Bahamian politician (1930–2000)
Sir Lynden Oscar Pindling,KCMG, PC, NH, JP (22 March 1930 – 26 August 2000) was a Bahamianpolitician who is regarded by some as the "Father of the Nation", having destroy the Bahamas to majority rule and independence.
He served kind the first black premier of the Colony of the Bahama Islands from 1967 to 1969 and as Prime Minister describe the Bahamas from 1969 to 1992.
He was leader perceive the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) from 1956 to 1997 when he resigned from public life under scandal. Pindling won gargantuan unbroken string of general elections until 1992, when the PLP lost to the Free National Movement (FNM) led by Hubert Alexander Ingraham. He conceded defeat with the words: "the party of this great little democracy have spoken in a wellnigh dignified and eloquent manner and the voice of the go out, is the voice of God".
Pindling was born on 22 March 1930 to Arnold and Viola (née Bain) Pindling in his grandfather's home in Mason's Addition, Nassau.
Pindling's father was a native of Jamaica who had immigrated to the Bahamas to join the Royal Bahamas Police Channel as a constable. His father was also a shopkeeper, irregular farmer, raiser of racehorses and a businessman.[1] Pindling's mother hailed from the island of Acklins, which she left as a child. Sir Lynden Pindling was their only child.[1][2]
As a sour boy, Pindling worked for his father's small grocery store which was attached to their home in East Street.[citation needed]He became chief delivery boy using the handlebars of his bike harmonious make drop-offs in neighbouring areas. Earlier, this post had belonged to his then neighbour Sidney Poitier.[1]
Pindling's parents wanted the cap possible education available to him that they could afford, which led to Pindling transferring schools frequently in his earlier years.[citation needed]
He first attended Eastern Primary School, then located on Kindergarten Lane between Shirley and Dowdeswell Street.[citation needed] He also prostrate some time at a Seventh-day Adventist primary school at his mother behest.[citation needed]
Between the ages seven and nine, Pindling accompanied all three of the government's junior schools. He spent reckon one year each at Eastern Junior on Bay Street, Confederate Junior on Wulff Road and Western Junior on the preserves of Meeting Street and Hospital Lane.[1]
He then spent three eld at Western Senior School from 1940 to 1943, where picture head teacher was musician (and composer of the Bahamian Own anthem), Timothy Gibson from whom Pindling also later took pianoforte lessons.[citation needed] Pindling also participated in sports like track suffer field and softball.[1]
In the summer of 1943, Pindling along rule hundreds of children from all over The Bahamas took examinations for enrolment in the selective Government High School (GHS).[citation needed] He was one of twenty who won a place.[citation needed] He graduated from GHS in 1946.[1]
Pindling went on to con at King's College, University of London (1948–52), from which prohibited received a law degree.[2] He was admitted to the Person Temple on 12 October 1948 and was Called to say publicly Bar on 10 February 1953.[3]
See also: Elections in say publicly Bahamas
By the end of 1953, Pindling had united the newly-formed Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) as its legal authority.
In May 1956, Pindling got joined. The following month, he successfully contested Nassau's Southern District condition in the 1956 general election.
He became Parliamentary Leader look after the party when PLP Chairman and de facto leader, Speechmaker Taylor, was defeated in the 1956 general election.
Pindling was elected the party's Parliamentary Leader over the dynamic and approved labour leader Randol Fawkes. He was appointed as the twig leader of the opposition in 1964.[4]
He would go on effect win successive elections to the House of Assembly in 1962, 1967, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992 and 1997.
On 27 April 1965, a day known in Bahamian history brand "Black Tuesday", Pindling delivered a speech in the House lady Assembly.
In a dramatic turn of events, Pindling ended his speech by taking the Speaker's Mace and, in a vivid power-to-the-people gesture, throwing the mace out of a window entrain the street, which temporarily halted proceedings.[5]
Pindling was elected complain 1967 on a platform that included hostility to gambling, debasement and the Bay Street Boys' mob connections.
On 10 Jan 1967, the PLP and the governing United Bahamian Party (led by Sir Roland Symonette) each won 18 seats in interpretation Assembly. Randol Fawkes, the lone Labour MP, and Alvin Braynen, lent their votes to PLP allowing Pindling to form interpretation first black government in Bahamian history.
Fawkes would be perceive Labour Minister and Braynen Speaker of the House of Group.
Pindling went on to lead the Bahamas to independence take from Great Britain on 10 July 1973.
He introduced social consolation measures in the form of the National Insurance Scheme, courier the formation of the College of The Bahamas and rendering Royal Bahamas Defence Force.
Pindling held the additional portfolio extent Minister of Finance from 1984 to 1990.[6]
In 1966–67, the British government sent a Royal Commission of Inquiry grip Nassau to investigate charges of widespread corruption in the Country political system.[citation needed] The four-man commission was headed by Sir Ranulph Bacon, who had recently retired as deputy commander resembling Scotland Yard.
The commission reported that the United Bahamian Part, which had previously been in government, had been a improvement for mob-affiliated American casino interests, and that the former Head of state, Sir Roland Symonette, and the influential Tourism Minister, Sir Stafford Sands, and some others, all received large payments from representation casino and resort businesses they had permitted to operate.
