After UN offers former Guantanamo prisoners housing, they mull taking jobs at meat locker
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The six former Guantanamo prisoners living in Uruguay, unemployed since they were released as refugees four months ago, are considering a job offer at a meat warehouse not far from Montevideo, the capital.
A company located in the department of Canelones is giving the men the chance to work processing tons of beef that are produced in this livestock-rich country, according el local newspaper El País, even offering them a place of worship at the site.
The paper said the offer is being seriously considered by the former prisoners, four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian, all of whom were said to be low-level al-Qaida fighters.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The ex-prisoners have turned down multiple jobs offered to them, which is breeding discontent among Uruguayan authorities and organizations that backed their asylum request – including former President Jose Mujica, who orchestrated the transfer.
Uruguay welcomed them for resettlement as a humanitarian gesture, but relations have turned increasingly testy.
Back in February, one of the former prisoners, Syrian refugee Abu Wa'el Dhiab, raised a stir by complaining in a TV interview that the men "walked out of a prison to enter another one." He also made a brief trip to neighboring Argentina saying he planned to ask that it give asylum to Guantanamo prisoners.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In the interview, Dhiab expressed thanks to Uruguayans for taking the men in, but said there should be 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."
Mujica, who spearheaded the plan to bring the men to this South American nation, shot back by questioning the men's willingness to work.
The prisoners have been living on $600 month they receive from a non-governmental organization. At the Summit of the Americas, the UN agency for refugees (UNHCR) said it would give each of the prisoners a home.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"UNHCR has the necessary resources to meet the needs of the prisoners and soon each will have a home," Vazquez said while in Panama, after a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama.