentially on schedule with the privatization of BaTelCo.”

The Ingraham government’s fundamental position on privatization has remained clear.

In a privatization position statement on February 12, 1998, the government said,
“We should not continue to inflict upon the public and business community of The Bahamas the unnecessarily high cost to sustain and maintain a government telecommunications monopoly.”

FIERCE OPPOSITION

The strong opposition the government is facing from BTC’s unions today is not unlike the fury those labor organizations unleased in the late 1990s when the Ingraham administration moved with “deliberate haste” toward privatization.

In 1998, while the union leaders, after meetings with Ingraham, remained strongly opposed to the privatization of the lucrative corporation, the government also remained unfazed in its stance to sell off a chunk of BaTelCo.

“The majority of the workers feel that there is no need to privatize BaTelCo,” said Robert Farquharson, who at the time was secretary general of the Bahamas Communications and Public Officers Union (BCPOU).

“They are upset that the government has taken this position.”

Farquharson — who later became the union’s president — said at the time that BaTelCo workers had observed the effects of privatization in developing countries “and in practically all of the cases, privatization has not been good”.

As the year progressed, the BCPOU stepped up its opposition to the privatization of BaTelCo.

“We are not satisfied that the privatization of BaTelCo is the only way to encourage state-of-the-art management technology and increased efficiency,” said Shane Gibson, who was president of the BCPOU.

But by 2001, Gibson had a change of heart.

He said BCPOU members were “eagerly” awaiting the sale of BaTelCo because their lives had been “up in the air.”

“The sale of BaTelCo will bring about better services to the public and employees,” Gibson said.

In 1999, Gibson was on the frontline of protests against the sale.

In February of that year, angry protestors stormed Parliament, and Ingraham had to be placed under heavy police guard as they unleashed their fury.

Like many union heads in the late 1990s, the official opposition also expressed serious misgivings about privatization.

In March 1998, Shadow Minster of Public Utilities Dr. Bernard Nottage announced that the PLP was asserting “our complete and total condemnation of the government’s deceptive and hasty approach to the privatization of BaTelCo.”

He said while in principle there was no objection to BaTelCo’s privatization, the party preferred a BaTelCo that is 100 percent owned by Bahamians.

“We are dismayed that the government has summarily dismissed the possibility and has not included it in the terms of reference of its consultant advisors,” Nottage said.

“We and the public need to know the explanation for this decision before any debate is entertained on this matter.”

In the position statement in February 1998, Watson appealed to the leadership of BaTelCo’s unions, and all BaTelCo employees to cooperate fully in the privatization process so as to achieve the best possible results for all.

In January 2002, Ingraham expressed disappointment in the privatization delay.

The prime minister told the nation that while BaTelCo was being readied for sale, the process would not be completed before he left office.

“The final decisions on the sale of the corporation will be made by the next Government of The Bahamas, after the next general election,” he advised.

FAILED BID

Under the five-year rule of the Christie administration, privatization was also on the menu.

The administration also planned to use proceeds from the sale to pay down debt.

In September 2002, the government inched a step closer to the privatization of BaTelCo, and announced the formation of the Bahamas Telecommunications Company Limited.

Then Board Chairman Reno Brown told reporters the name change marked the first crucial and very necessary step in the privatization process.

Bradley Roberts, who at the time was minister responsible for BTC, signed the vesting orders in accordance with a resolution passed in the House of Assembly, which approved of the disposal of the property which BaTelCo owned, to BTC, as well as to the treasurer of The Bahamas and the Public Utilities Commission.

As Brown told it, the transfer of the assets was seamless.

Millions more were pumped into preparing BTC for privatization. But it amounted to yet another failed bid.

As its term wound down, the Progressive Liberal Party government settled on the Bluewater group.

According to documents obtained by The Nassau Guardian, James Smith, who at the time was minister of state for finance, wrote to then Cabinet Secretary Wendell Major on April 30, 2007 advising that the sale to Bluewater had been “approved for execution”.

Smith also advised Major that he may wish to consult with Prime Minister Christie on the matter.

Smith attached a letter from Bluewater, outlining the terms of the pending sale.

In the letter, Bluewater confirmed its offer to purchase a 49 percent interest in BTC from the government.

Bluewater agreed to pay the government $260 million “for 49 percent of the company which represents a valuation of 100 percent of BTC of over $520 million.”

Bluewater agreed to pay $220 million in cash at closing; $25 million at the end of the fifth year following closing and $15 million at the end of the sixth year.”

Under that deal, Bluewater would have been granted mobile and land line licenses with five and six-year exclusivity periods, respectively.

Bluewater would also have been granted full management and operational control of BTC.

