The Tribune

OURS WAS not the only raw nerve touched when Dr Nottage threw out his chest in the House of Assembly on August 8 and boasted: “Every important milestone, historical or otherwise, every important institution, every important liberalisation of personal rights have been ushered in by the Progressive Liberal Party or this government.”

The tragedy of that statement is that not one word of it is true, and so far, Dr Nottage has not shown sufficient humility to admit that for a few seconds in the House he had lost touch with reality and was drifting off on the wings of fantasy.

We have many reasons not to have much time for the PLP, but what irks us the most is how over the years they have taken advantage of the ignorance of their main supporters — what the PLP’s own researchers describe as “the socio-economic group with less than a high school education.”

If there is one thing that we hate is to see people on whom life has smiled favourably take advantage of those who have had no chance. We shall never forget the smug remark in the mid-fifties of one of the founder’s of the original PLP. “You watch me,” he laughed callously. “I intend to ride to power on the backs of the black people.” We are just as appalled by that remark today as we were then.

When we started to highlight some of the milestones that Dr Nottage was obviously claiming for the PLP, we found that we were not the only person offended by his untruths.

“Gosh, I didn’t know. I wish that you would continue to write some more,” has been the gist of most of the comments that we have received. However, there have been many others who did know, are still angry and want us to continue to put certain events in their historic perspective.

“Please,” wrote one reader, “before you stop the series, talk about Bahamas Airways. It is rubbing salt in the wound for old BAL staff to have the airline named after the person who was responsible for causing aviation to suffer a massive setback. An entity which cost the Bahamas Government nothing was destroyed and now almost forty years later, we have spent over half a billion dollars on Bahamasair.

“Pindling's evidence at the commission of enquiry in 1984 confirmed his involvement in the establishment of Bannister's airline which caused the Swire group to close down BAL.”

On this page today we publish a letter from someone who was obviously a staff member at Bahamas Airways after it had been bought in 1968 from BOAC by the Swires conglomerate that owned Cathay-Pacific.

At last under the ownership of Swires, Bahamas Airways had a spectacular future. Swires had intended to make the Bahamas the hub of its international operations. The Bahamas government had signed a “solemn agreement” with Swires that for a certain period of time it would have exclusive rights over certain profitable routes – New York being one — if it also serviced the Family Islands. Once the airline became profitable, Government would be required to buy 25 per cent of the airline.

Bahamas Airways staff rejoiced. At last their airline was off to a flying start, their futures looked bright, and as one observer said when he looked out on “those beautiful aircraft” on the runway, he knew that the Bahamas was at last on the map.

Two years later there was a political double-cross. Swires put the airline into liquidation in October, 1970.

One staff member told us of the shock. She had been instructed to call another destination — we believe it was the Turks — to inform them that Bahamas Airways would not be arriving that day. As she was delivering the message by phone, a note was slipped into her hand. When she opened it, she was devastated. The company had closed and as of that moment she was out of a job.

Another member of the staff of 1970 has sent us the clipping of a newspaper’s front page headline of Saturday, October 10, 1970 that read: “Government rejects multi-million dollar co-partnership plan – Bahamas Airways fold up – shock decision puts over 900 out of work.”

The sender of this clipping commented: “I added the thick black border because it was a death announcement.”

It was indeed a death announcement, a breach of contract, and a betrayal of untold proportions.

The late Sir Lynden Pindling and Everette Bannister were buddies. In a 1984 Commission of Inquiry report into drugs, Sir Lynden told how he “had caused” Mr Bannister’s Bahamas World Airlines Ltd to be incorporated in March 1968. During that year, he said, “he researched and made preparations for establishing an international airline.” This was the same time that Sir Lynden was Prime Minister and Swires had signed the exclusivity of routes agreement for Bahamas Airways with the Bahamas government.

Although Sir Lynden was not a shareholder in BWA (1974), Mr Bannister felt that the 428 shares that he held in a secret trust for Sir Lynden in another company would be an obligation that he would transfer to BWA.

Despite the agreement, Mr Bannister wanted his airline to fly from Europe, through Nassau and on to New York. Under the agreement with Swires this could not be done. But in its first few years in government, the PLP started to show a rather cavalier attitude to “sacred agreements.”

Bahamians were shocked to read the 1970 headlines that Saturday morning. Swires had liquidated, washed its hands clean of an untrustworthy Bahamas and had flown to other pastures.

A member of Sir Lynden’s own cabinet was to remark years later: “It was a stunning betrayal. Swires were highly respectable people. They had a solemn exclusivity period on routes for a certain time. The next morning I read the news in the newspaper. Swires promised to put the Bahamas on the map, now it was gone.”

Apparently without even informing his aviation minister, the late Warren Levarity, who also had to read the news in the newspapers, instructions had been given to Licensing Authority chairman Bruce Braynen to issue what was Swires’ exclusive routes to Mr Bannister’s BWA.

Is this, Dr Nottage, one of the milestones of which you and your party are proud?