Andy Worthington » China

Palau President Asks Australia to Offer Homes to Guantánamo Uighurs

Andy Worthington — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 20:08:57 +0000

On Radio Australia’s show “Pacific Beat,” reporter Sean Dorney traveled to the small Pacific island nation of Palau to discuss an appeal to the Australian government, made by Palau’s President Johnson Toribiong, asking Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to accept for permanent resettlement six Uighurs (Muslims from China’s oppressed Xinjiang province), who were cleared for release from Guantánamo by a US court in October 2008, and given temporary residence in Palau on October 31 last year.

I have written about the Uighurs at length over the last few years (see the links at the foot of this article), and share President Toribiong’s concerns that, although they have been freed from Guantánamo, they are culturally and socially stranded in Palau, where there is no Uighur community. My hope is that the Australian government will indeed offer them permanent resettlement in Australia, where there is a 2,000-strong Uighur community, and will follow the example of Bermuda and Switzerland, which have both given Uighurs from Guantánamo a permanent home, despite opposition from the Chinese government.

I acknowledge, however, that this remains a remote possibility, given that a hundred countries contacted by the US State Department refused to take the Uighurs. Primarily, this is because of the importance of friendly relations with China to the majority of the countries involved, to which Palau — which deals with Taiwan rather than China — is immune.

Sean Dorney (voice-over): Most Australians who go to Palau do so for the spectacular diving around Palau’s hundreds and hundreds of scattered idyllic islets known as the Rock Islands. But a three-year old Australian Uighur girl, Khadecha, and her five-year old sister, Sabeha, have come to Palau to claim a new father. Their late father died in a drowning accident back in Australia.

Their new stepfather is Adham Nabi, who spent eight years in Guantánamo Bay. In recent weeks, though, he has married their mother, an Australian Uighur woman whose uncle brought her to Palau for the wedding. The six Uighurs who have been in Palau since November were keen to hear what the President of Palau, Johnson Toribiong, had told me in an interview a few days earlier.

President Toribiong: When they first arrived I think they felt for the first time after seven or eight years the enjoyment of individual freedom, physical freedom from physical confinement. They are free here but we don’t have a Uighur community here. And as you know being physically free is not enough. You must have social relationships. One just got married recently to a lady from Australia who’s a Uighur. And others are trying to connect with other Uighurs from all over the world and I can understand that. I mean, they lost seven years during the prime of their lives and they want to have families. And they yearn to go to a community where they can enjoy social relations with their own people.

Sean Dorney: Why would you like to go to Australia?

Abdulghappar Abdulrahman: We need to go to Australia because Australia is a big country. If we go to Australia we feel we will be safe. And in Australia there are Muslims and a Uighur community. Palau is a very small country, no Uighurs. There are no Uighurs.

Sean Dorney (voice-over): Abdulghappar Abdulrahman says they fled their homeland into Pakistan because of oppression.

Abdulghappar Abdulrahman: In Turkestan what happens, for example, last year there were more Uighurs killed. China militarists killed them.

Ahmad Abdulahad: You know about our country what happened right now. There are no human rights. Always the government are causing suffering to our people.

Sean Dorney (voice-over): Ahmad Abdulahad tells me they got caught when the Chinese declared dissident Uighurs terrorists and, for a while, the Americans agreed. He found the price on his head in Pakistan was five thousand US dollars.

Ahmad Abdulahad: Unfortunately, what happened was September 11, and they took us. But from 2003 to 2009 the American Government pronounced us innocent people but no country would accept us. And we spent eight years, almost eight years we spent in Guantánamo Bay.

President Toribiong: When the United States Special Envoy for President Obama arrived in Palau in May of 2009 — the Special Envoy is named Ambassador Daniel Fried — he brought a request from President Obama asking for Palau to accept temporary resettlement of the Uighurs from Guantánamo Bay detention facility because they’d been declared non-enemy combatants by the Federal Court but they cannot go to the United States.

Sean Dorney (voice-over): When the Uighurs arrived in Palau, they spoke almost no English.

President Toribiong: So we enrolled them at our Palau Community College where they are taking crash courses in the English language.

Sean Dorney (voice-over): The Uighurs do their English language courses five days a week. Although there were no lessons this day they offered to take me to their classroom. Their translator who was hired from Australia for six months by the Americans has now left. They’ve been broken up into two groups and do three hours of lessons, one group in the morning and the other in the afternoon. And they like their English teacher, although she does not speak any Uighur.

Ahmad Abdulahad: She’s very kind to us.

Sean Dorney: Yeah?

Ahmad Abdulahad: She’s a really good teacher.

Sean Dorney (voice-over): The tropical rain prompts a question or two about Australia.

Sean Dorney: Well, some parts of Australia get very little rain. Other parts get quite a bit. But Australia is a very dry place.

One of the Uighurs: Some rivers?

Sean Dorney: A river runs through the middle of Brisbane. And Sydney is based on a harbour.

One of the Uighurs: Right now, over there: Hot? Hot?

Sean Dorney: No, at the moment in Australia it’s quite cold.

Sean Dorney (voice-over): The Uighurs say they are innocent victims caught up in a power play between two superpowers, China and America. China claims they should be sent back to China to face the law because they are members of a terrorist organization, something they flatly reject.

Abdulghappar Abdulrahman: Not, not terrorists! We are simple people.

Sean Dorney: Should anyone in Australia be afraid?

One of the Uighurs: Afraid?

Sean Dorney: Afraid of you?

Abdulghappar Abdulrahman: (Breaks into a smile) No, we are simple people. Why, why this? In Palau everybody [waves and says], “How are you? Good.”

Ahmad Abdulahad: We are peaceful people and we are not criminals. In 2003 the US government announced we are free men. Not the enemy of Americans or any country. But the Chinese Government needed to put us in jail.

Sean Dorney (voice-over): On a trip to the seashore we hear of another problem they have in Palau.

