The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

IN response to the government’s attempt to lift precautionary measures set to protect five activists, the Grand Bahama Human Right’s Association (GBHRA)yesterday issued a scathing rebuke of counter-claims as disingenuous, nonsensical and delusional.

In a statement, the local human rights group said it was shocked by the government’s intolerance of the recent granting of precautionary measures by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

The government was given a 20-day window to report to the IACHR on action taken to protect the lives and safety of five members of the environmental advocacy group Save The Bays (STB) and their nuclear families. The Commission specified that the government’s efforts should be discussed and agreed upon with activists - a requirement with which the GBHRA claims the government “utterly failed” to comply.

“Instead - and in callous disregard of the IACHR’s directives - the government took it upon themselves to investigate the victims and their movements,” the GBHRA statement read, “and to denounce them as politically-motivated opportunists in an official response riddled with exaggerations and untruths. Virtually all of the 83 points made by the government are demonstrably inaccurate or downright false, and the remainder are totally irrelevant to the case at hand.”

Sticking to its position that the STB member’s claims of victimisation and harassment were “baseless and without merit”, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration released its statement and supporting evidence for its request that the precautionary measures are lifted.

Noting that the Commission was required to consult with applicants before considering the government’s request, the GBHRA said it was preparing a detailed refutation of the government’s statement.

“The government, it seems,” the GBHRA statement read, “has missed the point of this exercise entirely. Precautionary measures are, as the name suggests, a precaution. They are granted when, on the face of it, there is cause for urgent concern for the lives and safety of certain individuals. Whether the government thinks the threats are credible or not, it is obligated to adopt such protections as mandated by the IACHR until such time as the facts can be established. There is no point in waiting to protect a person who has already been harmed.

“The victims do not need to prove that they are in danger in order to qualify for protective measures; these measures are to be established immediately and discontinued only when it is clear the danger no longer exists. The government added insult to injury by not only failing to live up to the letter and spirit of the IACHR decision, but also going on to criticise and gainsay that organisation’s important work. It is unlikely that such a direct slap in the face will be looked upon kindly by the Commissioners.”

The government on Wednesday reiterated that the IACHR had granted the precautionary measures “regrettably” before it could respond definitively, despite a diplomatic note to say a response was being prepared and without recourse to the government.

However, the GBHRA questioned why the government was unable to meet the deadline afforded to both groups and needed more than 50 days to report on steps taken to investigate claims made, in some cases, as far back as 18 months.

The group pointed out that the most frightening part of the government’s response is its “delusional” claim that the petition submitted by STB members was “politically motivated”.

“We wonder if they have stopped to ask what possible political use such an application could be in practical terms. Elections in the Bahamas are hardly won or lost on the basis of international opinion; if anything, defending the country from ‘foreign interlopers’ will win the PLP political points - a fact which may explain the intolerant response to the IACHR as a case of playing to the crowd.

It continued: “The FNM and DNA certainly don’t seem to believe the matter has any political currency; both have remained silent since the matter was first made public - publicised we may add, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on October 3. The application was made on September 6, but neither the GBRHA nor STB made any announcement of its existence. This is because neither group was seeking to make political hay; we only wanted to ensure the safety of embattled local activists.

It added: “If the matter ever does become politically relevant, the government will only have itself to blame for its overbearing, ham-fisted handling of this matter.”