Orwell in The Tropics: the nightmare of Cuban refugees continues in the Bahamas.

IT'S a wretched story, like so many out of Cuba, but it has a twist: the wretchedness of the government of the Bahamas. These islands are located in an awkward position, just northeast of Cuba, just southeast of Florida. When Cubans flee on rafts and other pathetic craft, they sometimes drift into Bahamian waters, and are picked up by that country's coast guard. From this point, a horrible drama begins (even beyond the drama of a perilous departure from Cuba): The rafters are kept in a detention camp, under savage conditions. And they face the nightmare threat of being repatriated to Cuba. The Bahamian government, despite being a democracy, and an ally of the United States, has a very cozy relationship with Castro. They fear him, work with him, submit to him. And this puts the lives of some remarkably brave people at risk.

Seven of those lives belong to members of a Cuban opposition party: the Frank Pais November 30th Democratic party. A little explanation: Pais was a revolutionary, a democratic fighter against the Batista dictatorship. On November 30, 1956, he led an uprising in Santiago de Cuba, later to be celebrated. Pais was gunned down the next summer. Today, the Frank Pais/November 30th party is banned, like all parties in Cuba except Castro's. And from it come some of the most admirable people you will ever encounter.

The seven now in the Bahamas were long persecuted in Cuba, for their peaceful activities: the placement of posters in parks, the holding of prayer vigils, and so on. In August 2004, their situation intensified, and the State Security was closing in. They went underground, hiding in various homes. And at 1 in the morning on August 31, they made a run for it, on a raft--in the face of a brewing hurricane. Ordinary readers might ask how people in their right minds could attempt to reach the United States from Cuba on a raft, while a hurricane develops. These readers will have no idea of the danger that besets oppositionists in Castro's Cuba.

On September 3, the seven were picked up by the Bahamian coast guard, and sent to a place notorious among Cubans, Haitians, Jamaicans, and others who might land on the Bahamas: the Carmichael Road Detention Centre. There were other Cuban dissidents in that camp as well, specifically eight from the Pro-Human Rights party, an affiliate of the Andrei Sakharov Foundation. Two are still there, the others having been sent back to Cuba, to meet their fates. The remaining two are Jesus Montes de Oca Martija, and his wife, Yanelis Acosta Gonzalez. Jesus is the brother of Rene Montes de Oca, interviewed in these pages four years ago. Rene recently finished his latest prison stint, and has resumed his political activities in Cuba. The Montes de Ocas are a gutsy, untiring family.

To read or hear about life at Carmichael Road is trying. As Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Miami congresswoman, says, "The Bahamian government treats [detainees] like dogs." That may be an understatement. Malnutrition, disease, rape, mock executions, beatings, random sadism--the litany is awful. Guards seem to have free rein to abuse refugees they somehow detest. To its credit, the Bahamian press has not been silent on the question. Last December, an article in the Tribune spoke of "recreational barbarism" and "a culture of brutality." It cited a "legal source," saying, "This detention facility has the potential to cause the Bahamas enormous international embarrassment.... Carmichael Road is a disgrace that cannot be defended by anyone of rational mind."

Yet few in the world know about this situation, which is merely one on a vast, bad globe. Cubans, however--in Miami and elsewhere--do. In December, citizens protested outside the Bahamian consulate in Miami. And Cuban Americans on a Carnival cruise ship refused to disembark in the Bahamas. They were going to Mexico, but the ship was diverted to Nassau, owing to a medical emergency. These passengers were loath to spend a dime in the country. Activists talk of a wider, explicit boycott.

On January 10, the seven from the November 30th party managed to smuggle out a letter from Her Majesty's Fox Hill Prison, to which they had been transferred. The letter was entitled "Our Truth." It told of gross mistreatment at Carmichael Road, and of a harrowing incident that had taken place a month before: A kind of riot broke out, involving a fire, and an orgy of violence by the guards. The November 30th group ended up in this maximum-security prison. They concluded their letter, "We are honest men, most of us are Christians, without a common criminal record [what they mean is, they have political ones], and all we want is to be able to work in liberty, strengthen our Christian faith, and not return to our homeland until Cuba is free ..."