While that deal called for the chairman of the board to be a Bahamian citizen appointed by the government in consultation with Bluewater, the telecoms firm would have appointed the deputy chairman, the company’s chief executive officer and the chief financial officer.

Bluewater’s letter also called for the government to make certain payments to the group in the event it violated the exclusivity agreement.

But Bluewater’s plans had a short shelf life.

A day after being sworn back into office in 2007, Ingraham said while the Free National Movement was campaigning, the Christie administration was busy at Cabinet agreeing to sell BTC secretly.

It was then that he vowed that his administration would review every line of the deal “and there is no circumstance under which BTC can be sold on credit — no deal about installment payments.”

“All monies up front,” Ingraham said. “And what you will do after you get it must be clearly stated.”

UNFINISHED AGENDA

When the Free National Movement was returned to government in 2007, it again had privatization on its agenda.

In September 2008, Prime Minister Ingraham revealed in the House of Assembly that the government intends to sell a 51 percent stake in BTC and move swiftly to liberalize the telecoms sector in the country. ”It is the government’s intent to cause BTC to be privatized by the end of this year,” Ingraham said.

“Whether or not we’re going to be able to make that date is questionable at the moment because there are many issues that need to be settled.”

The year ended with the government still far off from privatization.

In August 2009, the government-appointed privatization committee said interest in the 51 percent stake was strong, and the due diligence phase of the process was set for a September start.

The government again advised that it was seeking a strategic partner with a strong reputation in the telecommunications industry; the ability and commitment to generate value-added revenue and cost synergies with BTC operations; financial strength and the operational platform to be able to enhance BTC’s underlying network, services, billing and customer service, as well as a history of strong financial performance.

Weeks later, the privatization committee recommended to Ingraham that four interested groups be allowed to bid: Vodafone and One Equity Partners; Digicel Limited; Atlantic Tele-Network Inc. (a consortium which included Colina Financial Advisors as a minority shareholder) and Trilogy International Partners (which was backed by Providence Equity Partners).

Vodafone and OEP ended up with the highest combined score after the committee completed an assessment of the bidders’ financial and technical ability.

At this stage of the process, Cable and Wireless had no interest in purchasing any part of BTC.

There were actually several major telecoms companies that had been described by the privatization committee as the “best prospects” to purchase a 51 percent stake in BTC, but they decided not to participate in the sale process.

Cable and Wireless, AT&T, Verizon, America Movil and Rogers Communications were the groups the committee was most interested in, but they had no interest in the company.

The committee said in 2009 that after a lengthy review of the opportunity, Cable and Wireless decided not to participate, being focused on other organic growth opportunities and financial market conditions.

Last year, CWC was back at the table with the government.

Since the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Ingraham administration early last month, the company and the government have seen strong opposition.

But it finally appears that the long, tumultuous road that saw numerous failed attempts at privatization is nearing its end.

BTC in short order, it seems, will be owned in the majority by Cable and Wireless.

It’s a move the Ingraham-led government has assured will spell untold benefits for customers craving lower costs and better technology.

But a dozen years after initial attempts were made to privatize BaTelCo, the unions are still not convinced that the government’s approach to privatization is the best one.

It is unclear whether this sharp opposition — including court action — would have any meaningful impact on the process this time around.

1/24/2011

thenassauguardian

Crime is rooted like a canker in today’s so-called modern Bahamas

Crime & Social Hypocrisy
The Bahama Journal Editorial


Something insidious has been going on for some time now; with that ‘insidious’ thing being that evolution of a state of mind where so very many Bahamians are wont to complain about crime; all the while turning a blind eye to the kinds of crimes most of them routinely commit and which they routinely get away with.

Here we reference the extent to which stealing by reason of employment; other artful appropriation of things belonging to others and other such slick maneuvers that end with the same result.

And so, today the fact remains that, we now live in a land where while paradox and irony routinely cavort; social hypocrisy abounds.

Here we need only cite some of those ribald instances where thieves would sit around stolen tables and where they would feast on stolen food – and as they sometimes do, these fine people would chat amiably –and sometimes with the greatest of alarm – about the extent to which crime was on the rise in today’s Bahamas.

This kind of scene is both appalling and revelatory – appalling because these types are clearly oblivious to the extent to which their slick crimes against property is itself one of the more common expressions underlying the fact that crime is rooted like a canker in today’s so-called modern Bahamas.

And for sure, not only is crime deeply rooted; there is also a sense we are getting that crimes such as those that involve pilferage and other instances of what we would call exemplars of the ‘soft’ rip-off.

Here we find those instances where employees routinely steal time owed their employers; where these same employees appropriate office property, use them for their own purposes and who do so without permission.

These are all examples of theft done the slick way.

Evidently, these thieves could care less when they learn that, their honest neighbors, family and friends are the ones who will ultimately pay the price for crimes they do not commit.

