The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

REACTING in anger to the news that the Cuban detainee abuse hearings have stalled until at least the new year, Cuban Americans yesterday vowed to take renewed action in response.

Calling the continued delays evidence of “a cover-up”, Democracy Movement president Ramon Sanchez said his group will now meet to discuss their next move.

“This issue of postponing the trial and possibly not allowing independent observers to be present, nor the press, is obviously a part of a cover-up from the government of the rape, the abuse, the potential manslaughter and other serious issues that have taken place,” he said. “This makes them an accomplice to the abuse.”

His statements came as Wayne Munroe, the lawyer representing officers accused of beating several Cuban nationals held at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre, revealed that several weeks after the hearings were announced, nothing has happened.

Mr Munroe said this is because Defence Force Commodore Roderick Bowe has yet to decide whether the three persons appointed by National Security Minister Bernard Nottage to serve as independent observers during the trial will be allowed to sit in on the hearings.

Mr Munroe said there is no provision in the Defence Force rules to permit such observers.

Asked how a directive from the National Security Minister, who oversees the Defence Force, could possibly be rejected by the commodore, RBDF public relations officer Lt Origin Deleveux said Commodore Bowe will “work with” the minister and advise him on how to proceed with the issue – “based on the rules and regulations of the force.”

The matter of the observers and some “other issues”, mean that the hearings are unlikely to get underway until some point “in the new year,” he added.

“It’s not certain exactly when the trial is expected to resume. Some other things came up,” he said, but declined to be more specific.

“We wouldn’t want to start the trial and end up having a mistrial,” Lt Deleveux said.

When he learned the news, Mr Sanchez said he was disappointed, but not surprised, given his experience with the way the Bahamas government operates.

Mr Sanchez said before the announcement of the hearings at the end of September, his group had been planning to take their issues with the Bahamas government to international forums, but had placed those plans on hold “to give the government a chance to do what is needed since it looked like they were going to conduct proper proceedings.”

Now, he said, he will have to meet with the members of his group and determine what their next step will be.

He said the months-long delay “would make any reasonable human being angry.”

“It’s upsetting that after so many months and public statements and debates we continue to stand in this place where those guilty of abuse continue to exist without the continuation of any process that will remove them.

“It looks very, very bad for the Bahamian government. We’ve seen this is a government that works in slow motion for almost everything. This is obviously a cover up – we will not be quiet,” he said.