WSJ: Tale of 5 Muslims: Out of Guantanamo And Into Limbo

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

PAGE ONE

Tale of 5 Muslims: Out of Guantanamo And Into Limbo
Cleared by U.S. of Terror Ties,
They Won't Return Home
Due to Fear of Punishment
China Demands Repatriation
By ANDREW HIGGINS
June 2, 2006; Page A1

TIRANA, Albania -- After four years in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Bakker Qassim, a former terror suspect cleared last year of having ties to al Qaeda, got word last month that he finally would be set free. He and four fellow Muslims from China were loaded onto a U.S. military transport plane in the middle of the night, shackled to the floor and flown for 12 hours to their new home: a converted military barracks in Tirana, the capital of Albania. The compound is located on a potholed road strewn with garbage. It has high walls, bars on the windows and a guard at the gate. The five men occasionally leave but don't venture far. They've found no one in this small Balkan country who knows their native language, a Turkic tongue spoken by the Uighur (pronounced WEE-gur) people of China.

(snip)

The U.S. is also in a predicament it never expected: What should it do with Guantanamo inmates who have been found deserving of release but who face jail or execution if returned to their homelands?.. Washington's hesitation to repatriate some detainees reflects its growing unease with authoritarian states it initially enlisted as partners in the post-9/11 war on terror. U.S. forces used an air base in Uzbekistan during the war in Afghanistan, but Washington strongly criticized the former Soviet republic last year when Uzbek security forces killed scores of unarmed protesters. Uzbekistan then evicted the U.S. military.

Fear of being sent home is so strong that an exonerated Egyptian detainee, Ala Abdel Maqsud Muhammad Salim, had his U.S. lawyers ask a federal court in January to block his release to avoid his being sent to Egypt, where he expected harm. The U.S. dropped a plan to return the sickly and nearly blind prisoner. He's still in Guantanamo.

U.S. officials say they scouted for two years for a country ready to take Mr. Qassim and his companions, beginning the search even before their exoneration. The U.S. was wary of sending them to China. Beijing severely punishes Muslims from the far west who criticize the Communist government or advocate independence. Unwilling to let the men live in the U.S., American officials say they approached more than 100 countries. All said no or waffled, fearful of upsetting China and reluctant to take on America's problem. Then Albania, an impoverished land with a large Muslim populace and a brutal communist past, said yes in April.

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URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114921008318169383.html (subscription)

[donsu]

1. well that's one way to keep them from talking about Gitmo

so Albania is in cahoots with the bushmilhousegang or is Albania rescuing the men, so to speak?

[question everything]

2. What I wonder is why does everything that this administration touches

turns into crap.

They had to grab Chinese Muslims and now do not know what to do with them.