When you type "Bahamas" into Google, it throws up pictures of beautiful beaches and luxury resorts, not to mention exotic names like "Rum Key" and "Paradise Island." But there's another side to this holiday heaven. Just 30 minutes by plane from Miami, the Bahamas is a Mecca for American tourists. But, as Nick Lazaredes found, its proximity to the United States also brings some dark consequences.
REPORTER: Nick Lazaredes
When 11-year-old Marco Archer vanished in the Bahamas in September last year, his disappearance, and the pleas of his anxious family, dominated news bulletins and gripped the nation.
MARCO’S MOTHER: Get home safe and alive, please. Jesus, bring him home. We will do whatever. That's my baby. I love him and I need him. Please, bring him home to me. Please.
The day after the heartfelt plea from Marco's mother, her world was shattered.
NEWSREADER: Police combing the Cable Beach area this morning found a battered body of a young boy believed to be Marco Archer.
Six days after he had been reported missing in the Bahamas capital, Nassau, young Marco's badly decomposed corpse was discovered by police.
POLICE: Based upon what I saw, along with these detectives, I can assure you, had you seen what we saw, you'd be really bothered.
Horrified by Marco's brutal rape and murder, there was a widespread sense of community outrage as it emerged that the prime suspect had recently been released from prison. For many Bahamians, it was the last straw, reigniting demands for killers to be hanged.
WOMAN: You gotta make a prime example of these men who are going around raping these young men and killing. The Bible said "How it shalt not kill." If you kill, should be killed. Why put these people in prison, take them out and put them on bail?
Each year, the people of the Bahamas pay homage to their forebears from West Africa. More than 200 years ago, their ancestors were freed from slavery. But these days, with a violent crime wave sweeping the islands, Bahamians have little reason to rejoice.
NEWSREADER: Three late-night killings pushing the murder count to 72 for the year...
By the middle of last year, the Bahamas' body count was rising fast, much of it driven by a turf war between criminal gangs.
NEWSREADER: A deadly day here in the capital as not one or two, but three murders happened within 30 minutes of each other.
As the spate of killings continued, 2011 was fast becoming the Bahamas' deadliest on record.
NEWSREADER: After an anonymous call led them to the scene, her death pushed the country's murder count to 117. It has to alarm us.
POLICE: It has to cause us to look deep within ourselves and ask ourselves, "Are we contributing in any way or form?"
On the edge of Nassau Harbour, the clubbing hub of the Bahamas pulsates into the night. But with a rising tide of violent murder, you need to watch your back.
REPORTER: Do you feel safe at the moment, when you come out at night?
GIRL: Mm, no, I don't. Every minute, I look around me, making sure - you know, I gotta make sure I safe.
Young Bahamians have good reason to worry. With its easy access to the United States, Nassau is flooded with weapons. That, along with the country's weak laws, is rapidly turning the capital into one of the most dangerous cities in the Caribbean.
MAN: The gun laws here are too soft. I mean, handguns are illegal, but yet we have people who get arrested for handguns, and they'll be on the street tomorrow. I mean, that's crazy to me. And I don't want to get killed today. So in my mind, it's like, I come back home and something may happen - someone may do something to me.
JERMAINE COAKLEY: A lot of young kids lost their respect for their parents and lost respect for society, lost respect for police officers. That's just the way it is. I kill you, and your family kill me, and later on somebody kills someone else. It's ongoing, and it just continues.
Jermaine Coakley is a policeman who has a second job as a security guard in the Bahamas' capital, where armed robberies and home invasions are reported almost daily.
JERMAINE COAKLEY: If you drive through the communities, all the homes are barricaded. People are living in cages, in fear of some criminal breaking through their house, door, window, coming and robbing them of everything they have, in some instances raping and committing murder, and so on and so forth. That's the fear that people live in.
JEROME SAWYER, REPORTER: In my opinion, this all began, for the Caribbean, as well as the Bahamas, 30 years ago, with the arrival of the drug trade. So you had this sort of gangster lifestyle that has taken root.
Hosting the Bahamas' most-watched current affairs TV program, Jerome Sawyer has reported on his society's steadily failing struggle to stem the violence and bloodshed, both as commentator and victim.
JEROME SAWYER: I was robbed in front of my gate one night coming home. But that has significantly changed my life. It has changed my outlook. I don't see my country the same way I saw it 10 years ago. We sell it as a paradise. That's a sales pitch.
NEWSREADER: The boy whose abduction and murder shocked the country - at only 11 years of age, his murder has been one of the most followed stories in the media.
In recent months, few Bahamians are looking at their country through rose-coloured glasses.
MARCO’S FRIEND: I never thought when I walked my dear friend Marco home on Friday, 23rd of September - that it would be the last time I ever saw him.”
When Marco was farewelled by his school, many Bahamians were deeply affected.
DESMOND BANNISTER, MINISTER OF EDUCATION: Even though we are losing money Marco, even though we have lost him, what is happening today is a very, very special expression of love that these children are pouring out for him.
STANCIA HUMES, MARCO’S SISTER: It's gonna make a difference in the parents - every human being - we will understand today what is more important and what is more important is our children.
NEWSREADER: A group of Bahamians came to demonstrate, holding placards that ready reed "No bail for murderers."
