NIGEL BOWE, target of the a not so long ago American insurgency; An assault on the sovereignty of the Nation
My earliest memory of Nigel Bowe is from the morning I first met him in 1979. There we were up against the giant window which looked out on to Bay Street from Lums' Restaurant; which for those too young to know was the popular down town eatery for the “whose who?” of Nassau. It was situated as you come off the curb at Frederick Street and immediate to the “virgin Baker Sisters’ haberdashery”, as Gene “The Baron” Toote loved to call it. Mr. Toote commanded the seat in the left corner pressed right against the window, which he would turn sideways so he could see everything and everyone approaching from the right.
“Nigel Bowe is coming”, Mr. Toote said with face of warmth and a smile. Inside Oscar N. “O. J” Johnson, Lionel “Lil Murph” Murphy, George “Christmas Kid” Christie, Napoleon McPhee, Rodney Braynen, Oswald “Ubbie” Marshall, Vincent Vaughan, Tina Isaacs, Pemmie Sutherland, Tracey Brown- all lit up when Mr. Toote motioned to the well-dressed heavy set man to come inside. They made immediate space for him at the front table. The conversation was far beyond my years and the older men were laughing with Mr. Bowe about his political years with Paul Adderley’s National Democratic Party and their friendship which dated back to Mr. Bowe’s pupilage as an articled law student with Eugene Dupuch. Someone mentioned I was a reporter at the Tribune and Mr. Bowe asked my name and made some favourable comments about the Dupuch family. I remember him telling me to learn as much as “you can with Dupuch. You will not get a better training in journalism anywhere else.”
All of the men and the lady at that window that morning have long since passed on; (Ubbie Marshall) is still with us. Mr. Bowe joined them on the Saturday evening of the 16thSeptember in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty Three.
As for that morning engagement, I would have reckoned I would only see or hear of Mr. Bowe again if I was detailed to the Supreme Court as a reporter and there was some interesting news worthy case in which he was appearing.
That all changed when I struck up a friendship with Rodney Moncur - an a relationship with the Workers’ Party’ a fledgling political grass root organization which specialized in marching, demonstrating and getting our political point out on placards.
Rodney’s grandmother, Mrs. Evelyn Clarke Cox from Black Village hailed from The Forest Exuma. The men at the window that morning told the Bowe story, after he left for his chambers. This was the Prince of Exuma. His father Max Bowe, a product of a white father and an African mother; an inheritance of thousands of hectares of land through ancestral parents. The Bowes of the Forest were moneyed people and the community looked up to them for leadership and in many instances for thrift, commerce and assistance.
Rodney’s uncle, Forester Bowe was Nigel’s first cousin- the sons of two brothers. Rodney took on some messenger/court service work at the law firm Bowe and Mackay and he would tug me along with him when he went to get his assignments.
And so here I was again in the shadow of Nigel Bowe. His booming hoarse voice which gently roamed out of his office. His three worded phrases which were timely and could capture and symbolize any situation or moment. How he would encourage us on our latest political demonstration and humorously deflate us over our feigned importance of our activism.
I got to meet Mr. Bowe’s sister; Visna T. Bowe Mackay and her husband, Charles Mackay; an attorney who has been blessed with an overabundance of patience as he could always find time to break down any point of the common law that Rodney and I put to him.
The Max Bowe story from The Forest Exuma came to shape land law in this country. Scores of farmers, not peasants as another writer has described them; took Max Bowe to the Supreme Court claiming the lands on which they farmed legally belonged to them under the color of possessory title. This was in the mid-1950s. The English Judge Mr. Scarr heard the case over several weeks and his judgement was epic. The Judge said the farmers were all tenants of Max Bowe and could not displace their landlord. These tenants also give evidence that as they farmed the land they always satisfied Mr. Bowe with the agreed portion of the yield of their crop. This was proof of their tenancy. Further the Judge said as these farmers were doing “peripatetic farming” which is clearing land in one spot and then vacating that cleared and farmed land and moving to another area, their possessory claims were inadequate as vacating the land also stopped the clock on a possessory title from running. This judgement is the flagship of the Quieting of Titles Act in this country and seals the legal premise that in this country there is no “absolute title to land” and each case for land ownership in the Bahamas is on this standard. The Forest Exuma is huge and one has to recognize that most of the persons who challenged Max Bowe’s title were his immediate family and/or close friends.
Nigel Bowe learned from this experience and the lessons from this formatted his life.
By 1983, I was out of The Tribune, completed three years at ZNS and another three years at the Nassau Guardian.
The Brian Ross story on NBC nightly television news broke on September 4th 1983 and the Bahamas came to a standstill.
The Ross allegations were unprecedented in their criminal scope and culpability. A stunned nation would be an understatement.
The Pindling Government was the clear and specific target. The NBC story alleged that the US Justice Department had sealed indictments on top Bahamian officials linked to drug trafficking between Latin and Central America and the Bahamas.
The story said Norman’s Cay in the Exuma island chain was owned by the Colombian developer Carlos “Joe “Ledher and this was a major transshipment point for drugs entering the US.
