The U.S. Ambassador got a tongue lashing from St. Margaret Member of Parliament Pierre Dupuch for his advisory to spring-breakers visiting The Bahamas.
During a debate on a Bill for an Act to provide for the Regulation and Management of Day Care Centres and Pre-schools, Mr. Dupuch charged that J. Richard Blankenship’s advisory was designed to put fear into young people intending to make this their destination.
He said the United States has too many problems with drugs and crimes for Mr. Blankenship to throw stones.
“The old text says Samson killed ten thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. Many friends, especially recently, are lost today with the use of the same weapon. The American Government has sent some 600,000 or 200,000 troops fully armed with everything except nuclears to seek Saddam Hussein in the gulf,” he said.
“They’ve sent Ambassador ‘Flagship’ to The Bahamas armed with a loose jawbone to do the same thing to this Government. Unfortunately, both don’t have the same effect,” he said.
Mr. Dupuch said that the youth are being used and abused for political reasons and the world seems blind to that fact.
He said that to send these young people, who should be living and enjoying the privileges of a normal life, to war is wrong because it is being done for political reasons.
Mr. Dupuch said the Ambassador should to stop trying to blackmail the Bahamian Government to conform to the demands of the U.S..
He said the two countries’ problems are common all over the world.
“The world has become a dangerous place to live and that is what we should be concerned about ﾖ not trying to scare one against another so that one hurts economically or politically” he said.
That, he said, does not solve a problem but creates a new one.
He said the world has a problem with society in which both parents work and the children forgotten.
“I am not saying send the mother home or send the father home to take care of the children. But we have to sit down and we have to decide what do we do with the children. How do we give them what they lost, when we as a society grew developed and changed,” Mr. Dupuch said.
Convicted drug traffickers, Mr. Dupuch said, should carry the same penalty as those who commit murder, for they put families through a “living hell,” with the drug abuser gradually dying.
“I’d shoot them all. Line them all up and shoot them. But if you notice, the big fuss is made with the proliferation of drugs in The Bahamas only when it is to certain people’s advantage. When you hear this Ambassador talking about drugs, either he doesn’t like what the Government is doing and is trying to force them to do what he wants them to, or there is an election coming up in the United States and they want to convince everybody that they are against drugs,” Mr. Dupuch said.
The United States has the resources and satellites that could show “every mosquito that takes off from Colombia. Get this scourge taken care of and quit talking about it.”
He said that The Bahamas does not have a huge military arm, neither are we afforded the technological luxuries that other modern countries have.
Regarding drugs, he said, “one would come from Colombia to Inagua, and 50 or 100 would go to the United States; with our facilities, it’s almost impossible to stop. But if they really wanted to stop drugs from coming to The Bahamas, they could use the satellite. We have 700 islands, and we have a desert of water out there. You can’t hide out there. I challenge them to turn that satellite on; and every mosquito that leaves Colombia coming north, apprehend them before they get here. That’s how you stop it. They could do it.”
He also tabled a letter written to the editor of The Guardian by Terry Goldsmith, responding to statements by the Ambassador.
Mr. Dupuch said that he was very impressed with the letter, which expressed concern over the “arrogant, offensive and holier than thou” advisory.
Mr. Goldsmith issued his own advisory to Bahamians visiting the U.S., that there is a high incidence of rape, murder, muggings, robbery, child abductions, child pornography, pedophilia, adult video pornography, and adult night clubs with apparent slack fire control regulations.
The letter advised young Bahamians that every form of illegal drugs ﾖ cocaine, marijuana, heroine, ecstasy ﾖ is available in massive quantities at all levels of society, in all major cities and small towns in the United States.
He also advised Bahamians to take heed of drug dealers, con artists, pickpockets, car-jackers and the like.
The letter advised Bahamians of the multiplicity of gun types that can be purchased on any street corner legally or illegally.
“Bahamians students and the Bahamian public would be better advised to stay home, buy Bahamian goods at home and keep their money here in The Bahamas.”
Before traveling, Mr. Dupuch read, Bahamians need to think about who sells more illegal firearms, who has more drive-by shootings than in any other country, who has the world’s greatest number of drug addicts, who has the world’s largest Mafia and other crime syndicates.
He also noted that in American schools, it is may be illegal to pray and students could be suspended or expelled.
“We appreciate the young U.S. students who come here for a good time, we love them coming here; we enjoy their presence and support; we enjoy the revenue they bring; we enjoy the openness and friendly fun-loving spirit. But sir, as the Ambassador, you should ensure that whoever authorized the release should learn to think and operate one’s brain first before operating one’s mouth,” Mr. Dupuch read.
Detouring from the letter, he said that the Ambassador, “who obviously does not like the choice of the Bahamian people, and wants to undermine them, brings up cases of drug abuse from 1992 when the these people weren’t even around, and believes that he convince the Bahamian people and the world that they’re a bunch of bad people.”
Mr. Dupuch said that he is not a PLP, but that is the Government that Bahamians democratically chose.
“They put their X where everybody could see,” he said. “Who is he to come here and try to undermine it, by putting fear. He’s lucky he’s not dealing with me.”
“I must say that he (Mr. Blankenship) doesn’t represent the same Americans that I know because the Americans I know and I have gone to school with, been a guest of, lived on their farms, they are some of the finest people that walk this world, and this man certainly does not represent them. Sometimes you think he is the Ambassador, sometimes you think he’s the town clown; other times, he’s doing business as usual,” Mr. Dupuch said.
By Vanessa C. Rolle, The Nassau Guardian
