Government is being urged to remove Raul Garcia from prison immediately and house him elsewhere.
The suggestion has come from President of the President of the Peoples Empowerment Party, David Comissiong.
In a Press release today Comissiong recommended that Garcia be placed in a “non-punitive facility and under much more humane conditions”.
“There is no reason why Mr Garcia should still be in prison— after all, he has completed his Prison sentence, and is in reality, an Immigration detainee awaiting deportation.”
Comissiong also suggested that Government invites representative members of Garcia’s US based family to come to Barbados to meet with him and to reassure him that serious efforts are being made to bring about a resolution to his predicament.
He believes the first order of business is to persuade Garcia to end his hunger strike before he does irreparable damage to himself.
Comissiong also said the key to unlocking the Raul Garcia conundrum is more in the United States of America (USA), than in Cuba.
“The fact is that Raul Garcia has a much deeper connection to the USA than to Cuba, and the USA, in turn, has a much greater responsibility for Garcia than Cuba has.
“What has been conveniently glossed over is that Mr Garcia’s connection to Cuba is extremely slender. Mr Garcia is a member of a family that abandoned Cuba for the USA many years ago— when Mr Garcia was a mere four year old infant. Thus, Mr Garcia grew up in the USA, was socialised in the USA….. Furthermore, Mr Garcia’s entire family is resident in the USA, and Mr Garcia, himself, wishes to live–not in Cuba– but in the USA,” stated a release today.
Comissiong noted that the Cuban law that prohibits persons who fit Garcia’s profile from being able to automatically return to Cuba, is a law based on serious national security concerns. (PR)
