Palau to Take Chinese Guantanamo Detainees

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 president of Palau, Johnson Toribiong, said his government had “agreed to accommodate the United States of America’s request” to “temporarily resettle” the detainees, members of the Uighur ethnic group, “subject to periodic review.” Palau, the president said, would be “honored and proud” to take them in a “humanitarian gesture.”

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 soon after 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.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/world/10palau.html?em


Anyone know about this little island?
At least they won't be going back to China to face persecution.

An interesting part of the article: The Obama administration has been negotiating actively with European and other governments to resettle 50 detainees, who it says are cleared for transfer. Since Mr. Obama took office, the United States has transferred one detainee to France and one to Britain. On Tuesday, it sent the first detainee to the United States to face charges in federal court.

So it sounds like more detainees are going to be sent out of Gitmo.

So do they take all the prisoners?

The rest could be sent to Australia or Germany because they already have Uighur populations there. However, no country wanted to take all of them. Obama and co contacted 100 (!) countries and none were willing to take them in except Palau.

I too remember Palau being a Survivor island. Hmmm, maybe it is nice there.

Terror Island.

Fresh tuna! :9

The weather is very tropical/always hot, typhoons aplenty, and I'll bet it's boring as hell there. Haven't been, but have been to Guam and Saipan, which is also close by.

Not bad. :)

:rofl: It can be bloody hot there, especially if they have infrastructure problems, and many of those islands do. Parts are always 'on the boat', meaning en route, which could take weeks.

but it was so incredibly humid and hot when I went to St. Martin 3 years ago. St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, Bermuda were all hot but no humidity. With St. Martin we got off our cruise ship and and it so humid I was sweating after walking about 5 steps. Still, there was a beach. :) and the butterflies at the butterfly farm seem to enjoy the heat.
And tropical islands are always better then the humidity of Connecticut in the summer. Icky. Late July and August we spend every day in the poll or sprinkler. And all we got is Long Island Sound to hang out in, we don't even get any waves! LOL

20,000 people. Wow. Of course it's no Vatican with 900 citizens.

from someone who had worked on Palau for a while. It's my kind place, actually.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palau

Well, given that they didn't send any troops to Iraq despite supporting the Iraq invasion/occupation, taking some Gitmo detainees should help make up for it. Thanks for your "willingness", Palau!

A friend of mine here used to make a lot of jokes about it, so that's why I remembered. :D

Not sure if it was on the Daily Show but I imagine that it probably was at some point as the whole concept of the "Coalition of the Willing" as presented by Buscho certainly lent itself easily to ridicule. Michael Moore, in "Dude, Where's My Country," even pointed out that not only did most of the countries in the "coalition" NOT contribute any troops and/or resources for the invasion/occupation of Iraq, but also that majorities in most of those countries DIDN'T EVEN SUPPORT the invasion/occupation of Iraq, which makes their *membership* in the "coalition" even more suspect and, frankly, weird IMHO. The fact that more countries, even countries MUCH closer to Iraq, didn't want to sign on with Buscho's mad rush to invade/occupy Iraq should've made it glaringly obvious to everybody how UNNECESSARY the whole endeavor was in the first place- not that the corporate whoremedia or the Bush (mis-)Administration ever really allowed any anti-war voices or dissenting opinions to impede the rush to their "war of choice" against Iraq.

the main island is beautiful. The people then lived simply. The women still carried their infants in palm frond woven 'baby baskets' and walked in their villages topless. Men and women were covered from waist to knees as the inner thigh was considered the body's erogenous zone. We spent a blissful week there. They certainly knew how to celebrate New Year's Eve. Now that was a party.


Palau is so isolated that the transferred detainee will still be prisoners. How did these people end up in our custody as they are not guilty of any acts of terrorism anywhere. We freely admit tey have done nothing. They have been held for 8 years because they are Muslim?

and one of WWII worst battles. It's eerie and quite moving to walk along a beach still containing used up ammo and tire treads while hearing of the absolute hell the soldiers went thru. Also know for jellyfish lake. A land-locked lake that was once connected to the ocean, but hasn't been for 1000's of years. The jellyfish there have no predators and have evolved to the point where they are no longer capable of stinging. It's a very strange sensation to swim thru so many jellyfish that you can barely see anything. I wish someone would send me back to Palau!

Anyone know when they'll be released?

Uighur community in the DC area? From all accounts, these people weren't even SUSPECTED of anything...

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/10/06/us-parole-uighur-detainees-united-states


Apparently, the fact that they were at Gitmo at all is the only reason. .