The Tribune

FOX HILL MP Fred Mitchell’s complaint that the Democratic National Alliance paid demonstrators to go to Bay Street Wednesday to protest against government, sounded like the exclamation of an incredulous child seeing a movie for the first time.

Nearly 200 supporters, led By DNA leader Branville McCartney, wearing green DNA T-shirts and carrying picket signs of coffins depicting the “death of democracy,” protested outside the General Post Office on East Hill Street.

Mr McCartney, who has denied that anyone to his knowledge was paid to participate in the demonstration, was objecting to government’s lack of “transparency and accountability” in the signing by parliamentary secretary Renward Wells of a letter of intent for a $650m contract, ostensibly without proper authority. His group was also protesting government’s regulation of webshops, despite a referendum vote by Bahamians to shut them down.

The idea of paying Bahamians to demonstrate — regardless of their political convictions — is not new. It is an art that the PLP perfected and so we don’t understand why Mr Mitchell is feigning such alarm as though it is something that is just happening and is directed against him.

We have discovered that usually when the unions demonstrate, their rank and file seem to know the reason for the placards they are carrying. Not so political demonstrators. They give a blank stare – what we call the glassy “fish eye” – when asked by a reporter what they are objecting to. Only the organisers can answer the question.

We first encountered this during former prime minister Hubert Ingraham’s first term in office – although even before that it was accepted that large numbers of Bahamians were bused to locations to make political crowd scenes look impressive. During one of the PLP demonstrations at this time, a Tribune reporter moved into the crowd and randomly started to ask questions. Invariably, it was discovered that the protestors had no idea why they were there, except that they were enjoying mixing with the crowd and making noise. Also they had been given a free ride to and from the crowd scene. At that time, our reporters were too naive to think that they were probably there because they were being paid.

It was much later that we discovered how deeply involved the former prime minister Sir Lynden Pindling was involved in some of the demonstrations. One morning, years ago, a member of our press room staff came upstairs to our office to inform us of a pending demonstration. He was a reformed gang leader. He said that the night before the late Sir Lynden was at their headquarters to recruit them to participate in a political demonstration against the Ingraham government. He mentioned nothing about money being promised. It was only several years later that we learned of the practice when demonstrators started to complain of not being paid. They were particularly vocal during the staged Bay Street PLP-led demonstration against the sale of BTC in March 2011.

It was so bad that even a senior police officer questioned how responsible persons would encourage the “criminally-minded” to create social unrest in our otherwise peaceful country.

The senior officer was defending his Force from the criticism of a politician about the worth of police reports, which were used in another case to decide the suitability of a person for a high office. The officer was also smarting under the criticism of how “over prepared” the police were when they arrived on Bay Street for the BTC (PLP) demonstration. It would have been irresponsible, said the officer — particularly after a union leader had declared that a “small Egypt” was needed on Bay Street to protest the sale of BTC — if police had not come fully prepared — with its canine unit and all for a possible “small Egypt”.

He said the type of persons — well known criminals – seen among the demonstrators made it necessary for the police to do their job. It was obvious, he said, that the demonstration had nothing to do with BTC, but was being used by “political groups” to advance their political agenda.

Downtown merchants were calling for police protection, as the unsavoury noisily entered their shops. The demonstration was said to have been organised by the Committee to Save BTC, but PLP members made a strong appearance.

“We saw so many things that were going on that I, for one, wondered if we were dealing with a BTC situation or if we were dealing with a political situation. For me I could not understand what was going on,” the officer candidly told the press.

He said he knew some of the trouble makers and stopped and talked with them. “I heard them say if they did not get paid there is going to be problems.”

And there were problems. The problems quickly appeared at the end of the demonstration outside Opposition Leader Perry Christie’s political office in the Bayparl building, next to the Hansard office, and several lawyers’ offices along the corridor. Tribune reporters were quickly called to the noisy scene.

A stream of angry demonstrators elbowed their way from the sidewalk on Bay Street into the Bayparl building, up the stairs and crowded along the corridor outside the Opposition leader’s office, spilling over in front of the Hansard office and lawyers’ offices. Several well known criminals were among them.

Their job done, the demonstrators were yelling and screaming. “We want our f---ing money!” they bellowed for everyone in the building to hear. They threatened what they were going to do if they didn’t get their money. A few of them were given a few dollars, which they threw back, yelling that that was not what they were promised. The disorder lasted at least 40 minutes before they were cleared from the building.

And so we were surprised at Mr Mitchell’s response to the DNA demonstration as if he, and his Fox Hill constituency, were the only objects of the DNA’s political exercise.

“The reason I react to it,” he said in a statement to the press yesterday, “is that I am incensed that the DNA would use vulnerable people in Fox Hill for the DNA’s political ends. I do not fault the people themselves; I fault the DNA for this cowardly action, taking advantage of our vulnerable people for political gain. I condemn it.

“The fact is renting a crowd does not reflect the true political opinion in the country.

“Furthermore it is not good for the reputation of the DNA who trumpeted themselves as 21st century Bahamians who would not be associated with attempts to buy support. Last week’s rent-a -crowd was not 21st century action, but that of the typical actions of a UBP-type political organization associated with the 1950s and 1960s in the last century,” pontificated Mr Mitchell as he seemed to have amnesia over the PLP era, which culminated in open protest by a “rent-a-crowd”, which included criminals who wanted the PLP to pay them their “f--ing money.” If he really believes in the lecture he is now giving the DNA, the question is why didn’t he give it to his own party in 2011?

If he had done so then maybe he would not have had to complain about ”an individual”, which he declined to name, who is “connected with the DNA.” This person, he said, “contacted individuals in and around the Fox Hill parade and asked them if they wanted to make 25 dollars for a day’s work. That day’s work turned out to be demonstrating for the DNA and marching to town in a DNA T- shirt.”

He was probably amused by the “rent-a-card” crowd in 2011 who were marching against the FNM, but now that it is in his own back yard he can’t handle it .

Unfortunately, Mr Mitchell, will have to learn that he can’t have his cake and eat it too.