Bahamas Blog

I am starting to wonder if Prime Minister Perry Christie has a problem telling the truth.

Over the past several years, Mr. Christie has been caught making a number of high-profile false statements deliberately presented as being true.

Specifically, I want to mention the lie about amending the Constitution to give Bahamian women the same rights as men.

While on the election campaign, back in 2002, Mr. Christie was very vocal about his opposition to the FNM's proposed referendum to the Constitution. The referendum would have eliminated the current discrimination affecting the spouses of Bahamian women. After the referendum was defeated at the polls, Mr. Christie promised, that if he were elected, he would immediately address the problem. He said he would appoint a "special" commission that would review the Constitution and propose the changes necessary, to ensure that our flawed constitution would be brought into compliance with a UN Convention on the non-discrimination against women, which the Bahamas signed way back in the early 1990's.

The Bahamas became a signatory to the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in October 1993, committing itself to a "Bill of Rights" for women as enshrined in that Convention. This is just one of the many UN treaties the Bahamas has signed and not lived up to.

Well, after the election, the PM did appoint the special commission, but it was comprised of political cronies and headed by the very man who installed the discriminatory verbiage in the original document.

Needless to say, nothing has ever been done, and the discrimination continues to this day.

Mr. Christie also deceived the public after his "mini-stroke" last year.

Upon leaving the hospital, the PM made reference to a young woman, a witness to her mother's murder, who had been shot by her mother's alleged murderer in an effort to prevent the girl from testifying at the man's trial.

Mr. Christie said that he was visibly affected by the young woman's ordeal saying, "I think my injury and ailment pale into insignificance when you see a child of sixteen who has suffered the way she has". He then promised to get involved in the situation and see to it that the girl received the care and attention she deserved, even if that meant taking her to the United States for treatment at the government's expense.

Actually, the Prime Minister did nothing, in fact, not only did he not help her, he even failed to protect her from another attack. The same man later attacked the young witness again, and recently shot another witness to the murder.

More recently, Mr. Christie publicly stated his support for capital punishment, yet has never done anything to expedite the hanging of the many violent criminals languishing on death row at Her Majesty's Prison. Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham said that Mr. Christie's public proclamation was "shameless pandering", nothing but another "PR" stunt. It is difficult to disagree with that assessment.

Even more recently, the Prime Minster stated that the Valentine's development at Harbour Bay was "obscene", saying that he promised to "re-examine" this development, in keeping with his philosophy to look out for the small man in the Bahamas. Yeah, right, tell that to the folks in Guana Cay.

This "promise" has also, so far, turned out to be a pipe dream, a pie in the sky, or another of the Prime Minister's many, many fibs.

This man's credibility is seriously at stake. With the election less than a year away, he has jeopardized his political future and that of the PLP by continually presenting false information with the intention of deceiving the Bahamian public, in an effort to prop up his withering political image.

In other words, it appears that Perry Christie is a compulsive liar. Answers.com says that compulsive lying, or pathological lying, is a common disorder often caused by low self-esteem and a need for attention. Often, the liar does not realize how often he or she is lying because it becomes second nature. Compulsive lying alienates friends, loved ones (and constituents), often bringing about the opposite of what the liar wants: instead of getting the attention they often crave, they end up pushing people away. With therapy, many people can overcome their compulsion to lie and salvage their interpersonal relationships before it is too late.

Let's hope the PM gets the treatment he deserves, because, hey, if you can't trust your Prime Minister, maybe someone else should be Prime Minister.

Whenever an incompetent or corrupt Bahamian politician is criticized for their questionable antics they immediately threaten, "I gon sue".

Most Bahamian politicians can't tell the difference between their lies and the truth. They often think their lies are the truth. They actually convince themselves that they are telling the truth, even while knowingly lying through their teeth.

If the media doesn't buy into their bull, they wanna sue.

When a local website let it be known that a certain lawyer was not to be trusted, he threatened to sue the site, even though his own mother doesn't trust him. "Mom" always kept the lid on the lawyer's deceptive practices - the website did not.

