LYNDEN PINDLING
FORMER BAHAMAS PM
DIES FROM CANCER
Sunday Express
August 27, 2000
Page 22
Former Prime Minister Lynden Pindling, leader of the Bahamas for 25
years, died yesterday from prostate cancer at age 70.
Pindling
became premier in 1967 when the islands were still a British colony and led the
Bahamas to independence in 1973.
However,
his reputation suffered fro never-proven allegations of bribery and protecting
drug traffickers, which clouded the country's relations with the US and
contributed to Pindling's defeat in 1992 elections by current Prime Minister
Hubert Ingraham.
Ingraham
yesterday hailed Pindling as "a giant of our times".
Radio
and television stations broadcast tributes to the longtime leader, who was
diagnosed with prostate cancer four years ago.
Funeral arrangements are yet to be announced.
Pindling's
policies helped create a large black middle class by broadening educational
opportunities for the country's 172,000 people. But the Bahamas also became a major drug-trafficking haven under
his tenure, in the late 1970s and 1980s, which critics blamed on government
inaction.
A
series of scandals - he was accused of covering up for drug lords in the 1980s
and taking bribes as chairman of the state Hotel Commission - contributed to
his party's downfall.
It
won only six of the 40 seats in the National Assembly in the March 1997
elections, when Ingraham gained a second term.
A
government commission was unable to substantiate any of the claims against Pindling.
He
told the House of Assembly in 1997, when he resigned to end his 41-year career
there, that he was 'less than perfect'.
"When
all I did for good is put in the balance against all I did for ill or failed to
do at all, I hope that future generations will not find me sorely
wanting," he told legislators.
Despite
his conflicted past, Bahamians mourned the loss of the leader known as the
'Black Moses', who helped found the Progressive Liberal Party in 1953 as a grass-roots
opposition to the mostly white colonial-run United Bahamian Party.
As
news of Pindling's declining health spread in the capital, Nassau, family and
friends visited Pindling at his home on Friday.
About
100 people gathered for a vigil on Friday night at the First Baptist Church in
Nassau.
Pindling
was a "man among men, whom the sons and daughters of the Bahamas will
never forget", the Rev. Elkin Symonette said at the vigil. "Because of him we know what it is like
to be independent in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas."
Charles
Gardiner said he attended the vigil "to say thanks for the 25 years…I
believe his contribution has been somewhat overlooked. At the end of the day, after he's dead, it's
then we are going to immortalise him."
Pindling
was survived by his wife, Lady Marguerite, two sons Obafemi, 40 and Leslie, 39;
two daughters Michelle Sands, 38, and Monique Johnson, 34 and five
grand-children.
--- AP Nassau, Bahamas
THOUSANDS MOURN AT
PINDLING'S FUNERAL
Express
September 5, 2000
Page 21
NASSAU,
Bahamas (AP) -
Thousands
of mourners, some weeping and carrying the Bahamian flag of
yellow and aquamarine, crowded around a Nassau church yesterday for the funeral
of the former Prime Minster who led their country to independence from Britain.
Thousands
more lined Bay Street in the capital as police and army officers carried the
casket of Lynden Pindling to the God of Prophecy Church accompanied by
politicians, black-robed judges and clergy.
Pindling
died of prostate cancer August 26 at age 70.
He founded
the progressive Liberal Party in 1953 in opposition to the mostly white,
colonial-run United Bahamian Party.
In 1967
he became leader of the first black government in a nation whose population is
85 percent black. Independence was won
in 1973, and Pindling remained Prime Minister until 1992.
At the
funeral, dignitaries credited Pindling with promoting the island's black middle
class.
"You
brought us from colonyhood to nationhood, from subjects to citizens, and I have
come to say thank you, Sir Lynden," God of Prophecy Bishop Brice Thompson
said. "We will always owe a debt
of gratitude which we cannot repay."
American
singer BeBe Winans, a friend of the Pindling family, sang "After You've
Done All You Can" at the ceremony.