The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

JUNKANOO Corporation of the Bahamas chairman Silbert Ferguson pledged yesterday to investigate the appearance of an anonymous group donning hats similar to those worn by Klu Klux Klan members in protest against lawyer Fred Smith and billionaire conservationist Louis Bacon during the New Year’s Day Junkanoo Parade.

Mr Ferguson said he had no idea the group had appeared on Bay Street until he was told of the news hours later, adding that the JCNP did not sanction the group’s performance and has little authority to ensure that it doesn’t happen.

He added that his team will view tapes of the parade and make a decision as to how such future incidents could be prevented.

“People hide their paraphernalia and get in,” he said. “Parades are free spirited. People have social messages they could bring on the parade and it’s not a problem, but if it’s going to be messing with someone then that’s a problem and it appears this group was hidden until they got to Rawson’s Square.”

He continued: “Everything that happens that has a negative tone, we have to make immediate adjustments to prevent it. When mistakes are made we have to learn from them. I don’t want someone to take a social site and do this kind of stuff. If you are talking about AIDS or whether we should have hanging I could live with that, but the kind of social messages people are complaining about are ones we don’t need. Louis Bacon ain’ do Junkanoo nothing.”

Last week, Mr Smith, the head of the Grand Bahama Human Rights Association, called on the government to pass a Human Rights Act and make it an offence “to abuse people hatefully in public.”

A video of the “protest” had gone viral on social media.

Last month Mr Smith and Save The Bays director, Joseph Darville, said they feared for their lives after allegedly being targeted by an aggressive group of young men holding menacing and defamatory banners bearing their names and faces during a “hijacked” rally in support of a Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. Responding to the protest on New Year’s Day on Friday, Mr Smith called it a “national disgrace” that sends a “clear message of hate, racism, xenophobia and anti-foreign mentality to the world.”

He also said he would be making a complaint to Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade because he is in “fear for (his) personal safety”. “It is shocking that my government, the police, Junkanoo committee, organisers, should have allowed people dressed as members of the Klu Klux Klan parading down Bay Street, sending a message that white rich foreigners, Haitians and Bahamians like me of Haitian descent are not wanted in the Bahamas,” Mr Smith said.

“I think that was a national disgrace, and it was an embarrassment to human rights in the Bahamas. It should never have been allowed by the authorities. I am shocked that the Junkanoo community put that on. It sends a clear message of hate, racism, xenophobia and an anti-foreign mentality to the world.”