Bahamas Premier Pindling Sweats Out Drug Scandal

Painfully aware that their young nation is sick with corruption, Bahamians are casting about for a cure. One of the bitterest pills being prescribed is criminal prosecution of Prime Minister Lynden O. Pindling.

No charges have been filed against Pindling, but he is reported to be concerned about his liability under the Bahamas Public Disclosure Act of 1976, which requires officials to submit public reports on their personal finances. Violation of the act is punishable by up to two years in prison.

“There is nothing Pindling fears more than the public disclosure,” said a member of Parliament who represents the prime minister’s party. Another party leader confirmed that Pindling is concerned.

Smell of Corruption

The smell of corruption has hung over this former British colony for years, but now the corruption has been documented. A thick paperback volume, “Report of the Commission of Inquiry,” went on sale last week at the Government Publications Office.

The book, which is being serialized by the country’s two daily newspapers, contains the findings of a government-appointed commission’s yearlong investigation into the impact of drug trafficking on the Bahamas’ 220,000 people.

As the daily Nassau Guardian said in a New Year’s Eve editorial, the commission’s public hearings and its findings “confirmed a number of dark rumors and painted the Bahamas internationally as a nation on the take.”

Cocaine and marijuana worth hundreds of millions of dollars pour into the United States through the Bahamas, which is a quick sprint from south Florida by plane or speedboat.

The panel’s three members concluded: “The evidence before the commission indicates quite clearly that the widespread transshipment of illegal drugs through the Bahamas in recent times has adversely affected almost all strata of the Bahamian society.

“We were shocked to learn that the ‘spillover’ from this transshipment trade has created a lucrative local drug culture that has permeated the society to an alarming degree. We were also alarmed by the extent to which persons in the public service have been corrupted by money derived from the illegal drug trade.”

The panel said corruption exists “at the upper and lower levels of the Royal Bahamas Police Force,” among some customs and immigration officers and even at the Cabinet level of government.

Former Agriculture Minister George A. Smith, the report says, “corruptly accepted funds from known drug smugglers.”

The commissioners said they did not believe testimony accusing former Youth Minister Kendal Nottage of taking delivery of 117 pounds of cocaine in his car. But the panel accused Nottage of “fronting” for Salvatore Caruana, who was identified as an American Mafia figure, in a money-laundering operation.

Quit but Deny Wrongdoing

Both Nottage and Smith resigned from the Cabinet in October, but both denied any wrongdoing.

At the same time, Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Hanna left the Cabinet after confronting the prime minister over the corruption issue. Pindling then fired two allies of Hanna, Tourism Minister Perry Christie and Housing Minister Hubert Ingraham. Since then, Ingraham has been calling for Pindling’s resignation.

Pindling figures prominently in the commission’s report, although the document does not conclude that he took any bribes.

One member of the commission, Anglican Bishop Drexel Gomez, observed in a minority report that $3.5 million more than the prime minister’s official income was deposited in Pindling bank accounts from 1977 through 1983.

“The circumstances raise great suspicion, and I find it impossible to say that the payments were all non-drug-related,” Gomez wrote.

The report of the full commission notes that Pindling accepted loans totaling $750,000 from owners of the Grand Bahama Development Co., one of the largest firms doing business in the country under government supervision. The lenders told the commission that they have waived repayment of the 1983 loans.

Documentation received by the commission showed that Pindling also received a total of $675,000 from his friend Everette Bannister. The commission accused Bannister of peddling influence to drug dealers and others but found no proof that he acted as an intermediary for Pindling.

The panel accepted Pindling’s denial of a drug dealer’s testimony that the prime minister received a $100,000 cash bribe through Robert Vesco, the fugitive financier wanted on fraud charges in the United States.

Pindling’s bank statements disclosed deposits of more than $200,000 of which the prime minister said he did not know the source. Some of the unidentified deposits were in cash, $50 and $100 bills.

“Not only did the prime minister have substantial sums which were unaccounted for, but he didn’t disclose them on the legally required disclosure forms,” said Ingraham, the fired housing minister, who remains in Pindling’s party and in Parliament.

“The party ought to make a decision as to what it wants to do,” Ingraham said in an interview. “The party ought to have the internal strength to purge itself of those who have held it up to contempt and ridicule.”

Ingraham and opposition politicians say there is enough evidence to charge Pindling with violating the Public Disclosure Act.

Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, a lawyer and chairman of the opposition Free National Movement, said he is doing legal research aimed at securing Pindling’s prosecution under the Public Disclosure Act.

Leonard Archer, head of the teachers’ union, filed a complaint with the Commission of Inquiry, charging that the prime minister failed to comply with the disclosure act. Archer said he will place his complaint before the Supreme Court--as a citizen legally may do here--if the commission takes no action on his complaint.

Pindling has not commented publicly on the commission’s report since it was made public in mid-December. He will be forced to answer criticism--and demands for his resignation--when the House of Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, is convened on Feb. 6 to debate the report.

Kendal Isaacs, a leader of the Free National Movement, said his party expects to present a motion of no confidence based on the findings of the commission.

“It has really rendered him unfit to be prime minister of the country,” Isaacs said in an interview. “If he hasn’t lost his legal authority, he has certainly lost his moral authority to govern.”

Isaacs acknowledged, however, that it would be difficult to bring down the Pindling government on a no-confidence vote. Pindling’s Progressive Liberal Party holds 32 of the 43 seats in the lower house. Its term of office expires in 1987.

Disaffected members of Pindling’s party, known as the PLP, will try to force him out by means of a party purge, Isaacs predicted.

“As of now, he doesn’t seem to have any intention of resigning, but pressure is building--both from our side and from inside his party and certainly internationally,” Isaacs said.

Atty. Gen. Paul Adderley said Pindling is in no danger of losing control of the party.

“The PLP won’t have anybody else as its leader,” Adderley said.

Sean McWeeney, the administrative chairman of the PLP, admits that the party needs to undertake some soul-searching. “The themes of renewal and rededication and rigorous self-examination are dominant now,” he said during an interview in his law office.

He ruled out any party rebellion against Pindling. But if it does nothing else, he said, the controversy will provide a “dramatic political exercise” in Parliament.

“There will be a lot of histrionics, particularly on the opposition side,” McWeeney said. “ . . . The opposition obviously is on the best political wicket it’s ever been on.”