The Tribune

AT LAST Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell has admitted what everyone has known ever since the day the PLP was first elected to govern this country — if citizens fail to say “yes, massa” to every whim of their new overlords, they should not expect a crumb from their master’s table.

This is nothing new, but knowing the history of the once young rebel, Fred Mitchell, it is cause for sad amusement.

In Long Island, MP Loretta Butler Turner’s constituency, Mr Mitchell made it abundantly clear this weekend that the people of Long Island were not getting what was their just due, because their representative did not know how to grovel to the PLP. They were not his exact words, but that certainly was the message that was being conveyed.

At least Mrs Butler-Turner got the message, dismissing his comments as a “vile and disgraceful” declaration that the PLP has victimised Long Island residents for years.

“Be assured that the government sees the future of Long island as pivotal to the success of our nation,” the visiting Mr Mitchell told Long Islanders.

“I regret the crude and unfortunate behaviour of your representative which often gets in the way of progress for this island,” he said. “She does not know the lesson that it’s better to attract good things with a dab of honey than with a bag of bile. We continue to be focused, however.”

You are focused all right, Mr Mitchell, in falsely trying to make Long Islanders believe that their MP does not have their best interest at heart. Obviously, in their interest, she is fighting an uphill battle with a stiff-necked government. Mr Mitchell’s unfortunate comments confirm this. His comments are enough to “yuck up the vexation” of Long Islanders, a hard-working people, well known for their independent spirit.

Long Islanders, as citizens of this country have certain entitlements — just as have the residents of every island in this archipelago. But to suggest that those benefits are being withheld because Mr Mitchell, and his government, do not like the outspoken honesty of their representative, is despicable.

Mr Mitchell then made a statement that even history will find amusing. Said Mr Mitchell:

“I have been an opposition MP and I think that notwithstanding party differences, there is goodwill on all sides to be sure that the best is done for our people. That is certainly the case for Long Island but her representation has not produced what it can for this island. She needs to do better. She needs to pay more attention to Long island.”

Did Frederick Audley Mitchell, Jr. actually utter these words… “I have been an opposition MP and I think that notwithstanding party differences, there is goodwill on all sides…”?

Tribune files will certainly contradict that statement.

On February 9, 1996, the PLP, his former party, condemned him as a “political troublemaker.”

This time he was stirring up trouble for the PLP in Grand Bahama.

According to The Tribune report from Freeport, the PLP’s Grand Bahama Council condemned PDF leader Mitchell as a “political upstart and troublemaker” for his “unjustifiable, scathing attack” on Prime Minister Lynden Pindling.

“Mr Mitchell has been acting like a spoilt brat in recent months and as such he deserves a serious spanking,” said the Council’s release. “The Grand Bahama PLP Council is prepared to do just that every time this political johnny-come-lately and self-styled revolutionary opens his mouth and spouts his garbage.”

The Council said that the PLP afforded Mr Mitchell “every opportunity to come to the political and social forefront in this country”.

The party, it stated, “put the utmost confidence in Mr Mitchell in a number of tangible ways, including letting him handle the Broadcasting Corporation of the Bahamas, the Information Services and editing the party’s newspaper.

“No less a person than the Prime Minister himself took Mr Mitchell into his full confidence. But what was Mr Mitchell’s response?

“A complete right about face. Desertion in the face of the enemy.”

The Council said that Mr Mitchell’s “subsequent vitriolic attacks on members of the government, his professional colleagues of the Bar Council, the judicial system in general and the sacred constitution itself are no less than despicable.”

The Council concluded by saying that “this cannot and will not be tolerated in this country. Our people have zero tolerance for this type of irresponsible behaviour, coming, especially as it does from one who dares to aspire to the sacred office of Prime Minister of this beloved country.”

In those days Mr Mitchell was outspoken in denouncing the evils of the PLP.

He was giving them a bit of their own medicine and they did not like it. The Tribune probably agreed with much of what he said at the time – there were many exceptions, of course, such as the burning of the Constitution.

However, what we find abhorrent today is that he is now trying to reintroduce all those unfair, dictatorial tactics, which he fought so hard against 19 years ago, into the life of today’s Bahamas.

It’s not right, it’s not fair. It is time for Bahamians to take a stand and make it clear to Mr Mitchell and his ilk that enough is enough – there is no tolerance in this country for budding dictators.