Ex-Guantanamo detainees begin new lives in Palau

AP - By JONATHAN KAMINSKY

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They've shaved off the long beards they wore at Guantanamo Bay, and they were angered at a local newspaper report that casually referred to them as terrorists.

The six Chinese Muslim men were also relieved and thankful to be out of the U.S. prison and beginning new lives in Palau on Tuesday as they gave their first tentative media interview to The Associated Press.

"We are extremely grateful to the president of Palau and the people of Palau who have graciously accepted us and given us this home," said Abdul Ghappar Abdul Rahman, who along with the other members of China's Uighur minority group spent some eight years in U.S. custody before being released without charge this week.

"The U.S. government told us this would be a temporary home," Abdul Rahman told the AP as they spent their first day out and about. "We will study English here, look for a job and establish our new lives in this beautiful country," he said, speaking through a U.S. government-appointed interpreter.

The resettlement came after long negotiations, both with Palau to achieve the offer to house the Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs), and with the men themselves, who their lawyers said knew little about the Pacific island nation and were concerned they would be isolated from their people.

The six were among 22 Chinese Muslims picked up by American forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001 on suspicion of terrorism. They were taken eventually to Guantanamo, where they were held as enemy combatants until a federal court ruled last year that they should be freed.

They spent months in legal limbo as U.S. officials tried to find somewhere to send them, and help meet U.S. President Barack Obama's plan to close Guantanamo. Congress moved to block any Guantanamo detainee from entering the United States. Beijing calls the Uighur men terrorists and has demanded they be returned to China, where activists say they would face persecution and possibly death.

Palau, a clutch of islands east of the Philippines that is home to some 20,000 people and still relies on funds from Washington, offered to take all but one of the Uighurs. Both sides denied the offer was linked to U.S. aid. The one exception was a man Palau said it had mental health concerns about. Six have so far declined Palau's offer.

But the Uighurs remain stateless in important ways. President Johnson Toribiong also says the Uighurs' resettlement is temporary, though it could last years, and they are free to leave when they want.