Guantánamo’s Uyghurs: stranded in Albania

In the Washington Post, Jonathan Finer updates the sad story of five Uyghurs –- Muslims from China’s Xinjiang province, which borders Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan –- who were released from Guantánamo in May 2006. The five men –- and 13 of their compatriots, who remain in Guantánamo –- were all captured by enterprising Pakistani villagers in December 2001, having crossed the border after a US bombing raid destroyed the rundown hamlet in the Tora Bora mountains where they had been living, repairing the settlement’s battered buildings and occasionally, while dreaming of revenge against the Chinese government that had taken over their homeland (formerly known as East Turkistan), firing a shot from their only weapon, an ancient AK-47.

Apparently regarded as guiltless almost from the moment they were handed over to the Americans, they were nevertheless regarded as valuable intelligence assets, able to provide insights into the workings of the Chinese government. In a cruel twist, however, the Americans also invited Chinese intelligence agents to Guantánamo to interrogate them, which was a disturbing experience, according to those who spoke about it in their tribunals. Dawut Abdurehim, one of those still held at Guantánamo, said after the visit that he was vaguely threatened, but reported that “some other Uyghurs had conversations with bad, dirty language,” in which they were told by the Chinese delegation that, “when we go back to the country, we’d be killed or sentenced to prison for a long time.”

After the first round of administrative hearings at Guantánamo –- the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, held in 2004-05, and designed to confirm that all Guantánamo’s inhabitants were “enemy combatants” –- the five men were among the lucky 38 (out of 558 detainees in total) who were cleared for release, although their 13 companions –- whose stories were identical –- were not so fortunate. Although some were cleared for release during the following year’s Administrative Review Boards, others were judged still to be “enemy combatants.” These discrepancies caused consternation to the administration, as described by an Army Major who criticized the tribunals two weeks ago, and in one particularly notorious incident, the authorities were so dissatisfied with the results of the tribunals that they ordered second tribunals to be held, which duly reversed the decisions, even though, as lawyers for one of the Uyghurs noted, there was no “additional classified information” to warrant such a change.

While the 13 unlucky Uyghurs (and four others, captured in different circumstances) were all eventually cleared, they, like at least 60 other cleared men from countries with dubious human rights records, remain in Guantánamo, having missed the escape route that opened up briefly last year for Abu Qadder Basim, one of the five men cleared after the CSRTs, and his four companions. In the face of very real fears that they would be tortured or killed if returned to China, the irony-free US administration, which clearly felt that it had given them five-star treatment since capturing them in December 2001, spent 18 months fishing around for other countries malleable and poor enough to be bullied into accepting them, finally settling on Albania.

They were delivered to a UN refugee camp in the capital, Tirana, in May 2006 –- and followed, in December, by three more innocent but stateless unfortunates, who were also granted a moment of dubious pity by the administration that had so carelessly and callously ruined their lives in the first place: Ala Salim, an Islamic scholar from Egypt, who was working for a humanitarian aid agency in Pakistan; Fethi Boucetta, a doctor turned teacher from Algeria, who was brazenly seized from his house in Peshawar, when the required suspect was not at home; and Zakirjan Hassam, a poor refugee disenfranchised by the atomization of the Soviet Union, who was sold to the Americans by Afghan villagers.

Abu Qadder Basim in Albania.

Sixteen months later, speaking to Finer by mobile phone with the help of an interpreter, Abu Qadder Basim explained that, although they “embraced their new life in Albania” for a while, “they are unable to work or reunite with family members.” From what Finer described as a “spartan room, adorned only with a wall calendar, a few worn Korans, a small fan and a paperback copy of Albanian for Foreigners,” he said, “Obviously you can’t compare this life to Guantánamo, which is a prison,” but added, “We have requested an independent life here, to bring our families here, to be trained and have some work to do, to live in our own apartments. But even after we were released and they said we did nothing wrong, we have no hope for the future.”

Unlike the rest of the camp’s inhabitants –- mostly from Albania’s neighbors –- the Uyghurs have little in common with the camp’s other residents, who, as Finer puts it, can “blend easily into the crowd on Tirana’s busy streets,” and are “beginning to feel abandoned.” Finer reports that their Albanian language classes stopped over the summer, that a promise of $200-a-month apartments, to be paid for in the first year by the government and the United Nations, has not materialized, and that no progress has been made on reuniting them with their families or finding them work. Another of the five, Adel Abdul Hakim, explained, “Albania has tried to help us and we are grateful, but this is an undeveloped country, and even many Albanians can’t work or make enough money. They can give us an apartment for a year, but it isn’t sustainable, when most Albanians only make about $300 a month. Then what do we do?”

Unsurprisingly, Sali Berisha, the Prime Minister of this fiercely pro-American country, which greeted President Bush like a hero on a recent visit, has a more upbeat prognosis. Failing to mention that Dick Cheney endorsed Albania’s membership of NATO two days after agreeing to tidy up America’s mistakes, Berisha stated recently that accepting the Uyghurs “was a human rights gesture and a normal one. These men could not have gone back to their own countries, that is for sure.” He added, pointing the blame at other countries, which, for quite understandable reasons, have refused to clean up the big man’s mess, “I have been very surprised that others are unwilling to do this. On the one hand they are blaming Guantánamo, on the other they say, ‘Don’t send them here.’”

Berisha then proceeded to deny that the US administration had “offered any incentives” for Albania to take in the Uyghurs, noting that they might take more Guantánamo detainees, although Finer pointed out, accurately, that it was unlikely that they would take any of the other 17 Uyghurs, having already attracted the wrath of China, “a longtime ally and trading partner in Albania’s communist days,” which has persistently demanded their return to China. Bravely, however, or perhaps having consulted the treasury, Berisha explained that China’s demands had been rebuffed. “I asked the Chinese to bring me any evidence, if they have them, of terrorist activities, but nothing came,” he said. “We cannot send them somewhere when we aren’t sure due process is applied. We are European. Now that file is closed. They are here and they will slowly, step by step, be integrated. They will have a good life here.”

While this conclusion remains in doubt, praise for the Uyghurs has also come from the camp’s director, Hidajet Cera, who, as Finer describes it, “communicates with them through a Chinese-speaking interpreter (though their main language is a Uyghur dialect) when one can be found.” At other times, he notes, “the translation is done by an Algerian refugee who speaks French and Arabic, which the Uyghurs can speak conversationally.” “They are the best guys in this place,” Cera explained. “They have never given us one minute’s problem. We try to do what we can for them. We offer them a special menu. We have a van and a driver at their disposal if they want to go into town. It is hard because if you look at Albanian society, the way they live, they are not at the bottom.”

For Abu Qadder Basim, even such praise is not enough. He explained to Finer that every Friday they go to a mosque to pray, but have otherwise “more or less stopped venturing out of the camp.” “It is frustrating not to be able to speak with anyone,” he explained. “So we basically spend the whole day here, praying and going on the internet. It’s a very simple life. Outside of the camp, you see people with their families, and it makes us think of our families and our kids.”

[Note: According to the Pentagon’s records, the five released men were Abu Bakker Qasim, Ahmed Adil, Akhdar Basit, Abdul Abdulhehim and Haji Mohammed Ayub. While Qasim is clearly Abu Qadder Basim, it has not been possible to identify Adel Abdul Hakim, although he is probably Abdul Abdulhehim. So much for justice, when even your name is irrelevant].

For more on the Uyghurs in Guantánamo, see my book The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison.