In The Blogs

Uighurs Headed to Different Island

| Tue Jun. 9, 2009 9:20 PM PDT

The Uighurs have apparently finally found a home:

The United States has won an agreement to transfer up to 17 Chinese Muslims from the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to Palau, a sparsely populated archipelago in the North Pacific, according to a statement released by Palau to The Associated Press on Wednesday.

....The agreement opens the door to the largest single transfer of Guantánamo prisoners and is the first major deal on detainees since President Obama pledged upon taking office in January to close the prison within a year.

It also gives Mr. Obama some relief on an issue that has become a political hot button among Congressional Republicans and even some Democrats, who have noisily protested against releasing what they call potentially dangerous extremists on American soil or transferring them to prisons in the United States.

According to Palau's UN representative, "Palau is paradise." Better than Cuba, anyway.

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Kevin Drum is a political blogger for Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here.

Comments

If you've been to the oasis

Submitted by cracked (not verified) on Tue Jun. 9, 2009 9:45 PM PDT.

If you've been to the oasis cities in the vast desert of Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang Province), homeland of the Uighurs, (and I have been there) the idea of these guys being released to oceanic Palau is absolutely bizarrely hilarious.

I wish them well and hope they will be safe there.

Yes, I Have Been

Submitted by bob h (not verified) on Wed Jun. 10, 2009 2:28 AM PDT.

to these places, too. The Uighurs were a peaceable, secular people who Bush had not yet radicalized when I visited.

Jim Webb must be relieved that these Uighurs will not be released into Arlington, VA, where they would have spread havoc and terror.

I'd bet they will find their way back to their homeland before long.

Glad it's a powerful

Submitted by B on Tue Jun. 9, 2009 10:06 PM PDT.

Glad it's a powerful independent country unlikely to bow to Chinese pressure to extradite.

UIGHURS NOW BOUND FOR PALAU - SHAME ON YOU AMERICA

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jun. 10, 2009 2:08 AM PDT.

I'll bet that the average Joe Blow American has the not slightest idea how stupid, gutless and shameful America looks from the outside. Shame on you for not living up to your obligations towards those you have imprisoned falsely and treated badly for years.

Let the Uighurs decide

Submitted by DanJoaquinOz on Wed Jun. 10, 2009 4:36 AM PDT.

The US government is apparently paying the government of Palau $250 million to take the 17 Uighurs. That's $14.7 million per Uighur. Seems like it would be fairer and easier to just give each Uighur the $14.7 million and let them choose their own nationality and residence among the countless nations that would eagerly welcome the arrival of some seriously cashed up new citizens.

Contrary to popular belief,

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jun. 10, 2009 5:38 AM PDT.

Contrary to popular belief, not all those found guilty in the 1993 bombing of the WTC were sentenced to “America’s most secure prisons,” as MSNBC’s Brian Williams stated in 2005.

In fact, at least one originally was sent to a medium-security prison in South Carolina (originally sold to area residents as low-security, as I recall) with nary a whimper from the Graham Cracker, et al.

You’d think somebody would notice we’ve been practicing up for years warehousing Americans, who must be the most “evil” people in the world, given the fact that we now have more incarcerated (2.3 million last year) than anywhere else.

"North Pacific"?

Submitted by Miracle Max (not verified) on Wed Jun. 10, 2009 6:11 AM PDT.

North of what? Tahiti?

North of New Guinea American

Submitted by MNPundit (not verified) on Wed Jun. 10, 2009 8:14 AM PDT.

North of New Guinea

American ignorance strikes again!

Isn't Palau a chain of

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jun. 10, 2009 6:23 AM PDT.

Isn't Palau a chain of islands that is threatened by global warming? I think it's expected to be under water within decades...

Isn't Palau a chain of

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed Jun. 10, 2009 6:24 AM PDT.

Isn't Palau a chain of islands that is threatened by global warming? I think it's expected to be under water within decades...

The fear of bringing

Submitted by felinecannonball on Wed Jun. 10, 2009 6:41 AM PDT.

The fear of bringing detainees to the US is related to

1) disingenuous politics
2) beliefs that US courts will be forced to release them on the streets because of insubstantial cases based on hearsay and torture-based confessions
3) beliefs that US court cases will keep torture apologists like Cheney in the news for a decade or two while the Republican party shrivels.
4) politicians watching too many horror movies about satan passing from person to person through touch.

I can't decide, but I'm leaning toward 1 and 4.

Submitted by

Submitted by Luther on Wed Jun. 10, 2009 8:58 AM PDT.

Submitted by felinecannonball on June 10, 2009 - 7:41am.

The fear of bringing detainees to the US is related to...

We're totally dependent on Chinese loans. US coddling Uiguers is like China coddling al-Qaida. Lots of hypocrisy from the US as usual.

Do we get our money back ...

Submitted by dcsusie on Wed Jun. 10, 2009 10:09 AM PDT.

if the Palau government can't hang on to them? Seriously, this is beyond sick. Rachel Maddow had it right last night - we need to 'man up' and deal with the mess we have created. The Uighurs didn't do anything to deserve to be in Guantanamo in the first place, and they haven't done anthing to deserve to be exiled to Palau. There is an established community in Fairfax county which would have been glad to take them in and could certainly have helped them get re-established and have something like a normal life at a cost far below $15 million per head. BTW, is there going to be any accountability for the money we are giving to Palau, or is it just going into some tropical potentates' pockets?

Uighur Resettlement in Palau

Submitted by ejay (not verified) on Wed Jun. 10, 2009 11:15 AM PDT.

Do we know anything about these individuals? Ages, occupations, education level, etc. Are any of them married? Do they have children? Can families be reunited? How will they support themselves in Palau?

Some people look at Uighur and see terrorist. I see a wife and children wondering for years if they will ever see their husband and father again. How are they faring? Does anybody know?

We have a moral obligation to try to return these people to as normal a life as possible. Shipping them off to Palau where they would be isolated, when there are Uighur communities in the US ready and willing to help them restart their lives, is not the right solution.