Ross claimed that Ledher and the American fugitive banker Robert L. Vesco were in a business partnership to move drugs from Norman’s Cay into the USA and Bahamian officials were being paid $100,000 per month “to look the other way”.
We hear so much talk today about the “weaponization of the US Justice Department” in current American political settings. Strange that no one in the US saw the biting signs of this weaponization in the early 1980s when its focus was on the Bahamas and toppling the Pindling PLP Government.
Recognizing their political legacy and their Government was on the line, the PLP mounted a fierce and vociferous defence against the allegations. Prime Minister Pindling appointed a “Blue Ribbon” Commission of Enquiry to investigate the claims in the NBC “Investigative” story and to produce a public report. The report could recommend to the Attorney General of the Bahamas if the Commission in its investigations opined that criminal charges should be brought against anyone. And the Commission’s report released in 1985 did. Nigel Bowe was not indicted by that Commission Report.
Prime Minister Pindling shared a close political association with Felix “Mailman” Bowe, who also served as the highest ranking officer in the party’s branch of Sir Lynden Pindling’s Kemp’s Bay constituency. Felix was the nephew of Nigel Bowe. I spoke with Felix on Sunday morning about his uncle’s passing and he reminded me of the Pindling assertions.
Pindling himself made this distinction on the floor of the House of Assembly when the Americans began trickling out information that “ F. Bowe” was involved at Norman’s Cay.
What is even more transparent today is the NBC story was the nexus of a conspiracy which was hatched by high ranking persons in the Department of Justice. Then PLP Attorney General Paul Adderley said as much on the political stump and on his feet in the Parliament.
Mr. Adderley’s most excoriating remarks was his unapologetic declaration that “They are corrupters of men”.
Up to that moment in time the Pindling PLP Government seemed politically invincible. Pindling had won every general election in land slide deliveries –held every five years- from 1968. His popularity was growing and his main political rivals, the Free National Movement had endured three seismic style splits and its major leaders could not win seats in the Parliament.
In firing back at the NBC Story and taking the fire directly to the US Justice Department; the Pindling Government made several very strong assertions:-
The Government was not involved in any criminal enterprise with drug traffickers.
Andrew Antipas, the serving US Charge D’ Affaires in Nassau had some serious questions to answer about the conspiracy.
The Government had uncovered a contractual business arrangement with an American CIA agent named Morgan Cherry and a company called Project Masters and Justice International and the Free National Movement and the Pindling Government could trace and prove a connection between the NBC story and this contract.
While the Government was not in a denial about drug trafficking in the Islands it was quick to point out that Prime Minister Pindling had used the platform of two consecutive party national conventions to admonish, scold and warn Bahamians about complicity in the narcotics trade and the dangers.
The Pindling Government at the time of the NBC Brian Ross Story enjoyed a relationship with the US Drug Enforcement Agency and other federal law enforcement agencies who worked alongside Bahamian law enforcement.
The FNM had euphoria and hysteria on its side. The timing of a sensational series in the Miami Herald Newspaper called, “A Nation for Sale”; and the British Tabloid the Telegraph called “Paradise Lost” left no wriggle room for Bahamians to dissect the connection, if any between the FNM and Justice International and the NBC Story.
The Commission of Inquiry was empaneled and it soon became clear that all of the evidence was being marshalled against the PLP and persons associated with the governing party. Known FNM operatives in the drug enterprise were untouchable and treated as “saints”.
Any attempt to introduce evidence which would link persons outside the political scope of the governing PLP were abandoned and ignored by Chief Counsel Robert Ellicott.
When Pindling’s lawyer the flamboyant American F. Lee Bailey began a piercing cross examination of the FNM Leader Kendal G.L. Isaacs on the Witness Stand at the Commission; he was met with legal distractions and twists.
At the time of the NBC story the two major shipyards in the country which serviced and fueled and docked the supersonic Scarabs and Defender type vessels used in the nefarious drug trade were owned and operated by local oligarchs associated with Opposition to the PLP Government.
These shipyards were never brought under the radar.
The NBC story connected Mr. Vesco to Norman’s Cay, even today seems like a far fetch. Vesco had gotten away with over $210 million dollars from IOS in the USA, fled to Nassau and fought and beat extradition.
The US continued to seek ways to force the Bahamas Government to deport Mr. Vesco, which did happen on two occasions, but he was eventually let back into the country.
The so called NBC investigative story while it showed aircraft and boats loading and unloading what was presumed to be drugs on Norman’s Cay never produced a recording in audio or video or a still photograph to link Mr. Ledher and Mr. Vesco. But these were the times in which we lived and both of these men were their own walking TNT explosives.
The US moved for the extradition of Nigel Bowe. The US Justice Department claimed Mr. Bowe was involved with Mr. Ledher at Norman’s Cay.
I knew enough about Nigel Bowe to know he did not need any money from a criminal enterprise to be super wealthy and further he was not a supporter of Pindling’s PLP. Something was just not adding up.
