Palau to accept Uighur detainees from Guantanamo

To the relief of the Obama administration, the South Pacific island nation of Palau agreed Wednesday to take the 17 Muslim Uighurs from China who're still being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, the first major release of detainees since President Barack Obama announced his plan to close the prison by next January.

The administration has sent a special envoy around the world in search of a new home for the Uighurs. The Bush administration determined four years ago that the Uighurs aren't a threat to the U.S., but was reluctant to turn them over to China, which labeled them terrorists leading an Islamic separatist movement.

Germany turned down a U.S. request last week, and Australia was still considering a new request when the president of Palau issued a statement yesterday. Conservative Republicans, led by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have campaigned against resettling the Uighurs in the U.S., but until now, no other country would accept them.

On Capitol Hill Wednesday, both Democrats and Republicans criticized the Bush administration for seizing them in Afghanistan after paying bounties to local officials who turned them in, treating them as terrorists at Guantanamo - and permitting the Chinese government to interrogate them at the prison.

Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Oversight Subcommittee, said at a hearing that the Uighurs "are a peace loving people who seek only civil rights".

"The Uighur people are opposed to terrorism and violence because we ourselves are victims of terrorism", testified Rebiya Kadeer, the president of the World Uighur Congress and the American Uighur Association. "The Chinese government has used our Islamic faith against us and labeled Uighurs terrorists to justify crackdowns and security sweeps as part of the war on terror".

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