The Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Public Service, the Hon. Fred Mitchell is giving his views on a Washington Post article on smuggling in The Bahamas.

The article entitled ‘Dreams And Deadly Seas’ was published online on July 27th on the publication’s website and attributed to Samantha Schmidt, Paulina Villegas and Hannah Dormido as the authors. The article says in part, “by day, jet ski operators zip through the turquoise waters around Arawak Cay, where tourists dine on conch salads from brightly painted wooden shacks. But by night, inky blue waves become a covert gateway through the vast Caribbean to the United States.”

Mitchell responded to the article saying, “what occurs here in this country is structural in the sense that we live check and jowl next to a major market. There is poor country named Haiti to the south of us and a rich country to the north of us called the United States and we’re caught in between. We have a tourist economy which must balance ease of entry as against immigration controls. And there is every indication that The Bahamas is fully cognizant of the public policy on smuggling and on trafficking in persons and we adhere to all the international agreements. The Washington Post article should therefore, in my view, be taken with a grain of salt.”

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