MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) – Controversy is flaring over the six Guantanamo detainees taken in by Uruguay for resettlement, with even the man who pushed through the plan, President Jose Mujica, seeming to criticize them for lacking a work ethic.
The men were locked up for more than a dozen years at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba before they were brought to Montevideo in December. Mujica agreed to accept them as a humanitarian gesture and said they would be given help getting established in a country of 3.3 million people with a total Muslim population of perhaps 300.
The government has offered them a residential facility to study Spanish, learn about Uruguayan culture and integrate to their new home.
But Syrian refugee Abu Wa’el Dhiab recently complained that the men have “walked out of a prison to enter another one.”
In a TV interview, Dhiab expressed thanks to Uruguay, but said it needs a plan for helping the ex-detainees, who need “their families, a home, a job and some sort of income that allows them to build a future.”