War In The Balkans: US is to billet Kosovars on Cuba

Havens Abroad

AMERICA'S commitment to the refugee crisis in Kosovo was called into question last night when it emerged that the 20,000 people it had pledged to take are likely to be billeted at a US army base in Cuba.

In Britain, MPs opposed to the war reacted with astonishment that none of the Kosovo Albanians would be heading for the American mainland. Instead, the refugees will be flown to the Guantanamo base, a piece of land still occupied by the American forces despite decades of hostility towards Cuba's Communist leader, Fidel Castro. Other refugees may be dispatched to the Pacific island of Guam.

Alan Simpson, Labour MP for Nottingham South and a member of the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, said: "This is sham humanity - less like acceptance of refugees and more like the establishment of a leper colony. It seems there are some fairly basic issues at stake here. Do you make a commitment to the refugees or don't you? If the answer is `Yes, but not on our own shores', then you are defining these people as second-class refugees."

The decision not to admit the refugees to the United States has a dual purpose: to head off domestic criticism of the social costs and to remind Slobodan Milosevic that the displacement is temporary.

The Guantanamo Bay option was disclosed by Senator Joe Biden, a member of the Senate foreign relations committee. The base has been used previously as an emergency refuge following violent unrest in Haiti, and to accommodate hundreds of Cuban refugees who had been refused admittance to the United States.

Most of the Cubans were subsequently allowed to settle in the US, but that privilege will not be extended to the Kosovars. The Pentagon said yesterday that the only definite decision that had been taken was that they would not be admitted to the US mainland.