PalauST. GEORGE, Bermuda — Almost exactly seven years after arriving at Guantánamo in chains as accused enemy combatants, and four days after their surprise predawn flight to Bermuda, four Uighur Muslim men basked in their new-found freedom here, grateful for the handshakes many residents have offered and marveling at the serene beauty of this tidy, postcard island.
In newly purchased polo shirts and chinos, the four husky men, members of a restive ethnic minority from western China, might blend in except for their scruffy beards. Smelling hibiscus flowers, luxuriating in the freedom to drift through scenic streets and harbors, they expressed wonder at their good fortune in landing here aftera captivity that included more than a year in solitary confinement.
“I went swimming in the ocean for the first time ever yesterday and it was the happiest day of my life,” said Salahidin Abdulahat, 32.
Over a lunch of fish and chips on Sunday, they praised Bermuda for showing courage in the face of potential Chinese pressures that, in their view, powerful European countries had failed to muster. Read more at NYT
So, after 7 years of being locked up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time (they were captured unarmed by the Pakistanis for reward money and have been cleared of being terrorists), they're free. Congress was afraid to let the Uighurs (wee gers) settle in the U.S., so Bermuda stepped up. Suprisingly, the Uighurs are not bitter:
But proposals to resettle them in the United States caused a political furor the Obama administration did not want to aggravate. On Sunday these four expressed a surprising lack of bitterness toward the United States, saying — as they had during interrogations years ago in Guantánamo—that they had never been anti-American and just want to get on with their lives.
“Before we were asking, ‘Why are the Americans doing this to us?’” said Mr. Abdulahat. Now, he said, with others nodding in agreement, “we have ended up in such a beautiful place. We don’t want to look back and we don’t have any hard feelings toward the United States.”
The remaining Uighurs are being sent to
Palau, another beautiful island.
The tropical Pacific island nation of Palau said Wednesday that it had agreed to temporarily take in 17 Chinese Muslims held at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay.
Palau's government said it would accept the detainees, known as Uighurs, both as a humanitarian gesture and to help President Barack Obama fulfill his promise to close the controversial prison for foreign terrorism suspects on the U.S. Naval base in Cuba.
Many in Congress oppose transferring them to U.S. soil when the prison is closed. National Post
Palau
