Guantanamo Uighurs' odyssey near end

Guantanamo Uighurs' odyssey near end

The long and unhappy odyssey of the Guantanamo Uighurs, from China’s Xinjiang Province to Cuba via Afghanistan, is apparently about to end in a remote  archipelago some call a Pacific island Paradise.

The government of Palau, a nation of 20,000 people about two and a half times the size of Washington DC, announced it will accept up to 17 Ethnic Uighur detainees following a request from the United States.

Palau is better known for its coral reefs and lake full of gently pulsating jellyfish than as a power player in international politics.

But the country’s president Johnson Toribiong said he was “honored and proud” to help the US out, and hoped the Uighurs will be able to restart their lives there. You can read the exchanges of diplomatic notes between Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and President Toribiong here (pdf).

The US has pledged 200 million dollars in long term development aid for Palau—but the state department denies the money is a payoff.

In Washington a Uighur community leader reacted happily. “As long as the Uighurs don’t get sent back to china I am delighted, ” said  Rabiya Kadeer, “Its good news. I am so glad this beautiful island decided to accept them.” But Uighur expatriate community member Omar Knat is disappointed the detainees will be sent to so remote a spot.

“There are no Uighurs on the island,” Knat said. “There is no one to help them. They will have language difficulties, so we don’t know how they will manage their daily life.”

The Muslim Uighurs are members of an ethnic minority from China’s far western region, where a  separatist movement has been active.  The men  were seized in Pakistan  in the months after the invasion of Afghanistan and handed over to the US military. US authorities were at that time offering cash bounties for any foreign nationals captured in the region, assuming they had links to Al Qaeda.

Once they had been taken to Guantanamo, the Uighurs were determined not to be a  threat to US security. A military tribunal declared they were not to be considered enemy combatants. But the US wouldn’t send them back to China, for fear the Chinese would execute them as separatists.

So the Uighurs languished, year after year, in a bizarre legal limbo- a miscarriage of justice even by the loose standards of the so called war on terror.

 In 2006, five Uighurs were accepted by Albania. Nuri Turkel, their former attorney, reports that they have adjusted well to live in the Balkan nation, with some getting college degrees and another attracting a series of Albanian girlfriends.  pursuing higher education and y are reported

Last October a federal judge ordered them to be released and resettled in the Washington region, but a higher court reversed the decision.

The Obama administration wants to shut Guantanamo down, and send detainees who do not face trial to other countries. So far

Most US allies have balked at taking large numbers. Palau’s move may help the administration convince other countries. The Uighurs, meanwhile, may want to take up snorkeling.