Cruise ship brings Cuban refugees

Cruise ship brings Cuban refugees

Sunday, March 19, 2006

The cruise ship that arrived in Grand Cayman last Thursday morning with
a group of twenty-eight Cuban refugees on board picked up the migrants
at sea the day before, three days into the cruise.

According to Carnival Cruise Lines, on Wednesday, 15 March, their
vessel, Carnival Conquest, picked up twenty-eight Cuban rafters off the
coast of Jamaica during a seven-day cruise that departed Galveston,
Texas, on Sunday, 12 March.

In a prepared statement they said, “As per standard company protocol,
the appropriate authorities were notified. The twenty-eight individuals
are currently on board and are being provided with food and medical
treatment.

“The individuals may be disembarked in Cozumel when the Conquest docks
there ….(Friday). However, that has yet to be determined. The Carnival
Conquest will return to Galveston as scheduled on Sunday, 19 March, and
will depart on another seven-day cruise later that afternoon.”

A release from the Cayman Islands Government Information Service stated
that the group, which consisted of twenty-five males and three females,
was rescued at sea by the ship’s crew while the vessel was en route to
Montego Bay, Jamaica.

Cayman’s Immigration Department officials boarded the vessel and were
briefed by the chief purser of the Conquest, who is responsible for
assisting port authorities. The officials were then taken to the rooms
were the Cubans were housed.

All appeared to be in good health, which was subsequently confirmed by
the medical report provided by the ship’s doctor. The release stated
that, because no one in the group met entry requirements, Cayman’s
immigration officials did not allow the group to disembark.

According to the chief purser, Jamaica’s officials in Montego Bay also
did not allow them to disembark. Immigration officers will return to the
ship prior to its departure to ensure that all members of the group have
remained on the ship, the release concluded.

In a January 2003 paper, Troubled Waters: Rescue of Asylum Seekers and
Refugees at Sea, Kathleen Newland of the Migration Policy Institute
notes, “While the obligation of seafarers to rescue people in peril is
clear in legal documents, what happens next is murkier.” The paper
states that Convention on

Search and Rescue mandates that a rescue is not complete until the
rescued person is delivered to a place of safety. That could be the
nearest suitable port, the next regular port of call, the ship’s home
port, a port in the rescued person’s own country, or one of many other
possibilities.

“When refugees or asylum seekers are among those rescued at sea,
however, the list of options is narrowed. A refugee must not, under
international law, be forcibly returned to a country where his or her
life or freedom would be endangered - or, by extension, to a country
where he or she would not be protected against such return.”

According to Ms Newland, allowing a refugee or asylum seeker who has
been rescued at sea to disembark on one’s territory triggers a specific
set of obligations on the part of the authorities of the receiving state.

Refugees and asylum seekers are protected by the 1951 Refugee
Convention, and they cannot simply send the refugees home, as they would
be able to do with other travelers. “As a result, many states are
reluctant to accept refugees, and they are under no positive obligation
to open their doors.”

The paper concludes, “The intersection of maritime law and refugee law
thus leaves ship owners, masters, and crews in a quandary. They must
pick up refugees and asylum seekers whose lives are in danger, but no
state is required to take them in.”

The governments of the United States, the Cayman Islands and Jamaica
have all signed agreements with the Government of the Republic of Cuba
concerning the repatriation of Cuban migrants. However, the Refugee
Convention takes precedence if the migrants seek political asylum.

nicky@caymannetnews.com

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