Guantanamo Plan May Be Scrapped
By GEORGE GEDDA, .c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Citing changed conditions, a Clinton administration official raised the
possibility Thursday that a plan to use the U.S. naval base in Cuba to shelter 20,000 Kosovo
refugees may be scrapped.
``It's possible it won't happen,'' said J. Brian Atwood, the administration's foreign aid chief
and also coordinator for the U.S. relief effort in support of the refugees.
In a telephone conference call with reporters, Atwood said the decision on Tuesday to use the
Guantanamo base for temporary asylum was made when thousands of Kosovar Albanians faced an
extraordinarily difficult humanitarian situation.
Since then, Atwood said, international relief efforts have improved living conditions. Another
plus, he said, was the transfer of tens of thousands of desperate refugees from the ``no-man's
land'' along the Kosovo-Albanian border.
Atwood said no one in the government is enthusiastic about housing refugees at Guantanamo
because of the heat and the base's long distance from the Balkans.
``We want to keep people in the region,'' Atwood said. ``We want to prepare the people to return
to their homes. It will be a lot easier to undertake that if they are in the region.''
He said the administration is still prepared to take people into Guantanamo but will do so only
if there are volunteers. He added that many apparently would prefer to remain close to home.
At the Pentagon, Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Wald told reporters that the Guantanamo base was
ready to receive Kosovar refugees. But, he said, no final decision had been made to fly any there.
The Cuban government, while condemning NATO military action against Yugoslavia, said it has no
objection to use of Guantanamo as a refugee haven and also offered to cooperate in providing
assistance.
If no refugees are sent to Guantanamo, it could mean that none would come to the United States
at all.
Earlier this decade, the base was used for refugees from Haiti and later from Cuba. In 1995, the
administration decided to resettle the Cubans in the United States out of concern about a violent
uprising by the many Cubans unhappy with their situation on Guantanamo. Officials have said there is
no chance that any Kosovar refugees sent to the base will be allowed to settle on the U.S. mainland.
Some private groups are urging the administration not to transfer refugees to the base.
Michael Ratner, of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, called Guantanamo ``a
no-man's land of hardscrabble ground, a few cactus, unbearable heat, little water and barbed wire.''
Don Hammond, of World Relief, a humanitarian aid group, said, ``the Kosovars will be coming from
a militarized zone where they have been traumatized into another highly militarized situation in
Guantanamo. This could have a potentially devastating effect on the refugees we are trying to
help.''
Atwood said the accommodations there don't have to be military-style and that any refugees sent
there would be allowed to organize themselves as they wish.
Copyright 1999 The Associated Press |