Guantanamo ex-prisoners get jobs on golf course
Article Link: Wed Aug 5, 2009 4:32pm EDT

 HAMILTON (Reuters) - Four Guantanamo prisoners who were released to Bermuda in June have been given jobs tending a public golf course on the tiny Atlantic island.

The four members of China's Muslim Uighur minority began working last week to help prepare the lush, seaside Port Royal course to host the PGA Grand Slam of Golf in October.

Former Guantanamo detainees Ablakim Turahun, left, and Abdulla Abdulqadir pose for a picture at their new jobs as landscapers for the Port Royal Golf Course, in Southampton, Bermuda, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2009. The two men, who are among four Chinese ethnic Uighurs who were released two months ago after nearly seven years in Guantanamo, were hired on a temporary basis to clean fairways for the upcoming PGA Grand Slam of Golf. (AP Photo/Mark Tatem, The Royal Gazette)

The hiring raised eyebrows in the British territory, where employers can only take on foreigners if no qualified local wants the job. Wendall Brown, chairman of the board of trustees for Bermuda's public golf courses, said the men replaced a group of Filipino workers who left at short notice.

"They have been offered a temporary position at Port Royal until the Grand Slam," he said. "There are still special projects that we need to do like cleaning up and beautifying the course … All four of them have been given a job there. It's on a temporary basis. Two of them speak fairly good English."

Brown said the men were likely to still be working there during the two-day Grand Slam tournament, when golf's greatest champions of the year will be pitted against one another on the 18-hole course.

Port Royal head superintendent Steve Johnson said the Uighurs were doing well in their ground staff roles.

Their lawyer in Bermuda identified them as Khalil Mamut, Abilikim Turahun, Abdullah Abdulqadir and Salahidin Abdulahat, and said they had been known by a series of nicknames during the seven years they were held at the detention camp for suspected terrorists on the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Their imprisonment continued long after the U.S. military and courts determined that they posed no threat. The United States said it could not send them to China because they faced persecution there, but U.S. politicians blocked plans to settle them in the United States.

The four landed on the 21-square-mile island on June 11 after Bermuda's premier, Ewart Brown, negotiated their resettlement directly with the United States. The move enraged the United Kingdom, which insisted the Bermuda government did not have the power to handle such foreign affairs and security matters.

Britain and the United States are still in talks about the men's future.

Expatriates make up a third of the work force in Bermuda, which has a population of 65,000 and requires permits to work. Brown said the golf course worked with immigration officials to get the men permission to work.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Cynthia Osterman)

 Bermuda diki Uyghur Resimler

From left to right: Helil Mamut (Abdul Nasser), Ablikim Turahun (Huzaifa Parhat), Salahidin Abdulahat (Abdul Semet), and Abdulla Abduqadir (Jalal Jalalidin). (Photo courtesy of Rushan Abbas)

Source: UAA

 

 

Out of Guantánamo, Uighurs Bask in Bermuda

The New York Times
June 15, 2009
By ERIK ECKHOLM

ST. 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 had 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 after a 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.

The men were among a larger group of Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) who had fled what they called Chinese persecution of Muslims in western China and spent part of 2001 in a Uighur camp in Afghanistan. They fled, apparently unarmed, when the Americans bombed the camp, and were later turned in to the authorities by Pakistani villagers in return for an American bounty.

The four brought here, like 13 other Uighurs still at Guantánamo but expected to depart soon to other destinations, had been cleared by American officials and courts of taking up arms against the United States or ties to global terrorism.

But proposals to resettle them in the United States caused a political furor that 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 wanted 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.”

While two of the men speak some English, all spoke in Uighur, aided by a Uighur woman who has translated at Guantánamo for them and for their lawyers.

Their resettlement on this British colony, known for yachting and pastel buildings, is a small step toward the administration’s aim of closing down Guantánamo by January. It has created a political tempest for the premier of Bermuda, who some say acted in an autocratic manner, and angered Britain’s Foreign Office, which is in charge of foreign policy and says it was not properly consulted.

But most objections voiced here concerned the secrecy of the deal rather than fears of having former terrorist suspects at large, as some have expressed in the United States. No quid pro quo has become public.