Uighur driver: No more meat, no more halal food, no more halal Muslim restaurant. Cannot eat food outside. For us, difficult.

Sean Dorney (voice-over): And once we reach the jetty the subject of food comes up again.

Abdulghappar Abdulrahman: Sheep. Every time we eat sheep. That’s our custom. There are, in Palau, no more sheep.

Sean Dorney: No.

Abdulghappar Abdulrahman: No more sheep.

Sean Dorney: In Australia there are plenty of sheep.

One of the Uighurs: Yeah.

President Toribiong: I hope Australia will accept them. They’ve been freed from the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. I think Palau is a stepping stone to a country where they can really be free. Not only free but to enjoy the freedom that we all enjoy to live in the free world, to marry, to have friends, to work, to socialise.

Ahmad Abdulahad: Some of us want to get married. And right now we’re beginning our life like from a zero beginning. Beginning life. We don’t have anything. We only have ourselves. And we want to begin our life, our new life.

Sean Dorney (voice-over): The sea and the tropics are quite foreign to these Turkestani men from China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Province, who hope the future for them lies far away from here down in Australia. And there are two little Australian girls who want to take their new stepfather home with them.

Note: For more information on the Uighurs in Palau, see this February 2010 article in Foreign Policy.

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK). To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in January 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and currently on tour in the UK), my definitive Guantánamo habeas list, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

Guantánamo Uighurs In Palau: First Interview And Photo

Andy Worthington — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:15:24 +0000

In the first interview with one of the six Uighurs recently released from Guantánamo to the Pacific nation of Palau, Radio Free Asia in Washington D.C. spoke by phone to Anwar Hassan, who revealed that, although the men were enjoying their new-found freedom, they were all concerned that they were unable to contact their families. As RFA described it, “Hassan said that strict Chinese government controls on Internet and phone communication with the Uighurs’ homeland following ethnic violence in July have prevented them from doing so.”

“We haven’t been able to talk to our family members yet,” Anwar Hassan said in the telephone interview. “We have stayed eight years in the jail … Our biggest desire on getting out of the jail was to talk to our family members and let them know we are alive and give them some peace of mind,” he said.

He added, “Even though we are free now, in one sense our situation isn’t too different from when we were in jail, as the Chinese government has blocked all communication channels to our homeland. I think this is because the Chinese government does not want the outside world to know what happened in our homeland so they can strike harder against our people. Now, this has become our main concern.”

Three of the recently released Uighurs in the kitchen of their new home in Palau, November 2, 2009 (Photo: Bernadette Carreon, AFP, Getty Images).

RFA explained that Hassan, and the other men who flew to Palau with him — Ahmad Tourson, Abdul Ghappar Abdul Rahman, Edham Mamet, Adel Noori and Dawut Abdurehim — received a warm welcome from the country’s president, Johnson Toribiong. “The president of Palau greeted us and met with us when we got here,” Hassan said. “He is a very easy-going and pleasant man. Everybody here is very good to us.”

However, he also explained that he and his companions “had very mixed feelings on the occasion of their release,” as RFA described it. “We spent eight years of our lives over there for nothing. There was no reason given for that kind of treatment, and even thinking about the experience causes great pain,” he said. “On the other hand,” he added, “when the Chinese government demanded that the US hand us over to them, the American government refused to give us to them, so when we think about that, we are very happy to be here.”

Hassan also explained that Palau “won’t be the final destination for the men, who have been caught up by political forces far beyond their control,” as RFA put it. “We are living here temporarily,” he said. “So our main concern is: where is our next stop? When will it happen? How soon? All of these questions are bothering us right now.”

For Agence France-Presse, Bernadette Carreon visited the men in Koror, the capital of Palau, and reported that they “spent their first day of freedom on Monday shopping.” As they walked around the shops being greeted by the local people, they were accompanied by their translator, Mampimin Ala, who was flown in from Australia to help them adjust. AFP also explained that they had “penciled in a day’s swimming at the spectacular Rock Islands … after revealing that was one of life’s treats they missed most while detained at the US naval base in Cuba.”

George Clarke, one of the lawyers for the men, who traveled to Palau with them, told AFP, “They have not touched the water for eight years,” adding, “They are happy that the Palawan people have accepted them and relieved that they have finally been released from jail,” Gitanjali Gutierrez, another of their US lawyers, said it was “important for them to meet as many locals as possible in the next few days as [they] rebuild their lives in freedom.”

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK). To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, published in March 2009, details about my film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash, and launched in October 2009), and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

For a sequence of articles dealing with the Uighurs in Guantánamo, see: The Guantánamo whistleblower, a Libyan shopkeeper, some Chinese Muslims and a desperate government (July 2007), Guantánamo’s Uyghurs: Stranded in Albania (October 2007), Former Guantánamo detainee seeks asylum in Sweden (November 2007), A transcript of Sabin Willett’s speech in Stockholm (November 2007), Support for ex-Guantánamo detainee’s Swedish asylum claim (January 2008), A Chinese Muslim’s desperate plea from Guantánamo (March 2008), Former Guantánamo prisoner denied asylum in Sweden (June 2008), Six Years Late, Court Throws Out Guantánamo Case (June 2008), Guantánamo as Alice in Wonderland (July 2008), From Guantánamo to the United States: The Story of the Wrongly Imprisoned Uighurs (October 2008), Guantánamo Uyghurs’ resettlement prospects skewered by Justice Department lies (October 2008), A Pastor’s Plea for the Guantánamo Uyghurs (October 2008), Guantánamo: Justice Delayed or Justice Denied? (October 2008), Sabin Willett’s letter to the Justice Department (November 2008), Will Europe Take The Cleared Guantánamo Prisoners? (December 2008), A New Year Message to Barack Obama: Free the Guantánamo Uighurs (January 2009), Guantanamo’s refugees (February 2009), Bad News And Good News For The Guantánamo Uighurs (February 2009), A Letter To Barack Obama From A Guantánamo Uighur (March 2009), Obama’s First 100 Days: A Start On Guantánamo, But Not Enough (May 2009), Pain At Guantánamo And Paralysis In Government (May 2009), Guantánamo: A Prison Built On Lies (May 2009), Guantánamo: A Real Uyghur Slams Newt Gingrich’s Racist Stupidity (May 2009), Free The Guantánamo Uighurs! (May 2009), Who Are The Four Guantánamo Uighurs Sent To Bermuda? (June 2009), Guantánamo’s Uighurs In Bermuda: Interviews And New Photos (June 2009), Andy Worthington Discusses Guantánamo on Democracy Now! (June 2009), Guantánamo And The Courts (Part One): Exposing The Bush Administration’s Lies (July 2009), Is The World Ignoring A Massacre of Uighurs In China? (July 2009), Chair Of The American Conservative Union Supports The Guantánamo Uighurs (July 2009), Three Uighurs Talk About Chinese Interrogation At Guantánamo (July 2009), House Threatens Obama Over Chinese Interrogation Of Uighurs In Guantánamo (July 2009), A Profile of Rushan Abbas, The Guantánamo Uighurs’ Interpreter (August 2009), and the stories in the additional chapters of The Guantánamo Files: Website Extras 1, Website Extras 6 and Website Extras 9.

