Shantytown eradication plan called a bid at ‘ethnic cleansing’

Fred Smith, QC, yesterday argued that the government’s attempt to eliminate shantytowns in The Bahamas is “nothing short of ethnic cleansing of Haitian ethnic communities”.

Smith represents shantytown residents in a legal battle against the government in its bid to rid the country of shantytowns.

The respondents in this matter are Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis, Minister of Labour Dion Foulkes, Minister of Public Works Desmond Bannister, Attorney General Carl Bethel, Bahamas Power and Light and the Water and Sewerage Corporation.

Yesterday marked the first day of the trial before Supreme Court Justice Cheryl Grant-Thomspon.

“The essence of the complaint is that The Bahamas government embarked upon a policy to eradicate ethnically Haitian-Bahamian communities and to eliminate them 100 percent,” Smith said.

“Perhaps I exaggerated in saying overnight. I believe they gave them a 30-day notice. So, after 30 days, they intended to destroy and to eliminate communities that existed in The Bahamas for decades and decades on ethnically discriminatory grounds.”

He described attempts to demolish the shantytowns as “an extraordinarily terrible, inhuman and degrading thing for a government to have conceived of in its secret Cabinet meetings”.

Smith said there is a need for the court to look at minutes from Cabinet meetings “to see what kind of decision was come to”.

“If they deny that this was the decision arrived at, then prove it,” he said.

“Show us the Cabinet minutes to say that that’s not what they said.”

The government has been facing legal pushback since it announced in 2018 that shantytowns will be demolished.

The government gave residents of most shantytowns on New Providence until August 10, 2018, to leave before demolition.

Residents in shantytowns on Abaco were to be given until the end of July 2019 to leave.

However, in August 2018, Thompson granted an injunction.

Yesterday, while referring to minutes from the Shantytown Action Task Force, which was formed by Cabinet, Smith noted that the government’s policy is “concerned with relocating people and that is dispossessing them”.

He added that the title of the first item in the minutes is “The elimination of shantytowns in The Bahamas”.

“It goes on to say that the purpose of the meeting was to establish [an] inter-ministerial committee, etc., etc., to execute Cabinet’s mandate to eliminate shantytowns in New Providence and the Family Islands,” Smith said.

“So, the consequence of eliminating the shantytowns is obviously to dispossess people.”

Smith said a visit to shantytowns in The Bahamas will show that “these are healthy, livable neighborhoods”.

“They are not ghettos which is otherwise suggested to be the case,” he said.

Smith noted that a building assessment report indicated that up to 60 percent of structures in the various shantytowns were “reported as code worthy”.

He likened the shantytowns to the Over-the-Hill community.

“Comparing shantytowns with the Over-the-Hill community is instructive,” he said.

“Like the shantytowns, Over-the-Hill was described as: one, the epicenter of cultural and social development for an ethnic group, according to the white paper, those of African descent.”

Smith noted that it is known for dilapidated housing and poverty. 

He said the Over-the-Hill community also has a high percentage of households without running water or indoor plumbing.

“M’lady, notwithstanding these common features, the government’s intended treatment of Over-the-Hill is totally different,” Smith said.

Social empowerment, economic empowerment, rejuvenation, smart technology and green technology are among the objectives listed in the Over-the-Hill white paper, Smith noted.

Grant-Thomspon asked if Smith was saying that the Over-the-Hill policy is distinctly different from that employed in respect to “these cultural communities”. 

Smith replied, “Yes, your honor, and I’m saying that, in addition, they recognized that Over-the-Hill represented an ethnic description just as they recognized the shantytowns in relation to ethnic origins.”

He said both had the same basis and same positions.

“The policy in respect to the Haitian ethnic communities was discriminatorily different for exactly the same features,” Smith said. 

The trial is adjourned to today at 9:30 a.m. 

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