While some less affluent residents said they felt it was unfair to offer jobs and citizenship to men the United States itself would not take, many others shrugged and expressed pride at Bermudan hospitality. As the men venture from the seaside cottage where they temporarily live until they get jobs and figure out next steps, people often come up to shake their hands and wish them well, and the men said they were deeply touched.

Their homeland of Xinjiang, a largely Muslim region in western China where many residents chafe under Chinese rule, is landlocked, and many of the Uighur detainees saw an ocean — still a distant, mysterious presence — for the first time ever through fences at Guantánamo.

Now they can play in the waters. Khaleel Mamut, 31, said he went fishing on a boat on Saturday and caught his first fish ever. “I was so excited,” he said. “You just drop the hook in the water and you get a fish.” Hearing that fishing did not always bring such quick results, one of the other men quipped that perhaps the fish were joining in Bermuda’s welcome.

They have been promised work visas and, in perhaps a year or so, possible citizenship, their American lawyers said. That would give them passports and a right to travel.

“The intent is that they shall become Bermudians,” said Maj. Gen. Glenn W. Brangman, a retired officer appointed by the government to help the new arrivals and who greets them with hearty bear hugs.

Under the current arrangement, Bermuda will not allow the men to visit the United States. It is unclear whether they will ever be able to do so even if they gain Bermuda citizenship.

The four said they wanted nothing to do with their ostensible home country of China, which has demanded their repatriation and would almost certainly imprison them.

During interrogations at Guantánamo, these four and other Uighurs said they had ended up in Afghanistan after fleeing Chinese persecution and had wanted to work for the “liberation” of the Uighur people — a position regarded as treason in China.

Many said they had been shown how to fire a Kalashnikov rifle at the Uighur encampment, but had no real training, knew nothing of Al Qaeda, and did not fight the Americans or consider them the enemy.

These four were among a larger group that hid in mountain caves near Jalalabad after their camp was bombed by American forces in late 2001. Hungry, frightened and unarmed, they made their way to Pakistan, where villagers turned them in to the authorities in exchange for American reward money.

Years into their captivity, American officials concluded that the men should not be considered enemy combatants. Last October, a court ordered their release, but it was delayed by the inability to find a host country and a court reversal that prevented their move to American soil.

In 2007, five Uighurs were sent to Albania. Negotiations are under way to send all or most of the remaining 13 to the Pacific island of Palau.

Bermudans awoke Thursday to learn that the four had been flown in before dawn, with Premier Ewart F. Brown, who had negotiated in secret with the Americans, calling this “the right thing to do.” Opponents, who already regarded Mr. Brown as autocratic, called for a vote of no confidence, which could occur in weeks.

At the same time, the British governor here expressed his displeasure at being kept in the dark, and the British Foreign Office complained to Washington.

Mr. Brown’s fate may be uncertain, but when confronted with the four men in the flesh, many residents seem to warm to them.

Washington has walked a thin line in the handling of the Uighurs. It sought China’s support in antiterrorism efforts after the Sept. 11 attacks, branded an obscure Uighur independence group as terrorist and in 2002 allowed Chinese officials into Guantánamo to interrogate Uighur captives. The four men released here said that interrogation was a low point of their Guantánamo incarceration, with Chinese officials questioning them for long hours without food and threatening them and their families.

From the men’s own statements, it is clear that their presence in Afghanistan was linked to their animosity toward China. Whatever they might have wished in 2001, there is no evidence they sought to become part of a global jihad.

Now, over Chinese objections, the men are being released to third countries.

All that seems distant, the men said Sunday as they pondered, with some pleasure, the unexpected new turn in their lives.

Guantánamo Uighurs hope to open restaurant in millionaires’ paradise

Article Link
From The TimesJune 15, 2009

For seven long years in Guantánamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, the four Central Asian friends gazed longingly at the azure sea from their cells. They were never allowed through the razor wire to paddle in the water.

Now, suddenly set free in Bermuda, the former terror suspects can watch the ocean at leisure from the pastel-pink clifftop holiday cottage where they are staying at US taxpayers’ expense.

