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RESPONSE
BY THE HON. FRED MITCHELL
MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
TO FNM’S SPOKESMAN ON CARIBBEAN
SINGLE MARKET AND ECONOMY
From
Tokyo 26th
August 2003
The arguments advanced by the FNM’s spokesman on CSME in
response to my comments on the matter are both tiresome and tedious.
They betray a basic lack of understanding and ignorance of a
position that is crystal clear. The FNM’s spokesman knows that there
is no difference between the FNM’s position and the PLP on CSME
matters. It is a point that
has been made with regard to previous comments by the former leader of
his party in Freeport at a political rally.
What is now clear is that the former leader of the FNM Hubert
Ingraham appears to be
orchestrating a campaign of obfuscation and confusion on this issue in
order to mislead the Bahamian people into thinking that the position has
changed with regard to the Caribbean Single Market and Economy.
After failing to educate the Bahamian people on the issue, the
FNM’s leaders now take the position that they are going to attack,
guerilla-style the programme of public education by the present
Government in the hope that confusion will spread.
I am satisfied that Mr. Ingraham and Mr. Laing have both set out
to confuse, in the expectation that the Bahamian people will be
frightened by a phantom public policy that simply does not exist or
exists only in the minds of those two gentlemen.
Mr. Ingraham and Mr. Laing cannot deny that it is the FNM who
committed The Bahamas to supporting financially the Caribbean Court of
Justice, even though they agreed that The Bahamas would not join.
Yet in his statement on Tuesday 25th August Mr. Laing
purports to say that the FNM does not support the Caribbean Court of
Justice. His party took the
country to the point of financial support without any consultation with
the Bahamian people.
As to the issue of free movement of people,
the government of Sir Lynden Pindling, of Hubert Ingraham and now
Perry Christie have made it clear that The Bahamas does not and
cannot support the free movement of people provisions of CSME. I wish,
so that Mr. Laing, can understand to repeat it: The Bahamas cannot
and will not support free movement of people.
And the PLP has taken it further, it has received an undertaking
from the Prime Minister of
Barbados that it will formulate a position and
support the position that The Bahamas is entitled to special and
differential consideration on that issue in the community.
It is the present Government that has obtained that undertaking.
Further, nothing
will be done without the fullest consultation with the Bahamian people.
And it has clearly been established with the Caribbean
Secretariat that
if The Bahamas decides to sign on to the Caribbean Single Market
and Economy this will be done with all of the preconditions negotiated
in advance so that
there will be a full understanding of
the conditions under which The Bahamas will join.,
It is a great shame that both Mr. Ingraham and Mr. Laing are acting politically in concert to confuse and divide the Bahamian people when they both know
that in matters of Foreign Affairs there is no difference between the
political parties on these issues.
And I urge Mr. Ingraham to come out from behind Mr. Laing’s
shadow and face the music of a policy that was left in tatters and
disarray on this issue when he left office.
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