This blog’s favourite South Pacific country, Palau, has agreed to settle 17 Uighurs illegaly held captive in Guantanamo Bay for years:
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.â€
In this way the tiny country does what the supposedly most powerful country in the world is too chicken to do, give a home to those innocent victims of its own War on Terror who are unable or unwilling to return to their own country. The Uighurs are an ethnic Muslim group from China, repressed and persecuted there and the seventeen Guantanamo detainees would undoubtly be treated harshly had they been taken back to China. At the same time neither the Bush nor the Obama administration had been willing to grant them asylum in America itself, so they’ve been shopping around to find them a place elsewhere. Most countries have politely told the Americans to fuck off and to solve their own problems, but Palau has always been a loyal ally of the US — they don’t have any other choice. Expect some bribes development aid to flow Palau’s way soon…