Around 150 people demonstrated in front of The Bahamas Consulate office in Miami over the alleged mistreatment of Cuban detainees in The Bahamas; the largest protest of its kind in recent weeks.
As news cameras rolled, scores of protestors, many belonging to the Cuban-American group Democracy Now, held placards and drove around the Ingraham Building blowing horns, with some chanting “don’t go to The Bahamas” in Spanish and English.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell maintained that the protest was nothing more than a smear campaign designed to damage The Bahamas, but it could end up backfiring on South Florida.
“I find this a very curious comment to make for people who are citizens living in Miami, a city and an area that benefits from $1.1 billion of U.S. dollars in Bahamian spending a year,” Mitchell said outside Cabinet.
“It is really something they ought to consider carefully because we don’t want to get into that kind of row.”
Demonstrators were peaceful Mitchell said, adding that staff at the consulate carried out their normal duties.
Mitchell also said there is speculation that some of the Cuban detainees in The Bahamas may have status in the United States.
“The issue is…whether there is some legal obligation on the part of the U.S. to bring them before an administrative judge in the U.S. in order to determine their status,” he said.
“We’ve indicated that if that is the position, that the U.S. will take them. If an airplane is available tomorrow they can come and get them.
“A deportation order was signed some time ago, so as soon as we can find a country that’s willing to take them, they can go.”
Mitchell said the government is working with U.S. officials to diffuse the situation.
“We are a country that sells its image on being conflict free,” he said.
“This is never a good thing for you to have adverse publicity about anything because The Bahamas, its stock-in-trade, is to come to a place where there is no conflict and the place is peaceful and it has a good reputation.”
Some Miami-based Cubans and their supporters have been protesting against The Bahamas’ alleged treatment of Cuban detainees for several weeks after a video surfaced purporting to show Cuban detainees at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre being beaten by Bahamian officers.
Mitchell said the government is confident that the video is false. The Nassau Guardian learned that three Cuban migrants are being accused of creating the video.
According to their lawyer, Roger Gomez Jr., two of the men are at Her Majesty’s Prisons and the third is being held at the Detention Centre.
Gomez said the government claimed that his clients were taken to prison because they tried to escape from the Detention Centre and were inciting other prisoners.
A government official close to the matter confirmed that the detainees are thought to be linked to the fake video.
The official, who did not wish to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the suspects were found with items spotted in the video, including clothing.
Authorities also found them with a cell phone with Internet access, the official said. Gomez filed a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of the men who will appear in court tomorrow.
By Travis Cartwright-Carroll
Guardian Staff Reporter
