Uighur Update: China's mad, so is the UK

A follow up now on Tuesday's post about the United States’ plans to finally release 17 Uighur detainees held at Guantanamo Bay for years after the government decided they were neither terrorists nor posed any threat to the US.

Early reports were that the tiny Pacific Ocean island nation of Palau agreed to take all 17 Chinese Muslims. Palau is in a rare position to take men that China considers to be terrorists since it's one of the few countries in the world that recognizes Taiwan, rather than Beijing, as the legitimate government of China - in other words, Palau doesn't care how much Beijing complains (and they are making quite a stink about the Uighurs release, more on that in a moment).

Concern over China's reaction apparently prompted the United States to hide the fact that they were negotiating with Bermuda to also host some Uighur prisoners. Bermuda agreed this week to take four of the men (with the other 13 going to Palau), a fact that came as quite a surprise to the British government, which still rules Bermuda as an Overseas Territory. American officials said they deliberately hid the negotiations from the British government so that the Chinese government, which apparently has been twisting arms around the world to keep countries from taking the refugee Uighurs, wouldn’t put similar pressure on the Brits. For their part, the British government has said it’s angry the US didn't deal with them directly and that officials in Bermuda overstepped their authority by agreeing to take the four Uighurs since it is an immigration issue and thus something London has to decide about, but they said they will not step in to overturn the decision.

China, meanwhile, is demanding the return of all 17 Uighurs, claiming they're terrorists - even though the US has already cleared them of any terrorism charges. Calling the Uighurs terrorists though is a knee-jerk reaction from Beijing – while the Uighur resistance to Chinese attempts at wiping out their culture in China's far northwest Xinjiang Province has been largely peaceful, China accuses the Uighurs of terrorism to justify their heavy-handed tactics against them. Two weeks ago China claimed it smashed seven "terror cells" in Xinjiang's largest city, Kashgar; a claim the Uighur exile community's leader met with "utmost skepticism", saying China had not offered the "slightest piece of evidence" that these were in fact terror cells and said that the Uighurs struggle has a peaceful one.