The Tribune

WELL now we’ve done it – big time!

During the Pindling era, the foreign press headlined The Bahamas as a “Nation for Sale”.

On Friday, The Bahamas made the front page of the New York Times — possibly a history-making first time – with the news that “Immigration Rules in the Bahamas Sweep up Haitians”.

The writer, who had attended the Bahamas’ 23rd annual Business Outlook Conference in Nassau on Thursday obviously found Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell’s Haitian cleansing the most newsworthy item on the agenda, despite Prime Minister Christie being billed as the keynote speaker.

The theme of the conference was “securing our Bahamas through planning, partnership, productivity”. So we must assume that keeping Haitian children, born in The Bahamas, out of school is a part of the plan to secure The Bahamas, and improve its productivity.

Our readers can rest assured that there will be no improved productivity unless Bahamians are willing to step into the Haitian’s shoes and do the work that in the Pindling era was dismissed as “Haitian jobs”.

We appreciate that our country cannot absorb any more Haitians – nor can we keep all who are here. However, the first order of business should be to close our borders, and then settle down to methodically documenting those who are already here, always remembering that kindness and consideration has to be a large part of the solution.

Tuesday marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi prison camp in southern Poland where 1.1 million people – mainly Jews —were murdered. At the memorial service to mark the liberation, it was heartbreaking to see tears rolling down the wrinkled faces of men and women who were mere children when their families were killed — some before their eyes.

In no way are we comparing our ethnic cleansing of Haitians to the murdering Nazis, but when a man’s blood turns to ice, the sad, hopeless look in another human’s eyes never seems to melt it.

Former deputy prime minister Brent Symonette has warned that making it harder for Bahamian-born children of immigrant parents to get an education could create a slippery slope that could create a myriad of long-term social problems.

If Mr Mitchell is allowed to persist in his plan — with deadlines that obviously cannot be met by his own Immigration Department — he will be assisting his government in digging a grave for future generations. We only have to look at other countries to understand the never-ending social unrest that will be created if a stop is not put to Fred Mitchell’s final solution.

“The FNM’s philosophy,” said Mr Symonette, “was to make sure all children had access to schools and medical facilities, to make sure no illegal was apprehended on the way to church, school and hospitals because we expect that persons in the country should be educated and healthy,” Mr Symonette, former minister of immigration, said. “We were one of the few countries in the Caribbean that did it this way.”

Under our Education Act, it is the responsibility of the Education Minister “to promote the education of the people of The Bahamas”. Children born in this country, regardless of their parents’ nationality, are “children of The Bahamas”.

The Act goes on to say that “the purpose of such development shall be to enable the children of The Bahamas to understand their privileges and responsibilities as members of the community, to contribute to the progress and well-being of The Bahamas by the full development of their natural abilities, and to earn an adequate livelihood as adults”.

Children born in the Bahamas of Haitian parents have the right to be registered as Bahamian citizens at the age of 18. If they are denied an education now, how can they possibly “contribute to the progress and well-being of The Bahamas” on coming of age? Of course, one cannot forget the hatred building in their breasts in the intervening years because of their unfair treatment.

Joseph Darville, Grand Bahama Human Rights Association (GBHRA) vice-president, himself an educator and a former high school principal, found that the worst part of the Mitchell policy is that it “seeks to punish innocent children for the alleged crimes of others. Their parents may have come to this country illegally (no one has yet been charged or convicted), but the children who will suffer committed no crime whatsoever, unless it is now a crime to be born of Haitian descent”.

“Indeed,” said Mr Darville, “that is exactly what is happening – we are becoming a society that hurts and punishes people because of their heritage and background. You would have thought that being persons of African descent, we would have learned a thing or two about the evil of discrimination by now. I cry shame on Fred Mitchell and anyone else in government who is involved in this catastrophe.”

GBHRA president Fred Smith, QC, reminded government that on “this occasion the international reputation of The Bahamas is on the line, as recently demonstrated by the prominent article in The New York Times. The world is watching, and marking the manner of our bearing!” he said.

• Read the articles on this subject on the front page and page 5, in addition to Mr Richard Coulson’s letter on this page.