This article, first published in The Tribune on Saturday, March 17, 2007, is reprinted here with the kind permission of the author, Mr. John Marquis, Managing Editor of The Tribune.

Will the real Fred Mitchell please stand up?

AS he set a copy of the Bahamas constitution on fire under the fig tree outside the Supreme Court, Fred Mitchell said: “I intend to smite every enemy that dares to launch out against me.”

At the time he was leader of the People’s Democratic Force, a movement which proved to have about as much force as a powder-puff and as much impact on this country’s political life as Paul Adderley’s National Democratic Party. Namely, none.

However, it was a significant warning of Mr Mitchell’s political tactics, and an early sign of what critics call his vindictive nature. And, come the Internet age, he made good on this promise by launching a vicious, mendacious website that persists to this day.

According to Fox Hill voters, however, this is probably the only promise Mr Mitchell has kept in a political career which has veered from one party to another in opportunistic pursuit of public approval.

As his FNM challenger Dr Jacinta Higgs told The Tribune this week, Mr Mitchell is more concerned with image – huge, Third World posters bearing his portrait – than getting to grips with the issues that concern the electorate.

She wants voters there to engage in a “silent revolution” to send him packing. With old ladies chasing his campaigners “off the porch” – sometimes making their point by throwing basins full of dirty washing-up water all over them – the signs are that they are heeding her words.

In urging Fox Hillians to “remember their history” – a reference to the community’s origins as a slave settlement – political observers feel Mr Mitchell is trying desperately to invoke the race issue because he knows Dr Higgs has the measure of him and looks certain to win the seat.

Even so, we took him at his word. Tribune staff have been trawling through the files to trace the erratic course of Mr Mitchell’s career, his own political history. At every turn, say observers, self-interest and self-aggrandisement appeared to be his prime motivation. The burning of the constitution, which deeply offended many Bahamians, was only part of it.

In fact, the ashes of the constitution were sent by Mr Mitchell to the then Prime Minister Sir Lynden Pindling “as a reminder of how our country is being destroyed.” The words are Mr Mitchell’s, not ours. They show the deep contempt he felt for the late PLP leader and pose the obvious question: “What is he doing in the PLP now?”

Mr Mitchell, in fact, ended up in the PLP because the FNM didn’t want him. They refused to run him as a candidate and he slunk off in a sulk, bearing his resentment like a king-size haversack.

However, when he launched his “Third Force” in 1989, Mr Mitchell was insistent that Hubert Ingraham – the FNM leader who was later to reject him – should become a key component in his new set-up. At the time, Mr Ingraham was the independent MP for Cooper’s Town, Abaco.

Mr Mitchell’s declared aim then was to inflict a resounding defeat on the PLP. Like his long-held desire to be prime minister, his ambitions proved delusional.

By December, 1990, Mr Mitchell’s hostility to Sir Lynden culminated with his declaration that the so-called “Father of the Nation” was, in fact, irrelevant to the Bahamas.

“It is time that the Bahamian people consign him to the scrap heap of history,” he said.

While heaping abuse on Pindling, Mr Mitchell did not forget current prime minister Perry Christie, then the independent MP for Centreville who was about to rejoin the PLP.

“He ought to be ashamed of himself walking around with his head high calling himself Mr Centreville,” said Mr Mitchell.

“We find tremendous resentment on the part of young and old because, without so much as a by-your-leave, he ends up back in the Progressive Liberal Party.”

Then he issued a warning to the man who, in the fullness of time, would become his leader.
“So we say to Mr Christie, go right ahead my brother, hold your head up high, just don’t be surprised if you trip because you’re not looking at what’s happening on the ground.”

It’s odd that Mr Mitchell should accuse Mr Christie of “not looking at what’s happening on the ground” because that’s the precise charge being laid at his own door today by the people of Fox Hill.

Sources there say that, while Mr Mitchell has been burnishing his international image as foreign minister, running up enormous amounts in airfares at the public’s expense, he has been neglecting the things that really matter to his own constituents.