They have already taken a sunset swim and caught a fish at their first attempt at fishing. They have also reverted to their real names after using pseudonyms since leaving China.

The four fled to Afghanistan to escape political oppression in the poverty-stricken Xinjiang province of western China and then escaped from US bombing to the tribal regions of Pakistan, before being taken to Guantánamo. Now they are at leisure to marvel at the natural splendour of Britain’s oldest colony.

“This is the first time I have seen such a beautiful place,” Abdullah Abdulqadir, 30, said. “Our feelings are incredible. We did not think we were going to be this happy.”

The four former Guantánamo inmates — members of China’s Muslim Turkic-speaking Uighur minority — are dreaming of opening the first Uighur restaurant, serving noodles and lamb in the millionaires’ playground. “Uighur food is delicious. These kind and generous people of Bermuda, we want to do something for them. Of course, we want to have a Uighur restaurant,” Mr Abdulqadir said.

Before setting up their own business, however, they will have to learn to fend for themselves. They got their watches back when they left Guantánamo and kept their copy of the Koran, but are penniless. Their Uighur translator is leaving tomorrow and they will have to rely on their Bermudan government minder.

In several weeks the four will enter a government foreign worker programme to save up some money. Bermudian officials say they have already received five job offers for the men. The 800-strong Muslim community on the 70,000-population island has pledged to welcome them.

Britain is still conducting a “security assessment” of the men — Mr Abdulqadir, 30; Khalil Mamut, 31; Salahidin Abdulahat, 32, and Ablikim Turahan, 38 — before deciding whether to challenge the Bermudan Government’s decision to admit them.

The Uighurs insist they are not part of any terrorist group, have never met Osama bin Laden, and had never heard of al-Qaeda until they got to Guantánamo.

“I’m not terrorist,” Mr Mamut said in broken English learnt from his US guards. “I’ve not been a terrorist. I’ll never be terrorist. I want to live peacefully.”

Before their release, they staged the first public protest at Guantánamo by holding up a scrawled sign for visiting reporters to complain about their detention. They deny reports that they smashed a TV set in the prison because it was showing women with bare arms, and say they have “no problem with women and how they dress”.

“There’s absolutely no grudges or hard feelings towards the US,” Mr Abdulqadir said. “There are some people accusing us or labelling us that we are dangerous people or we have ill feelings to the US. That is all false.”

The four said that they fled persecution by China’s “communist dictatorship” several months before the September 11 attacks and went to live in a small village of Uighurs near the Afghan city of Jalalabad, which the United States deemed a terrorist training camp. They deny being part of the anti-Chinese East Turkestan Independence Movement.

“The place that we stayed was not any kind of camp. We had no military training at all,” Mr Abdulqadir said. “The place we stayed had abandoned buildings. We tried to fix them up. Afghanistan is a place where everyone has guns. The place we had did not even have that many weapons — maybe one. If you were curious, you take a look at it, take it apart. You call this military training?” When US-led forces invaded Afghanistan, a group of 22 Uighurs fled into the mountains of Tora Bora and then across the border into Pakistan, where tribesmen turned them over to US forces in return for a bounty, their lawyers say.

The Uighurs say the Americans soon realised that they had been taken to Guantánamo by mistake, but could not find a country willing to accept them because of pressure from China. The US designated them “former enemy combatants” — a term a US judge called “Kafkaesque”. The Uighurs spent almost a year in solitary confinement before being placed in the least restrictive section of the prison, known as Camp Iguana.

One of their worst periods came when Washington allowed Chinese agents to interrogate them in the autumn of 2002 in a move that they interpret as an attempt to win China’s support for the invasion of Iraq.

The Chinese questioned them for three six-hour spells, with less than 30 minutes between each, making threats to their families. Mr Turahan said that he was manhandled by US guards, who grabbed his head and pulled his beard when he resisted having his photograph taken by the Chinese.

Five of the 22 Uighurs in Guantánamo were sent to Albania in 2006, and talks are under way to send the rest to the Pacific island of Palau. In court, it has emerged that the US approached more than 100 nations to take them before Bermuda agreed to offer the four a home.

