Bermuda & South Pacific Vacations for Chinese Uighur Muslim Terrorists

From Times Online:

The British Government responded with ill-disguised fury tonight to the news that four Chinese Uighurs [pronounced we-gurs] freed from Guantanamo Bay had been flown for resettlement on the Atlantic tourist paradise of Bermuda.

The four arrived on Bermuda in the early hours, celebrating the end of seven years of detention after learning that they were to be accepted as guest workers.

But it appears that the Government of Bermuda failed to consult with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the decision to take in the Uighurs – whose return is demanded by Beijing – and it could now be forced to send them back to Cuba or risk a grave diplomatic crisis.

Bermuda, Britain's oldest remaining dependency, is one of 14 overseas territories that come under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom, which retains direct responsibility for such matters as foreign policy and security.

[snip]

The four freed men – Abdul Nasser, Huzaifa Parhat, Abdul Semet and Jalal Jalaladin – were among 17 men from the largely Muslim Chinese minority groups still held in Guantanamo Bay.

After seven years of extra-judicial detention, the men did not appear to mind which island paradise they ended up in – and formally thanked for Bermuda for taking them.

“Growing up under communism, we always dreamed of living in peace and working in free society like this one,” Abdul Nasser, one of the four, said in a statement released through his lawyers. “Today you have let freedom ring."

[snip]

For the past four years, the Uighurs have been held at Camp Iguana, a low-security facility in Guantanamo Bay, with views of the Caribbean and pizza deliveries.

[snip]

Ewart Brown, the Bermudian Premier, said that the United States had agreed to bear the costs associated with relocating the men on the island.

In a statement, Mr Brown said the men have “the opportunity to become naturalised citizens and thereafter afforded the right to travel and leave Bermuda, potentially settling elsewhere", although he said that the resettlement of the inmates was still contingent on the advice from Britain.

By the way, the rest of the Guantanamo Uighurs will be at least temporarily rehoused on the South Pacific island paradise of Palau.

This certainly is interesting news for all of us who didn't take up residence in terrorist training camps in Afghanistan to enjoy (as the Uighurs claimed) the "freedom" there. I wonder how much consideration our empathic president gave to the effect on the morale of our brave military folks slugging it out in war zones and recovering from injuries in VA hospitals, and the feelings of their families slugging it out with the economy at home, when they hear about this one.

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Graphic courtesy of Foreign Policy Blog. One picture certainly is worth a thousand words!