The Tribune

THE fate of the embattled Cuban detainees in Bahamian custody will be announced today, Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell told The Tribune yesterday.

In an interview with The Miami Herald over the weekend, Mr Mitchell said that Bahamians were “shocked and fed up” with protests saying that it was “reprehensible” that the Bahamas was being attacked in the way it was.

Three detainees who have brought a court action against the Bahamas are believed to be former US permanent residents. The United States government has been asked to take them back. However, there is no decision as yet.

The treatment of Cuban detainees in the Bahamas has been the subject of a hunger strike and protests by Cuban activists in South Florida.

Currently, three detainees are awaiting adjudication by the courts. The case has been adjourned at their request until the United States decides whether they can return or are in fact eligible for relocation to the United States. Meanwhile, they are being held at Her Majesty’s Prison.

Mr Mitchell said that the Miami protesters are only concerned about the three detainees arrested for smuggling, ignoring the fact that others were paroled out with their families to UNHCR accommodations just last year in Nassau.

“They (the protesters) are trying to make it appear that they have a general interest in migrant welfare. I am of the opinion that the protesters do not have any interest beyond these three detainees.”

Ramon Saul Sanchez, president of the exile group Democracy Movement and protest leader, rejected this accusation.

“I profoundly deplore human trafficking. I am and have always been its enemy,” Sánchez said. “The government of Bahamas is looking for any kind of artifice to avoid investigating the alleged abuses.

“The people who have been beaten and mistreated — the majority of them are simple persons who are looking for freedom,” he added. “If there are one or two smugglers among them, then apply the law to them, but don’t torture them.”

Sánchez was on the eighth day of a hunger strike Friday, accompanied by fellow activist Jesús Alexis Gómez, who has not eaten for 14 days.

The protests have also received substantial support from local politicians, including Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado and Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, vice mayor of Doral.

Rodriguez Aguilera brought the subject before a meeting of the Miami-Dade County League of Cities on Thursday, and said numerous municipalities promised to pass resolutions condemning the alleged abuses.