By Brent Fuller, brent@cfp.ky
Sunday 15th April, 2007 Posted: 17:12 CIT (22:12 GMT)
About 30 Cubans escaped from Grand Cayman's Immigration Detention Centre
Saturday morning and spent more than an hour marching around George Town
urging government officials not to send them back to their native country.
The escapees carried a cardboard sign which read "Don't to come back to
Cuba" and held a peaceful demonstration at the George Town dock until
immigration officials agreed to let them take their concerns to the press.
During the protest police were forced to close down sections of the road
to divert traffic around the demonstrators.
The Caymanian Compass and several other media organisations were granted
unfettered access to the Cubans in the centre after they had turned
themselves in.
"We do not want to go back to Cuba, we want to go to Honduras…because it
will help us economically," detainee Jose Miguel Gomez said through a
translator.
"In Cuba I make 10 dollars a month. Sneakers in Cuba cost seven
dollars," Mr. Gomez said.
"I want to go to Honduras, Guatemala wherever," said Miguel de la Rosa,
also a detainee. "Even if this march doesn't help me….people will know
our situation, how Cuba abuses its people."
Chief Immigration Officer Franz Manderson said the 50 or so Cubans now
being kept at the centre are much like Mr. Gomez and Mr. de la Rosa,
migrants seeking better economic opportunities.
Mr. Manderson said, as far as he's aware, none of those who are now
housed at the centre qualify as refugees under the United Nations
convention, and therefore must be sent back to Cuba if they come to
Cayman illegally.
He said the 30 or so people who escaped from the detention centre
Saturday got out near the main entrance gate where an outside lock had
been tampered with. According to Mr. Manderson, the lock was last
checked at 7am. The escape occurred a little after 10am.
"The security observed something suspicious was happening, but before he
could actually respond there was already a mass exodus," Mr. Manderson
said, adding that there were far too many detainees for centre guards to
stop.
Mr. de la Rosa said the Cubans who fled the centre in no way intended
harm to any residents of Cayman.
"We want the people of the Cayman Islands to know we are not violent, we
just want our freedom," Mr. de la Rosa said, again through a translator.
Other Cubans at the detention centre spoke out about lack of access to
telephone communication, and legal representation.
Assistant Chief Immigration Officer Jeannie Lewis said the migrants are
allowed to call their families "every so often", about once every three
weeks.
Mr. Manderson said no one is preventing the migrants at the centre from
contacting an attorney; however he said government does not pay the tab
for those services.
"As long as they can afford (a lawyer), or if there's someone who wants
to give them free representation then that's their choice," he said.
Saturday's escape marks the third in 10 days at the low–security
detention centre. Mr. Manderson acknowledged some of the detainees had
been there as long as three months due to bureaucratic delays in sending
them back to Cuba, and patience is wearing thin.
The centre was overflowing with detainees Saturday. Two rows of bunk
beds were lined up close together on one side of the room. A large fan
blowing air in from the front of the room did little to cool temperatures.
Mr. Manderson said the Immigration Department likes to keep the number
of detainees at the centre to around 15 to 20. Right now, there's more
than double that number.
He fears the Cuban detainees will keep escaping, unless they're either
sent home or kept in a tighter–security facility.
"We don't want to put them in cells; we don't want to treat them as
prisoners. Obviously, if they keep escaping we'll have to rethink our
way of dealing with things."
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