Caribbean Time Bomb: The United States' Complicity In The Corruption Of Antigua

Robert Coram wrote Caribbean Time Bomb: The United States' Complicity in the Corruption of Antigua in 1993. His book, published by William Morrow & Co, part of Harper Collins, was immediately banned in Antigua. Since then little has changed except the players' names.

In 2007, Arif Ali of Hansib Publications Limited, a niche UK publisher, asked Robert Coram, who has twice won a Pulitzer Prize, to release a second edition. As is customary, the talented, investigative author was requested to produce a new foreword to introduce the new edition. Hansib Publications Limited rejected his words.

However, Information Management Solutions has obtained the genuine foreword, which is now reproduced below with the author's kind permission.

"THE SAME OLD SONG?

Caribbean Time Bomb remains a cautionary tale relevant to the Antigua of today. While the book chronicles a long litany of malfeasance, corruption, and avarice unequaled anywhere in the Caribbean, the fundamental problem in Antigua has long been a simple lack of morality at the highest levels of government. That was true with V.C. Bird, with his sons Lester and Vere Jr., and with the scandal-plagued administration they led.

The people of Antigua are deeply religious. The chasm between the profession of those beliefs and the practice of those beliefs troubled me for a long time. But eventually I came to the sad conclusion that years of corruption by the Bird family have done what may be irreparable harm to the culture of Antigua. Abuse of power, venality and lack of integrity have become part of the Island's DNA. V.C. Bird is, in every sense of the word, "father of the country."

Just as two generations of the Duvalier family led Haiti into a death spiral, so the Birds have led Antigua to the brink. Some 40 years of scandals and felonious behavior have created an ecosystem of entangling corruption that current leaders find difficult to shake. Those who replaced the Birds now find themselves facing charges of corruption and abuse of power, leading many Antiguans to wonder if they simply traded red Birds for blue Birds.

Today, Antigua stands at the crossroads. The new leader, Baldwin Spencer, is generally regarded as a good man. A man of principle. As leader of the opposition, he promised to right old wrongs and to have a government accountable for its actions. Because he was a voice of hope and promise, the people of Antigua voted the Birds out of office. Now Spencer must show he has done more than...