Here we might cite some of what former Bahamas Chamber of Commerce President Dionisio D'Aguilar has already said about these kinds of criminals and the damage they get away with. Here he notes that, internal theft causes Bahamian businesses mind-boggling losses every year.

Mr. D'Aguilar also said that shrinkage, which includes many items, including spoiled goods, could cost this country's food-stores a combined $15 million a year.

We also understand that, Abaco Markets' president Gavin Watchorn has a similar tale of woe concerning the extent to which his firm has been victimized by the criminals in their Company’s employ.

Watchorn has also been reported as having said that, the level of stealing inflicted on his food-stores - both by staff and customers- had increased by 100 per cent.

This is absolutely disgraceful.

Yet again, we note that, in the end it is the Bahamian consumer who pays for these losses as theft is factored into the price of the goods.

Over the weekend, criminals did what they usually do – they went about their businesses that involve ripping other people off; raping and abusing some others and for sure, either maiming or killing some others.

Sadly, this is par for the course in today’s crime-ridden and sin-sickened Bahamas.

It is precisely this kind of society that has produced the kind of people who struck the Carnival this past weekend.

Here we cite the caper that involved the slickly successful theft of some motor-cycles used at the Carnival site in Oakes Field.

As we have read, “…Under the cover of darkness early last Saturday morning, thieves cut open a three-foot hole in the carnival’s perimeter fence, broke the lock of a trailer and made off with three motorcycles used to perform inside the “Globe of Death”.

“Becky Hitchcock, general manger of the carnival, said a show dog kept within the same trailer as the motorcycles alerted staff to the robbery. However, by the time the staff was alerted, the thieves were gone…”

And so, even as we note that the thieves were gone, note also that the crooks took with them two red and white 100cc Honda motorcycles and one red and white 70cc Honda motorcycle.

While we are today hopeful that the police will get to the bottom of this heist; we are not going to hold our breath as we wait.

But for sure, even as we might cite example after example of the kind of crimes and abuses Bahamians routinely inflict on each other, we do no such thing.

Instead, we call upon each and every Bahamian parent and all others who care for children to teach and show them how they should love and respect all other people; thus putting them on that path that would prevent them from becoming law-breakers, however artful.

January 24, 2011

The Bahama Journal Editorial

Bahamas Blog International

If Julian Assange is a Terrorist, What is Luis Posada Carriles Then?

by Jean Guy Allard

The trials of the creator of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and of international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles will begin with less than 24-hour difference on January 10 and 11, one in London and the other one in El Paso, Texas. The anomaly immediately catching the attention of people is that the champion of freedom of information will be accused of the very serious crime of terrorism, while the confessed terrorist will be tried for migratory crimes sanctioned by a sentence he has already served.

The ANSA news agency reports that the request of extradition made by Sweden for the charge of "sexual molestation" against Assange was transferred from a court in the center of London to Belmarsh Court, specializing in terrorism issues and annexed to a maximum security prison, re-baptized years ago by the BBC as "The British Guantánamo."

Assange will appear in court on a charge of terrorism, which implies, according to British laws, his arrest and confinement.

Luis Posada Carriles will continue to be free on bail when he appears in the United States before a judge who acquitted him in a first trial and who openly expressed her sympathy for him in a hall full of followers, many of them with a terrorist past, who will come from Batista’s Miami and so as not to miss an opportunity to celebrate his crimes.

A spokesperson of the British legal authorities stated that the transfer to the court of Belmarsh, in the south-east area of the capital, is due to "logistic reasons" and not, as stated by WikiLeaks, due to US pressure.

SPEEDED UP FOR ASSANGE, DELAYED FOR POSADA

The truth is that while in the case of Assange, the procedures have been speeded up, skipping stages as much as possible, after a series of tricks to silence the blonde Australian man, in the case of Posada Carriles, a former CIA agent that served the Company as an instructor of explosives, a torturer, a police captain, a hired assassin, a terrorist and a promoter of assassination, records of dilatory maneuvers to drown out his case are broken.

In addition to use a panoply of dirty tricks to pressure Assange, sabotage his operations system, take away its income, recover its leaks, manipulate its content, in short, terrorize the man who dared to open the valves of the huge can of diplomatic trash of the United States, the US intelligence services and its branches, they have kidnapped the man to be blame for so much courage for not being able to eliminate him without expanding the scandal even more.

Hundreds of texts have been written, books have been published, and documentaries have been made about the criminal record Posada, the Klaus Barbie of US intelligence.

On May 17, 2005, at 1:30 pm, Luis Posada Carriles was arrested near Miami, and taken in a gulf cart to a helicopter, "with every kindness and courtesy possible", for his transfer to the offices of the Department of Internal Security.

