Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell announced at the 71st Regular Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Monday that The Bahamas is seeking election for membership on the Human Rights Council for the term 2019-2021. Meanwhile, Mitchell rejected the recent attacks on The Bahamas and the CARICOM region over tax transparency as "inaccurate and unfair".

On the question of the election to the human rights council, Mitchell said, "I ask for the support of all member states for The Bahamas to be elected to the council."

Mitchell also addressed the de-risking question and the loss of correspondent banking relationships for The Bahamas and other Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nations. He said the problem is overregulation imposed on countries by the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), which he said has led to "negative unintended consequences". He even addressed the growing spotlight on what are called "politically exposed persons".

"Suddenly being a politician or in a politician's family is to run the risk of being refused normal banking service around the world because the 'risks' are too high. This is wrong," Mitchell said.

"I start there to bring home starkly what all CARICOM countries have described in this forum as the dangers of de-risking. What I described is a part of that whole cloth. Banks in the developed world, principally in the United States, are refusing to cash the checks of some Caribbean banks because they say the risk of policing the CARICOM banks on the issue of compliance to the new rules is too high and the business which they get is too low. Thus the services have been stripped across the Caribbean," he said.

Pointing out that this is the same Bahamas and Caribbean that tens of millions of people from the United States and Europe visit every year -- and that these visitors expect that all the modern services will be available when they land to dip their toes in the water and sun themselves on the beach -- Mitchell said, "These Caribbean territories described in their tourist brochures as paradises are being treated as if they are hell on earth by dint of these new financial rules, using pejorative expressions like tax havens, and imposing unfair rules and sanctions on these societies which may prevent valuable remittances to folks back home or prevent paying the school fees of Bahamian students abroad."

He added, "At the same time, as this destruction is being wrought, these same small countries are asked and lobbied to vote for this or that cause in the interest of developed countries, but what many of our leaders and peoples are asking is: where is the compensating give and take on this issue?

"The Bahamas, indeed no CARICOM country, shields anyone involved in unlawful behavior. No country.

"All applicable agreements are adhered to and are complied with in connection with money laundering and the unlawful escape from taxes. The attacks on The Bahamas and the CARICOM region are inaccurate and unfair. The recent attacks in the press about the Bahamas' financial services sector are simply reprehensible and violations of international norms. We reject them," he said.

Immoral
Mitchell also disputed what he termed the "moral equivalence" argument being put forward by developed countries: that even though the laws exist on the protection of privacy and of private property without illegal seizure by the state, and that even though the countries in the region are independent and free to do as they wish, the fact that countries in the region are bankers for those seeking to take advantage of tax competition is somehow immoral because it robs the developed world of legitimate revenue.

"This is not true. The evidence is that the wealth accumulated offshore goes back to the developed countries and therefore these offshore sectors are of benefit to the developed world. We would argue that another moral argument is that if the societies of the Caribbean collapse because of the over regulation, then the result of the destruction of millions of families would be the greater moral wrong," he said.

"If then you argue that it is immoral to evade your responsibility to pay taxes at home and we agree, then we also argue that you have a moral responsibility to understand that over regulation and changing the goalposts and not creating a level playing field in the financial services sector, and de-risking being part of that whole cloth, can bring about in their effects an immoral result. This problem must be solved by those who imposed the regulations. It is a moral imperative," he said.

Mitchell queried why so much is being done to ignore and undermine the success of CARICOM nations, who he said are the shining examples of what the world says that they wish with respect to both climate change and de-risking.

"It is morally perplexing and legally indefensible.

"We are small. We have no armies to deploy to impose a result. We cannot force results. To paraphrase an American judge, we have only our voice and with that voice we say: "the moral cry for help is the moral demand for rescue."

K. Quincy Parker, Guardian Business Editor

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