Those familiar with this story confirm a depressing phenomenon: the Bahamians' deep hostility to the Cubans, and their extraordinary cooperation with the Cuban government. As Ros-Lehtinen puts it, with characteristic bluntness, "They're in cahoots with the Castro regime." How can this be so? Some trace the Bahamian posture to 1980, when the Mariel boatlift occurred. (This was the exodus of approximately 125,000 Cubans to the United States.) On May 10 of that year, some eight Cuban MiGs sank a Bahamian patrol boat in Bahamian waters. They strafed the survivors; four died. This was a tremendous act of intimidation, showing that Castro was lord of the region, capable of anything. Says one former State Department official, "After that, the Bahamians changed completely. The Bahamas is a little country--300,000 people--and Cuba is a comparative giant. The Caribbean countries are, by nature, not aggressive, not belligerent, and that kind of thing really scares them." The Bahamas wants no trouble whatsoever from the explosive government to its south.

The former official and others point out that the Bahamas is a transshipment point for tourism to Cuba. And Castro throws around a lot of money on the islands, which is not without influence. That money is both seen and unseen.

Well-wishers of the Cuban refugees and dissidents seek the transfer of those held in the Bahamas to third countries. Under its current policy, the United States does not accept such people. Latin American nations, such as El Salvador and Nicaragua, will. So the refugees have an avenue out of danger. But the Bahamian government is turning even meaner than it was. Says Ana Carbonell, chief of staff to another Miami congressman, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, "For every 20, we used to be able to save four or five [from repatriation], but lately it's gotten worse." Last year, Nicaraguan visas were obtained for a clutch of refugees--and the Bahamas still shipped them back to Castro. This could amount to a death sentence. Under international law, refugees with "a well-founded fear of persecution" are to be granted asylum. This certainly applies to members of banned parties. And bear in mind that, under Castro's law, the mere attempt to leave Cuba is a criminal offense. So it is with all totalitarian countries.

It seems obvious that the Bahamian government fears and respects Castro more than it does the United States. As Ros-Lehtinen says, "They depend so much on U.S. tourism, and the goodwill of the American people, but they're not working with us at all" on refugee matters. "It's sad, for an ally." It is especially sad in the age of George W. Bush. In President Clinton's time, as Ros-Lehtinen notes, the U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas was the husband of Rep. Maxine Waters, the Los Angeles Democrat. She is one of the staunchest supporters of Fidel Castro in the United States. Cubans did not receive much sympathy in those years. But now the American mindset should be different.

The Bahamian government is stiff-necked and defensive on the detainee issue. They investigate allegations of abuse, halfheartedly and unpersuasively, and they sniff about national honor. Anyone can understand the Bahamas' reluctance to become a magnet for rafters--but that should not excuse the brutalization of detainees, or the return of dissidents to their Communist tormentors. Ros-Lehtinen says that, when she talks to Bahamian officials, handing them lists of prisoners, "They just look at you with a blank stare." And it's not as though these fleeing Cubans are trying to land in the Bahamas: It's a matter of the ocean currents and their homemade craft. "They don't set out from Cuba saying, 'Hey, let's go to the Bahamas!' They can't exactly get their GPS [Global Positioning System] going, to make sure they reach the United States. They're on rafts! They drift!"

Most alarmingly, Ros-Lehtinen says that information about the refugees obtained by Bahamian interrogators is turned over to the Castro regime. The detainees' nightmare is just about total.

A network of Cuban-American officials and activists keeps an eye on these men and women, attempting to help them. The U.N. Refugee Agency has been utterly unresponsive. And the Red Cross? "It doesn't exist," says Ana Carbonell. Amnesty International, however, has made noise, somewhat spooking the Bahamian government. Helpers in Miami--angels such as Daisy Gil Ortiz, of the Information Bridge, and Pedro Fuentes-Cid, a lawyer who was a democratic revolutionary and was imprisoned by Castro for almost 16 years--have been in touch with a Bahamian pastor. He is an angel himself. He visits the prisoners, ministering to them. The Miamians asked if he could find, among his congregation, a lawyer who would work with the refugees. He tried--and no one was willing, for fear of angering the Bahamian government. That is the atmosphere on those sunny islands.

But the last week of June saw good news: Ecuadorian visas were secured for the November 30th group, and for Jesus Montes de Oca and his wife, Yanelis. Will the Bahamas now allow these nine to leave, for that willing third country?

It occurs to me that I have not named the seven from the November 30th party. To Castro, it is important that such people not have names, and that they be despised, and shown to be unwanted, everywhere. The concept of the "nonperson" is fundamental to any totalitarian regime. The names of the November 30th prisoners are Pedro Batista Mendez, Mario Paneca Rodriguez, Frank Garcia Llerena, Alejandro Llerena Romero, Axel Emilio Rondon Herrera, David Martinez Perez, and Jorge Luis Conde Morales. In his second inaugural address, President Bush said, "Democratic reformers facing repression, prison, or exile can know: America sees you for who you are: the future leaders of your free country." We'll see.