They say Mr Mitchell is “all show and no go”, making public appearances when it suits him, trying to engineer local events to his own political advantage, but having no inclination to get to grips with pressing social and educational needs.

Apart from his disastrous involvement with the Fox Hill community centre, when the late George Mackey expressed alarm at his attempt to abandon the project, he has not made a single contribution to the village’s welfare, say his critics.

In fact, the huge disparity between words and action have been a continuing feature of the minister’s career.

Press

It was Mr Mitchell who, during his “Third Force” days, was a vocal supporter of a free press, and self-proclaimed champion of human rights.

Today, he is so intent on persecuting journalists that he is mockingly nicknamed “The Minister of Tribune Affairs”, a reference to his continuing obsession with this newspaper and its fearless approach to journalism. Certainly, he says more about The Tribune than he does about foreign affairs.

Even so, it’s his troubles with the PLP that really catch the eye when one is scrutinising the Mitchell File.

When Sir Lynden Pindling threatened to expose elements of Mr Mitchell’s private life (I can’t imagine what the PM was talking about!) Fred was characteristically ebullient.

“Go right ahead,” he told Sir Lynden. “Just as I have a mother, father, sister, brother and nephews, you have wife, mother, father, sons and daughters.

“And if that is the way you wish to play, I’ll match you every step of the way.”

Sir Lynden’s repeated references to Mr Mitchell’s private life goaded the then young crusader to lash out at the prime minister’s “tomfoolery” and dare him to say more.

Mr Mitchell sent Sir Lynden “a few choice four-letter words” and then warned: “Go right ahead. Charge on! If that is the level at which the game will be played, I am fully prepared to match it step for step. And those who have information on me, I have information on them.

“It is time for responsible people in this community to stand up and be counted and denounce this barbaric practice of passing around vicious rumours on each other without any substance. If we do not stop there will never again be any self-respect in this country or mutual respect for each other,” he said.

Odd, that, coming from the founder of a website called fredmitchelluncensored, which now exists in another form and continues to spill out bile on anyone who crosses Mitchell’s path. Odd, too, that Mr Mitchell should have said, back in 1989, that “there is a general pattern about today in trying to instil fear through intimidation.”

It was Mr Mitchell, remember, who was the main mover in trying to get a professional journalist expelled from the Bahamas last year for telling the truth. And it’s the website founded by him, run by one Russell Dames, that continues to defame people from all walks of life in a scurrilous, irresponsible and intimidatory manner.

Most amusing of all in the Mitchell File, though, is a statement from the PLP’s Grand Bahama branch. Like Dr Higgs, they knew what they were up against and dealt with him accordingly.
Mr Mitchell, said the PLP, was “a political upstart and troublemaker” and “a spoilt brat who deserves a serious spanking.”

What’s more, the PLP added, Mr Mitchell was no more than “a johnny-come-lately”, a self-styled revolutionary who spouted “garbage” and turned his back on those who nurtured his career.

The party lambasted his “despicable” behaviour and went on to denounce his burning of the constitution – an act, they said, “which brings back vivid memories of Hitler, Goebbels and their hated secret police, the Gestapo.”

“Nothing in the line of secular documents can be more sacred than the country’s constitution,” said the PLP council of the day. “Mr Mitchell advocates destroying it. Clearly, by extension, he is promoting anarchy and national upheaval.

“This cannot and will not be tolerated in this country. Our people have zero tolerance for this type of irresponsible behaviour, coming, especially as it does, from one who dares to aspire to the sacred office of prime minister of this beloved country.”

The PLP charged Mr Mitchell with trying to incite rebellion and described him as “a little fellow who should be watched very closely and avoided like the plague.”

The signs are that the people of Fox Hill will be doing just that when polling day comes around. In “remembering their history”, they will be looking back over Mr Mitchell’s political past and wondering whether he is really the man who should be entrusted with their future. On reflection, maybe not.