Making a complete fool of himself, National Security Minister Dr. Bernard Nottage, told a Nassau Guardian reporter that it is the United State’s fault that The Bahamas is a major drug transit country.
Until the United States gets its “hunger” for drugs under control, The Bahamas will likely remain a transit nation for narcotics, said Nottage yesterday.
This foolish comment makes one wonder what drugs Mr Nottage is taking.
Nottage made the ridiculous comment in response to President Obama’s naming and shaming The Bahamas as a major drug transit country in the 2012 U.S. Major Drug Producing and Transit Countries list.
Showing his complete incompetence as National Security Minister, Nottage, whose PLP party’s election campaign was funded by drug dealers and numbers runners, said, “The Bahamas does not, generally speaking, produce drugs. There are occasional finds, but we don’t produce drugs.”
The U.S. Department of State’s annual list names any country that has “failed demonstrably, during the previous 12 months, to make substantial efforts” to adhere to its obligations under international counter-narcotics agreements and to take certain other counter-narcotics measures.
The Bahamas has, for the fourth year in a row, “failed demonstrably”.
Bahamians like to pretend that being identified as a major drug transit country does not necessarily represent an adverse reflection of the government’s counter-narcotics efforts or level of cooperation with the United States.
And the U.S. Embassy will, very diplomatically, shy away from calling the country a corrupt little cesspool of drug runners.
But the truth is, the DEA is quite aware of prominent Bahamians and high-ranking politicians who are involved in the drug trade and others who launder the money for drug kingpins.
Mr Nottage conveniently forgets that most of the major drug busts in this country occur as Bahamians are attempting to transit drugs from various countries through The Bahamas and into the United States.
Just this week, a Bahamian pilot was killed in Venezuela when he flew his drug-laden plane too low, in an attempt to evade DEA radar being monitored from neighboring Columbia.
Two months ago, three other Bahamians stole an aircraft at LPIA and illegally landed in Haiti. The men were detained along with the aircraft as authorities suspected they were trafficking drugs from the country.
There are scores of Bahamians who are involved in the illegal drug business, many who hold day jobs on the Police department, Defence Force, Customs department and even in Parliament.
Mr Nottage makes it sound as if The Bahamas is an innocent little country which is being exploited by evil foreigners who run drugs thorugh this country because of its close proximity to the United States.
While the truth is, it is Bahamians, for the most part, who are transiting those drugs through our country. If Mr Nottage can not admit this, or is not aware of this, one should question his competence to act as National Security Minister.
It is not a matter of controlling U.S. “hunger” for drugs. It is a matter of Bahamians learning to respect and abide by their own laws.
