The Bahamas has drawn fierce criticism on the global stage for its treatment of Cuban immigrants.
An article in the National Review, a prominent American political magazine, is putting pressure on the Bahamas government to comply with international law.
Jay Nordlinger of the National Review not only accuses the Bahamas government of collaborating with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, but further argues that conditions at the Carmichael Road Detention Centre are deplorable, citing “malnutrition, disease, rape, mock executions, beatings, random sadism” as some of the hardships that immigrants have to endure in the detention centre.
He further claims that “the Bahamian government, despite being a democracy, and an ally of the United States, has a very cozy relationship with Castro. They fear him, work with him, submit to him.”
He says that popular speculation depicts the reason for Bahamian cooperation with Castro as being a result of an event that occurred on May 10, 1980, when “soem eight Cuban MIG’s sank a bahamian patrol boat in Bahamian waters…” which he asserts was a “tremendous act of intimidation, showing that Castro was lord of the region, capable of anything.”
Nordlinger, a former state department official, went so far as to allege that Bahamian cooperation with Cuba is due to money that Castro showers on the islands, “which is not without influence”.
“It seems obvious, ” Nordlinger claimed, “that the Bahamian government fears and respects Cuba more than it does the United States.”
Source: The Tribune