On April 1st, 2005, a lawyer for Posada Carriles, Eduardo Soto, confirmed in Miami that his client –illegally introduced in US territory on board of a shrimp vessel owned by a capo of the Cuban-American mafia-, would ask for asylum and parole to stay in the country permanently.

In spite of the accusations presented in Caracas for his participation in the terrorist attack against a Cuban aircraft that killed all 73 people on board in 1976; his arrest in Panama in 2000, in connection with a plan for an assassination attempt against Cuban leader Fidel Castro; his public acceptance for having organized a terrorist campaign against tourist facilities in Havana in 1997; and his close links with terrorist networks, Posada Carriles would receive from Bush’s government absolute support that Obama never dared to alter.

On September 27, 2005, an immigration judge in El Paso, Texas, William Abbott, following federal instructions, had used the absurd testimony of an old accomplice of Posada, a former official of the Venezuelan secret police, Joaquin Chaffardet, to order that the criminal could be deported to Venezuela.

GETTING RID OF THE "HOT POTATO"

Four months later, on January 24, 2006, three days before the formal assuming of power of the new Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, The Miami Herald -the bonds of which with US intelligence have been well demonstrated-, cited what it called "fragments" of a Statement by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau (ICE), that pointed out the following: "The ICE is progressing in the carrying out of the removal of Mr. Posada from the USA."

The White House –in the face of an international scandal-, assessed that the best way to get rid of the "hot potato" the former agent, terrorist, torturer and assassin represented, was to find him refuge anywhere outside US territory.

Three days later, on January 27, 2006, the US ambassador to Honduras, Charles "Charlie" Ford, visited Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, scarcely eight days after his coming to power, to present him an insolent request.

"Ambassador Charles Ford came to ask me, by way of the Foreign Ministry, for the granting of a visa to Posada Carriles", said Zelaya later, referring to the then Foreign Minister Milton Jiménez Puerto.

"It was impossible to give a visa to Luis Posada Carriles, since he was questioned for terrorist acts. They defend that kind of terrorism, I vouch for that, and it’s for that kind of thing that we hold different stances," he underlined.

On April 19, 2007, Posada Carriles, found not guilty by Cardone, was back in Miami not to set foot in a detention center ever again.

BROWNFIELD: "POSADA DOESN’T PUT ANYBODY AT RISK"

On March 18, 2008, as a response to the statements made by Cuba and Venezuela at the UN, the person in charge of legal affairs in the US mission, Caroline Wilson, pointed out with candor that her country "had carefully followed the legal procedures in force in the case of Posada Carriles".

"As happens in democracies in the world, a person can’t be tried or extradited if there isn’t enough evidence that he committed the crime he’s accused of," she asserted.

In July, 2008, the US ambassador to Venezuela at the time, William Brownfield, in statements to the Panorama newspaper, in Maracaibo, made it clear that the United States had no intention whatsoever of putting Posada at the disposal of Venezuelan justice, which was claiming and continues to claim him.

"Mr. Luis Posada Carriles doesn’t represent an imminent danger for anybody," Brownfield had asserted, making it clear that the Bush administration would never turn over its veteran agent.

Ironically, a few days before the Brownfield stupidity, the Undersecretary of State, Thomas Shannon, today an ambassador in Brazil, assured the OAS that the US Department of Justice was "still carrying out investigations" about Posada Carriles.

While Assange is hastily taken from a minor court to another one that can lock him up for good, the Venezuelan government is waiting for an answer, for more than five years now, to the request of extradition of the terrorist.

Assange, the Web idealist demonized by the major communication networks and persecuted by the police of the US spiders web, will soon know how imperial justice gives a piece of its mind, with or without intermediaries.

Ignored by an accomplice press, Posada, the mercenary assassin, will keep on evading law, and the dozens of victims and relatives of victims of his crimes, the lives of whom, in many cases, have been devastated by the permanent despicable and cowardly willingness of the swine without scruples of serving the empire.

10 January 2011 14:42

cubanradio.cu

Bahamas Blog International

May 14 or February 7: What does the Haitian constitution say?

By Jean H Charles


The Haitian Constitution is clear and neat in its article 134.1: “the term of the president begins and ends on the February 7 following the date of the elections.” Rene Preval, the Haitian president has succeeded with corrupt money to have legislation passed that would extend his mandate until May 14. The term of the legislators that extended the mandate expired on January 11, 2010; as such they had no authority to pass such a law on May 17, 2010.

The promulgation of the law certifying his presidency on March 24, 2006, indeed stipulated that his mandate will end on February 7, 2011. He had thirty days to contest. He failed to do so. At his inauguration five years ago, he did recognize that the letter and the terms of the Constitution shall be the last word: “I will remit the power on February 7, 2011, whatever the time and the date of my inauguration.”

