URUGUAY/FILE: Uruguayans react after government grants asylum to Guantanamo inmates

Record ID: 351634

  • Title: URUGUAY/FILE: Uruguayans react after government grants asylum to Guantanamo inmates
  • Date: 22nd March 2014
  • Summary: GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF DETAINEES SHOT OUT OF FOCUS (NO FACES VISIBLE) IN COMMON AREA INSIDE PRISON VARIOUS DETAINEES WALKING OUTSIDE SPOTLIGHTS U.S. FLAGS
  • Embargoed: 6th April 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Cuba, Uruguay
  • City:
  • Country: Cuba Uruguay
  • Topics: Crime,General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA6ERBGI9H67F18PUPVO9JUEQB
  • Story Text: Uruguay has agreed with the United States to accept some prisoners held in the much-criticized detention centre at the U.S. military base of Guantanamo Bay, President Jose Mujica announced on Thursday (March 20).
    On Friday (March 21), Uruguay asked the United States to free Cuban prisoners as a gesture in return for the South American country agreeing to accept detainees from the Guantanamo detention centre.
    In the capital Montevideo on Friday, most residents who spoke to Reuters said they were against the move to bring in the inmates from the U.S. prison camp.
    "It is an important step but I would be against it. Because I think that to send prisoners from other countries and bring them here, I think it is quite a big game for the government to play. Don't you think so?" said Johnatan Devecci, a 21 year-old student.
    "I think it is a complete disaster. We have too much delinquency here to support some terrorists. I don't know. The are prisoners for a reason. I don't know, and now Mujica says it is a favour that he is doing for Obama. It makes no sense - Since when has the left of this country done a favour for the United States?," added Hector Denis, a 34-year-old resident of Montevideo.
    Retiree Alberto Gonzalez said he supported the move but questioned what the detainees would do after arriving in Uruguay.
    "I can't see a reason not to bring them, they are human beings. It seems to me good that they can bring them. Later we will see what they will do here, no?"
    The Obama administration, which wants to close the centre used to imprison people captured after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, has been talking to several countries about relocating inmates.
    Human Rights Lawyer Lopez Goldaracena said Uruguay was acting in accordance with the principles of international law by offering asylum to the Guantanamo detainees.
    "The principle of any person seeking refuge when they are persecuted politically or deprived of their freedoms in their countries, and requesting protection from another country to rebuild their life and the lives of their families is a principle of international. In this case Uruguay is concretizing this," said Goldaracena But Opposition Senator Sergio Abreu warned against the decision to offer the inmates asylum in Uruguay.
    "We don't want this to be a negotiating tool used to get out of a situation that the United States has created and for this to make [Uruguay] a partial accomplice in the violation human rights," he said.
    Uruguay had accepted the request by Washington to take some prisoners and would consider them refugees, President Mujica told journalists while attending a farming event on Thursday.
    "No, no, no there is no need to make a big show out of it. It is not any kind of agreement, it is a request and a matter of human rights. There are about 120 people that have been imprisoned for 13 years that have not seen a judge or a lawyer, they haven't seen anyone and the president of the United States wants to get rid of this problem but the senate is demanding certain things so he has asked a number of countries if they can give refuge to any of them and I said yes because I was imprisoned for many years. I'm sick of them talking human rights, human rights is this. If they want to make a home and work in the country let them stay in the country," Mujica said.
    "They are coming as refugees and Uruguay will give them a place. If they want to bring their whole family and everything, it's that simple," he added.
    Weekly newspaper Busqueda reported that Uruguay had accepted a U.S. proposal to take five detainees from the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba base for two years. The 78-year-old ex-guerrilla Mujica agreed after speaking to Cuban President Raul Castro and sending delegates to visit the detention centre, the report said.
    Guantanamo has been criticized by human rights groups, with some of its prisoners held for a decade or longer without being charged or given a trial. Opened by President George W. Bush in 2002 to hold terrorism suspects rounded up overseas, Guantanamo became a symbol of the excesses of his "war on terror."
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