Show Notes
In 1983 an American television report alleged that the highest levels of the Bahamian government were linked to the drug trade. In 1984 Prime Minister Lynden Pindling called a commission of inquiry. This episode tells what the record shows: the allegations that started it, the hearings in Miami and Nassau, the testimony of one witness that the prime minister himself disputed, the commission's reported findings about corruption between 1978 and 1982, and what did and did not follow. Pindling was never charged with any crime. Sources: UPI coverage of the 1984 hearings, Washington Post reporting quoted by Bahamian historians, The Nassau Guardian, Bahamianology, and published histories of Bahamian independence. Where a figure comes from a single account, the episode says so.
More from The Griot | Stories Roots Legacy
Why did Haiti’s first democratically elected president fall within months, and what did the coup reveal about the struggle over civilian power? Sources: Organization of American States reports; United Nations Security Council resolutions; United States Congressional records; National Commission for Truth and Justice of Haiti; Amnesty International reports
Why did a courthouse protest in 1865 become a colonial massacre, and how did the aftermath transform Jamaica’s government? Sources: National Library of Jamaica; UK National Archives Colonial Office files; Morant Bay Rebellion Commission records; Governor Edward Eyre correspondence; Jamaica Archives
Why did an oilfield strike in southern Trinidad spread into a colony-wide confrontation over wages, race, and political power? Sources: Trinidad and Tobago National Archives; Butler Papers; Commission of Inquiry into the Disturbances in Trinidad, 1937; British Colonial Office reports; Trinidad Guardian archive
How did a few minutes of shaking destroy Jamaica’s commercial capital and expose the limits of colonial disaster response? Sources: Jamaica Gleaner archive; United States Geological Survey historical earthquake records; Jamaica Legislative Council papers; British Colonial Office dispatches; National Library of Jamaica
How did strikes by sugar workers in 1938 become the turning point that created Jamaica’s modern labor movement and accelerated self-government? Sources: Jamaica Labour Department reports; Jamaica Gleaner archive; UK Colonial Office reports; National Library of Jamaica; Norman Manley papers