The Tribune

TRIBUNE staff are probably wondering today why we devoted a whole page to mark World Press Freedom day with a general election only two more publishing days away and every inch of space needed for election news. Raised eyebrows probably also creased their foreheads when they read The International Press Institute's call from Vienna for "authorities in the Bahamas to ensure that the rights of the media are respected" ahead of Monday's election. It would never enter the heads of today's young journalists that their freedoms and rights would ever be questioned. But it was not always so. Next month at IPI's first World Congress to be held in the Caribbean - Trinidad - the late Sir Etienne Dupuch, publisher and editor of this newspaper for more than half a century, will be posthumously recognised, not only as the world's longest serving editor, but for his hard fought battle for freedom of the Bahamian press and the right of all peoples in these islands to freely express their views. We never knew what it was not to have a free press until the advent of Sir Lynden Pindling and his PLP government. Sir Lynden was upset that his government did not have the blind support of The Tribune -- and we did not support him for good reasons, but that's another story -- and so he was determined to beat us into submission. He equated our opposition to many of his policies as disloyalty to the Bahamas and the Bahamian people. In other words, he, Lynden Oscar Pindling, was the Bahamas and the Bahamas was Lynden Oscar Pindling. The stupid Tribune was a pariah on the face of the body politic for not recognising this simple reality. "God gave this country to the PLP" was the famous pronouncement of Pindling Cabinet Minister Philip Bethel of Eleuthera. The Bahamian people, outside of that privileged circle, had to walk on tip-toe and keep their mouths shut. The persecution of this newspaper -- and the Bahamian people's right to know -- started shortly after the PLP came to power in the sixties. It lasted until the arrival in 1992 of the FNM under Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, whose first act was to open the airwaves to private enterprise, and create an atmosphere in which Bahamians were free to speak again. They lived in fear for so long that when eventually they felt free to speak and had airwaves open to them, they talked too much. As one whit remarked: "Today they have diarrhoea of the mouth!" And, for the first time, letters to the Editor were being signed with real names for publication. In our files, we have what today are many amusing stories of threats made by various officials -- laughable now, but not so amusing then. One was when young Tribune reporter John Marquis was hauled before a kangaroo court -- the Prison Committee -- to answer questions about information given to him by two prisoners about conditions at the prison. The story, although embarrassing for the authorities, was true. Under questioning, Marquis, as defiant then as he is today, succeeded in making fools of all of them. His account of that episode, published in The Tribune, is hilarious. Then there was the case of the Guardian editor who was excluded from a meeting of the Air Transport Licensing Authority, although the law specifically stated that all meetings were open to the public. His only reason for his actions was that he was "displeased" with the Guardian. When it was brought to his attention that he was breaking the law, he brushed it aside, declaring that the press would be excluded from the authority's meetings as long as he was chairman. Then there was censorship of crime reports. Government announced that the late Cyril Stevenson was to deal with the press. Mr Stevenson told our reporter that if she had a question, she could ask it, but he was not prepared to give her the crime report because it was an official document. At the end of the PLP regime he publicly admitted that Sir Lynden had instructed him not to give The Tribune government press releases. He said he would walk around with The Tribune's press releases in his pocket until the Guardian had time to publish. Government then announced that The Tribune was the "enemy of the people" and would get no government business. All the business, it announced would go to The Guardian, which it did for the 25 years that the PLP was in power. And then came the crisis with government's attempt to pass the Powers and Privileges Bill that would haul reporters, and editors before the bar of the House for the slightest mistake. In those days there was no Hansard and reporters were not allowed tape recorders, and so a mistake was whatever a complaining MP said it was. This was a step too far. Sir Etienne, a long and respected member of the Inter-American Press Association, brought it to the attention of IAPA's freedom of press committee, which saw it as a serious infringement of press freedom. The fight was on. A cable of protest was sent to Speaker Braynen and copied to an alarmed Sir Lynden. The head of IAPA flew to the Bahamas to join Sir Etienne. The Council of the Commonwealth Press Union (CPU) of which Sir Etienne was also a long and valued member, watched "with anxiety" for any further attacks from government. "Press freedom in the Bahamas remains on the defensive against forays inspired by the vanity of politicians," it said. Eventually the Pindling government backed off. Being a tourist resort it was afraid of serious repercussions. What was significant was that from that day the Pindling government never again got a good press. Under the Pindling regime, the Bahamas was dismissed as "a nation for sale." And so it is with the backing of such organisations as IPI, IAPA, and CPU and the advent of the Ingraham government that this country can boast a very free press.