For a country already teetering on the edge, Marco's killing marked a new low. But it may be the game-changer in the death-penalty debate, and there are few dissenters.
JEROME SAWYER: Those who oppose the death penalty certainly are very unpopular right now. And so I think they have purposely kept quiet.
Despite gaining independence in 1973, the Bahamian courts are still subject to the rulings of the British Privy Council. And although the death penalty is still on the books, the Privy Council has either upheld or held up all appeals so that the law has become ineffective. The last man to be hanged was in 2000.
JEROME SAWYER: Through legal wrangling, you're able to stretch out the appeals process to the point where the law then says, "Oh, you cannot put this man or woman to death because of a 5-year period that has passed." And so they all know it.
Now, Bahamians want all of that to change.
JEROME SAWYER: If we are a sovereign nation, why are we still answering to these old white men thousands of miles away sitting in a courtroom who probably have never been to the Bahamas, have no understanding of the cultural norms or no understanding of the people, but yet they are making decisions which are impacting our lives daily?
One week after Marco Archer's remains were found, the public clamoured for murderers to be hanged. Now, the government is granting their wish. At its headquarters' parade ground, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force assembles for its-year-old presentation. The Bahamas' national security minister, Tommy Turnquest, is here to inspect his troops.
TOMMY TURNQUEST, SECURITY MINISTER: The death penalty is a punishment. It remains on the law books of the Bahamas as a punishment.
With new death-penalty bill before parliament, Tommy Turnquest says a new law has been designed that will be difficult for the Privy Council to meddle with.
TOMMY TURNQUEST: The Privy Council has essentially, over the past decade, been providing landmark rulings either for here in the Bahamas, or throughout the region, with respect to the death penalty.
REPORTER: They've been watering it down, haven't they?
TOMMY TURNQUEST: Essentially moving the goalpost.
And the stakes are high. As the rule of law continues to be undermined in the Bahamas, the government can't even protect its vulnerable state witnesses.
JEROME SAWYER: We're such a small society that witness protection is almost impossible. The police will tell you that they have limited resources. And the sort of safe houses that they have really are just relocations. There's no real security. So it's very difficult for witnesses to be protected.
In the past few years, 19 witnesses in criminal trials have either been killed or attacked in an effort to silence them and - and it's worked. Intimidated by the prospects of a similar fate, the lack of witnesses willing to testify in court has hamstrung the system, and criminals are walking free.
JEROME SAWYER: It is a disgrace that we have allowed people who have willingly stepped forward to testify the crime to either be intimidated to the point of not testifying, injured, or killed.
With elections coming up, the Bahamas government is now faced with a moral dilemma - whether to support popular public demands for those on death row to be swiftly hanged, or to comply with the United Nations' demands for an end to state executions.
PASTOR MYLES MUNROE, TELEVANGELIST: This system - then it says "This kingdom shall be established with two things - justice, and righteousness."
Like elsewhere in the Caribbean, Bahamians are proud of their Christian tradition, with values that are deeply rooted in biblical scripture. As the crime wave continues its relentless assault, church attendance has risen sharply. Good news for local televangelist Myles Munroe.
PASTOR MYLES MUNROE: What's your problem right now? What do you need God to do for you right now? What do you believe in God for right now? I'll give you $100 right now.
When he's not busy handing out hundred-dollar bills in his church, Pastor Munroe directs his efforts to campaigning for social justice - and for the return of the hangman.
PASTOR MYLES MUNROE: The principle behind the death penalty and capital punishment is the preservation of the value of human life. It's not the pleasure of taking human life.
Although the scale and brutality of the country's crime rampage has surprised him, Myles Munroe is convinced that it's been brewing for years.
PASTOR MYLES MUNROE: Like I say, you had the illegal drug trade coming in, you've got the Bahamas going through independence, you've got a new nation being born, you've got a young government trying to build an economy, you've got access to exposure to materialism, you've got the influence of the North American culture - all of that mix lends itself to a very heavy weight for an emerging nation to handle.
But with its economy almost entirely reliant on tourism, any worsening of the crisis could prove catastrophic for the Bahamas. And its government is quick to talk down the surge of violence.
REPORTER: Do you feel under siege at the moment?
TOMMY TURNQUEST: No, we don't feel under siege. These are persons that have engaged in criminal activity, have lived by the sword, so to speak, and are dying by the sword.
NEWSREADER: Scores of family and friends paying their respects to the child today during his funeral service...
With the images of Marco Archer being laid to rest still fresh in their minds, emotions are running high. Despite the prayers of the faithful, and the government offering little more than rhetoric, the level of violence in the Bahamas is showing no sign of slowing down. And a dangerous new mindset is taking hold.
PASTOR MYLES MUNROE: The devaluation of human life is really one of the major, sweeping conceptual changes that have affected the mentality of our people. When you devalue a human, you make extinguishing their life much easier.
Reporter/Camera
NICK LAZAREDES
Producer
ASHLEY SMITH
Editor
NICK O’BRIEN
Fixer
BURTON WALLACE
Original Music composed by VICKI HANSEN
Additional footage courtesy of ZNS-TV, Bahamas & NB-12 Cable TV, Bahamas.