DILEMMA OVER GUANTANAMO DETAINEES
DO we really need to take some of the detainees of the US Guantanamo Bay prison camp and allow them to resettle in Australia?
This is a dilemma for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd following US President Barack Obama’s request for help to close the military prison camp.
But the Chinese government wants the 17 detainees, who are Ulighur Muslims from north-western China, repatriated to Beijing for trial. The Chinese government considers them terrorists.
Even if the US fear that the repatriation of the detainees to China may end up in their torture and execution, a matter that is obviously a great concern to the civil libertarians, is believable, it is a sensitive and difficult issue for Australia to consider because of China’s lobby and insistence that the detainees, who are of Chinese nationals, be returned to Beijing.
What is involved here is how to balance the good relationship between Australia and China and the US concerns on the fate of the 17 detainees.
If Australia ignores China’s insistence and accepts the detainees on humanitarian grounds, will it adversely affect its relationship with Beijing? What is the consequence?
There are probably two options. One is that China could take the drastic action to recall its ambassador to Canberra and cut its imports of Australian resources at a time when the economy is reeling from the effects of the world’s worst recession since the Great Depression of 1929.
The other is that it will criticise Australia as an a country it could not trust, lodge a diplomatic protest and refuse to cooperate with Canberra on various matters which are now under consideration for mutual interests?
While we admire Obama’s political and electoral success, his determination to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison and his efforts to bring about peace in the Middle-East, I believe that the best solution to the dilemma is to resettle the detainees in the US.
The US, under the George Bush administration, had captured the Ulighur Muslims in the so-called war of terror and detained them in the prison camp -- only to clear them of any terrorist activity more than six years later.
Australia, in the meantime, has had enough of those terrorist suspects, who had migrated here, enjoyed the freedom that they could not get in their own respective countries and then threatened to kill and injure thousands of people at sporting stadium and other important events in what they claim to be jihad.
The fact that they didn’t achieve their objectives is due to the excellent work of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation and the Federal Police. It took them years of undercover work to penetrate and collect sufficient evidence to crack the terrorist cells across the country.
Such operations are not only dangerous to the nation’s security and intelligence officers but also the most effective measures to counter the terrorist threat against innocent and peace-loving people. All the people of this country want is nothing more than to enjoy the privileges that a democratic system provides.
So, why do we look for more trouble? Why do we need to take people whose background may still be suspicious in the light of the Chinese allegations whether, on the face of it, we believe it or not?
It is true that one of the principles of democracy and justice is that a person is regarded innocent until he or she is proven guilty. But the circumstances in the Guantanamo cases, generally, are connected with suspected terrorist activities which are difficult to prove.
That is why they are held in the military prison for many years without a trial. In saying this, I do not wholeheartedly agree with their detention because they have not been convicted by a criminal court where they would have been represented by defence lawyers.
But I do believe the authorities had good reasons to capture them and fly them to Guantanamo Bay to extract information on their alleged terrorist cells and the names and movements of their leaders.
They are suspected of being part of the constant al-Queda terrorist threat not only to the Western countries but also to all other nations, including the Muslim states.
This issue of the Ulighur detainees is the US problem and it should deal with it in its own way in its own country rather than trying to pass it on elsewhere.
It is the third time that the US had urged Australia to take the detainees – perhaps not realising how sensitive the issue is for us.
Rudd must make it clear that his government cannot accept the latest request. The first two requests were made by the Bush administration and were rejected by Australia.
Australia must decide on this issue purely for its own national interest.
And that is, irrespective of the detainees’ innocence or otherwise, we simply cannot accept them because of their dubious background which should concerns us.
But we must make it clear, too, that it has nothing to do with their racial origin or religious belief.
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