President Preval during his five years in power has succeeded in emasculating the judiciary. He has refused to name a chief justice. When confronted with this major dereliction of duty, he claimed he was too busy with other matters to perform that crucial constitutional obligation, in a casual remark he continued, “All the justices minus one are unconstitutional.”

The United States is unique in the world in having a strong Constitutional Court – the Federal courts as well as the Supreme Court – that intervene to prevent problems and bring about solutions to conflicting political issues.

John Marshall, the eminent American jurist, in a seminal decision – Marbury vs. Madison – in 1800 stated it is the province of the court to say what the law is. This dictum reproduced in the jurisprudence of most western countries put the judiciary on a higher platform where actions by the legislative and by the executive can be reviewed by the court for their conformity with the established constitution.

To solve the Haitian dilemma we must go into the spirit and the minds of the framers to find out what the deadline of February 7 meant in their deliberations. I have consulted two of the framers who toiled for months to produce the Haitian constitution.

They told me the date of February 7 was chosen as a strong barrier against any volition of dictatorship from future presidents. The last dictator, Jean Claude Duvalier, was chased from power on February 7. To extirpate for ever from the Haitian mind and spirit the possibility of incubating a new dictator, February 7 as the last date for remaining in power has been written in stone in the Haitian Constitution. The law extending the term of the President to May 14 is repugnant to the Haitian Constitution.

Since 1987, Haiti has made three small steps that may lead its nascent democracy to leaps and bounds.

1. February 7 has been set as a road block that cannot be removed or crossed by any wannabe dictator to implement a new form of dictatorship into Haiti.

2. The current president cannot present himself for a second term consecutively. After a non consecutive two terms he cannot run again.

3. The reigning president cannot use his power to legitimise an associate as the next president. The permanent electoral board is responsible for organizing and controlling with complete independence all electoral procedures until the results of the election are announced.

President Preval has succeeded in running amok of all the acquisitions of the Haitian democracy. Having succeeded to be elected for a second term, he is trying to go beyond February 7, in his mandate. Furthermore, he is insisting that his candidate Jude Celestin be rubber-stamped by an electoral council as the next president.

President Preval has presented the spurious arguments that he is and shall remain the only interlocutor accepted by the international community to defend and present the interest of the Haitian people.

His disastrous leadership during the last five years in general, his poor handling of the catastrophe that befell Haiti since January 12, his dubious handling of the electoral processes, all indicate that his credibility after his mandate is at a low point to help Haiti cross the Rubicon of its recovery.

Haiti, after two hundred years, has for the first time the entire constellation in its favour to usher into a new era of prosperity and fulfillment. It has a large educated Diaspora (in love with the motherland), ready and willing to help. Its population has experienced without relief but with ‘saintly resilience’ the dictatorship of the Duvaliers, the militarism of Namphy, Cedras, and Avril. It went into the anarchic-mercurial governance of Aristide and Preval as well as the corrupt bureaucratic transition of Latortue. It is now ready and thirsty for true democracy.

For the first time in its history, due to the devastating earthquake, the entire world was concerned about and wanted to help Haiti. Yet the corrupt leadership of the present government thwarted any coordination of the aid agencies that would bring incremental relief to the Haitian people.

President Preval stands across Haiti’s smooth process of recovery. At the end of his mandate on February 7 the people of Haiti, the commerce and the industry, the church, as well as the true friends of Haiti should stand as one to prevent (using former Assistant US Secretary of State, Roger Noriega’s language) the clumsy electoral farce from turning into needless political violence.

Letting Preval formulate and implement at his own discretion the date of his departure from power is a dangerous precedent that will impede forever the young Haitian democratic process.

It will create also chaos and instability with no end in sight!

January 22, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

50th Anniversary of the Bay of Pigs: The CIA Nostra (10)

• On October 26, 51 years ago, Fidel announced the creation of the Revolutionary National Militia • Granma International will be publishing a series of articles on the events leading up to the April, 1961 battle of the Bay of Pigs • As we approach the 50th Anniversary of this heroic feat, we will attempt to recreate chronologically the developments which occurred during this period and ultimately led to the invasion • The series will be a kind of comparative history, relating what was taking place more or less simultaneously in revolutionary Cuba, in the United States, in Latin America, within the socialist camp and in other places in some way connected to the history of these first years of the Cuban Revolution

By Gabriel Molina

• THE Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) allied itself with two of the 10 most dangerous criminals in the United States in an attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro in 1960.

This shocking news was made public in an official U.S. Senate report, but only in recent years has it been possible to reach an understanding of that aberrant fact, with the declassification of secret documents.

