The Nassau Institute has added its voice to those opposing The Bahamas joining the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME). It is a position, which the Progressive Liberal Party government has called isolationist.
On its website The Nassau Institute describes itself as an independent non-political non-profit organization that promotes economic growth, employment and entrepreneurial activity in The Bahamas. It believes that this can best be achieved with a free market economy and a society that embraces the rule of law, the right of private property and the values of family, learning, honesty and hard work.
In keeping with its position that The Bahamas should participate in regional and international affairs, Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell has been jetting around the region and the world boosting the Bahamian presence and prestige in international fora.
01 What happens if we go into the CSME and it is not right for us? We can’t leave, we have lost control of our currency and interest rates, we can’t re-negotiate the entry agreement and will have one vote of 15 when the others join, so then what do we do?
02 What guarantee do we have that there won’t be a United States of the Caribbean and the end of the Bahamas as an independent country?
03 How can we be sure that some time in the future we will not be ‘forced’ to adopt a Common Currency?
04 If a common currency is adopted will it be a floating currency, or pegged to the US dollar like the Bahamian dollar is now?
05 Will a Central Bank of the Caribbean make economic decisions and monetary policy for the Bahamas?
06 How happy are you that the Central Bank of Bahamas would be nothing more than a branch satellite of the Caribbean Central Bank based in Jamaica – or Trinidad – or wherever they set it up?
07 Can you give me a single currency anywhere in the world without a single taxation rate behind it?
08 How much, exactly, will it cost us to convert all our systems and so on? If you don’t know, why not?
09 How will the United States view us? If the CSME countries become even more anti-American – how does that affect our number one product – American tourists
Since announcing earlier this year that the Government of The Bahamas intended to sign the revised Treaty of Chaugaramas, Mr. Mitchell has had to face an onslaught of voices growing ever strident in their opposition to strengthening ties within CARICOM.
In an effort to harness the disparate opposition voices, the Nassau Institute published 29 questions, which it called upon the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to answer.
The questions appear to fall below the Institute’s scholarly tone and reflect instead the types of questions fielded on popular talk shows. Questions noted more for their lack of understanding of the issues under discussion and the questioners’ unshakeable belief in the rightness of their opinions.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ answers to the 29 questions can be found www.bfabahamas.org
Social commentator and columnist Felix Bethel notes that the isolationism that informs the Institute’s questions as well as the views of pundits such as Larry Smith are an example of neo UBP thoughts.
The United Bahamian Party (UBP), now officially defunct when its founders merged with the Free National Movement (FNM) in the early Seventies, was the party formed by the ruling mercantile class but failed to survive the tide brought in by majority rule.
“One has to remember that these views reflected in Mr. Smith’s columns and the Nassau Institute, had their genesis in opposition to the idea of The Bahamas as an independent country,” Mr. Bethel said in an exclusive interview.
10 How many of our laws will be subordinated to their laws in the future that we have yet not been told about yet?
11 Is this really not all about personal or professional advantage to some individuals who may not even support the CSME?
12 Is it worth risking a compromise of our democratic system for one that is untried and unproven?
13 What are the advantages in being part of a ‘supranational’ state that we do not already enjoy as a separate country?
14 There’s no free lunch. Where can we read in black in white what we will be giving up if we join?
15 Putting all political correctness aside, do you honestly trust the Jamaicans, the Haitians, the Trinidadians, etc. to run our country on our behalf?
16 If they decide to ‘harmonize’ taxes for the region, what guarantees are there that we will forever control Bahamian tax policy?
17 People need to feel a part of the institutions to which they elect representatives. How do know we will ever feel part of the Caribbean institutions? If yes, why?
