ATLANTA - A lawyer of international reknown has joined in efforts to keep a part of the Bahama Island a British crown colony when independence is granted the island group July 10.
Edwin Marger, whose globetrotting past activities include serving as a lobbyist for the Dominican Republic, maintains offices both in Atlanta and Miami.
Marger now is on his second visit to London to plead the cause of the Abaco islanders, who want to retain their ties to Great Britain. He was in London earlier this month, seeking to arouse support for the Abaconians’ goals. Another meeting with Parliament members is scheduled for Wednesday.
The Abaco residents number 6,500-plus. That is a definite minority among the Bahamas’ 180,000 population.
The Bahamas’ total population is about 85 percent black and racially mixed. The Abaconians are the most equally divided among the races; about 50-50 black and white.
The Abaconians say Prime Minister Lynden O. Pindling, and his deputy, Arthur Hanna, are racists and oriented toward a black supremacy regime after independence.
Fear of reprisal is widespread among the Abaconians, says House of Assembly (Parliament) member Eric Watkins, who is foremost among the leaders in the Council for a Free Abaco, the organization working toward total separation from Pindling’s new nation.
Pindling, who has headed the Bahamas’ Progressive Liberal Party as prime minister since his election in 1967, has demonstrated considerable displeasure with political opposition in the ensuing years, according to Watkins.
Concern with whether another emerging nation will emerge under a dictatorship is spurring the move toward disassociation with the new country, on the part of the Abaconians.
The Abaco islands are among the Bahamas’ northernmost regions. The Abaco area is about 100 miles east of West Palm Beach, and residents are the descendants of early settlers and slaves in the U.S. colonies who fled the 1776 revolution because they chose to remain under British rule.
Now they’re trying to continue that allegiance. Some are leaving the Bahamas in political exile. Prime Minister Pindling’s attitude is shown in a statement to a newsman recently. "Now it is our turn to repay the United States the 200-year loan."
But most Abaconians apparently want to stay in their islands and they’re planning two courses of action toward that objective. First they will again petition the British Parliament to keep them a crown colony when the new Constitution for the Bahamas is drafted.
If that fails, they plan to plead their case before the United Nations, and declare themselves an independent nation.
How forcefully Pindling and his Nassau government may oppose such an audacious move is both conjectural and problematical. A Pindling cabinet member, Tourist Minister Clement Maynard, said recently in Miami the Pindling regime will squelch any separatist move.
Maynard didn’t specify how such opposition would be met. The Bahamas has no Army nor Navy. They do have a 1,000-man constabulary, buy Maynard said there are no plans to arm the policemen.
The specter of military aid to Pindling from Cuba’s dictator, Fidel Castro, has been raised. Castro reportedly has offered such. Maynard noted in his Miami appearance that the Bahamas have "two neighbors - one to the north and one to the south." He said continued good relations were expected with the northern neighbor - the U.S. - but made no further reference to Cuba, his southern "neighbor".
Both lawyer Marger and politician Watkins say they have no official information as to what the U.S. attitude toward a free Abaco will be. But the U.S. has a vital interest in the Bahamas’ future.
There is a U.S. missile tracking station on Grand Bahama Island. It’s part of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Eastern Test Range military missile system headquartered at Patrick Air Force Base. This station also is used by the Kennedy Space Center in both manned and unmanned space exploration flights.
Another major item, among various U.S. Air Force and Navy installations dating back to agreement between Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, is the Atlantic Undersea Testing and Evaluation Center (AUTEC), headquartered on sparsely-populated Andros Island in the Bahamas.
AUTEC was moved several years ago from Orlando to Andros, and is considered vital to U.S. antisubmarine warfare research and development.
And there is a reported $1 1/4 billion investment by U.S. business firms in the Bahamas.
These investors are quite conscious of the confiscation which followed Fidel Castro’s rise to power in 1959, and - more recently - similar problems with the Allende Regime in Chile.
Pindling visited Washington three weeks ago for talks wit the U.S. State Department, reportedly about fishing rights an the future of U.S. air and naval bases after Bahamas independence. Asked about a lack of press report son these talks, Maynard, who accompanied Pindling to Washington, said "they were private talks."
What results from those talks will attract some attention. Pindling reportedly hopes to up the ante paid by the U.S. for military installation leases. In addition to Pindling’s claiming a 12-mile offshore territorial limit for Bahamas’ waters, there also is a question of whether he van claim and maintain the privilege of controlling intra-islands navigation.
Queried about his last mission to London, lawyer Marger reported "it was highly successful. We aroused quite a bit of interest in the objectives of the Council for a Free Abaco." Among member of Parliament who showed considerable interest is Ronald Bell, a member of the Conservative majority.
Bell has 20 years in Parliament, and "he takes on causes, regardless of how bleak the outlook, because of principle."
Marger, the Council for a Free Abaco and its other legal advisors, foresee support of France and Germany for their separatist aims.
If they fail to retain Abaco’s crown colony status, the Abaconians will plead their cause before the United Nations. Resolution 1514 of the U.N. states "any colony, however small, however unready, has the right to instant independence."
The Abaconian loyalty, dating back to the American Revolution, deserves better than Pindling offers the Abaconisns in considering a "200-year loan," says Marger. "You don’t reward loyalty by throwing somebody to the wolves."