Three members of a persecuted ethnic minority from China have been released from Guantanamo Bay and sent to the Central European country of Slovakia, officials said on Tuesday, resolving a diplomatic dilemma that had kept the men imprisoned long after a judge had ordered their release.
The three men were the last three ethnic Uighurs held at the US base in Cuba and their release after months of intense diplomatic efforts comes amid a renewed effort by US President Barack Obama to close down the prison.
Slovakia had accepted three other Guantanamo prisoners in 2009 and allowed the resettlement of the Uighurs after other countries refused because of pressure from the Chinese government, which has sought to take custody of the men.
“Slovakia deserves a lot of credit because they were willing to do what large countries like the United States, Canada and Germany were unwilling to do, which was to resist diplomatic pressure from China and the stigma of Guantanamo,” said Wells Dixon, a lawyer with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights who worked for years trying to secure the men’s release.
The Pentagon identified the men as Yusef Abbas, Saidullah Khalik and Hajiakbar Abdul Ghuper. All three are in their 30s and were captured in late 2001.
The men were among about two dozen Uighurs captured after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US and initially detained as suspected allies of the Taliban.
In reality, the men had no affiliation with the Taliban and had come to Afghanistan after fleeing China, where Uighurs have long sought an independent homeland in China’s northwestern Xinjiang Autonomous Region and nearby countries. Some were intensely pro-US and relieved when they were turned over to US forces — in some cases in exchange for bounties — and thought they had been saved, Dixon and other advocates said.
US authorities eventually agreed with that assessment and began trying to repatriate them. Several with citizenship in other countries were released, but 22 with Chinese citizenship posed a dilemma: They could not be sent to China because, under US law, they had a reasonable fear of persecution and torture.
Albania accepted five Uighurs in 2006, but refused to take more. As the diplomatic effort stalled, a US federal judge ordered them released to the US, which has a Uighur-American community in the Washington area, but the transfer was halted amid opposition from the US Congress and the administration of former US president George W. Bush.
The Uighur detainees were eventually scattered around the globe to places like Bermuda, the Pacific island of Palau, Switzerland and El Salvador. Some have since moved on, but most are getting on with their lives, said Rushan Abbas, a Uighur-American who translated for the US government and defense teams working to release the men.
The three who were still at Guantanamo until this week did not want to go to Palau or Bermuda because they wanted to be closer to Uighur communities in other parts of Europe, said Abbas, who lives in Herndon, Virginia.
The Uighurs who have been released from Guantanamo keep in touch with each other and are busy rebuilding their lives, said Abbas, who has visited with them and is contact with the men.
She said that they had lost more than a decade of their lives at Guantanamo.
“They are not angry, but they are disappointed,” over how they were treated by the US, she said.
Elizabeth Gilson, a lawyer who represented the Uighurs accepted by Switzerland, said the imprisonment of the men was so frustrating because it was clear even to the government from early in their confinement that they should never have been detained. The men often struggled to comprehend their situation, she said.
“They were by turns funny, interested and sometimes angry, and other times pushed beyond despair,” said Gilson, who is based in New Haven, Connecticut.
US officials thanked Slovakia for accepting the men.
“These three resettlements are an important step in implementing President Obama’s directive to close the Guantanamo detention facility,” US Department of State Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure Clifford Sloan said.
The release of the men brings the prisoner population at the US base in Cuba to 155. Obama, who had pledged to close the detention center upon taking office, has renewed the effort to resettle prisoners. Eleven were freed last year, including nine last month, and officials have said more are expected.
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