Then, there's the guy who runs a school that really isn't a school. He hands out "Masters" and "Doctorate" degrees to anybody who can afford to pay for them. In a civilized country, the charlatan would be in jail. Here, he is a consultant to the Prime Minister.

Now, even Deputy Prime Minister "Mother" Pratt, in an attempt to silence her critics, is "gon sue."

ZNS news reported that Mrs. Pratt has retained the services of a lawyer (probably the dirtball mentioned above) to sue The Punch for telling the Bahamian public what is, probably, the truth.

The Punch reported that Mrs. Pratt is apprehensive to expedite the hanging process because of the emotional scars from her own murderous brother's hanging back in 1965.

The, usually accurate, tabloid also said Mrs. Pratt is far too soft on crime and they may have even called her incompetent. If they didn't, I will. Hey, I love the lady but she is the worst Minister of National Security the Caribbean has ever seen. Specifically, because she is too soft on crime and has the administrative skills of a den mother (no offense to Den Mothers).

I believe another issue that Mrs. Pratt has with the Punch is that they happened to mention the fact that she was responsible for the early release of the man who beat softball star, Jackie Wilson, to death. Maybe if Pratt had not been so lenient with the man's sentence, he would have still been in jail instead of out beating Jackie to a pulp.

The crooked lawyer/politicians in The Bahamas, long ago, passed skewed legislation that makes it easy for them to protect themselves by suing someone they want to silence. I think the law was passed during the corrupt Pindling administration, so Lynden could keep his dirty laundry out of the daily papers.

But, like I said in an earlier blog entry: that tactic doesn't work anymore. The Internet is making life tough for these ethically-challenged and incompetent lawyer/politicians as their dirty deeds and abject incompetence is broadcast online for Bahamians, and the whole world, to see.

Mrs. Pratt can go ahead and sue Ivan Johnson's Punch. But, rather than silencing the tabloid, she will open the floodgates of Internet information and place herself under a microscope for all the world to judge. No matter what her unethical lawyer pays a Bahamian judge to decide, the world will make their own judgment.

I read that Bahamian resident Derek Turner has been sentenced in the US to twenty years in jail for investment fraud. Good! The guy was an Jackass with a capital "J".

But I am wondering when we are going to address the REAL crooks in this fiasco... the Bahamian lawyers who set up Mr. Turner's scam, here in The Bahamas.

Don't let these shysters claim ignorance of Mr. Turner's affairs. I'll bet that his Bahamain lawyers were as "in" on the crooked deals as Mr. Turner was. And I'll also bet that the Bahamas Financial Services Board (BFSB), a gang of quasi-legal financial professionals of which Mr. Turner was a board member, knew what was up.

If they didn't, then they are a bunch of idiots. They must be idiots anyway, what with all the scams, corruption and crime that exists in the Bahamas' financial services industry and those dopes claim they know a thing about it.

They are either clever crooks or really stupid financial "professionals".

Wait a minute! The Bahamian government says they are hesitant to send the detained Cuban doctors to the US because that would violate an international treaty with Cuba.

So what?

Since when did the Bahamian government start caring about violating international treaties?

Women are still discriminated against in the flawed Bahamian constitution, despite The Bahamas signing an international treaty to stop that abuse. And, also, after our current PM said he would rectify that injustice "immediately" after assuming office.

He lied!

What about that international copyright treaty we signed? Yeah, the one that is routinely ignored as the Bahamian government continues to allow the sale of bootleg videos, CDs, movies, cable television signals, handbags, and other copyright violations.

And what about that extradition treaty we signed with the US? The one we have been ignoring as a gaggle of corrupt lawyers play legal games with a few morally compromised judges, to keep the Bahamian drug dealers away from the long arm of US justice.

I guess it is okay for us Bahamians to violate virtually every international treaty the nation has ever signed, but God forbid we violate one we signed with Cuba.

Unless The Bahamas is going to immediately give Bahamian women equal rights, stop blatant copyright infringements and extradite at least two dozen drug dealers to Florida for trial; the government had better stop the rhetoric about "abiding by international treaties" and come up with another excuse for not sending the Cuban doctors to the US.