President of Palau Talks About the Uighur Men

In this interview, Johnson Toribiong, the President of the nation of Palau, talks about the process of receiving - and future path of - the formerly detained Uighur men as they arrive in Palau.

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Uighur Detainees Willing to Move to Palau, Relocation Deal Close
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
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The Uighur detainees met with U.S. State Department officials on Monday and informed the diplomats they are now willing to move to Palau, said George Clarke, a lawyer acting for two of the inmates who took part in the talks.

KOROR, Palau - Some Chinese Muslims still detained at Guantanamo Bay have overcome reservations about being sent to the remote Pacific nation of Palau, and a final deal on their relocation was close, a lawyer for two of them said Wednesday.

The Uighur detainees met with U.S. State Department officials on Monday and informed the diplomats they are now willing to move to Palau, said George Clarke, a lawyer acting for two of the inmates who took part in the talks.

Clarke told The Associated Press by telephone that “more than four and less than all” of the 13 Uighurs had agreed to go to the island nation.

Palau in June offered to take the 13 detainees from the Muslim Uighur minority as part of President Barack Obama’s plans to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility for terrorist suspects and other prisoners captured during the Afghan war.

But the island state’s President Johnson Toribiong told AP in June that some of the men were hesitant about accepting because they feared the island state could not shield them from China.

The 13 Uighurs, Turkic Muslims from the far west of China, have been held by the United States since their capture in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001. The Pentagon determined last year that they were not “enemy combatants,” but they have been in legal limbo ever since.

China considers them separatists and has demanded they be sent home for trial. U.S. officials have said the men could be executed if they are returned to China and have refused to send them there.

Mark Bezner, the top American official in Palau, confirmed the State Department was putting together a document spelling out the terms of the Uighurs’ stay in Palau.

“I expect to have it soon,” he said. “We’ll be discussing it with the Palauans and then it can be relayed to the Uighurs’ attorneys.”

Five Uighurs 'don't want' resettlement in Palau

KOROR (AFP) — Five of 13 Guantanamo Bay detainees set for resettlement in the tiny Pacific nation of Palau do not want to go there, President Johnson Toribiong said on Monday.

Palau said earlier this month it had agreed to take the detainees, members of the Chinese Muslim Uighur ethnic group.

But Toribiong said only eight of 13 Uighur detainees destined for Palau had agreed to be interviewed by a delegation of Palau officials who visited the controversial US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay last week.

"A handful may not come," Toribiong told reporters.

He declined to discuss whether arrangements had been made for the transfer of the detainees, who were cleared of any wrongdoing by the US four years ago.

Palau politicians and traditional chiefs are due to be briefed on the delegation's visit to Guantanamo on Tuesday, with a press conference a day later.

Toribiong insisted the public feedback on the resettlement had been positive, despite some speaking out against his decision.

"Those who oppose it are misinformed," he added.

"Had I said no to President Obama, what do you think would have been the consequences?" Toribiong said, without giving details.

He reiterated the decision was not related to upcoming negotiations on future US aid to Palau, which Washington administered until independence in 1994.

The detainees were part of a group of 22 Uighurs living in a self-contained camp in Afghanistan when the US-led invasion of the country began in October 2001, in the wake of the September 11 attacks that year.

They said they had fled to Afghanistan to escape persecution in their vast home region of Xinjiang in western China.

The US declined to return them to China, fearing they could be tortured.

US President Barack Obama has promised to shut down Guantanamo by January, and Washington has been pushing for other countries to accept inmates with no charges against them.

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