House Threatens Obama Over Chinese Interrogation Of Uighurs In Guantánamo

Andy Worthington — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:02:41 +0000

Last Thursday, while most US media outlets were focused relentlessly on the marathon endurance test that was Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing, the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights And Oversight held a hearing to investigate why the Bush administration had allowed Chinese interrogators to visit Guantánamo to interrogate the prison’s 22 Uighur inmates in 2002.

Although 13 of the Uighurs are still held at Guantánamo (five were released in Albania in 2006, and four in Bermuda last month), all of the men — Muslims from China’s Xinjiang province, who had fled persecution in China — were cleared of being “enemy combatants” by the Bush administration and by the US courts. They were sold to the US military by opportunistic Pakistani villagers, after fleeing from a run-down settlement in Afghanistan’s Tora Bora mountains, and should never have been held in the first place.

Thursday’s hearing involved some rather hard-hitting testimony about what those interrogations involved, about the complicity of the US military and of senior officials in Washington D.C., and, most disturbingly, about the political motivations of the visit, and led to questions from the subcommittee about why members of Congress are prohibited from meeting prisoners at Guantánamo when Chinese intelligence agents were not, and to a demonstration of evasion on the part of the government’s spokesman that was so thorough that one of the committee members threatened to declare him “in contempt of Congress” and to withdraw funding from his department.

The Associated Press reported that, in a written statement “that did not specifically mention the Uighurs” (PDF), Jay Alan Liotta, the Defense Department’s Principal Director in the Office of Detainee Policy, claimed that the Defense Department “provides safe, humane, transparent and legal custody for each detainee,” and that, when foreign governments are allowed access to a prisoner, it is “long-standing department policy that visiting foreign officials must agree that they will abide by all DoD policies, rules and procedures.”

During questioning, however, Liotta “referred most lawmakers’ at-times incredulous queries to the Justice Department, or claimed the answer they sought was a national secret and could not be shared in a public hearing” (as ABC News described it). He also attempted to explain two contradictory points of view held by the Pentagon: on the one hand, he said that “[w]ithout question the single greatest reason to limit access to detainees is to provide for [the] personal safety” of those who visit them — US politicians included — while on the other hand he stated that the Pentagon’s policy was also “built on a respect for the Geneva Conventions,” which “requires the United States to shield detainees from ‘public curiosity.’”

This infuriated members of the subcommittee. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Ca.), a long-time supporter of the Guantánamo Uighurs, who criticized Newt Gingrich for promoting “fear-mongering” about them back in May, was, as ABC News explained, “visibly upset by the Obama administration’s apparent decision to continue the Bush administration’s policy of barring detainee visits by lawmakers.” Rohrabacher stated, “I am being denied — all of us are being denied the same access that was denied during the last administration.” After referring to George W. Bush as “a horrible man, a horrible president!” Rohrabacher added, “these very same restrictions on us are being reaffirmed in today’s testimony by this administration.”

Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) was even more annoyed. In what was described as “a series of rhetorical questions,” he said, “You allowed intelligence agents of a foreign country to interrogate [Uighur detainees], but you are concerned about their safety and that’s why you don’t allow United States members of Congress [to visit]?” and added, “You are concerned about ‘public curiosity’ — apparently you’re implying we’d be seeing them out of some public curiosity?”

When Liotta diverted questions to the Justice Department, or claimed that he could not answer because of national security issues, Moran grew even more angry. “My frustration continues to mount,” he said. “In order not to answer a question, you can suggest it be provided in classified form. That’s not acceptable. There is no classification of that answer. This is a manipulative, evasive tactic you are employing.” As ABC News described it, Moran suggested that Liotta “could be held in contempt of Congress, threatened to cut funding for the Office of Detainee Policy unless he got satisfactory answers, and said he thought Liotta ought to be fired,” and exclaimed, “To take up two hours of our time and not directly answer any of the relevant questions is an absolute insult to the United States Congress.”

Although Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Ma.), the chair of the subcommittee, had more sympathy for Liotta, explaining, “I understand that this is a difficult moment for you,” and adding, “I have no doubt that you have received instructions … You find yourself in a very awkward situation,” this was electrifying theater of an important kind. However, it was not the only shock of the day. The Uighurs’ lawyers have long contended that their clients were pawns in a diplomatic game, and in his testimony, one of the attorneys, Jason Pinney, spelled out this betrayal in stark terms (PDF).

“For the past four years, I have been part of a team at Bingham McCutchen that has represented — on a pro bono basis — as many as eleven of the twenty-two Uighur men at Guantánamo,” Pinney said. “None of these men are enemy combatants, and there has never been any justification for holding them. Thirteen Uighurs are still imprisoned at Guantánamo today. They remain there because no country — including our own — has the courage to stand up to the Chinese and offer them refuge.”

