EDITOR, The Tribune.
The recent slayings of two men on bail in New Providence passes the smell test of retaliatory killings which have become all too common in the capital. The last state sanctioned execution in The Bahamas was in January 2000 -- over 23 years ago during the second consecutive term of former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham. Since then, the state has pandered to the London-based Privy Council. This negligence has left a gaping void which has been filled by Bahamian and Haitian hitmen, who have been hired by grieving family members to exact revenge on those they believed had harmed either them or their loved ones. It wouldn't be too farfetched to suggest that The Bahamas now averages over 50 revenge killings annually. These hired hitmen are really serving as proxy executioners for the state that has failed to carry out its biblically mandated obligations.
This negligence is, at the very least, partially responsible for otherwise ordinary Bahamian citizens becoming murderers. Moreover, a legitimate argument could be made that The Bahamas is a top ten country in the death penalty. The Amnesty International 2021 report listed China, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, the US and South Sudan in the top ten in the death penalty. According to the report, China executed over 1,000; Iran 314; Egypt 83; South Sudan 65 and Syria 24. The 2021 report is probably a reference to the executions implemented in the previous year. I sincerely believe that the number of executions carried out in The Bahamas far exceeds the 24 state sanctioned executions in Syria.
Accordingly, The Bahamas should have been included in this list behind China, Iran, Egypt and South Sudan, with it having the fifth highest death penalty rate in the world, albeit carried out by private citizens. Individuals on bail for murder, rape and other violent crimes are being gunned down at an alarming rate and I've seen nothing to suggest that this trend will slow down anytime soon. Small wonder that so many Bahamians are no longer dismayed when known murderers are granted bail by the judiciary.
KEVIN EVANS
Freeport,
Grand Bahama.
April 26, 2023.
Comments
GodSpeed 1 year ago
This country is comparable to a warzone, 113 homicides in 2021, more were murdered here than US servicemen who died in Afghanistan during the same year, for a population of 407,000. Or compare the Bahamas to a place like Hong Kong that has a population of 7,400,000 people, in 2021 they only had 23 murders. Something is very wrong here. Either the way people are raising their children, the culture, the state of law enforcement, the people themselves, or all of it combined. Might as well put a camera on every 2nd street lamp and have complete surveillance. Then you'd be able to track the murderers as they leave their hovel to go kill and then go back home. Maybe that would work to prevent some killings, wouldn't even be that expensive really, for Nassau anyway.
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