The men, who have spoken to their families in China, are confident that Bermuda will offer them a permanent home. “When we came here, they told us this country had a very strong affiliation with the United Kingdom, and the United Kingdom is a very strong country that can stand up to China,” Mr Abdulahat said. “We trust that.”

Home and away

Bermuda

•Bermuda has 19 bars and clubs, including an Irish pub and several cocktail lounges. There are 0.39 golf courses per square mile

•Bermuda’s 70 beaches are characterised by their pink sand

•It has an average summer temperature of 27C (81F) and is outside the hurricane track

•There are 6,500 hotel rooms in Bermuda

•A former US navy base at Morgan’s Point is being developed into a resort

•Shoppers can choose from nearly 50 goods stores, including a Marks & Spencer

Xinjiang

•Visitors who are passing through Xinjiang can enjoy campfire songs in a traditional mud hut called a Yurt

•Tourist sights in Xinjiang include the Grottos of the Three Immortals, the Id Kah Mosque and the Tomb of Abakh Hoja

•In summer Xinjiang is visited by frequent sandstorms and clouds obscuring the landscape

Sources: Frommers; Rough Guide; BBC

‘We’d never heard of al Qaeda’

By Jonathan Kent
Published: June 13. 2009 06:35AM

Freedon:Abdulla Abdulqadir, Salahidin Abdulahad, Khalil Manut, and Ablikim Turahun spent more than seven years in the United States’ prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The four Chinese Muslims released from Guantánamo Bay to come to Bermuda say they had never even heard of al Qaeda until they arrived at the US prison camp where they have been confined for the past seven years.

And in an interview with The Royal Gazette, the ethnic Uighurs said they had never seen pictures of what happened on September 11, 2001, but they did not approve of the terrorist attacks that killed about 3,000 people in the US.

The four men — Abdulla Abdulqadir, Salahidin Abdulahad, Ablikim Turahun and Khalil Mamut — spoke last night of their excitement at being free in Bermuda and that their experience since arriving at 3 a.m. on Thursday morning had been of “a small country of people with big hearts”.

Bleary-eyed, weary but elated with the excitement of their liberation, the men denied ever having been terrorists and spoke of long stretches of solitary confinement in the spartan cells of Guantánamo.

Salahidin Abdulahad and Ablikim Turahun. Their worst moments in the camp in the US-owned enclave of Cuba, they said, had come when the Americans allowed a visit by Chinese military officials to interrogate them for two weeks. The Uighurs say they were persecuted in their homeland by the Chinese authorities and fled over the border into Afghanistan to escape. They denied ever having gone to a terrorist training camp there.

“That is a totally false accusation,” said Mr. Abdulahad, speaking through an interpreter. “We were just fleeing Chinese suppression when we went to Afghanistan.

“We did not go to a military or terrorist training camp. We were in a little village and stayed in some abandoned buildings there. If you saw it you would know it’s ridiculous to call this place a military training camp.”

The Uighurs had their own country until it was seized by China in 1949, the men said, and they have been an oppressed minority for decades.

One example of this oppression was that a mother who had two children and who was pregnant would be subject to a forced abortion at the hands of the authorities. Abortion is against their religion. “We wanted to go to a peaceful country in Europe, but because of the difficulties with visas and passports, we had to do the next best thing, which was to cross the border into Afghanistan, which was much easier to do,” Mr. Abdulahad said.

When the American bombing of Afghanistan started after 9/11, they fled into Pakistan and say they were tricked by Pakistani tribesman, who handed them over to the US military for cash. They vigorously denied that they had ever had any association with the terrorist group behind the 9/11 attacks, al Qaeda.

“We had not seen anything of the 9/11 attacks, but from what we have heard, it was a terrible tragedy that happened to the American people,” Mr. Abdulahad said.

“We are very sympathetic with the families of those who lost their lives.

“We’d never heard of al Qaeda until we came to Guantánamo and heard about them from our interrogators. “From what we have heard about them, they are an extremely radical group, with totally different ideals from ours. We are a peace-loving people.”

