PACIFIC SUPERHEROES

The beautiful idillyic isles of Palau manifest the beauty of our pacific ocean and region. But how is it that our Pacific Islands are always paid off by those greater powers to clean up their wrong doings. Our PACIFIC SUPERHEROES of Palau  just doing good trying to create a win win situation for all peoples worldwide I believe, but on the other hand this is just the continued abuse of our good will as the majority of the western world steps back and says no to helping out. Hmmm all so quick to fire a bullet, but ever so slow to stop the bleeding aye. PACIFIC SUPERHEROES to the rescue hi5 Palau!  I hope these men do find their way back to their familes and loved ones asap. Heres the story from the Washington Post.

‘The odyssey of 17 Muslims from China, allegedly captured by Pakistani bounty hunters eight years ago and shipped off to Guantánamo, is heading for the South Pacific after the Government of Palau agreed to provide the detainees with new homes.

The 17 Uighurs were cleared for release from Guantánamo Bay more than a year ago and were not classified as enemy combatants, which led the Obama Administration to believe that they would be the easiest detainees to deport to allied countries. However, in clear evidence of President Obama’s failure to persuade European governments to help to shut the jail, no country volunteered to accept them.

The tiny Pacific island nation of Palau stepped into the breach yesterday, agreeing to take in the Uighurs. They will be flown nearly 9,500 miles to the Pacific archipelago famous for its fishing and diving, and with a population of 21,000.

“I am honoured and proud that the United States has asked Palau to assist with such a critical task,” its President, Johnson Toribiong, declared. A former US trust territory, Palau has retained close ties with the US since independence in 1994 and has received $450 million in aid since then from Washington.

“This is but a small thing we can do to thank our best friend and ally for all it has done for Palau,” Mr Toribiong added. What may have helped the deal was an extra $200 million (£125 million) in “development and budget” aid from Washington — nearly $10,000 per Palau inhabitant, or more than $11.8 million per Uighur — but Mr Toribiong did not mention that.

A senior US Administration official said that the additional aid was not tied to Palau’s decision to accept the Uighurs but was part of a separate aid package under negotiation. Pentagon officials were more blunt, calling it a “pay-off”.

The challenge to find a home for the 17 detainees underscores the huge challenges Mr Obama faces in honouring his pledge to shut Guantánamo by late January next year. There will still be 230 inmates left after the Uighurs leave. The President originally wanted to relocate the Uighurs to the Washington area, where there is a large population of them, but there was such an outcry on Capitol Hill that the plan was scrapped.

John Cornyn, a Republican senator, called the decision to send them to Palau ridiculous and said that Mr Obama should retract his promise to close Guantánamo. A large majority of Americans do not want the prison to shut.

About 35 other detainees have been cleared for release but Mr Obama has found no takers for them. Up to 80 cannot be tried or are too dangerous to set free and will have to be detained on US soil indefinitely. The rest, Mr Obama wants to be tried in federal courts. The plan faces fierce resistance in Congress.

The story of the Uighur detainees, who were visited by The Times at Guantánamo last month, is an extraordinary subplot in the fallout from the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks.

The Uighurs come from Xinjiang, a vast, predominantly Muslim area in northwestern China. It is home to more than eight million ethnic Uighurs, who say they have suffered political and religious persecution for decades under Beijing. The Chinese authorities claim that they are terrorists agitating for independence and have long demanded the return of the Guantánamo prisoners. The Obama Administration has refused to relocate them to China because it fears they would be tortured or executed.

In late 2001, a group of Uighurs living in Afghanistan fled into Pakistan and were sheltering in their own camp, where some received small-arms training, which they claim was aimed at China and had nothing to do with al-Qaeda.

They were arrested and handed over to US troops. One of them, Abu Bakkar Qassim, who was one of five later released to Albania, wrote that they were sold by Pakistani bounty hunters to the US “like animals for $5,000 a head”. By 2002, the Uighurs found themselves in Guantánamo, designated as enemy combatants. In 2004, after a review, the designation was dropped and it was declared that they were not a threat to the US. They were later cleared for release.

They have since been languishing in Camp Iguana, a low-security facility at the US-run jail, with views of the Caribbean, pizza deliveries and satellite television. When The Times visited the camp, the Uighurs were openly hostile. One shouted “bitch” at a woman photographer. Others made obscene gestures.

One of the problems with trying to relocate them has been the enormous diplomatic pressure China has exerted on other countries not to take them in. An advantage with Palau is that it is one of only 23 countries in the world that does not recognise China and instead maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

Officials in Palau said that the Uighurs could probably find construction jobs, although a US State Department human rights report last year noted that foreign workers were subjected to discrimination and “sometimes violent crimes”.

It is not clear whether the Uighurs will be entitled to Palau citizenship, allowed to leave the islands, or where they will be housed. ‘