Mick Hartley

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Uighurs in Paradise

The saga of the Uighurs who've been held at Guantanamo gets stranger and stranger. Yesterday we were told that up to 17 of them would be resettled in Palau, in the Pacific – a real home-from-home for natives of Xinjiang, in the centre of Asia, thousands of miles from the nearest coastline. And now, keeping up the tropical paradise theme (though it was rather spoilt by the five who went to Albania) we hear that four are off to Bermuda - though not without a display of "ill-disguised fury" from the Foreign Office.

The US clearly want, in a sense, to do the right thing. They've resisted China's call for their return (and no doubt imprisonment or worse), and slipped a $200 million sweetener to Palau. But the obvious move, if they really wanted to make some kind of amends for dragging these men half-way across the world and imprisoning them for eight years for, as it turns out, no good reason, would be to let them settle in the States. Apparently, though, Congress bitterly opposes such a move – though it's not clear to me how they can justify their stance considering that the men have been cleared of being "enemy combatants" – and so this whole charade plays itself out across the world's headlines, and the phrase "desperately trying to wash their hands of the whole affair" comes inevitably to mind.

The irony is that, if Christopher Hitchens is to be believed, these men will be far more likely to be al Qaeda sympathisers now, after the Guantanamo experience, than they would have been back in 2001 when they originally fled Xinjiang to escape Chinese repression:

Nothing prepared me for the way in which the authorities at the camp have allowed the most extreme religious cultists among the inmates to be the organizers of the prisoners' daily routine. Suppose that you were a secular or unfanatical person caught in the net by mistake; you would still find yourself being compelled to pray five times a day (the guards are not permitted to interrupt), to have a Quran in your cell, and to eat food prepared to halal (or Sharia) standards. I suppose you could ask to abstain, but, in such a case, I wouldn't much fancy your chances. The officers in charge were so pleased by this ability to show off their extreme broad-mindedness in respect of Islam that they looked almost hurt when I asked how they justified the use of taxpayers' money to create an institution dedicated to the fervent practice of the most extreme version of just one religion. To the huge list of reasons to close down Guantanamo, add this: It's a state-sponsored madrasah.

The one positive thing to come out of all this, I suppose, is that people who'd never heard of Uighurs, or of Xinjiang and the Chinese repression there, or of the East Turkestan independence movement, will now be asking questions and learning some history.

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9 responses to “Uighurs in Paradise”

  1. maguro Avatar
    maguro

    Sure, they’re completely innocent and just happened to end up in a terrorist training camp by accident. Happens to the best of us, no doubt.

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  2. Mick H Avatar
    Mick H

    They were captured and handed over to the US by Pakistani bounty hunters in Afghanistan. Certainly the Chinese would like us to believe they were in a “terrorist training camp”, but the Guantanamo authorities decided they weren’t a problem. That’s good enough for me.

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  3. maguro Avatar
    maguro

    The American authorities decided they weren’t a threat to the U.S., not that they weren’t terrorists. Big difference.
    It’s not credible to wind up in Afghanistan along with 16 of your closest buddies (and no women or children) just because you’re “fleeing repression” and want to make a new start. Afghanistan is the last place you’d try something like that.
    They were wannabe terorists, alright, they just didn’t have America as their target.
    Hence the payoff to Palau…if they go back to terrorism we can tell the Chinese it’s all Palau’s fault, we had nothing to do with it.
    See, Mr. Hu, our hands are clean! Please loan us some more money!

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  4. Dom Avatar
    Dom

    “They were wannabe terorists, alright, they just didn’t have America as their target.”
    I don’t think that’s what the state department meant when they cleared them. They know that terrorists, especially Islamic terrorists, are more or less fungible, one day attacking you, next day attacking me.
    And if they wanted more money they’d be sent back to China.
    No, they were cleared pure and simple.

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  5. maguro Avatar
    maguro

    They were “cleared” by a federal judge in New York who said “the men had never fought the United States and were not a security threat”.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/washington/08detain.html

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  6. DaninVan Avatar
    DaninVan

    I’m coming down on Maguro’s side…
    There’s been way to much loosey goosey playing with the facts on the “terrorist” subject…
    http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/06/04/abdelrasik.html
    http://www.thecourt.ca/2007/02/26/charkaouis-implications-for-canadas-anti-terrorism-act/
    It’s all about lawyers doing what they do best; nothing to do with the real world.
    http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2009/06/terrorist-suspects-were-aboard-air.html
    Obama’s speech to the contrary, we’re at war.

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  7. DaninVan Avatar
    DaninVan

    Because a judge applies existing legal standards to what are purportedly criminal charges doesn’t suggest the Judicial system has the faintest clue as to what Jihad really means to Western society
    Slightly off topic, but relevant in the sense of British dhimmitude…http://theopinionator.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/06/offensive-union-jack-badge-ordered-removed-from-cops-uniforms.html
    No reflection on you, M.H; you’re a rock!

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  8. DaninVan Avatar
    DaninVan

    More of the same http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1192365/Britain-wrong-freeze-assets-Abu-Qatada-rules-EU-clearing-way-compensation.html
    To paraphrase Winnie; Never has so much been taken from so many by so few.

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  9. dearieme Avatar
    dearieme

    Bermuda is harder for the Chinese Navy to get at than Palau.

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