The men said for a year of their imprisonment they were held in solitary confinement for 22 hours a day in a cramped cell with no natural light, and were allowed outside for a couple of hours a day in a three-metre by five-metre “recreation area”.

They believed the Americans soon realised they were not terrorists and the men said they were not tortured at the hands of the US guards. In 2002, things got worse for a short period, when Chinese officials were allowed into the camp to question them. The men’s lawyer, Sabin Willett, of Bingham McCutchen in Boston, believes the Americans allowed the Chinese in to try to secure the support of China, a fellow member of the UN Security Council, for the US invasion of Iraq, which took place in 2003.

Mr. Abdulahad recalled: “The Chinese delegation treated us very badly.

“They brought me out and interrogated me for six hours straight with no food or rest.

“They took me back to my cell and I was extremely tired. But then they came straight back to my cell and took me out for another six hours of interrogation. It went on that way for one-and-a-half days.”

Mr. Turahun added: “When the Chinese came they wanted to take my picture, but I didn’t want them to, because I was afraid they would harm my family.

“But one of the American guards grabbed my beard and the other held my hands behind my back so they could take the picture.”

The men did not want to talk about their families.

The men were detained long after the US military had cleared them for release and won a legal challenge before the US courts last year.

After that, they were moved to a less restrictive existence at Camp Iguana, a separate camp in the Guantánamo complex.

The men are delighted to be in Bermuda and grateful to the Government for taking them when many larger countries refused.

“Bermuda had the courage to step up and do this, “Mr. Abdulahad said. “It’s a small place but the people have extremely big hearts.

“We want to live a peaceful and beautiful life here and we are ready to work hard.

“People know we have been in Guantánamo and they have a picture of us which is very different from who we are. When people get to know us they will know what kind of people we are. We are peace-loving people.”

Mr. Willett told a story about how the men had gone into a local store to buy clothes.

The radio was on inside and voices on a talk show were complaining about “terrorists” not being welcome in Bermuda.

The storekeeper looked at the men and quickly realised who they must be and said: “Well, I welcome you here.”

After 7 years at Gitmo, resettled Uyghurs grateful for freedom

June 12, 2009 — Updated 0232 GMT (1032 HKT)

HAMILTON, Bermuda (CNN) — Two of four Uyghurs relocated to Bermuda after seven years of detention in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, denied Friday that they had ever been terrorists, and expressed gratitude toward President Obama for working to free them.

Asked what he would say to someone who accused him of being a terrorist, one of the men, Kheleel Mamut, told CNN’s Don Lemon, “I am no terrorist; I have not been terrorist. I will never be terrorist. I am a peaceful person.”

Speaking through an interpreter who is herself a Uyghur who said she was sympathetic toward the men, the other man — Salahidin Abdalahut — described the past seven years as “difficult times for me … I feel bad that it took so long for me to be free.”

The two Chinese Muslims were among four relocated from Guantanamo to Bermuda; another 13 remain in detention on the island.

He said he had traveled to Afghanistan not to attend any terrorist training camps, but because — as a Uyghur — he had been oppressed by the Chinese government. “We had to leave the country to look for a better life, a peaceful life, and Afghanistan is a neighboring country to our country and it’s easy to go,” he said. “It is difficult to obtain a visa to go to any other places, so it was really easy for us to just travel to Afghanistan.”

Asked what he hoped to do next, he said, “I want to forget about the past and move on to a peaceful life in the future.”

In addition to the four relocated from Guantanamo to Bermuda, another 13 Uyghurs remain in detention on the island.

The four were flown by private plane Wednesday night from Cuba to Bermuda, and were accompanied by U.S. and Bermudian representatives as well as their attorneys, according to Susan Baker Manning, part of the men’s legal team.

The men, who are staying in an apartment, are free to roam about the island.

Mamut accused the Bush administration of having held them without cause, and lauded Obama for having “tried really hard to bring justice and he has been trying very hard to find other countries to resettle us and finally he freed us.”

He appealed to Obama to carry out his promise to shut Guantanamo Bay within a year. “I would like President Obama to honor that word and to free my 13 brothers who were left behind and all of the rest of the people who deserve to be free,” Mamut said.

