It was reported this week that Cuban medical professionals working in The Bahamas receive a fraction of their salaries while a larger portion is sent to an agency in Cuba. The information was attributed to documents leaked allegedly by a group called the Free Society Project.

Minister of Foreign Affairs was asked about the leaked information. He said, “The Bahamas does not engage in any practices which are against international labour norms, that is clear. What I thought was interesting, is not nefarious, is you have some people out of the United States who say they’re an NGO, non-governmental organization, and they have published purloined documents. They didn’t get them with authority as far as I’m aware. I’ve just raised a note of caution to anyone about accepting purloined documents without testing the context, the authenticity of those documents and we are too gleeful in this present dispensation that as soon as somebody throws some material out there that looks as if it’s accurate we jump behind it and accept it for the truth of its contents, that’s the word of caution.”

The United States has threatened to revoke the visas of officials in countries engaged in what they called forced labour of Cuban medical professionals. Mitchell said, “these people may have in fact put at risk Bahamian officials who were simply carrying out their jobs and put at risk for things the authenticity of which has not been tested and that’s my concern. We are seeking as a country to avoid a shouting match with any other country. We’re a small country. We believe that we have a right to exist and that we have a right to make our way in the world without putting out artificial and subjective criteria which would damage our ability to trade, to travel and to move about the world as we should.”