Bermuda, June 15: Freed after long miserable years in America’s notorious Guantanamo detention center, four Chinese Muslims are enjoying the taste of freedom in the Atlantic island of Bermuda, though Guantanamo still haunts them.
“Eating together like this, gathered around a table together that’s what freedom is all about for me,” Abdulla Abdulqadir told, sitting in a guesthouse along with his three Guantanamo fellows.
Seated around a table with sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean, they looked relaxed, happy and most of all relieved to know their seven years of hell were over.
“Can Obama Bring Back My Mother, Life?” Gitmo in Focus The four men were among members of China’s Uighur ethnic minority detained in Guantanamo since their capture in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001. They remained at the notorious detention center despite the fact that the US determined early on they were not enemy combatants and should be released.
Last year a US federal judge ordered all 17 men released into the US but an appeals court halted the order, and they have been in legal limbo ever since.
It was only last Thursday that four have been freed and resettled in the Caribbean British colony of Bermuda.
“Bermuda had the courage to step and do this it’s a small place but it has a big heart. This is where we want to stay,” says a jubilant Salahidin Abulahad, 32.
Now, the four men are finally enjoying freedom on the Caribbean island.
They found time for a brief kick of a football for the first time in 8 years after noticing a group of teenagers playing in a nearby field.
“A horse appeared they hadn’t seen a horse in seven years,” said Sabin Willett, their American lawyer.
“It was a beautiful moment; you could tell they were moved just to see this horse.”
Haunted
But the Guantanamo nightmare is following the four Muslim to Bermuda.
Their transfer has been met by sharp criticism from some island officials who are concerned their presence might hurt tourism.
Bermuda radio talk shows have been flooded with angry callers fretting about the arrival of “blood-crazed jihadists” to the cozy island.
Britain, which is responsible for Bermuda’s security and foreign policy, also complained about the relocation of the four Muslims.
The Uighurs are aware of what is being said about them by some of their new hosts.
“What did you think when you saw us? Do we look like that kind of people? Are you nervous around us?” Abdulqadir told some of Bermuda residents at a celebratory meal in their guesthouse.
“In Guantanamo Bay, there’s no friendliness,” recalled Abulahad, 32.
“The people here have been so friendly, they come and hug us.”
Abdulahad says he and his fellow compatriots want noting but to be allowed to live in peace in their new home.
“What’s past is past. It’s really sad that seven years of my life were lost but we don’t hold any grudges. We just want to concentrate on the future.”
-Agencies