Trouble in paradise

There is mischief afoot in one of our Caribbean colonies. The Turks and Caicos Islands are seething with allegations of gross corruption, arson, and looted money. A local lawyer was beaten up on a beach after representing underpaid Chinese labourers on strike against Russian resort developers, and the islands' Premier, Dr Michael "Iron Mike" Misick, has been accused of raping a stripper.

The islands, southeast of the Bahamas, are British overseas territories. Their sovereign is Queen Elizabeth II; their Governor a Woking-born Foreign Office man called Richard Tauwhare. He is above the Premier in the islands' political hierarchy.

After a previous premier, Norman Saunders, was arrested in 1986 with a suitcase full of cocaine in a Miami motel, and it emerged that he had built a refuelling station

on an island airstrip for planes as a way station for the cocaine trade, Whitehall set about promoting tourism as a more orderly route to economic progress.

Since then the Turks and Caicos have flourished, and tourists have poured billions into the coffers. The island of Providenciales has been turned into a thicket of luxury resorts and condominiums worth millions. The hot business now is in private islands like Parrot Cay where Paul McCartney, Keith Richards and Bruce Willis have villas.

Some of the money is coming from the gangster capitalists of the old Soviet Union and its satellites. Locals allege that investors deal directly with Misick, circumventing planning rules, taxes and all else, while making large contributions to ministers' personal accounts.

Meanwhile in the UK, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has declared itself "shocked