The report from the then U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy quoted by name Sam Giancana and Santos Trafficante, who were invited to take part in the CIA operation approved by Dwight Eisenhower, U.S. President at the time and CIA director Allen Dulles. The information was confirmed thanks to a report from the Special Committee chaired by Senator Frank Church, which states textually: "In August 1960 the CIA took steps to enlist members of the criminal underworld with gambling syndicate contacts to aid in assassinating Castro." (1)

On the summer morning of August 18, 1960, Richard Bissell, CIA Deputy Director of Plans, and very close to Allen Dulles, summoned Colonel Sheffield Edwards, director of the Agency’s Security Office, responsible for handling everything and from which nothing leaked, and told him that he had Dulles’ express instructions to do away with Fidel Castro. The decision had been approved by President Eisenhower after a meeting at the White House with Dulles and Bissell himself.

The committee headed by Democratic Senator Frank Church affirms that a number of CIA agents were in contact with the Cosa Nostra.

Robert Maheu, an agent specializing in shady dealings, was incorporated and asked by the CIA central command to contact John Roselli "to determine if he would participate in a plan to ‘dispose’ of Castro." (2)

Those assigned to the operation had to find somebody who could execute it in Cuba and who would appear to have no involvement with the Agency, the reason for the instructions that it should be somebody from outside. Given his contacts in Cuba, Colonel Edwards proposed the utilization of the Cosa Nostra. The essential details of the CIA-Cosa Nostra are included in the special Senate Committee report of 1975.

The first association between the U.S. government and the Italian-American mafia was with Lucky Luciano, head of the committee directing the various family gangs throughout the country, who was serving a sentence of 30-50 years, handed down on June 18, 1936, in the Dannemora high security prison. Mayor Lansky, Jewish, an astute man and a friend of Luciano and in fact his consigliere, negotiated with Commander Charles R. Haffenden, a superior officer in the Third Naval District Intelligence Office, an alliance to utilize the mafia in counterintelligence work in the New York docks, a target of Nazi agents; and intelligence on the landing and taking of Sicily by U.S. troops. In that way, Luciano was released, deported to Italy and all the associates came out winning.

The Special Military Plan for Psychological Warfare in Sicily reached the hands of Army Chief of Staff George Marshall and, with his recommendation, was approved in Washington on April 15, 1943. It was sent to Algiers and handed to Eisenhower, general in charge of the theater of operations in North Africa. The message was very clear; the Allies were going to utilize the mafia to win Sicily. (3)

Given that close connection, in a matter of hours Maheu had arranged a meeting with Roselli in the Brown Derby restaurant in Beverley Hills, base of the gangster, one of the most important mafia capos in California and Las Vegas, with wide-ranging relations with artists such as Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds and Dean Martin.

Maheu flew to California in September 1960 and met with Roselli in the Brown Derby on the 14th of that month. Roselli was receptive when Maheu informed him that senior government officials were interested in eliminating Fidel Castro, that the assassination could be based on Castro’s Cuban enemies, and offered him $150,000 for the contract. Roselli realized that, in addition to the money, the relationship would help him elude the threat of deportation hanging over him.

In Havana, that same September 14, it was announced that Fidel Castro, Prime Minister of the Revolutionary Government, would head the Cuban delegation to the UN General Assembly, and so Maheu and Roselli went to New York to contact a high-ranking CIA official in the Plaza Hotel. There, Roselli proposed including in the conspiracy his friend Sam Giancana, Al Capone’s successor, on account of his proven organizational skills in this type of operation and, to set up the necessary contacts, Santos Trafficante, who had many interests in Cuba expropriated by the Revolution and strong links with the island. Giancana then traveled to Miami to meet with them.

Giancana agreed, while discounting the possibility of a mafia-style hit. Nobody could be recruited to undertake it, there being such a slim chance of surviving it. He said that the only way to successful and protect lives would be to use a lethal poison that could be placed in a drink of Fidel Castro.

Sam "Momo" Giancana inherited Al Capone’s Chicago empire and held it from 1957 through 1966. The press described him as a small, bald man who loved silk suits, head-turning convertibles and even more head-turning women. His associations were equally notable, like the one he had with Frank Sinatra, or with the singer Phyllis McGuire from the Mcguire Trio, who was the first source leaking the assassination plot, when Giancana got the CIA to bug the singer’s bedroom to see if she was being unfaithful to him. The microphones were discovered by the FBI and the operation was about to become a scandal, only halted by an Agency cover up. Giancana’s relationship with Phyllis McGuire was very typical of him. He had her portrait painted. She "lost more than $100,000 at a gaming table in Las Vegas. Momo distracted her with his conversation so that she wouldn’t go on losing. He went to see the casino manager, the famous Moe Dalitz and told him that he would take care of the debt. He simply absorbed it." (4)

Santos Trafficante had been a friend of Giancana for many years. They were together in 1957, when a high-level meeting of the Appalachian mafiosi was uncovered by the police. He also had links with the capos Carlo Marcello, Joseph Bonnano, Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano. The youthful Trafficante began by running Havana’s Sans Souci cabaret. In combination with Lansky, he made other investments in the casinos of the new Havana Riviera and Capri hotels, and thus was surrounded by Cuban gangsters. Lending his services to the U.S. government would always fetch positive dividends.

