Two weeks after the US had issued a tough advisory on the favorite relaxation playground for Americans, Bahamian Prime Minister Phillip Davis has asked the local media to downplay crime reporting as it is hurting the lifeline tourism industry, reducing hotel occupancy and giving the country a bad image.
Local police have recorded more than 25 murders for the year so far, most of them linked to guns and gangland violence, a situation which the PM says is hurting the economy.
Davis told reporters this week that they could assist authorities in battling crime by removing reportage from the front and other prominent pages as, he believes, this is done in other regional jurisdictions. For this, he has been roundly criticized by the main opposition parties, journalists with the Free National Movement (FNM) Party pointing to billboards highlighting murders during previous election campaigns when the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) was in opposition as an example of political hypocrisy.
“You see the advisory that went out the other day, how that has taken legs?” We are now hearing some concerns about the falloff in tourism. Right now the hotels are seeing some falloff and more importantly, those who are in the hotels today, they are not going to the restaurants, for example. They are not sightseeing as they used to. Of course, the hotel owners don’t mind because as long as they are staying in the hotels they’re spending it all there. So here again, we are shooting ourselves in our foot by allowing this to get out of hand. What is happening in this country is not only happening here,” the PM told a gathering of religious leaders as he discussed the worrying crime situation.
Local police reports have matched what the US embassy had said in its advisory to Americans late last month that most of the murders are committed in broad daylight in populated and urban areas and are linked to retaliatory gangland violence.
“I think they should see their role as trying to help the country. I’m not saying not to report, but where you report, it may make a difference. And all I ask them to do is check, check to see where their crime report is. Check Trinidad, check the United States, just check and see where it is. It’s never on the front page. But every bullet that is fired appears to be front page news on all of our daily news. And what happens, AP picks it up, Reuters picks it up and what happens, and it’s continuing,” the PM said.
Despite the fears about increasing violent crime, more than eight million people visited the mini archipelago just off Florida last year representing a slight increase over 2022 and giving strong indications that arrival numbers have rebounded from the COVID pandemic and are on the upswing. Many of those enjoying sun, sea and sand in The Bahamas are Americans as it is the closest neighbor to the US among the Caribbean islands.
FNM Chairman Duncan Sands recalled 145 murders in 2015 when PM Phillips was deputy prime minister. He also flaked Phillips for supporting the erection of yellow billboards highlighting murders two election cycles ago.
“Back then, he was shamelessly politicizing crime and even gave an interview defending the billboards and he said emphatically that they were about revealing the truth. You see, back then he was campaigning. The PLP won the 2012 election, but sadly the next five years saw an even more bloody Bahamas, including the worst year for murders in our history. Well, move forward, it’s now 2024 and we have just gone through one of the worst periods with murder in our history,” Sands said as he attacked Davis.
