Clint Chan Tack
THE Cuban government and Refugees International have condemned a decision by US President Donald Trump to construct a migrant detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which he said would hold as many as 30,000 people.
The US has had a military base there since 1903.
The lease on the base has no fixed expiration date.
Last week, Trump said the facility would be built by the US Defense and Homeland Security Departments.
He said migrants could be transported there directly after being intercepted at sea by the US Coast Guard, and that the “highest” detention standards would be applied.
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In a statement on January 29, the Cuban Foreign Affairs Ministry said,” It is a demonstration of the brutality with which that government is acting to supposedly correct problems created by the economic and social conditions of that country, the government’s own management and its foreign policy, including hostility towards countries of origin.”
The ministry said the territory where the facility was supposed to be built did not belong to the US.
“It is a portion of Cuban territory in the eastern province of Guantanamo, which remains under illegal military occupation and against the will of the Cuban nation.”
The ministry said, “That military installation is internationally identified, among other reasons, for housing a torture and indefinite detention centre, outside the jurisdiction of US courts, where people have been held for up to 20 years, never tried or convicted of any crime.”
In a separate statement, Refugees International said, “The administration’s claim that there is a migrant ‘invasion’ is unfounded, and its mislabelling immigrants as ‘terrorists’ is diversionary – and neither makes offshore detention lawful. Members of congress should investigate the move as a misuse of military assets.”
The group added, “Setting up an American gulag in the Caribbean in response to forced displacement in the Americas is a shameful low in US history.”