18 Will we get more or less bureaucracy from CSME should we join?
19 Who will control future budgets; that is, our ability to tax and spend – them or us? What guarantees do we have in writing that is will always be us who decide our budgets
Mr. Smith dismisses signing the revised Treaty of Chaugaramas because the CSME is a “counter-globalisation strategy”. Instead Mr. Smith, whose views appear in a weekly column in one of the dailies, states that The Bahamas is no more than an “offshore extension of the Florida economy and our focus is almost wholly towards the United States. We should exploit – rather than deny – this reality,” he recently declared.
Mr. Smith, whose views also appear on the Institute’s Website, wrote that until his articles in February, “most people had little grasp of the political and economic issues at stake and most commentators simply avoided the subject.”
Both the Institute’s 29 questions and Mr. Smith’s views reflect the xenophobia, which Dr. Gilbert Morris, founder of the Landfall Centre, states “informs much of the popular exchanges between The Bahamas and its CARICOM neighbours. The xenophobia informs some of the 29 questions.
Mr. Smith writes that its “southern neighbours” envy The Bahamas because of “our relationship with (and proximity to) the United States,” which he writes are “enviable and valuable”.
Dr. Morris believes that the government’s position and by extension those of the region have ignored those areas in which the region could develop meaningful relationships.
“It seems to me that what we need to do is to develop areas in which we can cooperate,” Dr. Morris said in a recent interview. “For example we should have a regional coast guard.”
Similarly, Dr. Morris sees tourism, the region’s leading industry, as an area for region wide cooperation.
20 You say that the ‘days of the independent nation-state are gone’. Can you therefore explain why the following countries, over the last 100 years or so, have broken away from larger units to get their independence: -Ireland, Norway, Finland, Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bosnia, Cyprus, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Georgia, Iceland, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Malta, Panama, virtually the whole of Africa, Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, and others too many to mention?
21 Do you agree that any powerful body not elected by us will always put Bahamian interests above their own?
22 How would you feel if our laws were to originate in Jamaica, or Trinidad, or Haiti οΎ– or wherever they decide to make the capital of the Caribbean?
23 Why should we join when we are not exporters?
24 Do you believe that only the Bahamian people should be allowed to elect those who make the laws under which they are governed? This is called democracy. Can you explain how we get rid of the Central Caribbean Government if they start doing things we don’t like?
25 How would we deal with fraud and corruption – typical of large bureaucracies?
26 How would you feel if your local MP writes to tell you after we join the CSME that in future people who you do not elect and cannot remove will govern you?
27 What will happen if we do not join? Will CSME put trade sanctions on us?
28 Can the CSME guarantee economic freedoms for all Bahamians?
29 Which flag will be on top – the CSME flag or the Bahamian
“For example the region should be speaking with one voice on policies that ensure the protection of our environment,” he said. “Each year we see our air and waters polluted by the cruise ships. But because we do not speak with a single voice or allow agencies like the CTO the authority to implement binding region-wide regulations the cruise industry is able to play off different governments against each other.”
Also instead of each island state having its own emergency management agency (EMA), Dr. Morris says a regional EMA certainly seems a more viable option than the proposed single currency.
Turning to the proposed Caribbean Court of Justice Dr. Morris said given that the judiciary has been in parlous state and that most regional legal minds have to work twice as hard to survive, a regional court should be developed on the basis of expertise.
“Do you think if Singapore was developing a similar court system they would do what has been proposed for the CCJ?” Dr. Morris asked. “For shipping they would go to those jurisdictions where jurists have developed an expertise in shipping. For corporate and commercial they would go to New York which rules the world.”
Dr. Morris agreed that when we want to buy a car we do not buy cars from countries that have no automotive track record. “We don’t buy Ladas we buy Lexuses and Escalades, why shouldn’t we apply the same principle to our court system?” he asked.
“Such a court would have the best regional jurists along with international jurists with recognised expertise in areas of importance to the region,” Dr. Morris explained. “The combination of expertise and adherence to the rule of law would not only quickly establish the CCJ but it would have the added benefit of transforming the court system throughout the region.”
Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com
C. E. Huggins
Caribbean Net News Bahamas Correspondent
E-mail: chazzhuggins@msn.com
