TO CSME THE BAHAMAS RESPONSE: NO! NO! NO! NO!
Will Minnis sign away the RIGHTS OF EVERY BAHAMAS?
By Sir Randol Fawkes June 1993
I often wondered what The Caribbean Community’s Common Market (CARICOM) was up to. But now that I know, I wish to sound a warning to all true Bahamians to hold fast to the “Christian values and the Rules of Law” as enshrined in the Preamble to our Independence Constitution of July 10th, 1973, because some power-hungry politicians to the South are planning to invade our homeland and to steal our birthright away.
At the Opening Ceremony of the First Regional Assembly of CARICOM on January 14th, 1991, the Rt. Hon. James F. Mitchell, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, stated, “It behoves me to point out my view of the new horizon. Put simply, it is: One flag, One Anthem, One Minister of Finance and one Head of State.” Simple enough? Dictatorship is always simple, monosyllabic and quick. Under a democracy we have a right to be properly briefed on CARICOM before being required to vote, “Yes” or “No” on whether the Bahamas should become a full Member State of the Caribbean Community’s CARICOM. The Rt. Hon. James F. Mitchell further expostulated, “One flag means we speak on the podium of the United Nations with one clear voice. One voice means one passport, one citizenship and all that flows from a single citizenship.
Secondly, one Ministry of Finance is essential to provide the economic development which our people crave. This union will need to show results, and this authority which negotiates and secures financing must be responsible for the repayment of that finance.” Make no mistake about it, These Caribbeans who will descend on Bahamian soil in July offering CARICOM as a panacea for all ills, intend to destroy our national flag: the Black, the Gold and the Aquamarine; silence our National Anthem, Lift Up Your Heads to the Rising Sun Bahama land, abolish Bahamian citizenship and our passports; eliminate Bahamian autonomy and thereafter superimpose upon us a leviathan dictatorship with a network of cells throughout the Caribbean – all done without first a people’s forum in which all voices – pro and con could be heard and ultimately expressed in a Constitutional Referendum.
The Rt. Hon. James F. Mitchell spoke with “the undiluted mandate of the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines” conferred upon him in May, 1989 General Elections. This is more than we can say for the former Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Sir L.O. Pindling or the current P.M., the Hon. Hubert Ingraham.
None of our leaders sought or received a mandate to make the Bahamas a full Member State of CARICOM. In fact, the National Association for the Protection of Human Rights invited both Mr. Pindling and Mr. Ingraham to a Town Hall Meeting in the Auditorium of the College of the Bahamas during the August 19th , 1992 General Elections to debate the issues but neither one turned up.
Further, although the Progressive Liberal Party and the Free National Movement sponsored two Ambassadors to CARICOM in the persons of their Excellencies the Hon. Livingstone Coakley and A. Leonard Archer, neither thought it wise to tell the people the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about CARICOM. Their foreign policy was based on the old Bahamian proverb “Shut Mout’ Catch No Fly.”
NO CARICOM WITHOUT REFERENDUM By Sir Randol Fawkes Part 11 Since Mr. Ingraham’s reaction to searching questions on Caricom’s mission to the Bahamas is just one long mocking grin, I deem it my duty to quote page 6 of Caricom’s Time for Action, which is an overview of the Report of The West Indian Commission.
It reads: “the six recommendations for immediate action identified in this Progress Report can be summarised as follows:”
1. Permit West Indians to travel in their region with the freedom and ease due to them as citizens of a nation common to all and encourage exchange visits, especially among young people.
2. Allow West Indian graduates of UWI (and other institutions to be identified) and media people to work and live freely anywhere in the Region as a first step to permitting the free movement of skilled people within the region.
3. Take the first concrete steps which the Progress Report defined towards establishing an independent Caribbean Monetary Authority and a common currency.
4. Launch a Caribbean Investment Fund of US$50-70 million to investing the Region’s stock markets. The Progress Report set out a specific proposal for launching the Fund.
5. Complete as a matter of urgency and setting aside all delaying arguments the CARICOM Single Market with its three principal instruments: the Common External Tariff; the Harmonised Scheme of Fiscal Incentives, and the Rules of Origin.
6. Mobilise CARICOM to have a single negotiating posture and a single voice for international negotiations vital to our common interests. On page 30 of The Commission’s official booklet Reaching for the Future, the Rt. Hon. James F. Mitchell continues, “Let me say how pleased I am again to work with Professor Telford Georges on the subject of unification even as we had tried with an earlier Commission in 1974.
Some of the agony suffered and execution experienced in our region may well have been avoided if our direction had endured. Let us pray that we will both be successful this time around.” Who is this Professor Telford Georges?
Sir Cecil Wallace Whitfield is not here to speak for himself, so I will speak for him. Professor Telford Georges was our former Chief Justice who Sir Cecil Wallace Whitfield tried unsuccessfully to move off the Bench during the trial of 1987 General Election Cases because ha had reached the retirement age.
