The Tribune

By FARRAH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

THE attorney representing shanty town residents in a judicial review centred on the demolition of unregulated communities yesterday accused the government of embarking on a “dictatorial” policy to completely eliminate ethnically Haitian-Bahamian communities.

Fred Smith, QC, the lawyer representing Respect Our Homes Ltd and 177 residents and occupants of shanty towns, made the assertions as he challenged the government’s alleged plans to use section four of the Building Regulations Act to take possession of property to which, he insisted, they were not entitled.

The trial, which commenced before Supreme Court Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson, began just two weeks after Mr Smith’s firm filed an urgent appeal asking the court to consider extending the injunction barring the government from evicting shanty town residents and disconnecting services in their communities.

During the virtual proceedings yesterday, Mr Smith said the decision to eradicate the shanty towns did not respect any of the provisions of the constitution which he said made the policy “dictatorial, overreached and overarching in its nature.”

“The executive branch of government we submit, cannot act indiscriminately and arbitrarily to abuse the rights of any person in The Bahamas whether (they are a) Bahamian citizen or not,” he stated.

“...What is being attempted here is that the respondents have created a policy dictatorially giving vast powers to Minister (of Labour Dion) Foulkes and his committee purporting to use section four of the Building Regulations Act to achieve something which it never contemplated; that is, to take possession and to demolish people’s homes.”

Mr Smith said such a move would impact nearly 20,000 people, the majority of whom reside in New Providence.

He also compared the nature of the policy with the Stalin regime, but said he would “tone down his hyperbole” after an objection from the Crown.

Still, Mr Smith insisted if the government did not want to be compared to Stalin, they “shouldn’t seek to destroy the homes of 20,000 people overnight”. He said if the respondents were not too fond of the previous analogy, he would refer to what Mao Zedong did in the cultural revolution in China, “when he destroyed the homes of 20 million people” in the country.

“The essence of the complaint is that The Bahamas government embarked upon a policy to eradicate ethnically Haitian-Bahamian communities and to eliminate them 100 percent,” he stated.

“Perhaps I exaggerated in saying overnight, I believe they gave them a 30-day notice, (but) after 30 days, they intended to destroy and to eliminate communities that have existed in the Bahamas for decades and decades on ethnically discriminatory grounds.”

Mr Smith said “in relative terms”, such a move was an “extraordinarily terrible, inhumane and degrading thing” for a government to have “conceived of in its secret Cabinet meetings.”

He said although the respondents denied that a policy to eradicate shanty towns existed, they established a Shanty Town Action Task Force whose mandate was to “eliminate shanty towns in New Providence and the Family Islands.”

He said the minutes from one of the task force’s meetings, which was obtained during the discovery phase, revealed that the “Cabinet had ordered the demolition of all shanty towns in The Bahamas and Minister Dion Foulkes and the Ministry of Labour were chosen to organise and execute the colossal task.”

Mr Smith said that according to a preliminary report from the task force, the initial assessment was to have been completed by January 31, 2018 and an “official notice to vacate,” as far as New Providence was concerned, was to be issued by March 1, 2018.

“I submit that there is no question that the intent and the purpose behind the policy was to take possession of the land in question, evict all of those who were previously occupying it and make sure that they do not return,” he insisted.

“...And that, according to the affidavit of (one of the applicants) in Abaco, is precisely what happened to the thousands of residents that suffered under Dorian at the Mudd and Pigeon Pea.”

Mr Smith noted the action plan of the task force stated that it aimed to integrate Bahamians of Haitian descent into “mainstream Bahamian society,” deport immigrants with no legal status and demolish all of the shanty towns in The Bahamas.

He said he did not know why the government had to create a task force to carry out these tasks as the Immigration Act made provisions for the arrest, prosecution and deportation of persons with no legal status in the country.

“If there is to be some kind of cultural integration what (good) does it do, in my submission, by destroying the homes of 20,000 people?

“This is really a racist and discriminatory policy…this reveals that the policy is expressly motivated by the race, ethnicity or immigration status of the residents in the shanty towns.”

Mr Smith said the task force’s plan aimed to demolish shanty towns and “direct the inhabitants towards better living conditions”. He noted the preliminary report stated the government “hoped” the residents would relocate to family and friends in the “short term before they found more permanent housing solutions”. He also noted that they had made plans to open shelters to accommodate the displaced inhabitants in the event that it was needed.

“The government was plotting to remove so many people from their homes that they were contemplating setting up shelters as if the aftermath of a disastrous hurricane,” he said. “...It’s (unbelievable) that a government could conceive of creating a humanitarian crisis of this order.”

Mr Smith said the fact that the communities were being referred to as shanty towns instead of “settlements or organic communities” suggested the government purposely used a “derogatory” label to make the public feel as if there was “some kind of infection” that needed to be eradicated. He insisted people eradicate vermin like “fleas, ticks, lice and rats” from their home – not human beings.

“In January 2018, Minister Foulkes disclosed that preliminary findings show all shanty towns in The Bahamas are either owned by Bahamians or exist in circumstances where Bahamians have the lease approval to oversee those properties,” he said. “The Crown has no immediate right to possession of any of the land in question.”

Mr Smith said in April 2018, the Ministry of Labour issued a press release announcing that the government would be conducting a survey in all shanty towns in the capital to find out the demographics of the communities.

He argued that particular announcement was “at best incomplete and at worst seriously misleading,” as it gave no indication that the survey would “later be used to justify the demolition of the communities”.

He said after the enumeration exercise, a building assessment report revealed that “up to 60 percent” of the structures in the various shanty towns were reported as “code worthy”. He insisted “all of the talk” about “social reform and integration” was never about respecting building code regulations but was instead an initiative to “achieve the involuntary movement of thousands of people from their homes”.

“It is nothing short of ethnic cleansing of Haitian-ethnic communities in The Bahamas...that was what the policy was. This is purely and simply a policy of ethnic cleansing of Bahamians and other people of Haitian-ethnic origin from these communities. There was nothing illegal about these communities who on the evidence available were on the land with the consent of the owners or lease holders.”

Mr Smith also questioned why the government did not seek to address its concerns with the shanty town communities in the same way they approached their Over-the-Hill initiative.

He said while both groups had similar conditions, the policy as it related to the Haitian ethnic groups was “discriminatorily different”.

“The government has no overarching power just to demolish wholesale communities that they don’t even own the land to,” Mr Smith said. “If a minister was to make the decision, it wasn’t Minister Foulkes. It was to be Minister (Desmond) Bannister as he was the minister for public works and therefore the relevant minister for the purposes of section two of the BRA...Parliament has vested the discretion in Minister Bannister not some committee that Cabinet creates. Minister Bannister was, however, not even a member of the task force.”

The case continues today.