The controversial issue of the two Cuban dentists held at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre could be turned over to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or even President George W Bush, it was revealed in a broadcast by the US television station FoxNews.
It was further disclosed that the United States is looking into using the Bahamas' US Customs pre-clearance privileges as a bargaining chip in exercising pressure on the Bahamas government to release the Cubans to the US.
In the Hannity and Colmes FoxNews television report – which exposed the squalid conditions in which the two doctors have been held for the past 10 months – interviewers Thursday night talked with family members of the dentists and Florida Congressman Connie Mack IV, who has taken up their cause.
Congressman Mack told one of the show's co-hosts Alan Colmes that he has reached out to Dr Rice in this matter, and that the issue may reach the level of needing the President's attention.
He said that Dr Rice is aware of the issue and may use her upcoming visit to the Bahamas to address the fate of the Cuban dentists.
However, the Bahamas is not on the official list of countries Dr Rice plans to visit this month. It was reported earlier that she had planned to come to the Bahamas this month.
"It's a sad story. Where they are now it's just deplorable conditions, and the Bahamian government should be embarrassed," he said.
Mr Mack said that although he is getting the indication from the Bahamas government that they are working hard to get the two dentists to the US, "so far it's all been words, there has been no action to follow it up."
"My fear is that they fear Castro more than they honour the relationship and the friendship with the United States," he said.
The Congressman said he does not understand why the Bahamas is not releasing the two Cubans "out of their friendship with us."
"I have on numerous occasions tried to talk to the prime minister of the Bahamas. He won't return my phone calls. The ambassador (Joshua Sears) has been fairly good at returning calls and talking, but for the life of me I don't know why they have chosen to side with Castro," he said.
With the economy of the Bahamas reliant on the US, he said, the US authorities are now looking at options of exercising pressure to bring about a satisfactory solution to the situation. One of those pressures is economic.
"We're looking at all options. One thing we have looked at is the preclearance that the Bahamas has as far as bringing people into the US – where cruise ships go to the Bahamas just to get that pre-clearance. That would have an economic impact on the Bahamas. We're looking at everything," he said.
Interview
In the interview with the show's cohost Sean Hannity, the spouses of Dr David Gonzalez-Mejias and Dr Marialys Darias-Mesa – with the help of their interpreter, Augusto "Kiko" Villalan, a friend of both families, appealed to the American public for help in their plight.
"Please help us," both Dayarni Inda, wife of Dr Gonzalez-Mejias, and Ihouany Hernandez, husband of Dr Darias-Mesa, said in broken English.
Mrs Inda said that her two children are traumatised by the situation. She said she no~longer knows what to tell her children as to why they can't see their father, who has been absent from their lives for the past three years.
Mr Hernandez said that as a US resident he at least has been able to travel to the Bahamas to visit his wife at the Detention Centre.
Mr Villalon – a marine engineer of St James City in Florida – called the Carmichael Road holding facility a "rats nest" and said that after 10 months it is no longer a detention centre, but "simply a prison."
While the TV programme showed footage inside the Detention Centre, which was filmed in February this year, Mr Villalon described the conditions at the facility.
"There is no place to put your clothes, and since there's rats all over the place they have to hang them (the clothes) in garbage bags or some duffel bags, hang them from the roof so that the rats don't get into it.
"There's not one chair in the whole barracks, in the whole place. When they get up in the morning they have to sit outside on the concrete under the sun with not a tree to get out of the sun."
As footage of unhygienic and squalid bathroom facilities were shown, Mr Villalon said: "The toilets are terrible and the water that they drink is brackish, is salty water."
Mr Villalon explained that Dr Darias-Mesa and Dr Gonzalez-Mejias won entrance into the US in 2002 in the special annual visa lottery, which was established in 1994 under the Clinton administration for Cuban nationals, and agreed upon by both the US and Cuba.
He said the doctor's families went ahead of them to the US, but that Dr Darias-Mesa and Dr Gonzalez-Mejias were told by the Cuban government that they had to wait three years.
"When three years passed, they reapplied, then they (Cuban authorities) said now we have classified you as indispensable, and you shall not leave, period," said Mr Villalon.
Dentists
It was then, Mr Villalon continued, that the two dentists decided to take matters into their own hands and leave for the US despite official orders from the Cuban government.
Their escape, however, was thwarted when they were stranded in Bahamian waters, apprehended by the US Coast Guard and turned over to the Detention Centre in Nassau.
When asked if there's anything the American public can do to help with the situation of the two doctors, Mr Villalon answered:
"Yes, get involved. Get involved in some form or fashion. Call the (Bahamas) Embassy in Washington – Joshua Sears," he said.
Mr Villalon said that the two or three times that he has travelled to the Bahamas, "the airplane is full of girls who are going to wear their bikinis on the beach, couples that are going to gamble in Atlantis, and in all those places and I stood there and said what do you think if I tell you what I am coming here to do to see – a rat's nest where people are being kept."
Congressman Mack said that he will continue to fight for the release of the two dentists.
"We will continue to try to get with the prime minister. The governor of the State of Florida Jeb Bush has spoken to the prime minister. We continue to work through diplomatic resources, but at the end of the day the Bahamian government needs to know that America is their friends, and that Castro is no friend of theirs, and is no friend of the Western Hemisphere," he said.
Mr Mack said that it is important for people to understand that "these are families who did it the right way, who were looking for freedom and they did the right things. They were granted freedom to come to the United States and to have Castro's communist dictatorship basically take that from them."
By KARIN HERIG Tribune Staff Reporter