Asked how he had been treated in Guantanamo Bay, Mamut said, “It is a jail, so there will be difficulties in the jail that we have faced and now, since I am a free man today, I would like to forget about all that. I really don’t want to think about those days.”

He cited a proverb from his homeland that means, “What is done cannot be undone.”

Asked if he had anything to say to anyone watching, he said, “Thank you very much for those people who helped me to gain freedom.”

He said he had spoken earlier in the day with his family. “They told me, “My boy, my son, congratulations on your freedom.’ ”

The move has had international repercussions, including causing a rift between the United States and Britain.

A British official familiar with the agreement but not authorized to speak publicly on the matter told CNN the United States had informed London of the agreement “shortly before the deal was concluded.”

A U.S. official, speaking on background, said the British feel blindsided.

Bermuda is a British “overseas territory.”

The four were twice cleared for release — once by the Bush administration and again this year, according to a Justice Department statement.

The issue of where they go is controversial because of China’s opposition to the Uyghurs being sent to any country but China.

Uyghurs are a Muslim minority from the Xinjiang province of far west China. The 17 Uyghurs had left China and made their way to Afghanistan, where they settled in a camp with other Uyghurs opposed to the Chinese government, the Justice Department said in its statement.

They left Afghanistan after U.S. bombings began in the area in October 2001, and were apprehended in Pakistan, the statement said.

“According to available information, these individuals did not travel to Afghanistan with the intent to take any hostile action against the United States,” the statement said.

However, China alleges that the men are part of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement — a group the U.S. State Department considers a terrorist organization — that operates in the Xinjiang region. East Turkestan is another name for Xinjiang.

China on Thursday urged the United States to hand over all 17 of the Uyghurs instead of sending them elsewhere.

The United States will not send Uyghur detainees cleared for release back to China out of concern that they would be tortured by Chinese authorities. China has said no returned Uyghurs would be tortured.

A senior U.S. administration official told CNN that the State Department is working on a final agreement with Palau to settle the 13 remaining Uyghur detainees.

[RESIMLIK] Bermuda diki Uyghurlar

Fury in China and U.K. as BDA goes out on a limb to accept Guantanamo detainees
Bermuda has been thrust into an international political firestorm by allowing four former prisoners of Guantanamo Bay to take refuge on the island. The move is likely to garner favour with President Obama, who has been desperate to find homes for former inmates after promising to close Guantanamo by January.
However, the Chinese government is furious, and says the U.S. should extradite what it calls “suspected terrorists” to China. The British Government, and Governor Sir Richard Gozney, are also less than impressed, and say Bermuda should have consulted with them before giving the four men a home.

Welcome to paradise: The four Chinese Muslims spent years in harsh captivity - and years more in political limbo - before Bermuda offered them a home. The men understandably say they are delighted to be here.

