The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) said the landing of an illegal sloop on the shoreline of Adelaide Village over the weekend was a “a significant security breach just three quarters of a mile from” the Royal Bahamas Defence Force base.

The statement from the office of the leader of the PLP said National Security Minister Marvin Dames “must accept full responsibility for these failures.”

“The Minister of National Security is obligated to give a full account as to what personnel or what established security protocols failed which resulted in allowing undocumented illegals to go undetected right on the doorstep of the defence force.”

The PLP, in its press statement, faulted Mr Dames for his comments to the Nassau Guardian on Monday in which he emphasised not all of the country can be guarded all the time.

“The excuse given…for his government’s failure to spot a sailing sloop with suspected illegal migrants aboard within two mile range of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force base is unacceptable. In this instance, our party does not ask him to guard the whole Bahamas, but to simply guard the shoreline close to the defence force base. The forces under his command could not even do that.

“This was an unacceptable security failure that requires an immediate investigation so we know why it happened and what we can do to avoid it from happening again.”

The Official Opposition added: “The PLP stands ready to assist. The FNM must get to work and stop deflecting attention by giving poor excuses, engaging in victor’s justice by locking up their opponents, contracting the economy by firing suspected PLPs and failing to fix Grand Bahama.”

Yesterday Mr Dames reiterated his earlier comments on the matter as he spoke to reporters outside the Cabinet Office.

“The Bahamas is an archipelago of over 700 islands and cays, we’re stretched over 100,000 square miles of sea,” Mr Dames said.

“I can tell you from personal experience I’ve had many trips when I was in the police force running operations, you can go out for hours and not see anything, land, boats, or anything else. For someone to think that every vessel that comes through here should be identified, that’s not humanly possible. So my point is we have to use intelligence to drive our business, law enforcement is a very dynamic business, when you create strategies and develop initiatives to target criminal activity and criminal gangs, transnational organisations, they too realise that when they feel that push they’re going to find other ways to circumvent your activities and you have to adjust to that.

“And so, that is my point, we are looking at any number of technologies and we have any number of technologies, that we are now using with the defence force and other agencies who are involved in protecting our borders. But even with that, to think that’s going to put a 100 percent blanket on our country and prevent any illegal business or activities from taking place is almost impossible.