As I have explained in numerous articles in the last year, all of this is true — and is disturbing enough on its own terms, particularly regarding the ongoing opposition to resettling some of the men in the United States — but as Pinney continued, an even more disturbing truth became apparent:

The problem, however, goes far beyond our failure to resettle these men. An objective look at the evidence reveals that out country imprisoned the Uighurs as part of quid pro quo with China. China is one of five countries on the United Nations Security Council. In 2002 and 2003, we needed China’s support to invade Iraq. In exchange for Chinese acquiescence in our war plans, we agreed, among other things, to label the Uighurs as terrorists and house them at Guantánamo.

What’s more, we agreed to provide the Chinese with special and unprecedented access to the Uighur men. In September of 2002, we allowed a delegation from the Communist Chinese government to travel to Guantánamo and interrogate the Uighurs imprisoned there. The interrogations lasted for days. Our clients were forced into cells, alone, with the Chinese. No representative from the United States was present during these interrogations. In the history of our republic, I cannot think of another example where a Communist country was invited in to interrogate, unsupervised, prisoners in a United States detention facility.

In a timeline of events, Jason Pinney spelled out more clearly how the Uighurs were used. On December 6, 2001, for example, the State Department refused to designate the East Turkestan Independence Movement (the Uighur separatist movement, to which the Uighurs in Guantánamo were falsely alleged to belong) as a terrorist group. However, on August 26, 2002, as Pinney described it, “US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage [met] with senior Chinese officials in Beijing to discuss the invasion of Iraq and immediately announce[d] that [ETIM would] be placed on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.” The month after, the Chinese interrogators arrived at Guantánamo.

Jason Pinney also highlighted the double standards in the position taken by the Bush administration, and maintained by the Obama administration in the instructions given to Jay Alan Liotta:

Despite our best efforts, no one has been permitted to meet with our clients. The United Nations has been barred from meeting with the Uighurs. So have several human rights groups. The press has been denied permission to speak with the men, or to publish their pictures. Even the members of this Subcommittee have been denied access to the Uighurs, despite the blessing of counsel. The answer has always been the same. No contact has been allowed. The exception to this rule? The Communist Chinese government.

In a separate article, I reproduce in full the testimony of three of the Uighur prisoners, describing their interrogations by the Chinese agents, but what is particularly disturbing about their testimony — beyond the threats made by the agents — is the extent to which the US military helped out, “softening the men up” by routinely waking them up at 15-minute intervals the night before (as a Justice Department report explained last year), short-shackling them in painfully cold rooms in between interrogations, holding them in isolation for between five and 20 days after the interrogations, and physically forcing them to have their photos taken after they refused to cooperate. As Ablikim Turahun, one of the four men released in Bermuda last month, explained:

They attempted to take my picture; however, I did not agree to this. They called for American soldiers and ordered them to hold me, so that my picture could be taken. The soldiers grabbed me, pulling my beard, pressing on my throat, twisting my hands behind my back, and as a result my picture was taken by force.

Most disturbing of all, however, was the betrayal of the Uighurs’ personal details. Abu Bakker Qassim, one of the five Uighurs released in Albania in May 2006, explained, “When we were first interrogated at the Kandahar prison, we told the Americans that we would tell them everything if they would keep our materials confidential. They promised not to give our materials to the Chinese, or to hand us over to [the] Chinese.” At Guantánamo, however, “When some Uighur detainees refused to give their names, the Chinese interrogators said that the Americans they trusted had already provided them with their photos, full names and addresses.”

Qassim explained that the danger was that “the Chinese could now randomly oppress our family members,” but when he “asked the interrogators why they released all of our materials to the Chinese even though they promised to keep our information confidential,” they “did not feel a bit ashamed about it. They apologized by saying that someone in Washington gave our materials to the Chinese.”

As a result of the hearing, the subcommittee pledged to continue its attempts to hold the Bush administration accountable for its actions. “I want to know who was to blame for that decision,” Dana Rohrabacher said of the Chinese interrogations, and Bill Delahunt made clear (PDF) that it was the subcommittee’s “intention to provide a venue, whether here in Washington or elsewhere, for these men — who have fled Chinese persecution — to come forward and testify so that our colleagues and the American people can have an opportunity to hear them — first-hand — and make their own judgment.”

Delahunt remained appalled that the Committee’s request to visit the Uighurs had been denied by the Bush administration, and that “we never received a satisfactory explanation for why our visit was refused,” and his response to the only explanation he did receive, via a Fox News broadcast in which the DoD stated, “no Congressman can interrogate or question detainees because it is not part of their oversight responsibilities,” was an unwavering assertion of Congressional powers:

Let me first address the issue of oversight responsibility. I want to be very clear — there was no Congressional oversight during the Bush-Cheney Administration. It simply did not exist. As former Senator Chuck Hagel said, the Bush-Cheney Administration treated Congress “like a Constitutional nuisance.” I reject any suggestion that the Executive can define what constitutes the Congressional oversight. It is not the prerogative of the Executive to determine the role of the first branch of government. I am confident this position is shared by most, if not all, members of Congress.

Delahunt also quoted George Washington’s hope that America “might become a safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong,” and maintained that the US still had an obligation to “parole and resettle at least some of the Uighurs at Guantánamo into the United States.” He announced his intention to send a letter to this effect to President Obama and defense secretary Robert Gates in the near future, and, in conclusion, I can only hope that it meets with success.

Accepting some, or all of the remaining Uighurs into the United States would not only help to encourage other countries to accept cleared Guantánamo prisoners, but would also send a clear signal that Obama regrets sending Jay Alan Liotta to the House hearing to provide “an absolute insult to the United States Congress,” and is, moreover, determined to establish without a doubt that he repudiates the terrible effects of the Bush administration’s almost indiscriminate detention policies in the “War on Terror.”