Michael J. Murphy, chief inspector of the New York police, frustrated the initial attempt of that CIA Nostra. Murphy was responsible for Fidel’s security in the city during the UN General Assembly, and Murphy knew through a member of the CIA that Walter Martino, a member of the local mafia, had been instructed to place an explosive device close to the stage in Central Park, where Fidel was to speak.

The police chief was informed of this by a CIA official in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where the New York police agents in charge of security for the heads of state attending the meeting had their operational base. Martino was arrested and the plan thwarted.

Walter’s brother, John Martino, one of the members of the Italian-American mafia at Havana’s Hotel Nacional, had been arrested aboard a ferry on October 5, 1959, attempting to smuggle out a suitcase filled with mafia dollars. He later fled and was recruited by Sam Giancana to organize the attempt on the life of the Comandante en Jefe, a contract he gave to his brother Walter.



(1) Church Report: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders.


(2) Ibid.


(3) Tim Newark. Aliados de la Mafia (Mafia Allies. Alianza Editorial. Madrid, 2007.


(4) William Brashner. The Don Ballantine Books. New York, 1978.


(5) Fabián Escalante. Acción Ejecutiva. Objetivo Fidel Castro Executive Action. Target Fidel Castro). Ocean Press Melbourne, 2006.

Havana. January 21, 2011

granma.cu

Bahamas Blog International

Crime Pays in The Bahamas...

When Home-Making Fails
The Bahama Journal Editorial



We sometimes have cause to marvel at the fact that there was once a time in the Bahamas when hard-working men earned enough money and when the social circumstances then prevalent called on women to be home-makers for a brood of children.

Coming with that regime were also circumstances where communities of people took care of their old; formed their mutual aid societies and for sure, also made penny upon penny provision for the burial of their dead.

We also know that, the world whereof some now wax nostalgic was not fated to last; it was washed away in that flood that brought with it year-round, mass tourism; the so-called ‘liberation’ of women – and a culture of materialism, itself grounded in a system where people were taught and evidently did think that they could buy now and pay later.

And since we live in a world where one thing invariably leads to another, we now live in a world where that day of reckoning has come.

And now that it is here, we have a situation on our hands where materialism and consumerism are rampant; where crimes against persons and property are high and rising – and in a time and space where children are viewed as god-awful hindrances to parents, their neighbors, other family – and so-called friends.

In turn, we now have a situation where some of these urchins grow up with the certain knowledge that life is hard; that they can make it to the top if they sell themselves; if they learn how to lie, cheat, steal and otherwise perfectly emulate behavior they see at home, on the street – and sadly, in some of their parents’ church-homes.

Compounding the matter are all those jungle-like forces coming in from abroad [and here particularly with popular culture as produced and packaged in the United States of America] some of which popularize the savage notion that, you could or should get rich quick or die trying.

And so, today we have a situation where state authorities in today’s Bahamas are seemingly at a loss as to how they could or should [legally speaking] deal with the consequences attendant upon this loss of that old spirit that once pervaded society in The Bahamas.

That spirit once found residence in some of the most humble abodes scattered throughout these islands, rocks and cays.

Alas! Those days are apparently gone with the wind.

As most Bahamians would and could now attest, few among them [namely today’s busy, hard-working men and women] have practically no time left for those activities were once subsumed under the rubric of home-making.

This sad state of affairs brings with it a host of deleterious consequences for not only these men and women, but also for their children.

As it currently seems to us – one of the cruelest consequences brought forward with the break-down of home-making has to do with child neglect and on occasion, down-right abuse.

In time, these children grow up. And for sure, as they come to maturity, they emulate behaviors learned at home, on the street, in their schools, churches and elsewhere – thus reproducing the warped worlds from which they have been thrown; thus today’s mixed up, sad Bahamas.

And for sure, as we have previously commented crime pays in the Bahamas.

Indeed, such is the extent to which mistrust is rampant in today’s Bahamas that College of The Bahamas students routinely complain how they must jealously guard their books, computers and the like – this because some of their school-mates are cold enough and calculating enough to rip them off.

The same kind of thievery takes place at the secondary level.

And for sure, it also takes place at the level of the work-place.

