Portraying last week’s Nassau Village riot as a Haitian-Bahamian conflict is a distortion of facts and will do a great disservice t the area and other depressed communities of Nassau.
This statement was made yesterday by FNM chairman Carl Bethel while calling for an official public inquiry into the underlying causes which led to the violent confrontation between members of the Nassau Village community and police last Thursday and left three civilians in hospital with gunshot wounds.
“The first disturbing suggestion is that the riot was a “Haitian thing”. It must be noted that government and police spokespersons have done nothing specifically to dispel this suggestion,” he said.
He explained that in talking with the residents, many of whom he used to represent when he was MP for the Kennedy constituency, he has learned that although the initial dispute involved individuals of Haitian descent, ” it was Bahamians who acted to defend their Haitian neighbours who, they thought, were being unfairly treated by the police.”
The Nassau Village incident escalated, according to residents, when a police officer gun-butted a 16-year-old girl and shot a man in the face while he was holding his small child.
Witnesses further said that the riot was sparked at least partially by the use of ethnic slurs against people of Haitian descent by police officers.
Police assured the public there would be a full investigation into the matter.
Source: Karin Herig, The Tribune
