Vere Bird Jr. (October 1936 – 31 March 2013) was an Antiguan lawyer and politician who served as chairman of the Antigua Labour Party (ALP) and a government minister.
He was later removed from Cabinet after a scandal in which Israeli weapons, sold to Antigua and Barbuda, were found in the hands of the Medellín Cartel of Colombian drug smugglers.
Despite this decision, Bird returned to government on 15 May 1996 as Minister of Science, Technology and Communications, with a transfer to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Business Development following the 1999 general election.
[2] As Minister he visited Dominica at the head of a four-person delegation that was dispatched to reach a deal on selling Antigua and Barbuda, a country lacking natural supplies, water.
[4] This followed controversy over Bird's construction of a new airport, which the opposition charged was "grossly inflated" in cost; retired Grenadian judge Sir Archibald Nedd was appointed to investigate the project and look for signs of wrongdoing.
With the Prime Minister delegating most of his work due to his advancing age, and instead spending time with his 27-year-old companion, the election was seen as a struggle for power between Bird and his brother Lester.
[9] Bird's career in the Cabinet was ended by scandal in 1990 after a shipment of Israeli weapons to Antigua and Barbuda were received and then diverted to the Medellín Cartel of Colombian drug dealers.
[12] The Prime Minister repeatedly refused to open an investigation, despite demands by community leaders and members of his own government, saying that "conclusive evidence" was needed.
[18] The report did not, however, recommend that Bird be forced to resign from the House or prosecuted criminally; it was felt that the public ridicule the guilty parties had been subjected to was punishment enough.
[21] Despite Blom-Cooper's recommendations that Bird never be allowed to hold public office again and strong opposition disapproval, he was made Minister of Science, Technology and Communications in a cabinet reshuffle on 15 May 1996.
[25] By July 2000, he had become Minister of Agriculture, Lands and Fisheries;[26] in this role, he held talks with fishermen over the dumping of dredged material in the ocean[27] and signed a trade agreement with Trinidad and Tobago to end a year-long ban on the import of Trinidadian produce.
[39] Ivor was later found guilty of attempted drug smuggling after being caught with a 25-pound bag of cocaine at Antigua's main airport; he was fined 75,000 East Caribbean dollars.