Simply put, lots and lots of our people are not trust-worthy.

Add to this incompetence on the part of the police – and what you then get is a situation where crime pays; and where in the past year, the police only solved half of the four robbery cases reported for islands outside New Providence and Grand Bahama.

But when we get to New Providence, we find a perfectly disturbing picture where the police detection rates in the categories of attempted robbery, robbery, armed robbery and unlawful sexual intercourse were six, eight, 10 and 29 percent respectively.

Evidently, crime pays in New Providence, home to the vast majority of the Bahamian people – and a gateway to the world.

Criminals and their feral cohorts continue to rape, rob and pillage – seemingly at will.

A part of the explanation for this sorry state of affairs can be attributed to the fact that crime does pay in a Bahamas where the detection rate for crimes committed is so alarmingly low – and when and where home-making now fails.

January 21, 2011

The Bahama Journal Editorial

Bahamas Blog International

Homegrown terrorism - A rising threat in the Caribbean

By Rebecca Theodore


If religion, politics and economics are the explanations for terrorism and if arguments persist that home grown terrorism is labeled as one of the most important layers of al Qaeda’s threat to the developing world, then why are Caribbean gang members in the US who were convicted of violent crimes and deported to their countries of origin now directly involved in the fanatic ideology of carrying out autonomous jihad via acts of terrorism against the United States?

It must therefore be seen that homegrown terrorism is not only carried out by people who were born, raised and radicalized within a western milieu, or who speak good English, have proper travel documents and knowledge of how not to raise the suspicions of US intelligence and law enforcement agencies but also from the surge of deported gang members from the US, Britain and Canada to their Caribbean homelands.

In prompting an analysis of the psychology of the terrorist, US terror experts believe that Muslims, the realities of a globalized society, and the internet are the chief perpetrators of terrorism, while the violent Caribbean deportee is often overlooked. It is also worth noting that, while the internet makes the emergence of new human relationships possible, groups don’t only radicalize themselves over the internet. While the medium is still the message, it is now an outdated tool for terrorist, as the medium no longer shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and actions.

The alarming numbers of Caribbean deportees enlisting in terrorist cells in the Caribbean far exceeds the McLuhan dogma that universal participation generated by electronic media will put an end to parochialism because deported Caribbean gang members are not using the internet to be radicalized. In the conflicting age that now defines the 21st century, deported gang members are seeking union with those to whom they relate by way of elemental instinct.

New evidence suggest that Al Qaeda is now setting up cells and operating covertly on many Caribbean islands, recruiting and financing deported gang members from the US, Britain and Canada. Recent law enforcement investigations have unearthed a sophisticated network of nascent terrorist entrepreneurs lurking in a host of Caribbean countries, most notably Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Curacao, Guyana and Suriname.

The so-called “Caribbean terrorist” phenomenon now gains wide appeal because not only are the motivations for such individuals driven by a combination of personal circumstances and external factors but proves that self radicalization also stems from social marginalization and that the Caribbean is not immune from terrorism.

While many believe that gang violence in the Caribbean region threatens social stability, restrains economic and social development, discourages foreign investment, accelerates illegal immigration, drug smuggling and trafficking in arms and persons, it is also important to note that there are no differences between US homegrown terrorism and the Caribbean deportee, as they are both citizens or long-term residents who clandestinely plot to attack the United States and unleash untold miseries on law abiding citizens using the same types of military and propaganda tactics.

It must also be seen that while the Caribbean deportee favours a social marginalization stigma rather than a national or international one, it is ideology that motivates both groups. Ideology is the substratum and vehicle for radicalization. It is ideology that identifies the variance, classifies the issues, and impels recruitment.

Not only are deported gangs deemed enemies of the US by al Qaeda and other Jihad organizations but upon returning to their various Caribbean nations, deported criminals are re-forming gangs, recruiting locals to expand their numbers and returning to the US, particularly the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, by means of clandestine sea operations or on forged documents to carry out their missions against the United States and innocent citizens.

The seriousness of the situation now calls for the creation of a deported gang intelligence centre in the Caribbean to build stronger partnerships with Caribbean states threatened by extremist violence and to uncover future terrorist plots, as it is not only a threat for all Caribbean citizens but to democracies all over the world.

Deported gang members are now one of the Caribbean’s top national security priorities and special efforts should also be made to enhance the intelligence capabilities of local police, who should not only be trained in fighting crimes but should also be trained in learning the way that al Qaeda works, how their goals are evolving and how their modus operandi changes.

It is clear that the threat of Caribbean deportees from the US, Britain and Canada is now the troubling picture that confronts us all. Terrorist concern in the Caribbean is no longer hypothetical. It has now become a reality.

January 19, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International