Monday, June 11, 2007
Chinese who left Guantánamo languish in Albanian limbo - International Herald Tribune
Ahktar Qassim Basit says he is not angry about the four years he spent as a U.S. prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, before his captors mumbled a brief apology and flew him to this drab Balkan capital to begin a new life as a refugee.
It is this new life in Albania, Basit and other former Guantánamo detainees said, that is driving them to desperation.
The men, Muslims from western China's Uighur ethnic minority, were freed from their confinement in Cuba after they were found to pose no threat to the United States. They have now lived for more than a year in a squalid government refugee center on the grubby outskirts of Tirana, guarded by armed policemen.
The Uighurs have been told that they will need to get work to move out of the center, they said, but that they must learn the Albanian language to get work permits. For now, they subsist on free meals heavy on macaroni and rice, and monthly stipends of about $67, which they spend mostly on quick telephone calls to their families. But some of the men have already lost hope of ever seeing their wives and children again.
"We suffered very much at Guantánamo, but we continue to suffer here," Basit said. "The other prisoners had their countries, but we are like orphans: We have no place to go." ...
Ahktar Qassim Basit says he is not angry about the four years he spent as a U.S. prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, before his captors mumbled a brief apology and flew him to this drab Balkan capital to begin a new life as a refugee.
It is this new life in Albania, Basit and other former Guantánamo detainees said, that is driving them to desperation.
The men, Muslims from western China's Uighur ethnic minority, were freed from their confinement in Cuba after they were found to pose no threat to the United States. They have now lived for more than a year in a squalid government refugee center on the grubby outskirts of Tirana, guarded by armed policemen.
The Uighurs have been told that they will need to get work to move out of the center, they said, but that they must learn the Albanian language to get work permits. For now, they subsist on free meals heavy on macaroni and rice, and monthly stipends of about $67, which they spend mostly on quick telephone calls to their families. But some of the men have already lost hope of ever seeing their wives and children again.
"We suffered very much at Guantánamo, but we continue to suffer here," Basit said. "The other prisoners had their countries, but we are like orphans: We have no place to go." ...
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