The Tribune

On Tuesday the United States Department of Justice charged 79-year-old Peter Nygard with racketeering offences and sex trafficking.

A statement from the Southern District of New York alleged: “… a decades-long pattern of criminal conduct involving at least dozens of victims in the United States, The Bahamas and Canada, among other locations.”

A story in The Tribune yesterday observed:

“The indictment represents the gravest legal threat the long-time Lyford Cay resident has ever faced and it comes months after a class action lawsuit was filed in New York accusing him of raping numerous women, many of them Bahamians. The assertions in yesterday’s indictment largely mirror the allegations in the lawsuit.”

With the international community pondering why The Bahamas allowed an individual like Nygard to engage in various alleged crimes, the country has to ask itself difficult questions about the toleration of Nygard in our midst for so long.

There is a queasy and unsettling sort of déjà vu, especially for Bahamians and international observers of a certain age, who are seeing troubling parallels between the Nygard matter and the allegations against the PLP Government during the 70s and 80s drug era.

Some in the PLP desperately need a certain amnesia in order to deflect from the party’s history of allowing nefarious international characters to run ruin over our country.

Moreover, why have we as a people been complicit in allowing various foreign individuals and interests to wreck our international reputation as some of us benefitted financially while protecting unsavoury characters who damaged Bahamians and our country?

Politicians, police, preachers and many other people have benefitted at the altar of greed and mammon dispensed by an assortment of foreigners who see us as obsequious and fawning toadies easily bought off with a few dollars, pamper and other parties and a grab-bag of favours.

To their credit there were politicians, police and prelates who refused to be seduced by these unsavoury characters and the baubles and trinkets they dangled just as did colonial and slave masters of the past.

There is something particularly nauseating about black leaders bowing down to certain foreigners who held them in racial contempt and who thought the natives could be easily purchased.

In a March, 2007 column, entitled, “Pindling, Anchor Projects and the Bahamian General Election”, Sir Arthur Foulkes wrote:

“ … On September 5, 1983, Brian Ross of the NBC television network blew the lid off the whole sorry mess as he broadcast allegations of drug corruption in The Bahamas implicating the Prime Minister [Sir Lynden Pindling]. An enraged Sir Lynden flew to New York to confront his accuser live on television.

“The first response of Sir Lynden and his defenders in the PLP is still quite familiar today. It was, they said, all a conspiracy against him and against The Bahamas on the part of the Americans, the Opposition and The Tribune.

“But things only got worse as the international press picked up the story. Screaming headlines spoke of a nation for sale and made other uncomplimentary references to The Bahamas. The tragedy is that most of what they had to say was true.”

The very same playbook is being trotted out again in wake of allegations against Nygard and certain Bahamian politicians. We shall see if the reflexive term of art “witch hunt” is again utilized by some as an instrument of deflection.

In his 2007 column, Sir Arthur offered this context of the Nation for Sale period of the 1970s and 1980s:

“The trafficking in illegal narcotics had been a problem in The Bahamas for years but by the late 1970s and early 1980s this nefarious business threatened to consume the country like a raging fire.

“The so-called Colombian cowboys moved in and with the collaboration of Bahamian and other recruits operated throughout these islands, from Abaco to Inagua. And a vicious lot they were. …

“The country was awash in drugs and narco-dollars. A new and unprecedented era of violent crime and lawlessness was unleashed on The Bahamas and traditional values were trampled in the dust…”

Sir Arthur continued:

“Promising young lives were ruined in an orgy of drug abuse and violence, and the peace and tranquility of the country were destroyed. The after-effects of those days are still very much in evidence today with a kind of criminality that was previously rare in The Bahamas. …

“The attitude of Sir Lynden was later summed up in an astonishing statement to the effect that ‘It’s an American problem. Let them clean it up.’

“But it was very much a Bahamian problem. It was, in fact, the worst period in the history of the modern The Bahamas and Sir Lynden’s Government did little or nothing to deal with it.”

We are once again in the midst of another major scandal, a scandal in a new generation, in which some once again sold out our nation in the frenzied pursuit of greed and power.

As with the drug era scandal, the fallout will likely once again be widespread and uncontainable through attempts at deflection or by trying to ignore a particular elephant, whom some helped to feed and to whom they gave comfort and licence for many years, not to mention cheap access to Crown Land.

To its great credit The Tribune has continued to diligently report on this story, including extensive reporting earlier this year. The story went largely unreported earlier this year by some in the media, who mostly ignored it.

No media house can defend a lack of vigorous reporting on such a serious issue in the public domain. The Fourth Estate in The Bahamas has an ethical and journalistic duty to report with diligence and accuracy on this matter.

The grave matter at hand is not the long running feud between Nygard and billionaire Louis Bacon or mostly a matter of a “fight between two elephants”. The matter now in question will not be easily deflected, sidelined or litigated by a political party or media houses.

On July 15, 2013, this journal described the PLP’s relationship with Nygard in an editorial titled, “Who Has Taken The Bahamas Back?” The editorial was written in response to videos on YouTube featuring comments by Nygard.

The editorial noted:

“Although the PLP have tried to downplay the Nygard video posted on YouTube in the past few days, judging from comments on social media and the number of tapes e-mailed to us for our information, we do not think it wise for government to continue with its dismissive claim that the matter is of ‘no importance’.

“The matter is of grave importance because government will have to make certain important decisions about Mr. Nygard’s development at Nygard Cay involving the Canadian’s present and future investments there. Some of these developments are bitterly opposed by a large segment of our population...

“During last year’s election, we heard persistent rumours about the Nygard involvement in the PLP campaign. This tape seems to confirm the rumours.

“Mr. Nygard has always been close to the PLP government. We recall him trying to win over the FNM when it became the government in 1992. However, he was rebuffed and so now the video shows him with raised champagne glass, shouting ‘Victory! Victory! Take our country back!’ …

“Mr. Nygard is obviously unaware of our form of government, and fails to realise what embarrassment he has probably caused Mr. Christie. It is now for Mr. Christie to inform him that we are not a banana republic and therefore — contrary to what Bahamians are now suggesting — not for sale, or ‘resale’ as one Bahamian remarked in disgust. …

“‘Victory! Victory!’ shouts Nygard with raised glass as one of the girls kisses him on his cheek and he gives another a high five. ‘We took our country back!’ he shouts jubilantly.”

It was a nauseating display of hubris by someone who used The Bahamas as his fantasy play land, like others in our modern history who saw us a cheap nation for sale, a sad recurring epithet.