Note: For further testimony — from Bruce Fein, Principal, The Litchfield Group, and from Tom Parker, Policy Director, Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights, Amnesty International USA — click here.

As published on the Huffington Post, CounterPunch, Antiwar.com and ZNet. Cross-posted on Common Dreams and uruknet.

Three Uighurs Talk About Chinese Interrogation At Guantánamo

Andy Worthington — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:02:05 +0000

These accounts, from three Uighur prisoners released from Guantánamo, were submitted to a hearing last Thursday of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight. For a report on the hearing, see “House Threatens Obama Over Chinese Interrogation Of Uighurs In Guantánamo.”

Statement of Abu Bakker Qassim

I would like to provide you with a detailed story of how the Chinese Communists went to Guantánamo.

Sometime in October 2002, Chinese security personnel came to Guantánamo. A few months before their arrival, the US military had informed us that the Chinese would come. When we said that the US had promised us to keep our identity confidential and asked how come the Chinese were coming, they responded that everything about us would be kept confidential. Chinese would be there only to have a discussion with their citizens in accordance to the international law, we could choose to speak or not to speak, they would observe the meeting from distance and we should not be worried about it.

Those Uighurs who were brought to the Chinese before me did not speak a word even after eight or nine hours of Chinese interrogation. The Chinese did not give them food or water; they kept the Uighurs sitting in a cold room for a long time; they used certain tactics and forcefully took photos of them. After learning this, I decided to openly talk to them because I had a bladder control problem and I could not stand sitting in a cold room for a long period.

They brought me out around evening time and started their interrogation. When I told them my full name and that I was from East Turkestan [the Uighurs’ name for their homeland before it was taken over by China in 1949], two Chinese policemen stood up from their seats and said that there was no such country. I said to them I fully knew an existence of such a country though they did not know it well. I further expressed to them how they had been oppressing Uighurs for the last 60 years. I also told them that I would not go back to China.

They tactically said that they were there to bring me back to China; and they would force me to confess after arriving in Urumqi [the capital of Xinjiang province, formerly East Turkestan] if I refused to confess about my terrorist activities.

I said that I would rather talk after they brought me to Urumqi. They started an ideological work. They spoke good Uighur. There were two Uighurs and three Chinese.

I spoke up frankly. I told them I applied for a political asylum according to the international law and I would never go back. I stopped the conversation by saying that they could do whatever they want to bring me back.

Those Chinese told some Uighur detainees that the Americans had asked them to bring us back because they could not afford us due to their declining economy. They also told some other Uighurs that the Americans were hard to understand and how naïve to allow praying and fasting while fighting terrorism.

When some Uighur detainees refused to give their names, the Chinese interrogators said that the Americans they trusted had already provided them with their photos, full names and addresses. They also showed the Uighurs the materials that were given by Americans.

When we were first interrogated at the Kandahar prison, we told the Americans that we would tell them everything if they would keep our materials confidential. They promised not to give our materials to the Chinese, or to hand us over to Chinese.

After I refused to answer any more questions, the Chinese interrogators failed to proceed further. They brought out their camera to take a picture. I refused to be photographed. One Chinese interrogator went outside and brought in two American soldiers. These two soldiers held me tight and the Chinese forcefully took a picture of me.

I had never thought that American soldiers would work with Chinese and treat us like this. Then I was locked up in a cold dark steel prison cell for five days. I was released to a regular prison cell after the Chinese left. During the five days when I was in the cold dark cell, while thinking about the Chinese’s harsh treatments towards us in a US prison, I felt sick with the American soldiers.

After the Chinese had left, during an interrogation, I asked the interrogators why they released all of our materials to the Chinese even though they promised to keep our information confidential; the Chinese could now randomly oppress our family members.

The interrogators did not feel a bit ashamed about it. They apologized by saying that someone in Washington gave our materials to the Chinese.

Since then, I started suspecting my trust with the American soldiers in Guantánamo because of their awful images that belong to a nation claiming to spread democracy around the world. According to what I know, soldiers of a nation represent their nation’s reputation. Looking at its soldiers, anyone should be able to make a judgment about a country.

Through an interpreter, I told some soldiers that we were not America’s enemies; they were America’s enemies instead since they broke the law and oppressed us randomly.

This is one part of the stories regarding the Chinese oppression while they were in Guantánamo. You may contact me if there is anything that is not clear.

Abu Bakker Qassim currently lives in Tirana, Albania. In March 2005, a Combatant Status Review Tribunal determined that he was not an enemy combatant. The US government nevertheless continued to imprison him for another 14 months, until May 2006, when, with four others, he was sent to Albania one day before the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit was to hear oral argument in his case.

Statement of Khalil Mamut

I was taken to Cuba in 2002, on 10th June. I stayed in Kilo Block, cell number 28. In the beginning of autumn 2002, a delegation from China representing the Chinese government arrived. It was afternoon when I was informed by one of the MPs that I was to get ready for an appointment. I was later escorted by two military soldiers to the interrogation room. Once I arrived there, two men came in. One was from the American government, and the other was from the Chinese Communist government. The American spoke in Chinese, saying I am from the American government, and we have an agreement with the Chinese government, therefore we have allowed them to come here to interrogate you. The Uighur man translated the American man’s instructions into our language. After the introduction, they departed. Following their departure, two different men arrived. One looked Uighur, and the other Chinese.

Once they arrived, they began their interrogation process, asking, “where are you from, what is your address?” I refused to answer any of their questions, because I was informed by the Americans that I did not have to answer any of their questions, as they have not been provided with any information, and have not seen my file. They abused me by telling me that they would take me by force when I returned to China, and that I would be beaten, and eventually killed. I informed them that I do not wish to go back to China. Then they became angrier, and they attempted to take my picture. I refused to allow them to do this. However, they were eventually able to take some pictures as I was shackled and chained. Then the two men ordered the American soldiers to take me to another room. Once I arrived at this new location, the air conditioning unit was turned on to full blast, and I was left in this room for seven straight hours. In this room I once again had shackles on my feet, with my hand also chained. In the evening I was returned to my cell.

