Uighurs ready for Palau deal

WASHINGTON - SEVERAL Chinese Muslims held at Guantanamo for the past seven years are close to being sent to the remote Pacific archipelago of Palau in late August or early September, a lawyer said on Wednesday.

'They are at this point very likely to agree, they actually need to see a written agreement and sign that. That's what Palau wants them to do,' said George Clarke, a US attorney who has represented two 30-some-year-old Uighurs.

However, he cautioned that not all 13 remaining Uighur detainees would accept Palau's offer. 'It's going to be greater than four and less than 13, but nobody's signed the piece of paper yet,' he said.

The detainees, Turkic-speaking Muslims from far western China, met with US State Department officials this week. 'This is the first time they have actually had a formal answer. The real offer was only made last week, prior to that there was no offer,' Mr Clarke told AFP.

Those who do sign the agreement crafted by the State Department and the Palauan government, would leave for Palau 'at the end of this month or the beginning of September,' after having examined the documents and waited 15 days for approval from Congress, which now reviews all such decisions, Mr Clarke said.

In June, Palauan President Johnson Toribiong said that five of the 13 Uighurs still held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay had expressed reservations about being released to his island nation, which has some 21,000 inhabitants. The men were hesitant due to fears that China would gain access to them, Mr Clarke explained. 'They have always been interested in Palau,' he insisted.

Beijing demanded the detainees be returned home to be tried, saying they belong to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). But US officials have denied the charges and refused to send them to China, fearing they would be tortured. In Palau, the Uighurs would first have a residency visa followed by a work visa, and their families could join them there, Mr Clarke said.

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 Sept 11 attacks on the United States that year.

They said they had fled to Afghanistan to escape persecution in their vast home region of Xinjiang in western China. The United States cleared them of any wrongdoing four years ago but the detainees have been in legal limbo ever since.

Four of the Chinese Muslims were flown from the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba, where some 229 'war on terror' suspects are still held, to Bermuda in June. Another five were released to Albania in 2006.

Source: Straits Times.
Link: http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/World/Story/STIStory_413170.html.