The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

On the eve of the expected passing of the Freedom of Information Act, there is an expectation that we will have access to the information that will validate or discredit what we have been hearing from the present administration about what is going on in our nation; particularly the Baha Mar project and whatever agreements this administration has entered into with the Chinese government and those who operate on behalf of that regime. I wanted to include the last administration in the mix, but the leader of the previous administration seems to have had a thing for not keeping secrets.

My thinking took a serious paranoiac turn when I read of the possibility that there may not be an agreement after all between this government and the Chinese, hence no documents to be sealed by the courts.

To make my letter effective, I am taking the path that Prime Minister Christie would take when he wants to explain something to us, and my assumptions are based on the premise of “Perhaps there is no agreement” and even if the FOIA is passed we will never find out many of the things that we only suspect at the moment. Questions like, “How much land have we given to the People’s Republic of China?”

This may sound like a simple question, but the fact that Chinese persons do not really own land in a socialist state, is something we need to consider as a “Christian nation”. We are “unequally yoked” to put it mildly. We serve One God and the Chinese people serve many, and the fact that the Chinese government have not treated our Christian brothers and sisters well in China is something we should be concerned about.

Is the Christie administration aware that the Christian Church in China has to pay tithes to the Chinese government? Do we understand that any land that is transferred to them becomes the property of the Chinese Communist State? Are we bringing a curse upon ourselves?

This administration always has an answer for us, but it is going to be up to the Bahamian people to get the questions right. How many members of Parliament and their families have business links to the Baha Mar project and whatever projects that are connected to it?

Are all of the fees and taxes associated with those activities paid up, or are they getting similar exemptions like CCA? Why is Minister Jerome Edward Fitzgerald in the lead on most commentary regarding anything and everything that the Prime Minister should be speaking about? Has he been picked by the powers that be as the next Prime Minister and/or leader of the Progressive Liberal Party? The comment of him being the next Prime Minister has been making the rounds, but the source of that comment is not from the Party itself.

Are we really on the eve of getting some of the answers we are seeking? Or will we go down the road again where our politicians attempt to cry for another chance and do a dance at the same time? Does anyone know if the people of The Bahamas still own the property known as the Cable Beach Golf Course, which was left to us in perpetuity by the previous owners? Or are all of the members of the status quo about to go quiet again?

Perhaps the most pressing question, on the eve of the possible passing of the FOIA is, “How much money has been spent in our nation by the Chinese Government and who have they spent it with?  – outside of the Baha Mar project.”

There are a host of questions that will not be answered for us, and since we are entitled to those answers as citizens of this nation, we are going to have to make some choices.

Those choices will affect all Bahamians who come after us, much more than we are being impacted now.

Do we care enough to proceed? Will our children and grandchildren be cursing our names and places of burial in the years ahead because of what we allow at this time in our history?

The Chinese are not here to help us, they are a Godless nation that serve many gods that are inferior to the God we serve, but if we continue on this road, we will become their servants and they will realise their true goal of establishing a presence off the Eastern seaboard of the United States of America.

However, the Chinese presence here is not our real issue. We are going to have to face what I call the “Republican response” to what we are allowing, and President Trump has some peculiarities that are feared; even by the PRC.

We forget that it was a Republican administration under President Ronald Reagan that allowed drugs to be transshipped through our nation, a couple of decades ago, and they (the Americans) never apologised for anything.

I am always reflecting on how that event affected the life of Lynden Oscar Pindling and what kind of Prime Minister he could have been if not for the Iran-Contra Affair (the drugs that were shipped through our nation were used to finance an American sponsored “ skirmish”).

It could have turned out better for him and us.  

Everyone wants a piece of The Bahamas, but the major players in the game have no aversion to wanting it all and even though that may not be possible it does not stop them from wanting a measure of control over where they have interest or money invested.

Our leaders seem oblivious to this reality as they give away the future of this nation for shortsighted gains. At this stage of the game, we are not really interested in jobs, but opportunities to create jobs that are in the best interest of the responsibilities we embraced in 1973.

I think it was Norman Solomon who warned that if we were not careful we would become “hewers of wood ( or maybe stone) and toters of water”; he could have been a prophet, if we look at how things are going now.

EDWARD

HUTCHESON

Nassau,

February 7, 2017.