Africa-Press – Cape verde. The United States of America suggests that the visa ban could be circumvented if countries, including Cape Verde, agree to take in deportees.
The news was published this weekend: Cape Verde is part of a list of countries that face the possibility of a visa ban by the US.
The Washington Post reported that a memo, signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, had already been sent on Saturday to diplomats working in the affected countries. The document noted that a country could be subject to a travel ban if its citizens were involved in terrorism or “anti-Semitic and anti-American activities in the United States.”
But the cable also noted that a country could help mitigate concerns if its government agreed to accept people of other nationalities whom the United States was trying to deport but had been unable to repatriate, or agreed to serve as a “safe third country,” welcoming migrants who had applied for asylum in the U.S.
The US gives affected countries 60 days to respond. At the same time, there is also a deadline – 8am on Wednesday – for these countries to provide an initial action plan.
The reasons
In the memo, US officials outline a series of objectives that the countries allegedly failed to meet.
For example, it is reported that some do not have a functional or cooperative central authority to issue reliable identity or civil documents. Others, the memo said, are affected by widespread government fraud. In several cases, the document also says, a large number of citizens from these countries remained in the US beyond the term of their visas.
Previous situations
This is not the first time that Cape Verde has received foreign deportees from another country.
In 2016, Cape Verde received Yemeni Shawqi Awad Balzuhair, transferred from Guantanamo prison in Cuba.
At the time, the US thanked the “Government of Cape Verde for its humanitarian gesture and its willingness to support US efforts to close the Guantanamo detention center.”
According to information released at the time by the English newspaper The Guardian, Balzuhair “has been detained in Guantanamo without charge since October 2002, after being captured with other suspected Al-Qaida militants in Karachi, Pakistan”.
The Guardian also mentioned that the detainee was not sent to Yemen due to the civil war in that country.
Back in 2010, the Government accepted, for humanitarian reasons, the United States’ request to receive a prisoner from that same military base.
“After due analysis and with certain guarantees, within the framework of our humanitarian policy, I confirm that Cape Verde will receive one of the Guantánamo prisoners,” said José Maria Neves, then Prime Minister, in statements to the newspaper A Semana.
Another similar situation occurred during the 1980s.
In January 1985, the Spanish newspaper El País reported a meeting between the Spanish Undersecretary of State for the Interior, Rafael Vera, and the President of the Republic, Aristides Pereira.
The meeting, El País reported, was related to the Spanish government’s urgent need to find new African countries willing to accept into their territory members of the Military ETA expelled from France.
According to the Spanish newspaper El Correo, in 2008 four of the 19 ETA members who had been sent to the country were still residing in Cape Verde.
Of these 19, five fled Cape Verde and went to Cuba; five others – those on weaker legal charges – returned to France in 1996. Two more returned to terrorist activity and died while serving in the Vizcaya command: the first in 1997 and the second in 2000. Three more died in Cape Verde.
The affected countries
In addition to Cape Verde, the following countries are on the list published as being subject to travel bans to the US: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Ethiopia, Egypt, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
For More News And Analysis About Cape verde Follow Africa-Press
