By Caribbean News Now contributor From Caribbean News Now

NASSAU, Bahamas — In a recent press statement, the Grand Bahama Human Rights Association (GBHRA) claimed that Bahamas foreign minister Fred Mitchell’s “reckless attacks” on renowned human rights activists are threatening the country’s good name internationally.

“It would seem that … Mitchell will not rest until the country’s image abroad is as feeble and tarnished as its current credit rating,” GBHRA said, calling on Prime Minister Perry Christie to “find the courage to rein in his reckless, unbalanced minister before The Bahamas’ reputation has been downgraded to ‘junk’ status and we become a laughingstock in the international community.”

The GBHRA statement followed a press release by the Bahamas foreign ministry in response to an open letter from Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F Kennedy Human Rights, published by Caribbean News Now.

Although not naming Caribbean News Now, the foreign ministry immediately resorted to the typical “shoot the messenger” ploy employed by inept politicians everywhere, saying that “the website in question has no credibility as a balanced source of information relating to the Bahamas ministry of foreign affairs or the minister”, as if this has any bearing whatsoever on the contents of an open letter, the merits of which depend entirely on the author.

The author in this case, Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of the late US attorney general Robert F Kennedy, and the organization she heads are renowned internationally for their valuable human rights work, professional approach and unquestionable integrity.

Nevertheless, the Bahamas foreign ministry claimed that Kennedy’s open letter was “replete with errors and exaggerations” and that the organisation itself lacked transparency.

“In his latest unhinged attack on universally respected American human rights activist Kerry Kennedy, Mitchell has again displayed some extremely concerning authoritarian tendencies that have increasingly become his trademark. All Bahamians should be concerned about the future of the country with such an individual anywhere near a position of power,” the GBHRA said.

“In Mitchell’s world, any individual or entity that might be critical of the minister or his government has ‘no credibility’ and works according to shady ulterior motives. Meanwhile every opportunity is taken to attack the messenger in an effort to distract from the message itself.

“His deranged ranting may play well to certain xenophobic elements within The Bahamas, but to the outside world, Mitchell is making us look like a silly, insecure banana republic run by delusional tin-pot dictators,” the GBHRA statement continued.

The dispute stems from the foreign ministry’s decision to bar the Kennedy human rights agency from the Carmichael Road Detention Centre in The Bahamas, where illegal immigrants are held in custody and where, it is alleged, serious human rights abuses occur that place “lives and physical integrity at risk”.

One regional observer described Mitchell as an autocrat, with something to hide, adding, “If the detention centre is in keeping with international standards, why is he barring people from seeing it?”

IMAGE: fred_mitchell16.jpg Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell

For more on this story go to: http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/headline-Foreign-minister-accused-of-reducing-Bahamas-reputation-to-‘junk’-status-33512.html