“We were not involved in the negotiations, and we should have been. The Government of Bermuda should have consulted Government House at every stage and through me the British government. They didn’t do that. This is an issue that goes far wider than these four individuals. We now need to assess these four individuals.” He said London has launched urgent talks with Washington yesterday.
The Justice Department in the States insists it has done full checks on the men’s background and character and is convinced they have never been involved in terrorism. Three years ago, the four prisoners were among those cleared by an American court of fighting U.S. troops. Since then, over 100 countries have refused to give them asylum, partly through fear of angering China.
However, Sir Richard said the assessments on the men needed to be done by Britain before they were allowed into Bermuda: “These men are on British territory. Our view is that [the assessments] need to be done by Bermuda and Britain and we can’t rely on a third party assessment. If we are taking four people from Guantanamo, clearly there is a security issue there, and we need to know we have done our homework.” Sir Richard said only yesterday was Government House given the paperwork for the four men. He said: “Now we have started to do that homework, and we can do it quickly. But it should have been done before now. It would have been had we been involved from the start.”
The four men - named as Abdul Nasser, Huzaifa Parhat, Abdul Semet and Jalal Jalaladin - are members of the Uighur Muslim ethnic sect. The Chinese claim they were part of an army fighting for independence in the northwest of the country.
Sir Richard said the men are not just refugees, they are political refugees and a special case both because of their country of origin and where they were held in prison. He said the political ramifications are huge, as evidenced by the fact that no other countries have previously come forward to house them. “That’s why they have been trapped in Guantanamo,” said Sir Richard.
‘An immigration issue’
Premier Ewart Brown said last night that it was not Britain’s place to get involved at all. He said the Bermuda Government is viewing it as an immigration issue - which falls to the Government - as opposed to a foreign affairs and security issue - which falls to the Governor. He also denied that Bermudians should have been kept informed of the plan so that they could challenge it if they felt uncomfortable. He said the plan would have ground to a halt if the public had been involved. He said: “You can see why the talks have to be private and somewhat restricted…Otherwise it wouldn’t have been able to happen.”
He also addressed a concern shared by many Bermudians: why is the island offering housing and jobs to these men when there are so many on the island who are going without. Dr. Brown said: “We have our problems. We have our problems with or without these people, and we will continue to have our challenges without these four people.” He said with 10,000 guest workers here, “four people isn’t even a ripple in the water.”
Bermudians are also asking: why can’t the men be sent home? Experts point out that China has one of the worst human rights records in the world. The men would almost certainly be tortured and killed if they were sent home.
Dr. Brown said that meant Bermuda has a moral responsibility to give the men a home. The U.S. Government yesterday thanked the island for stepping in. Attorney General Eric Holder of the Justice Department said: “By helping accomplish the president’s objective of closing Guantanamo, the transfer of these detainees will make America safer.” He added that the department was “extremely grateful to the government of Bermuda for its assistance.”
However, the Chinese Government has condemned the move. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said: “The 17 Uigurs are members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which is on the United Nations list of terrorist groups and China holds the unswerving stand that the U.S. should stop handing over the terrorists to any third country, so as to expatriate them to China at an early date.”

At a glance — the key questions
Will the men be under any restrictions in Bermuda?

No. They will be free members of society, helped to gain employment and found housing.

Government claim the men have “skills in the mechanical trade” and at least two speak good English.

The men will get the chance to “become naturalized Bermudians”. The only restriction on them will be travel - they must get clearance from foreign authorities before traveling to the U.S. or U.K.

Why were the men sent to Guantanamo in the first place?

They were living in a self-contained camp in Afghanistan when the U.S. invasion began in October 2001.

American troops rounded up anyone they thought was an enemy combatant. The prisoners claimed they had fled to Afghanistan to avoid persecution as Muslims in their own country.

After more than four years in Guantanamo Bay, an American court found they were not enemy combatants and cleared of all wrongdoing.

Why can’t the men be sent back to China?

The Chinese believe they were part of a Muslim guerilla army fighting for independence in the northwest of the country. This has not been proved.

China has an appalling human rights record and the men would be unlikely to receive a fair trial. Instead, they would likely be tortured and executed.

Why aren’t these men given a home in the States, since it was America who locked them up?

An original plan to take the men to Virginia met with fierce opposition from Congress.

At one point, the Justice Department argued they should never be admitted into the country because they “sought to wage terror” in China.

A district judge ruled the men should be freed in the States, only to be overruled by an appeals court, which said the judge had assumed too much power. That final ruling left the men in legal limbo.

Why have so many other countries declined to take the men?

It may have been simply that there are few political points to be won giving a home to former suspected terrorists.

Just as importantly, countries have been wary of making enemies of China.

“Bermuda just stepped up and did it, God bless them,” said P. Sabin Willett, a lawyer for the four men. “They have put the bigger countries to shame.”

What does Bermuda get out of the deal?

According to reports, Palau, a Pacific island that is taking 13 more former prisoners, was being offered hundreds of millions of dollars in aid money as a sweetener.

It does not appear that Bermuda will benefit from any such payment. Instead, the U.S. has agreed only to pay for all costs related to the relocation and resettlement of the men.

The most important boon to Bermuda may be the goodwill generated with President Obama, at a time when governments around the world are looking to clamp down on low-tax jurisdictions.

Research by Tim Hall

Source Link