[PINR] Nov. 3, 2004: Uighur Detainees at Guantanamo Bay

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Power and Interest News Report (PINR)

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November 3, 2004:

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"Freeing Uighur Detainees from U.S. Custody May be Impossible"
Drafted by Adam Wolfe on November 3, 2004
http://www.pinr.com

The Pentagon is looking to release more than half of approximately two-dozen Uighur detainees being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but Washington, for strategic and political reasons, will not return the detainees to China. With other countries apparently unwilling to accept the detainees, the U.S. faces a serious threat to its diplomatic relationship with China if it moves to allow the detainees asylum in the U.S. This difficult situation in Cuba highlights the complexities that underline, and threaten to undermine, Washington's policy on China's Xinjiang region.

- History of the Xinjiang Region

China's Xinjiang region is the traditional home of the Uighurs -- a Turkic-speaking people who converted to Islam in the 1300s. In 1949, the newly established communist government of China took control of the region. In order to consolidate its power in the area, Beijing began to resettle Han Chinese people in the region. This policy led to a dramatic shift in the demographics of the region -- the Han population has increased from 7 percent to over 40 percent since 1949.

The Uighur population often felt slighted by Beijing and was resentful that Han Chinese were given state-sponsored jobs after moving to Xinjiang, while Uighurs faced few economic opportunities. In the early 1990s this resentment began to form the foundation of a sometimes-violent opposition movement.
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- Xinjiang in the "War on Terror"

Although Washington monitored the actions of the militant Uighur groups prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, they were not seen as a threat to U.S. objectives in the region. This changed after Uighur militants were captured and killed during the invasion of Afghanistan while fighting alongside the Taliban and al-Qaeda. There are reportedly two-dozen Uighur militants being held at Guantanamo Bay who were captured during fighting in Afghanistan.
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- No Simple Solution Exists

These competing agendas have made Washington's position on the Xinjiang region difficult to sustain, and the desire to free the two-dozen Uighur detainees from Guantanamo Bay has further complicated the problem. Washington cannot return the detainees to China for two reasons: their repatriation would be seen as a justification of China's policy toward its Uighur citizens, which would make it more difficult for Washington to promote the peaceful instability it favors in the Xinjiang region, and there are genuine concerns for the detainees' safety if they return to China.
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- Conclusion

Why the Uighur Muslims were captured, and why they were deemed to no longer pose a threat to the United States is not clear. However, there is little chance that the detainees will be freed from U.S. custody any time soon, because there is little room for Washington's Xinjiang policy to move. The United States will continue to search for a country that will accept the detainees, but China's importance to global capital markets makes this unlikely to succeed.
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