By ADRIAN GIBSON
ajbahama@hotmail.com
Over the last few days, I was attacked and/or maligned by two government ministers, one, a pseudo-intellectual and undiplomatic wannabe diplomat and, the other, a political bust who now sings for his daily political bread and is hanging on for dear life in his constituency.
This week, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell got so caught up in his inflated sense of self and attacked me from the floor of the House of Assembly, asserting that my two columns (February 25 and March 3) concerning the death of pilot Christopher Prescott Adderley (“Scottie”), who was on remand in Haiti, were wrong and that the Gray family - the family of the other man involved - had disassociated themselves from what I had written. I listened to the recordings and Mitchell did not, at all times, state that he was referring to the Gray family.
Adderley, a 34-year-old father of two, was a pilot who had flown with Southern Air, Pineapple Air and Region Air. His mother, Sharon Rosemary Adderley, told me that on February 15, 2014, Scottie left the Stella Maris airport in Long Island for Haiti. He left onboard a Piper Navajo (N6739L) purportedly to pick up a friend and fellow pilot, Hughie Gray Jr. His family and friends contend that he had borrowed the plane from a friend and that the plane had not been stolen. That was the last time he was seen alive by his family.
Based on my interviews with Gray Jr, his mother Rosemary and close friends, Scottie crash landed in bushes slightly off the runway at an airport in Cape Haitien. The plane skidded off the runway and crashed into a house. Before leaving Long Island, he purportedly flew the plane to the airport in Deadman’s Cay for repairs as the brakes were not functioning properly. The brakes, I am told, malfunctioned during their landing in Haiti. Both men survived the crash but were immediately arrested, interrogated and later charged with the trafficking of illicit drugs.
Mrs Adderley sent Mr Mitchell several emails pleading for his help. Mitchell was hardly responsive, adopting a nonchalant approach, purportedly forwarding them on to an Ambassador Rolle or directing her to speak to the Permanent Secretary. The PS never called Rosemary and, though she attempted to reach him “on numerous occasions” from her homestead in Long Island, she was unsuccessful.
According to Mrs Adderley, that began a nightmare which culminated in the death of her son. Mrs Adderley never heard from Mr Mitchell again ... until after Scottie’s death eight months later.
Scottie died on September 22, 2015. His mother was informed of his death, by Mr Anderson, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs deputy consul in Haiti, the next day. His body was flown to The Bahamas. One week later, his co-accused Hughie Gray - along with two Haitian police officers - were all exonerated.
Once Hughie Gray was back in The Bahamas, Mrs Adderley arranged an interview between us. Hughie told me about their experience and I published it. That interview was conducted over the phone. I still have my raw data from that interview. Further, Mr Mitchell ought to know that I have no qualms about printing my call logs and highlighting the date and time that the interview was conducted and the length of time we spent on the phone. I continue to have Hughie’s number in my contact list.
So, imagine my surprise when I listened to Mitchell in the House on Monday and Tuesday claiming that Hughie had a different story from that which I had published.
Surely, someone is not telling the truth. Every time one exposes them, the first response is to assert that you’re lying.
Given that, Mrs Adderley, who was listening in Long Island, responded to Mr Mitchell and defended my columns, objected to Mr Mitchell’s language and pleaded for him to help her to find closure about her son’s death.
In her defence of me, Rosemary, a cousin and former teacher of mine, slammed Mr Mitchell for his attacks on my attempts to bring closure and attention to the circumstances surrounding her son’s death while in Haitian custody.
She stated: “As we sat here in Long Island listening to Mr Mitchell’s contribution in the House today, our mouths hit the floor. We are of the view that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did very little to help our son. Mr Mitchell ignored my pleas and sent me from one person to another - who didn’t respond - as I begged for help for my son. I begged them to take medical supplies to him.
“Mr Mitchell could now talk, but where was his voice when we needed him?
