Carter clamps down on Cuban criminals

Press, 9 June 1980, Page 9

Carter clamps down on Cuban criminals

NZPA-Reuter Washington President Carter has ordered the Justice Department to seek the swift expulsion of several hundred Cubans freed from Cuban jails by Dr Fidel Castro to join the exodus of refugees to the United States. .

Mr Carter also called for expulsion proceedings and possible prosecution against Cuban refugees who rioted last week-end at a resettlement centre at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. The United States Government accused President Castro of being cynical and inhumane on the refugee issue.

The White House spokesman, Mr Jody Powell, estimated the total number of Cubans affected by Mr Carter’s action at 700, and said they were being confined pending legal action. The Government wanted the offenders ■ sent back to Cuba, but “I have no way of knowing whether Cuba will in fact discharge its responsibilities,” he said. Mr Carter had directed the Secretary of State (Mr Edmund Muskie) “to press this issue urgently through diplomatic channels and in the appropriate international forum” — the ' United Nations and perhaps th^ : Or-

ganis-ation of American States.

“Among the tens of thousands of people fleeing oppression in Cuba and seeking to reunite their families and to seek freedom in the United States, Fidel Castro has very cynically thrown, in several hundred hardened criminals from Cuban jails,” Mr Powell said.

“These criminals will not be resettled or relocated in American communities under any circumstances.”

There was evidence that the Cuban Government “exported these undesirable elements to the United

States in a calculated effort to disguise the fact that the vast majority of. those Cubans who have come to this country were and are law-abiding citizens'.

“This action by the Cuban Government, in addition to its cynical, and inhumane characteristics, is a direct and serious violation of international law,” Mr Powell said.

“It would be an equally serious violation if the Government of Cuba should refuse to perform its obligations under international law to accept the return of these criminals.”