Just in case you hadn't noticed, all pertinent information regarding the death of Anna Nicole Smith's son Daniel has come to you courtesy of a privately-hired American pathologist.
He was the first to tell us that Daniel had "had problems" in recent months. He was the first to tell us he had been taking antidepressants. And he was the first to tell us of the exact circumstances of his death.
Moreover, he has now become the first to tell us there was a cocktail of drugs in his body. And he is the first to tell us the cause of death, which is that this highly toxic mixture of three prescription drugs led to heart failure.
In fact, were it not for Dr Cyril Wecht – hired by Anna Nicole Smith to perform a second autopsy on her son's body – we would know virtually nothing about this unfortunate event.
Bahamian authorities have been playing their cards so close to their chests that one begins to wonder what lies behind it all. What is certain, however, is that this protracted official silence is a downright insult to the Bahamian people.
For what it's worth, I'll tell you my view – that there is a culture of official secrecy in this country which takes the line that the public is entitled to know nothing, that they are of no account, and that the longer you keep quiet, the sooner the problem will go away.
It is an extension of the contemptuous attitude politicians adopt towards the people when two of them begin knocking blocks off each other in a Cabinet Room brawl.
Prime Minister Perry Christie's lame attempt to play down this disgraceful episode is characteristic of what is now virtually a malaise among politicians here: a ﾠdetermination on the part of our rulers to hide negative news at all costs, and to bamboozle voters – into believing things aren't as bad as they really are.
Back to Daniel's death for a moment. When this story first broke, Doctors Hospital officials were extremely secretive in their response to press inquiries.
Official determination to "circle the wagons" and keep the public in the dark was so intense that a young reporter from The Nassau Guardian was actuallv pilloried for mentioning antidepressants during an interview on Larry King Live. In fact, time ﾠhas proved that her comments were all too accurate. No-one is likely to say sorry for trying to besmirch her name.
Coroner Linda Virgill said contents of the autopsy and toxicology reports would be kept secret until an inquest was held on October 23. She said authorities did not want to taint the jury pool.
This in itself was extremely disingenuous. Everyone knows that inquests are not set up primarily to establish causes of death or the chemical contents of a victim's body. The objective is to establish whether death was the result of homicide, suicide, accident or misadventure. Anything contained in such reports would be presented to the jury as evidence anyway. There is no way that their disclosure could be construed as prejudicial.
Now that there are doubts as to whether an inquest will be held at all, it's interesting to consider the Bahamian public's status in this whole affair. What is the official attitude towards their rights? Are the people entitled to know or not? If not, why not? Is there some shadowy reason why these facts are being kept away from the public eye?
While the entire American public now knows all the Bahamas' business via People Magazine, Larry King Live and assorted US news outlets, we are still considered too lowly and too inconsequential to be told anything by our own authorities.
While a US laboratory has conducted tests and produced results, we still await the official Bahamian toxicology report. Where were these tests done – Ulan Bator? How are they being returned to us – by pack-mule along the Old Silk Road? How long does it take to test for chemicals in a young man's body? Why has the US reached its own conclusions while we still wait? If there is one thing to be learned from the Anna Nicole Smith affair, it is that secrecy spawns speculation, and that speculation runs riot, especially when it gets into the hands of the American tabloids or Fox News Channel.
If Mr Barry Rassin thought he could keep the full financial might of the US tabloid fraternity at bay by hiding under the table at Doctors Hospital, then he is either extremely naive or very badly informed.
When certain newspapers fail to break down primary sources, they fall back on secondary sources, hearsay and sometimes plain old-fashioned gossip. Hence, when The Nassau Guardian began referring to blood and vomit on the floor of Anna Nicole's hospital room, and raising doubts about the oxygen supply, they were the victims of the almost manic lust for secrecy on the part of the hospital authorities.
If Mr Rassin wants to avoid such humiliation and heartache in future (he has vigorously disputed the Guardian's claims with threats of legal action) he should ensure his "celebrity" patients sign an agreement saying that the hospital is entitled to protect its own position in the event of a major newsbreak involving the person concerned.
Falling back on "patient confidentiality" is never going to hack it in the harsh, dynamic and highly competitive world of the international media. The tabloids don't give a damn for patient confidentiality and will buy access to every scrap of hearsay, gossip and mischief-making they can find. That's the way they operate and that's what their readers expect of them.