“We have, via Mr Gibson, released copies of cheques we sent through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and Whatsapp messages between ourselves and the official in Haiti who was handling the bribes requested. He was the facilitator in this entire episode. The bribes all passed through the MOFA with the knowledge of officials in Haiti. We have published the receipts. We can give him all of the Whatsapp messages if he wants them,” she said.
She went on: “We support Mr Gibson 100 per cent. I gave him access to my email account. I gave him the copies of the cheques. I facilitated the interview between him and Hugh Gray Jr. That is a fact. I am a grieving mother. Mr Mitchell has yet to answer the many questions we have concerning my son’s death, his nonchalant approach to me this entire time and his failure to provide any information thus far. We have yet to hear from him. I need closure.”
She called on Mr Mitchell to conduct a “proper investigation” into her son’s death rather than “twisting and mischaracterising this circumstance and my cousin and former student - Mr Gibson’s - noble efforts to assist our family.”
In classic and vitriolic Fred Mitchell style, he responded with most disgraceful, venomous and undiplomatic response.
“On the face of it, the response from the mother is nonsense,” Mr Mitchell said in a statement released shortly before midnight on Monday. “She does not even know what she is talking about and didn’t understand what she was hearing on television. I can understand now why she does not understand the most basic of matters about her son’s care. She is a little slow.
“Now we learn from the mother of Mr Adderley that she is complicit in sending bribes to Haitian officials. This is news and now a matter for the police. I guess confession is good for the soul. I can assure the public that the (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) was not complicit in any scheme to pay bribes to Haitian officials. That is a figment of her imagination” he said.
He added: “Her response is just plain silly. It is also defamatory and I warn her to be careful.”
Fred Mitchell’s vulgarity and divisiveness, his grotesque ego is on full display. Rather than conducting a proper investigation, liaising with Haitian authorities and giving Mrs Adderley and her family peace and closure, he throws salt into an open wound. Wow!
This is how Fred Mitchell responds to a grieving mother? He calls a woman, who has been an educator for more than 30 years, “slow”. He questions her intellectual capacity. Why stoop to this low point? Why talk down to a citizen of your country in this fashion, a citizen who is only begging for answers?
Mitchell’s response was unapologetic. The country’s chief diplomat is so undiplomatic. The insensitivity Mitchell displayed can only be likened to a thin-skinned drama queen whose only strength is to hurl insults. It is clear that Mr Mitchell does not have children. Otherwise, he would have had a clue about the love for a child, about what this mother is feeling. She spoke up for herself and her son and all she has gotten thus far is disrespect.
The foreign affairs minister wants to project himself as the avatar of progressivism, as one who fights for equal rights of women in the upcoming referendum but yet he speaks to a grieving mother in a most arrogant, condescending fashion as if she was a piece of rotting garbage.
Mr Mitchell apparently imagines that his perception of worth is congruent with everybody else’s perception of him. There is no connection between the two. To use the words of New York Times columnist David Brooks, many Bahamians look at Mr Mitchell as “an insecure boasting little boy who desires were somehow arrested at age 12”. Much like Republican front-runner Donald Trump, Mr Mitchell - to use Brooks’ words - “has already shredded the unspoken rules of political civility that make conversation possible”.
David Brooks’ description of Donald Trump aptly applies to Mr Mitchell, ie “his vast narcissism makes him a closed fortress”.
He is what one would call your classic “gas lighter”, someone defined as stating “something false with such intensity and conviction that whoever is on the receiving end is confused and begins to doubt their own perspective”.
However, I’m not so gullible.
As that website definition continues, gas lighters are known to “deny their own statements, change the subject, lash out with insults, act indignant about the accusation, or turn on the messenger”.
Clearly, Mr Mitchell will not take responsibility for his nonchalant, uncaring approach to Mrs Adderley and so he has opted to deflect responsibility and attempt to attack and/or undermine my credibility. Surely, he ought to know that the public is too smart to not be discerning.
