As I wrote last Wednesday, 17 of the Uighur Guantanamo detainees were to be taken to Palau, a place the majority of the Americans if they are interested at all, would have to look in an atlas to locate… It does not matter, as long as no detainees are taking to US land, everybody is happy. And then people wonder other countries don’t want any detainees. So the search goes on. And we are still with the Uighurs. In the middle of the week, senior aides to President Barack Obama accompanied four Uighur prisoners as they were flown from Guantanamo Bay to the British colony of Bermuda, without the UK being informed. Bermuda’s Premier Ewart Brown said the United States would pay for their resettlement. Apart from looking as if the US is paying to resettle the prisoners, this transfer from Guantanamo to Bermuda is costing more than dollars. It has started a diplomatic row with the UK as the Obama administration failed to informed that allied country of their plan. One British official said: “The Americans were fully aware of the foreign-policy understanding we have with Bermuda and they deliberately chose to ignore it. This is not the kind of behavior one expects from an ally.” It seems that under the 1968 General Entrustment agreement, Bermuda has the right to conduct foreign relations on condition it consults London before entering into agreements with other states. And in this case both the US and Bermuda failed to do so. Though the US State Department attempted to claim that talks had, in fact, been held with the office of the British governor in Bermuda prior to the inmates being sent to the island. An official in Washington said: “We did talk to them before the Uighurs got on the plane.” This, however, was flatly denied by the governor, Sir Richard Gozney.
Part of the UK understandable anger is the prospect of the Uighurs, after living in Bermuda, being able in a future of getting British citizenship and right to travel (and technically settle) in the UK. However, they would not have the right to enter America without the express permission of the US government.
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