Instead of retiring His Lordship, the former Government gave the professor another two years as Chief Justice, plus an increase in salary and a full pension. Now the Professor and his friends will be returning to the Bahamas on July 1 st, 1993 to complete their work – ostensibly to build the Caribbean Community but actually to deprive many Bahamians of their jobs and to prevent Bahamians from becoming all that they are capable of becoming.
Read those six recommendations again and you will find that there is no opportunity in their programme for the Bahamians to become rulers in their own Bahamas Glorious Homeland again. Helping the Caribbeans in this mischief will be Michael Manly, Castro’s friend, who imported Cubans to Jamaica ostensibly to build schools for little children.
When the Jamaicans awoke from their drunken festival they ran the Cubans out of their country and kicked Manley out of office. Who can forget what happened in Grenada. Well the Governor had to send a secret “Save-Our-Souls” telegram to America to stop the bloody revolution again by the Communists.
What happened in Trinidad recently? Well, the rebels took over the House of Parliament and held some of the M.P.s as hostages. Of course, there will be some Bahamians who will be helping these Caribbeans to take control of our country.
High among them will be the Hon. Hubert Ingraham wearing his trade mark – a mocking grin. He will be flanked by the spineless members of his Cabinet. Look at them well so that you will recognize the spoilers of the dream when you see them again.
Don’t let it happen! Contact your M.P.s today and tell them to stop this madness. Hurry! Hurry! Mr. and Mrs. Bahamas, for the lamp of liberty burns low. No Caricom Without Referendum Part 111 By Sir Randol Fawkes The Free National Movement and the Progressive Liberal Party may differ in certain minor details, but they have a common agenda when it comes to The Caribbean Community’s Common Market (CARICOM).
Their joint Manifesto, in the grand tradition of the PLP’s philosophy, is NATION FOR SALE 1993. The FNM can take their leader out of the PLP but they cannot take the PLP out of the Leader. Think of the pomp and circumstance which will accompany the signing of THE BILL OF SALE – the revised Treaty in July next.
The sellers are the Bahamian Cabinet Ministers and the silent Opposition; the buyers, the twelve Ministers of CARICOM. The venue is Independence Park. At the centre are Bahamians crouching and cringing on the Auction Block without voice or vote in the decision making process that will return them to their former slave masters. You see, CARICOM is linked to the African, Caribbean and Pacific States which are tied to the European Economic Community (EEC) with headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
Pray Lord deliver us from this vicious cycle! Oh, my Brothers and Sisters, do you remember the mad scramble for Africa, the East Indies and the West Indies by this Beast – Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany, Greece and Ireland, Italy and Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom?
These are the twelve that enslaved your forefathers and foremothers. Can’t you hear the cries of South Africa and see the rivers of blood that flow under the whip of interlopers? They are now returning to your homeland to trick your leaders into signing away autonomy, citizenship, land and jobs – 500 years after Columbus.
What do you think Marcus Garvey will say? What do you think our friend, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King will say? Or Mandela? Or MalcomX? The skies will reverberate in July next with a thunderous “No!” A thousand times, “No!” Closely associated with this planned invasion of our homeland is the current attempt of The Methodist Church of The Bahamas and Americas (MCCA) to gain control of The Methodist Churches throughout the Bahamas by hook or by crook.
They want not only your bodies and properties but your souls too. Other big and small church denominations are on their hit list and will fall an easy prey to the schemes and plots of CARICOM and MCCA, The European Economic Community (EEC) and others unless they “be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might” and take the advice of the greatest Missionary of all time as spelled out in Ephesians 6:11-17, as follows: “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Wherefore, take unto you the whole armour of God that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loins girded about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, with which ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked and take the helmet of Salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.
Caricom with its extensive international connections is a very complex organization unlike anything ever known to the world until now. Membership in CARICOM will increasingly affect our daily lives because decisions of the price of food, and our economic development will be taken by CARICOM rather than our national department or by Parliament.
Another way in which our lives will be affected is the removal of all obstacles to the free movement of persons whether in search of work or for other reasons. Further, the removal of trade barriers can expose many small firms producing for a local market to severe competition. Some of our people will survive and others will go down because their place was obsolete and their methods inefficient.
Consider: A group of 2,000 Jamaicans wish to occupy one of our islands. CARICOM says “Yes,” but the Bahamas Government says “No.” Whose decision will stand? You are correct. Victory belongs to the side that has the fattest battalion.
Or better still “In a Court of Fowls, a cockroach never wins a case.” Why are the PLP and the FNM afraid of the sunshine on these very important issues?
Because they love the darkness and have already promised CARICOM two things; 1. to make the Bahamas the thirteenth member state of Caricom in July, 1993; and 2. to repeal The Immoveables Properties Act also by July, 1993.
The fulfilment of the first promise will open the flood gates to all West Indians: the realization of the second promise will assist the Methodist Church of the Caribbean and the Americas to legalize their position in The Bahamas and to own property and do business here. A DAY AFTER THE BIG CEREMONY IN July, 1993 you will go to the little man with the question, “What happen man?” His reply will be one, long, mocking grin. If you want your dreams to come true, Mr. and Mrs. Bahamas, “WAKE UP!”