Rather than expressing shame, remorse or simply stating his apologies, gas lighters “feign outrage and attack the questioner”.
And so now we have this counter-story, as advanced by Mr Mitchell on the floor of the House of Assembly, that the family of Hugh Gray Jr has written to him and disassociated themselves from my previous columns. The strange thing about Mitchell’s new claim is that the family of Hugh Gray Jr was never the centrepiece of my columns; they clearly addressed the concerns of the Adderley family about how Scottie died, the way the MOFA and its agents handled Scottie and his mother’s pleas for help (and she pleaded with Mitchell in several emails, he knows this) and the fact that bribes were solicited from the families and sent, via the ministry, to Haiti and handled by then MOFA deputy consul in Haiti Mr Anderson. Mr Anderson was the intermediary.
Mrs Adderley and Mr Gray Sr had to fire their first attorney (name withheld) due to his inaction and having been scammed. They then hired a second attorney who handled most of their son’s legal affairs thereafter. The legal fees were entirely separate from the monies solicited by, and on behalf of, a Haitian official referred to as ‘The Commissaire’ (Commissioner).
What’s more, Hugh Gray Sr and Rosemary worked together and always sent their monies to their sons together. Rosemary would send her money from Long Island to Mr Gray. Mr Gray would take it to the MOFA and they would liaise with each other regarding who the money was being sent to. Mrs Adderley has
WhatsApp and text messages of conversations between her and Mr Gray relating to the money and what portion would be allocated for requested bribes and that which would be for legal fees.
Moreover, if Mr Mitchell now claims that Hughie Gray told him a different story from that which I published, one wonders what could have led to that.
Today, we are publishing copies of the WhatsApp messages between Mrs Adderley and Hugh Gray Sr, of the messages between Mrs Adderley and Mr Anderson and copies of certain of the cheques. These messages show acknowledgement of the bribes by the parties. We have proof of their telephone numbers and other WhatsApp messages. Mr Mitchell, if he wants to conduct a proper investigation, could simply contact Mrs Adderley and no doubt she would share what she has in her possession. Mrs Adderley told me that Mr Gray has other copies of the cheques as the monies were sent to him from Long Island on behalf of the two friends. According to Mrs Adderley, the monies sent via the MOFA were to pay legal fees and the bribes requested of them. She continues to think well of Mr Gray although she is hurt, stunned and taken aback by Mr Mitchell’s claim that they disavowed what I previously wrote.
Mrs Adderley continues to await answer, Mr Mitchell. There is no need to stretch the limits of reality, no need to engage in further offensive barbs against Mrs Adderley and no further need for mischaracterisations and exaggerations. Mr Mitchell ought to refrain from using the House to attack private citizens, whilst hiding behind the cloak of Parliamentary privilege. Certainly, if he defames me or Mrs Adderley outside Parliament, he’ll be met with a thunderous reply.
Fred Mitchell must cease viewing challenges as emotional causes but rather as tasks he must address in the interest of the Bahamian people.
As I prepared this column, I decided to internalise much of what David Brooks said and I leave Fred Mitchell with this reference from his recent column:
“History is a long record of men like him temporarily rising, stretching back to biblical times. Psalm 73 describes them: ‘Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence … They scoff, and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth. Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance’.
“And yet their success is fragile: ‘Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been afflicted, and every morning brings new punishments’.”
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ajbahama@hotmail.com
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birdiestrachan 8 years, 7 months ago
Mr Gibson my question to you is why did you and the mother never go to Haiti to see about her son. Mistakes might have been made, who knows? But your mistake being a human rights lawyer and all never went to see him.
nowisthetime 8 years, 7 months ago
This is a disgrace on Fred Mitchell's behalf! It sounds as if the mother simply wanted answers as to what happened in that Haitian jail. As a Bahamian citizen, that young pilot was entitled to at least an investigation. Come on Bahamian Government.....you all are suppose to be for the people. The U.S. would never let their people rot in jail like that with no answer.
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