The Nassau Guardian
Cubans repatriated
Twenty-four Cubans were repatriated in two separate flights yesterday, Director of Immigration William Pratt said.
The group included two immigrants who were being held at Her Majesty’s Prisons and the remaining Cubans were being held at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre, Pratt said.
Florida-based protesters from Democracy Movement have protested outside The Bahamas consulate in Miami for weeks. The group has claimed that Cuban detainees at the detention center have been abused.
The Bahamas government has strongly denied the assertion.
Ramon Sanchez, a representative of the group, said the organization did not support the Cubans being sent back to Cuba.
According to international reports, sympathizers with the detainees called the repatriation “deceitful” and claimed that some in the group were offered asylum in Panama.
Pratt said the group did not meet requirements for asylum and added that he did not understand the motivation for the protests.
“I really don’t know what is so deceitful about it because those persons were interviewed by our trained officers,” he said.
“... Their applications were [looked over] by UNHCR representatives and it was determined that they were not persons considered for refugee protection.
“And because the UNHCR already established, along with our trained personnel who UNHCR trained, it was determined that they were not considered persons who need protection under the UNHCR convention or protocol.
“So again our policy is that any persons illegally entering The Bahamas, once we process and we determine that they are not persons needing refugee protection, they are to be returned to the country from whence they came.”
Pratt added that he knew of no offer from Panama’s government to give the Cubans asylum.
“As far as I know there was no official request from the Panamanian government,” he said.
Pratt said two more Cuban immigrants remain at the prison. He added that there are approximately 20 more Cuban detainees at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre.
Free National Movement (FNM) Chairman Darron Cash said this week the party thinks that Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell handled the matter belligerently. He said the FNM had concerns about the way the government managed the issue.
“As we have watched this unfold over the last several weeks it seems clearer every day that in the language, in the tone, in the approach that the minister of foreign affairs has taken that management is not the word that would best be used to describe how he handed it,” Cash said.
The Bahamas Consulate in Miami was put on alert Thursday after a threat was made against it, Mitchell said.
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