Mr Rassin and his staff now need to work out a strategy for handling the press if such an event happens again. Had Doctors Hospital given the bare facts immediately with all the names and a straight account of the circumstances as they knew them, much of the ensuing confusion, bitterness and, recrimination would never have occurred.
In the Keod 'Kung Fu' Smith versus Kenyatta 'Rocky' Gibson affair, similar strictures apply.
Trying to fob off the Bahamian people with a limp, watered down account of this full-blooded fist fight only reinforces a view now gaining credence throughout the Bahamas: that this government will say absolutely anything to get itself off the hook.
Predictably, though, it is backfiring badly on them. Many varied accounts are now coming to the fore, with opposing views of who `won-' and who `lost' this fiercely contested tussle.
Was it Gibson who, according to The Punch, KO'd Keod with a couple of uppercuts? Or was it Smith, who others say used his martial arts skills to toss his heavyweight foe against some window shutters which, had they been open, would have resulted in a Gibson swallow-dive into Rawson Square.
Was Sidney Stubbs' head really used by Gibson as a hammer with which to smash the Cabinet Room's prized glass table? And, if so, will Mr Stubbs emerge a more sensible man as a result of it? Did Melanie Griffin take a right hook to the head as she tried to intervene? And did Obie Wilchcombe really beat a hasty ﾠretreat when it became clear things were getting nasty?
All good questions, and all totally unnecessary had Mr Christie given a full, factual account of the affair instead of reportedly telling his fellow pariamentarians to enter the House of Assembly "as if nothing had happened."
Fierce reaction has indicated that the people are tired of this official shadow boxing whenever something unpalatable emerges that the public needs to know about. They are weary of politicians doing everything in their power to cover their own backs when things go wrong. Not surprisingly, they view it as another example of blatant contempt. What they want is candour.
Reader Ms Deanka Edwards summed it up by saying: "Do they really believe we are collectively stupid?"
It is a question that politicians need to address urgently. By adopting evasive attitudes to such matters, they are being seen increasingly as a squalid bunch of two-bit shysters, which may prove to be an accurate appraisal of a government which – with a few exceptions – has fallen woefully short of its supporters' expectations since 2002.
So how does a culture of secrecy come about? Regrettably, official secrecy in the Bahamas is one of the worst legacies left by British colonialism.
Britain, whatever its protestations to the contrary, is an extremely secretive nation. It has a whole framework of legislative devices in place to keep information away from the public.
The Bahamas has a culture based on the British class system, which has traditionally driven the view that the Establishment has no obligation to tell the people anything.
Up to 50 years ago, Britain's rulers firmly believed that "the people" should know their place and keep their distance from lofty affairs of state.
They felt under no obligation to tell the people anything, and they were helped in this by Britain's press proprietors, who were, with a couple of exceptions, part of the same Establishment set-up.
Mr Christie's reluctance to come clean on the Smith-Gibson punch-up is, whether he knows it or not, a hand-down from the colonial past, a reflection of the old order. He has been reared in a society where official cover-ups have become commonplace.
Similarly, the authorities' continuing failure to tell us officially what happened to Daniel Smith is a symptom of that same culture of secrecy.
Dr Wecht, on the other hand, is from a society in which the people's right to know is firmly embedded in the constitution.
Under America's First Amendment, free speech is guaranteed along with the free flow of official information. It is part of American culture to come clean, and the people are vigilant in pursuit of their rights. The execrable and wholly incompetent George W Bush administration has tried to scupper those rights over the last six years, but the system tends to win through in the end.
Thus, information like that disclosed by Dr Wecht about what is essentially a Bahamian issue has at last enabled people here to know what their own national authorities should have told them long ago, and it has come via the US cable news networks.
If the Bahamas, as a thrusting new democracy, really wants to lay down a worthwhile matrix for the future, the culture of secrecy is one vestige of the old order that the government should jettison immediately.
Meanwhile, Bahamians will continue to ponder the truth behind the Daniel Smith affair and the Cabinet Room free-for-all. In so pondering, speculation will continue to mushroom and the press continue to probe, all in an atmosphere of extreme suspicion.
The one certainty to emerge from both cases is that, the longer the speculation goes on, the more sinister will be the conclusions drawn.
The Bahamas need to take a leaf out of America's book and make openness a way of life. In that way, the good will flourish and the bad will wither away.
By JOHN MARQUIS, The Tribune
