The Democratic National is absolutely stunned with the level of rancor and vitriol displayed by The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Fred Mitchell towards Baha-Mar investor Sarkis Izmirilian. For a diplomat, with the so-called experience Mr. Mitchell has, this is really a sore sight to see. 

 

As if it wasn’t bad enough that the Baha-Mar fiasco is embarrassing enough as a country, Minister Mitchell is making matters extremely worse with his obscene and divisive language towards an investor that his party when in office gave the green light for the project in question. 

 

In addition, Mitchell is not only spreading this nonsensical and personally directed hate-speech with anyone that would listen to him here in The Bahamas, he has gone on record at the United Nations Security Council just recently as saying projects and investors like Mr. Izmirilian pose a great threat to the national security of The Bahamas on the basis that they holds too much leverage in smaller countries like The Bahamas. 

 

It’s clear that Mr. Mitchell has a very short memory. Not only did his party, The Progressive Liberal Party, invite Mr. Izmirilian to move forward with the project initially. But, when his party was voted out of office after having dropped the ball with regard to due diligence and overall lousy performance on the project and all else, while in opposition they fought hard to have this project continued under the following administration.  

 

Fast forward to today, after the project began to move forward with great reservation by cautious Bahamians, Minister Mitchell along with the PLP are now lobbying against the project’s main investor and are threatening to put him out of the country, putting the project in more jeopardy. In essence, lobbying against the merits and tenets of a project they fought so hard for. We don’t want to call Mr. Mitchell childish, but this looks childish and rife with petty, useless and idle chatter. 

 

The DNA must remind Mr. Mitchell that this is not The Kingdom of The Bahamas. We do not have a king, neither a queen, Mr. Mitchell. If anyone with rights to be in this country, this democratic, free and open country called The Commonwealth of The Bahamas, they are free to say what they feel ails them and say full and clear what they think would work best for them. 

 

We in the DNA also find it disingenuous with regard to Mr. Mitchell’s concern for the workers at Baha-Mar, when employees in our banks, other hotels and other internationalized sectors in The Bahamas have lost jobs to foreign competition and not one word was mentioned by him as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Immigration. Neither was there any new policy from his ministry to address it. 

 

More importantly, we find it despicable that the government of The Bahamas, with its chief diplomat on every platform in that of Minister Mitchell, is doing everything in its power to create more chaos, confusion, road-blocks and strife when the nation needs calmer heads to deal with this situation. Essentially, baiting Mr. Izmirilian and Bahamians into an emotionally charged, schoolgirl argument, when tangible issues about our economic prospects need to be addressed. Something this government has failed to be respectful of with regard to Bahamians, their land and their money. 

 

We encourage the government of The Bahamas to ask it’s Foreign Affairs Minister to come around to common sense diplomacy, fall back on some of the obscene, bar-room style commentary, and then come clean to the Bahamian people; the government’s true intentions for this project; and to stop giving off the appearance as if the government is trying to manipulate and shaft investors out of their money. 

 

Christopher Mortimer

DNA Deputy Leader