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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (487004)	6/10/2009 9:43:33 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572529

"These people were terrorists." Not to us. Maybe to the Chinese government. These people were victims. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chinese Guantanamo Inmates Head for Taiwan Ally Palau (Update1) bloomberg.com June 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Obama administration will transfer as many as 17 Chinese Muslims from the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay to Palau, a Pacific island nation that recognizes Taiwan sovereignty. “The United States has asked Palau to assist with such a critical task,” Palau President Johnson Toribiong said in a statement e-mailed today. Palau, a former U.S.-administered territory about a third the size of New York City, is located about 15,000 kilometers (9,322 miles) from Cuba. China opposes the resettlement of the ethnic Uighur detainees to third countries and has repeatedly urged their repatriation. Lawyers for the group say they would be persecuted at home. Palau is one of 23 countries in the world to have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan instead of China. The resettlement agreement comes after American government officials speculated that some Uighurs would have to be released in the U.S. to convince other countries to take Guantanamo detainees. The State Department has had trouble relocating the roughly 240 detainees held at the prison camp in Cuba, which President Barack Obama made a campaign pledge to close. “If the Americans repatriate them, then the U.S. administration would be under a lot of pressure to make sure that these people were treated OK within China,” said Steve Tsang, a fellow in modern Chinese studies at St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, in the U.K. “That’s actually more problematic for the Chinese than if these people are parked in some pacific island.” $200 Million? The U.S. is prepared to give Palau as much as $200 million in development, budget support and other assistance in return for accepting the inmates, the Associated Press reported, citing two U.S. officials that it didn’t identify. The Uighur detainees are from Xinjiang, a predominantly Muslim far-western desert region of China that borders Kazakhstan. Before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, they traveled to Afghanistan to train in camps in the Tora Bora mountains, according to U.S. court filings. The Uighurs fled China because of racial repression and discrimination, their lawyers said. The camps in Afghanistan were run by a Uighur separatist group designated a terrorist organization by the State Department, according to the U.S. Enemy Combatants Many of the Uighurs fled to Pakistan when the U.S.-led coalition’s bombing campaign to oust the Taliban regime began in October 2001, according to the U.S. They were captured, turned over to the American military and branded enemy combatants, though that label was later dropped. Palau, located 500 miles southeast of the Philippines, consists of eight main islands and 250 smaller ones. Tourism accounts for more than half of its economy, according to the U.S. State Department. Palau received $450 million in U.S. aid since 1994 under the terms of an independence agreement signed that year. The money is set to stop after this year. The U.S. also agreed to provide defense for the nation of 21,000 people until 2044. Palau citizens volunteer and serve in the U.S. armed forces. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cited Palau as one of America’s “staunchest allies” during a May 6 hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Heath in Sydney at mheath1@bloomberg.net; Last Updated: June 10, 2009 05:29 EDT