On the second day, two soldiers came and took me back to the interrogation room. When I arrived, there were again two men. One was a Uighur, and the other was Chinese. They once again started to interrogate me, asking for my address, and again I did not answer their questions. They informed me that they will take me back to China by force, and once I arrived I would be tortured, and beaten. If I was to return to China on my own, they would inform the general of my decision, and once I arrived there “I would be allowed to be free.” (Really, not so). If I refused to return to China, I would face a military court, which would mean that I would stay in prison for a very long time. I told them that I do not want to go back to China, and I do not want China. After this they called the MPs, and instructed them to tighten the chains and take me to another room. I was taken by the MPs to this other room where I found another Chinese man that I had not seen before. This man began to mentally abuse me by telling me that the uncomfortable position I was in was my punishment. In addition, he turned the air conditioner on to very high, and I remained in this room for seven hours. I almost collapsed because it was so very cold. My hands and feet were swollen, as a result of the chain being tightened earlier. In the late evening I was returned to my cell.

Khalil Mamut currently lives in Bermuda. The US military cleared him for release in 2005. It formally conceded that he was not an enemy combatant in September 2008. The following month, a US District Court judge found that his imprisonment — like that of every other Uighur man at Guantánamo — was illegal (“Because the Constitution prohibits indefinite detention without just cause, this court rules that the government’s continued detention of the prisoners is unlawful”). This was overruled in February 2009, and at the time of writing a petition for certiorari was pending with the Supreme Court. Mr. Mamut was imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay until June 11, 2009, when he was released to Bermuda.

Khalil Mamut (right) and Ablikim Turahun (left) enjoy their freedom in Bermuda with Salahidin Abdulahad (center).

Statement of Ablikim Turahun

I was taken to Cuba on 3 May, 2002. Once I arrived, I was placed in Hotel Block. After a few months, a delegation arrived from the Chinese government, during the first part of October 2002. One day in the afternoon, one of the MPs arrived to inform me that I have an appointment right now, and that I should get ready. Two American soldiers arrived to take me to the interrogation room. Once I arrived in the room, two men entered. One was from the American government, and the other was from the Chinese government. The American man started to speak in Chinese language, saying, “I am from the American government. I have to inform you beforehand, that we have an agreement with the Chinese government to allow the Chinese to interrogate you.” The other man from China translated what the American said into the Uighur language. After a while, they departed, and two different men from China arrived. One of them was Uighur, and the other was Chinese. Both men attempted to interrogate me, but I refused to speak to them, as the Americans had informed us prior that we do not have to speak to the Chinese if we didn’t want to speak to them, as they have not been provided with any information on us. They attempted to take my picture; however, I did not agree to this. They called for American soldiers and ordered them to hold me, so that my picture could be taken. The soldiers grabbed me, pulling my beard, pressing on my throat, twisting my hands behind my back, and as a result my picture was taken by force.

The air conditioner in the room was placed on high, making the room very cold. I was left in this room for six hours. As a result of the room being so very cold, I felt somewhat frozen at times. After this six-hour period, I was placed in an isolation room that was made of metal, and measured 6’ x 8’. There I remained for 20 days in isolation. The room was so very cold, and dark. I was not able to see daylight, or any other person. During the 20 days, it was very difficult to sleep, because I was not given any blankets or sheets by which to cover myself in this isolation room. I spent those days suffering. I requested to speak to the Uighur interpreter so that he could translate to the guard commander. I wanted to speak to the commander asking him why have I been placed there. The commander replied that it was not his decision, but that of the Chinese delegation who instructed that I should be put in isolation. Following this, the interpreter and guard commander departed. I remained there for the remainder of my 20 days. During this time my ears became blocked, and I was unable to hear. This was a result of the extreme cold. I demanded to see a doctor, but no one honored my request. However, although I was refused the first time, I continued to ask if I could see a doctor. After two months, I was taken to see a doctor, after which I received medical attention, and there was some recovery of my hearing.

Ablikim Turahun currently lives in Bermuda. Under the name Huzaifa Parhat, he was the petitioner in the lead Detainee Treatment Action case, Parhat v. Gates. At a time when his and every other habeas case was stayed, Mr. Turahun moved for a summary determination under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 that he had not been properly classified as an “enemy combatant,” even under the US Department of Defense’s overbroad definition of that term. After extensive briefing and oral argument, the DC Circuit unanimously held for Mr. Turahun. The court vacated his classification as an enemy combatant because it was neither supported by reliable evidence, nor consistent with DoD regulations governing the Combatant Status Review Tribunal process. The Court ordered the government to “release him, to transfer him, or to expeditiously convene a new CSRT.” Although the government subsequently waived its re-CSRT option, and conceded that Mr. Turahun was not an enemy combatant, it imprisoned him for another year, until releasing him to Bermuda on June 11, 2009.

Is The World Ignoring A Massacre of Uighurs In China?

Andy Worthington — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:25:39 +0000

I have just received disturbing information from several Uighur correspondents in the United States, regarding the “riots” that began just nine days ago in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China.

When the unrest began, the world’s media suddenly discovered the story of the Uighurs, who describe their situation as akin to that of the Tibetans, but without the popular support. Once known as East Turkestan, the Uighurs’ long-contested homeland was conquered by the People’s Liberation Army in 1949, and anyone even remotely familiar with recent Uighur history will be aware that, in the 1960s, Mao Zedong encouraged Han Chinese to settle in the area in large numbers, and that the Uighurs — some of whom came to the attention of the West when 22 refugees were sold to US forces and imprisoned in Guantánamo — maintain that, as a result, they are marginalized and persecuted in their own country.