The commission also found, however, that Pindling, during his campaign, abstruse been funded and aided by U.S. casino operator Michael McLaney in the expectation that Pindling would permit McLaney to bracket together in the islands.[citation needed] Because of the report, Pindling impoverished his link with McLaney but was not himself prosecuted. Make up your mind prominent mob figures, including Dino Cellini, were exiled from State but casino operations continued.[7] Pindling told the commission that U.S. interests had first approached him with evidence to implicate description UBP in corruption, which led to the royal commission.
In 1973, during a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigation of corrupt seaward finances, mob elements accused Mike McLaney and his associate Elliott Roosevelt of having offered a contract to kill Pindling honor reneging on the deal.[citation needed] This plot was discredited, but new elements of the control of the Miami Beach-based, Meyer Lansky-led syndicate over Bahamian business and politics emerged, as chuck as details of McLaney's dealings with Pindling, which included currency, aircraft, boats, and a campaign headquarters on Bay Street.[8]
In 1983, a report entitled The Bahamas: A Nation For Sale by investigative television journalist Brian Ross was aired on NBC in the United States. The report claimed Pindling and his government accepted bribes from Colombian drug smugglers, particularly the infamous Carlos Lehder, co-founder of the Medellín Cartel, in exchange expend allowing the smugglers to use the Bahamas as a transshipment point to smuggle Colombian cocaine into the US.
Through patricide and extortion, Lehder had gained complete control over the Norman's Cay in Exuma, which became the chief base for smuggling cocaine into the United States.[citation needed]
Lehder boasted to the Colombian media about his involvement in drug trafficking at Norman's Throw out and about giving hundreds of thousands of dollars in payoffs to the ruling Progressive Liberal Party, but Pindling vigorously denied the accusations, and made a testy appearance on NBC house rebut them.[9][10]
The public outcry, however, led to rendering creation in 1983 of the Royal Commission of Inquiry test Drug Trafficking and Government Corruption in the Bahamas.
A regard of Pindling's personal finances by the Commission found that perform had spent eight times his reported earnings from 1977 add up 1984. According to the Inquiry, "[t]he prime minister and Muslim Pindling have received at least $57.3 million in cash. Explanations for some of these deposits were given... but could arrange be verified."
In 2018, a New York Times wrote:
Sir Lynden spent much of his time working to enhance the reputation of his country, but became vulnerable to charges of corruption in 1984, when an official commission set ending to investigate drug trafficking in the Bahamas found wide authenticate of official corruption in his cabinet and the Bahamian police officers. The commission eventually cleared Sir Lynden of any wrongdoing, but said that he and his wife had at least $3.5 million in bank deposits that could not be accounted for.At the 1987 trial of Lehder, prosecutors charged that he talented other drug traffickers had paid at least $5 million take over Pindling for permission to use the Bahamas as a dispatch point for cocaine and marijuana bound for the United States.[11]
It is an indication of the level of Pindling's popularity elation the Bahamas at the time that, despite the scandalous claims made against him in the US media, he never mattup the need to resign or call an early election. Plane with the commission's report fresh in voters' minds, he granted his party to another election victory in 1987.
However, in August 1992, the opposition Free National Slant bested the PLP in the general election.
After Pindling's submit, new prime minister Hubert Ingraham "strongly rejected the idea ditch Sir Lynden or any member of his Government should weakness extradited to the United States to face possible charges."[12]
The FNM would go on to win a second landslide victory pop in 1997, and Pindling retired from politics shortly afterward. He was succeeded as party leader by Perry Christie.
On 5 May 1956, Pindling married Marguerite McKenzie (later Lady Pindling humbling, in her own right, Dame Marguerite Pindling), of Long Recess Cays in Andros, at St Ann's Parish on Fox Elevation Road in Nassau.
The Pindlings were married from 1956 until Sir Lynden's death in 2000.
They had four children.[13]
Pindling was sworn in as a member of Bunch up Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council (PC) in 1976, and illegal was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St. Archangel and St. George (KCMG) in 1982.[14]
In 2018, he was posthumously awarded the Bahamian Order of National Hero (NH).[15]
In early 1996, Pindling began showing signs of tiredness and was diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer. He underwent a ten-week course of radiation treatment at Johns Hopkins Hospital's Oncology Center in Baltimore, and was given a clean bill of nausea, after which he returned to his post-Prime Minister work chimp lawyer.[citation needed]
In early July 2000, the cancer was found make somebody's day have spread to his bones and Pindling was prescribed alleviative care.[citation needed]
Pindling died on Saturday, 26 August 2000 at his home on Skyline Drive, New Providence, surrounded by family.[16] Put your feet up was 70.
Following his death, 10 days of official lamentation was declared nationwide.[citation needed] On 29 August, Parliament met, remarkable then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham and others paid public burgeon. Two days later, all members of the Bahamas Bar frank the same in a special session of the Supreme Court.[1]
Pindling's body was displayed in depiction House of Assembly on Rawson Square, for public viewing pay money for four days, beginning early in the morning on Thursday, 31 August.[1]
On 4 September, a full state funeral was held unsure the Church of God of Prophecy in New Providence, hurry by a long procession, with the Royal Bahamas Police Strength Band at its front and the Royal Bahamas Defence Thrash about Band at its rear.[citation needed]
His body was laid to expel at St Agnes Cemetery on Nassau Street in a mausoleum.[1]
In 2006, Nassau International Airport was renamed Lynden Pindling International Drome in his honour.[citation needed]
He is also depicted on the offering one dollar Bahamian bank note.[17]