The Tribune

IN THIS column last week, we considered an article published by the Washington Post on human smuggling in The Bahamas – the government has now caught up.

As we said last week, many of the points in the article will be familiar to Tribune readers - starting with the incident in July last year in which at least 17 Haitians died when a boat set off from the Sand Trap area near Arawak Cay but overturned in rough seas.

The article went on to speak to a relative of one of the victims who died on that voyage – as well as to anonymous individuals who said they were smugglers and talked of the money that could be made from the illegal activity.

Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell has lambasted the Post for its reporting, saying that “pieces of this nature in my view always come off as exaggerated to the point of the absurd”.

Mr Mitchell made the criticism in a voice note yesterday, though he was light on detail when it came to what he actually objected to in the article.

In fact, he went on in the voice note to acknowledge our location, between Haiti to the south of us and “the rich country to the north of us called the United States and we’re caught in between”.

He said the article was “simply not balanced enough in that it does not give credit or sufficient credit to a small country with limited resources”.

Now, take your pick here – is smuggling not a major problem, and the article is exaggerating it, or is it a big enough problem that we struggle to tackle it due to limited resources? If indeed the article is exaggerating the situation, let us hear exactly how.

Perhaps we should pay closer attention to the Royal Bahamas Defence Force Commodore, Raymond King, instead – who notes that while we intercept migrant vessels, we do indeed have trouble locating the human smugglers themselves.

He notes how cell phones are usually thrown into the sea if boats are at risk of interception, and there are challenges with identifying the captain on board Haitian and Cuban vessels.

Human smuggling of course is a major operation – and those piloting the vessels may well not be the same people as making the arrangements to bring the migrants to the ship. This can be crime at a major level.

So Mr Mitchell may seek to dismiss concerns raised by the article over human smuggling – but there is a very real and substantial level of crime that is taking place. Failing to take it seriously may be exactly the kind of thing that leads to articles such as this in the first place.

Bear in mind what one of the purported smugglers said in the article: “The game is easy to get in, once you get a boat and have a place to put people. If you don’t have a boat, you get money up front to buy a boat.”

If indeed the game is easy to get into, that suggests it is pervasive to some extent. A network exists. It is easy to find the connections, it would seem, to become a smuggler. That does not happen in isolation.

So while of course there is the common reaction to defend our nation against criticism, we should in truth be defending our nation against criminals.

If some feel it is easy to get into crime, let us make it difficult. If people think being a smuggler can be acceptable enough to talk openly about it, let us shun such people from our society.

We know such smuggling exists. We hear often of such boats being intercepted. What we need to hear more of is the criminals behind such networks being arrested. Our marines are doing their best to stop the boats, they deserve support to find the masterminds and put them before the courts.

This is a crime that continues to pay for those at the top of the chain – and that is something we should never allow.