In a email to the Mayor's Office, our minister informed us that Uruguay has accepted 6 former prisoners from the US prison at Guantanamo Bay(Cuba). Negotiations had been lengthy and intense, but agreements were reached by the parties involved and the 6 were sent to the southern hemisphere.
The 6 were--four Syrians, a Palestinian and a Tunisian---are the first to be resettled in South America. The State Department issued a statement commending Uruguayan President Jose' Mujica's strong leadership role in the matter. They had been cleared to leave in 2009.
Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, had been slow to approve the transfer, giving the White House a source of tension with the Secretary. The former president of Uruguay, Tabare' Vasquez, recently won election to Mujica's coalition, giving him additional support for his policies.
Much of this activity has been overshadowed by the recent developments in Colombia where negotiations with the rebel group known as FARC, have resumed after a stall that resulted from a kidnapping of a high ranking Colombian military officer who was released after 2 weeks. Pundits claim the Cuban government has been advising FARC in negotiations and apparently have been successful in giving FARC rebels much of what they wanted in way of concessions from the central government in Bogota'.
When will we hear of these prisoners again? When they are captured on the Pakistani/ Afghanistan border in 4-6 months.
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