Having opened the door with its dubious claim against “F. Bowe” the US was un-relenting. It hired as its Chief Counsel Claire Hepburn from the firm of Graham Thompson and Company to put its case. Mrs. Hepburn would go on to become Attorney General in a subsequent FNM administration.
Mr. Bowe recruited eminent counsel Mr. Bertrand Macaulay from Sierra Leone. They put up a dogged resistance in the Courts for almost four years; finally losing to the US. Mr. Bowe was extradited to the United States where the federal prison system was literally emptied with “co-operating witnesses” who came forward to claim their “knowledge” of Mr. Bowe’s engagement.
I remember how Mr. Bowe never lost his faith or his cool demeanor and personality whilst all this was going on around him.
I remember seeing him sitting in a Prison Bus outside the Central Police Station, have reconciled himself to his extradition.
The window looking out over Bay Street from Lums' had lost its sheen. The men and women who gathered in that place that evening were numb and displeased. For many of them who supported the FNM; there had been a political glee over the misfortunes of the Pindling Government and the NBC allegations. Now to see Nigel Bowe fall as a result of this incursion was more than they bargained for and more than they had hoped and wished.
The local newspapers followed Mr. Bowe’s kangaroo trial. His conviction was sealed the minute he landed in the US and any felon wishing to make a deal only had to tell a particular story in the witness box against F. Nigel Bowe.
The Judge asked for a plea in mitigation after Mr. Bowe was convicted and Rodney was one such person who decided to write the Judge and tell him in a way that only Rodney could what Nigel Bowe stood for in the Bahamas and what he and his family represented.
The Judge would say from the Bench in passing sentence on Mr. Bowe that he had received over 100 letters from persons all over the world writing on behalf of Mr. Bowe and asking for leniency. The Judge said there was one letter in particular which really moved him and filled in the blanks he needed to know about this man called Nigel Bowe. And that was the letter penned and submitted by Rodney. The Judge read portions of that letter into the court record.
But the true measure of friendship came from Oscar N. Johnson, the former Member of Parliament for Cat Island and one of the men in that window at Lums' Restaurant that morning in 1979 when I first met Mr. Bowe.
“O. J.” boarded a flight from Nassau and turned up at the Court where he went into the Witness Box to give his sworn elocution on the sterling character and integrity of his friend Nigel. The Judge was so impressed with Mr. Johnson’s testimony that he veered into questioning the former Publisher/Editor on political life and the culture of the people of the Bahamas.
In that court room also sat a former Police Superintendent Addington Darville who was now employed by the American Embassy in Nassau and Mr. Johnson pointed him out to the Court and complained that Darville had been sent to spy on him, He scolded Darville for his despicable conduct.
The NBC story brought an extraterrestrial transformation to the Bahamas. The PLP would hold on and win the 1987 general election. Hubert Ingraham and Perry Christie, Ministers in the PLP Government would be fired from the Pindling Cabinet and denied PLP nominations in that general election. The history on that dynamic duo needs no repeating here.
This was an era in Bahamian history which requires careful study and inspection. It is very easy to become susceptible to the spin and character of officialdom that the Americans used to roll out their charges, not just against Mr. Bowe, but against this Nation.
Bahamians eventually began to catch on.
When the new American Ambassador Carol Boyd Hallet decided to fly into the Bahamas on a DEA jet to take up her appointment it would be seasoned politicians like Dr. Elwood Donaldson who derided her posture and scored her for that derision.
Mr. Bowe returned home having served his time.
He was the jovial, home tale spun story teller we knew him to be.
I would meet him with his cousins and siblings at weddings and funerals of family and friends from The Forest.
I could mark to the minute when to meet him taking his slow time up at the East Street Post Office.
I would meet him at Paul Adderley’s Chambers some afternoons. Mr. Adderley was the PLP election coordinator and I would be back and forth to get Adderley’s instructions. Mr. Adderley said some fool was making a nuisance of himself by claiming ownership of several commercial properties at the bottom of Cumberland Street; which Mr. Bowe was undisputed owner.
I recall trying to sneak pass Mr. Bowe in a Cable Beach Shopping Center after the Christie PLP defeat in 2007. He spotted me.
“Earlin! You looking for a place to hide? You need to tell me how you guys did that? You guys are absolutely phenomenal. Just tell me how you pulled that off?” he asked very innocently.
“Did what?” I foolishly asked
“How did you and Paul manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” And he roared.
I would meet him in the parking lot of the Hoffer Cable Beach Shopping Center when he arrived to go in the pharmacy.
Other times, I would go up to the car and talk with him and Visna when they both drove up to the Oriental Laundry in Cable Beach Shopping Center.
Nigel Bowe knew about adversity and he taught us all how to wear it and how to maintain one’s dignity while under fire and how to roll with whatever punch life may land and to know there will come another brighter tomorrow.
Greater men would have crumbled under the weight of the cross Mr. Bowe was given to tote. You never ever heard him cry or wring his hands in despair; nor malign his Bahamian detractors.
Frederick Nigel Bowe was the Prince of the Forest; and only in death and prayer; would his head; thou bloody, ever be bowed.
May he rest in peace.
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