According to a 2005 report by Human Rights Watch, the Chinese government has established a “multi-tiered system of surveillance, control, and suppression of religious activity aimed at Xinjiang’s Uighurs. At its most extreme, peaceful activists who practice their religion in a manner deemed unacceptable by state authorities or Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials are arrested, tortured, and at times executed. The harshest punishments are meted out to those accused of involvement in separatist activity, which is increasingly equated by officials with ‘terrorism.’ Because of fears in Beijing of the power of separatist messages, independent religious activity or dissent is at times arbitrarily equated with a breach of state security, a serious crime in China and one that is frequently prosecuted.”

Unlike last year, when the violence in Tibet played out unfavorably for the Chinese government, coverage of the unrest in Urumqi, which coincided with a major Uighur demonstration, was commandeered by the government, which, in an unprecedented move, set up a press office and pumped out stories blaming the violence on the Uighurs — and specifically, on Rebiya Kadeer, the head of the World Uyghur Congress, who was blamed for inciting the violence.

The New York Times explained, “As with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, Chinese officials often blame Ms. Kadeer for ethnic unrest.” For her part, Kadeer, who lives in Washington D.C., and was an extraordinarily successful businesswoman in Xinjiang until she was imprisoned on dubious spying charges by the Chinese government, not only denied the allegations, but also provided a glimpse of the strength of character that continues to draw supporters to the Uighurs’ cause. “Instead of blaming me,” she told the Times, “the Chinese government should start listening to the complaints of the Uighur people and choose dialogue.”

As Arianna Huffington reports today, the government also “choked off the Internet, blocked Twitter, and deleted updates and videos from social networking sites,” preventing the Uighurs from mounting an Iranian-style grass-roots response, and released news footage showing film of Han Chinese who had been wounded, and of Uighur youths attacking vehicles and buildings, which was broadcast around the world, effectively endorsing their one-sided message that the Uighurs were to blame for all the violence, and making it remarkably difficult to establish what actually took place.

Largely absent from the story, however, was a reason for the demonstration, which, it later transpired, was because a number of Uighur workers (two, according to the government’s figures) had been murdered on June 25 in a toy factory in Guangdong (2,000 miles away from Xinjiang, on the other side of China) after Han Chinese workers falsely accused a number of their Uighur colleagues of raping two young Han Chinese women.

Also missing was a coherent explanation of why a demonstrably peaceful demonstration had suddenly turned violent, but by July 10, when the government issued a statement, claiming that 137 Han Chinese and 46 Uighurs had died in Urumqi (and 1,680 people had been wounded), the press wondered, briefly, about the fate of an unspecified number of Uighurs detained after the unrest, mentioned mobs of Han Chinese roaming the streets of Urumqi armed with swords and other weapons (and in some cases photographed them), and then largely moved on.

And yet, the reports I received from Uighurs in the US — drawing on accounts from inside Urumqi — provide uncomfortable answers to the questions posed above, and indicate that the government’s suppression of the Uighurs may be so severe — involving the murder of up to 1,500 Uighurs, and the disappearance of thousands more, who, it is feared, will either not be seen again or will face unjust “show trials” — that it is nothing short of a massacre, whose true contours may never be known without concerted demands for accountability and restraint from the international community.

The toy factory murders

According to the reports, the murders in the Guangdong toy factory (in the city of Shaoguan), which prompted the demonstration on July 5 after government inaction, were more extensive than the official government report suggested, and involved the murder of between 18 and 30 Uighurs, with hundreds more wounded.

The Uighurs reporting from the US cast doubt on government claims that the toy factory murders followed an Internet posting in which a former Han employee of the toy factory said that several Uighur workers had raped two Han Chinese girls. “We believe,” they wrote, “that the above account told by the Chinese government to the outside world is false. It is unimaginable that one accusation posted on the Internet can mobilize several thousand Han workers to take up iron pipes and other weapons, come to the factory campus, and start beating Uighur workers wherever they can find them, in most cases until their deaths.”

They cited an article published in the Guardian on July 10, in which Jonathan Watts reported that the first of what would eventually be 818 Uighur migrants arrived at the toy factory on May 2, as part of “a controversial government program to encourage migration from poorer western regions such as Xinjiang to wealthy eastern provinces such as Guangdong,” which has led to 200,000 young Uighurs leaving Xinjiang since the start of 2008. “Han colleagues initially treated them as a curiosity,” Watts wrote, citing a female worker at the factory, who said, “At first, we thought they were fun because in the evenings they danced and it was very lively. But then many others arrived. The more of them there were, the worst relations became.”

Reporting the story about the alleged rapes, and the Han Chinese workers’ response to it, Watts noted that the allegation was “repeated by almost all of the 20 or so local people” that he spoke to, but “no one could provide evidence or the names of the victims.” However, the racial tensions it inspired were clearly deep-seated, as Watts explained:

A local man said he took part in the assault because he was furious that the rapes had gone unpunished. “I just wanted to beat them. I hate Xinjiang people,” he said. “Seven or eight of us beat a person together. Some Xinjiang people hid under their beds. We used iron bars to batter them to death and then dragged them out and put the bodies together.” Squatting on his haunches in the shadows of a half-constructed apartment block, the Han man — who gave no name — said the government was lying about the death toll. He claims he helped to kill seven or eight Uighurs, battering them until they stopped screaming. He thinks the death toll is more than 30, including a few Han.

The US Uighurs added that, according to witness reports received by representatives of the World Uyghur Congress in several countries, “at least 30 Uighurs were killed and more than 300 were injured in this clash. It took about two days for the police to clean up bloodstains in streets and dormitories inside the factory campus.” They added that several families of the victims from villages in Kashgar District, in Xinjiang province, had received the bodies of their loved ones, but “were threatened by police, telling them that they cannot talk to anybody about this incident; otherwise they will lose their homes, their farming lands and they will go to jail.”

