1. General Situation
The Commonwealth of the Bahamas, a West Indies nation independent since July 10, 1973, comprises an archipelago of 700 islands and over 2,000 cays and rocks extending southeastward from off the coast of Florida in the United States to just north of Haiti. Not more than 30 islands are inhabited, with the population divided ethnically between Afro-Caribbean (85 percent) and Euro-American (15 percent, largely from Great Britain,…