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

To: bentway who wrote (487955)	6/14/2009 3:29:10 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1573306

Barack Obama ignores British over sending Guantanamo four to Bermuda Posted By: Toby Harnden at Jun 12, 2009 at 23:34:41 [General] Late on Wednesday night, British officials received a telephone call from the Obama administration informing them that four Uighurs - Chinese Muslims - were about to board a plane at Guantanamo Bay bound for Bermuda. It was a fait accompli, arranged directly between the Obama administration and Ewart Brown, the Bermudan premier. The UK had no choice - it was too late for any debate about the issue. The Uighurs (lucky them, for the alternative was Albania) would be on Bermudan soil by Thursday morning. The problem is that Bermuda is one of 14 British sovereign territories - the oldest in fact - and as such Britain has responsibility for its foreign policy and security. A British diplomat told me, with that trademark stiff upper lip style, that David Miliband, Foreign Secretary, had called Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, immediately to protest. "The Foreign Secretary registered his surprise. It was a regrettable mistake. Bermuda, the UK and the US now need to work together to fix it and make sure it doesn't happen again." Roughly translated, that means that Miliband said: "WTF, Hillary?" The Obama administration characterised the mood of British officials to ABC this way: "They are pissed." As well they might be. Any American diplomat knows from day one that the British have certain responsibilities for Bermuda. Obviously, the British should have been closely consulted about any potential decision to send the Uighurs there. The Foreign Office is livid with Premier Ewart Brown, who is saying blithely of Guantanamo that "of the prisoners held there many are innocent men, held without trial or any form of due process; many are refugees from their own lands whose political views are contrary to the regimes in power there". He said that the Uighurs would have the "opportunity to become naturalised citizens and thereafter afforded the right to travel and leave Bermuda, potentially settling elsewhere". This opens up all sorts of thorny issues. But the biggest beef of the Brits should be with the Americans. On a foreign policy matter of great importance that directly involved a British sovereign territory, the Obama admiistration decided that it wasn't even worth mentioning it to the British. What does that say about the way Barack Obama and his team views the "special relationship"? Barack Obama ignores British over sending Guantanamo four to Bermuda :: Toby Harnden (13 June 2009) blogs.telegraph.co.uk