The Urumqi protest and its bloody aftermath

According to witnesses in Urumqi, who contacted Uighur organizations in the US, Germany and Turkey, the protest on July 5 began peacefully, and only turned violent when the Chinese police, who were “in position in People’s Square before the Uighur protesters arrived, started kicking, beating and arresting them from the very beginning of their arrival. This is the reason why a well-prepared peaceful protest turned into violence within the first couple of hours of the protest.”

In a press release, Rebiya Kadeer pointed out, “The fact that Uighurs were holding Chinese national flags speaks volumes for the nature of this peaceful protest and for what they were demanding — civil rights and equal justice under the law.” Witnesses added that the Chinese authorities “had full knowledge of the upcoming protest because it was announced on the Internet, so they made full preparations and arrangements about how to deal with it and how to take advantage of it.”

Witnesses also explained that the protest began at around 5 pm local time, and that “the police’s beating, arresting and chasing started at that time, and lasted for many hours after that.” By about 8:30 pm, when it was becoming dark, “the police chased the Uighur protesters into three alleyways mostly populated by Uighurs,” and cut off the city’s electricity supply for about 90 minutes. They continued:

During this time, the police, who were fully armed with armored vehicles and machine guns surrounded the crowds in the three alleyways from both sides, and fired at them with full military power en masse. The sounds of these gunshots can be heard in many YouTube videos filmed that night and posted on the Internet.

According to the witnesses, “an estimated 800 to 1000 people, most of them Uighurs, were shot to death during that one and a half hour period of time. For this reason, the Turkish Prime Minister compared this violence to genocide.”

One witness reported that “a young Uighur man, in his 20s, was shot twice, but crawled into a nearby trench before he died. He was discovered by several Uighurs next morning. The news spread through the neighborhood quickly, and more than ten Uighur residents, most of them women and children, gathered at the spot. Right at that moment, a full truck of police arrived and took the dead body as well as all the bystanders with them. The whereabouts of those people as well as others detained are still not known.”

According to “reports obtained by World Uyghur Congress representatives from several knowledgeable people” inside Xinjiang province, the Chinese authorities erased the evidence of the mass execution of Uighur victims by “burying the dead bodies two meters deep in a desert location so that nobody could find them.”

The witnesses added that, “after electricity in Urumqi was set to normal at 10 pm, the police searched all the homes in the three alleyways where the police killing took place, and arrested all the males approximately 14 years or older.” The Uighurs in the US added, “Knowing China’s history of brutal crackdown and mass arrest of the Uighur participants in the past demonstrations, we strongly believe the Chinese authorities arrested an estimated 3,000 Uighur males that night. This is the reason why the Uighur protesters who took to the streets on July 7 and afterwards were mostly women and children.”

Reporting on a Chinese website, T.D., a Han Chinese blogger, provided the most harrowing account of the Han Chinese response to the violence on July 5, when, as the US Uighurs described it, “a mob of several thousand Han Chinese, carrying meat cleavers, machetes, axes, clubs and shovels, went to Urumqi’s streets, killed or injured every Uighur they could find, and destroyed shops and restaurants owned by Uighurs and two mosques.” T.D. wrote:

I just made a phone call to Xinjiang. The situation has spread on a large scale. Immigrant Han Chinese have already started actions. They are beating and killing every Uighur they can find. The number of the Uighur shops destroyed far exceeds that of those destroyed on July 5 and owned by Han Chinese. The number of the Uighurs killed and injured is also many times more than what was reported. I was told that the people walking on the streets are only Han Chinese. Almost all of the Han Chinese walking on the streets are carrying long knives. It is [reported] that some Han Chinese killed Uighurs and then hung their dead bodies on trees. Some Han Chinese are standing on bridges and throwing Uighurs off them. There were so many dead bodies that trash-collecting trucks started to move them away. The policemen standing nearby were pretending they didn’t see anything, and sometimes saying, “hit the Uighurs at the life-threatening places.” This has greatly encouraged those Han Chinese.

The Uighurs in the US added that, according to other reports they received, the Han Chinese mobs were “probably military personnel dressed like civilians, because they acted, when beating and killing Uighurs, like well-trained professionals.” They also reiterated the blogger’s report that “the police made no attempts to stop the armed Han Chinese mobs, and no reports have been made that any members of Han Chinese mobs who killed or injured Uighur victims or [damaged] Uighur properties have been arrested.”

They also noted that Urumqi’s CCP chief, Li Zhi, said “those who had used ‘cruel means’ during the rioting would be executed,” and added, “Because the Han mobs who used ‘cruel means’ to injure and kill Uighurs and damaged properties owned by Uighurs were not arrested, Li Zhi was referring to those several thousand Uighurs who have been detained.”

In conclusion, they stated,

We, the Uighurs around the world, call for urgent intervention in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region by the UN and human rights bodies. We appeal to the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva to send independent observers to XUAR, and force the Chinese authorities to immediately launch an independent investigation into the protests, accounting for all those who have died in the protests and who have been detained, [because they] are at great risk of torture or other ill-treatment. Given these alarming developments and given the history of over 60 years of human rights violations by the Chinese authorities in XUAR, what we are asking today is for a high-level UN engagement with the Chinese authorities to stop these brutal crackdowns against the Uighur people.

In the Guardian today, cementing her role as a sensitive and capable leader-in-exile, Rebiya Kadeer confronted the actions of her own people in Urumqi, but stressed that reports of the murders of large numbers of Uighurs were too numerous to dismiss. “It is irrefutable that acts of violence, including murders, were committed by Uighurs against Han Chinese,” she wrote. “However, numerous residents of East Turkestan have told the organizations I lead that they have witnessed the deaths of hundreds of Uighurs that have gone unreported in the official press. At this point, it is impossible to verify these eyewitness accounts, as communications have been virtually cut off between East Turkestan and the outside world. But I cannot ignore the many accounts I have received of unimaginable atrocities that have been covered up.” Like her compatriots, Rebiya Kadeer called for justice and accountability, demanding “fair trials for those accused of perpetrating violence,” and “an independent, international investigation into the events of the past week.”