关塔那摩Uyghur写给奥巴马的一封信,A Letter to Barack Obama from a Guantanamo Uighur

There were once 22 Uighur prisoners in Guantánamo. Muslims from China's oppressed Xinjiang province, they had all been swept up as human debris during "Operation Enduring Freedom," the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan that began in October 2001. The majority of these men were seized after fleeing to Pakistan from a run-down settlement in Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains, which had been hit in a U.S. bombing raid. Initially welcomed by Pakistani villagers, they were then betrayed and sold to U.S. forces, who were offering $5000 a head for "al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects."
None of the men had been in Afghanistan to support al-Qaeda or the Taliban, and none had raised arms against U.S. forces. They all maintained that they had only one enemy -- the Chinese government -- and explained that they had ended up at the settlement either in the hope of finding a way of rising up against their oppressors, which was unlikely, as the settlement was dirt-poor and had only one gun, or because they had hoped to travel to other countries in search of work -- primarily Turkey, which has historic connections to the people of East Turkestan (as the Uighurs call their homeland) -- but had been thwarted in their aims.
In May 2006, five of the 22 were freed from Guantánamo, after being cleared in a military review, and sent to live in a refugee camp in Albania, the only country that could be persuaded to accept them after the U.S. authorities acknowledged that they would not return them to China, where they faced the risk of torture. For the other 17, justice was to prove more elusive, and it was until June 2008, in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling confirming that the Guantánamo prisoners had habeas corpus rights (the right to challenge the basis of their detention in court), that an appeals court in Washington ruled that the government had failed to establish a case that one of the men -- Huzaifa Parhat -- was an "enemy combatant."
In the wake of the ruling, the government gave up attempting to prove that the other 16 Uighurs were "enemy combatants," and when their case came up before District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina last October, he ruled that their continued detention was unconstitutional, and that, because no other country had been found that would accept them, they were to be admitted to the United States, to the care of communities in Washington and Tallahassee, Florida, who had prepared detailed plans for their resettlement.
This proved intolerable to the Bush administration, which appealed the decision. The Justice Department spouted unprincipled claims that the men were a threat (even though they had been cleared of being "enemy combatants"), and refused to acknowledge that a judge had the right to order the men's release into the United States, thereby robbing the Supreme Court of a key element of the powers it intended to grant to the lower courts when it confirmed, in June, that the prisoners had habeas corpus rights.
Despite its manifest weaknesses, the government's appeal -- in a court that had a history of backing up cases relating to the "War on Terror" that were later overruled by the Supreme Court -- was successful. This is the situation that prevails to this day, although on Monday the Uighurs' lawyers announced that they planned "to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene on their clients' behalf," and, perhaps even more significantly, last week it was reported that the Obama administration was "set to reverse a key Bush administration policy by allowing some of the 240 remaining Guantánamo Bay inmates to be resettled on American soil." As the Guardian described it, "Washington has told European officials that once a review of the Guantánamo cases is completed, the U.S. will almost certainly allow some inmates to resettle on the mainland."
If confirmed, it is possible that these men will include some, or all of the Uighurs, but in the meantime Abu Bakker Qassim, one of the five Uighurs freed in Albania in 2006, who left his pregnant wife and young son in a thwarted attempt to find work in Turkey, has just written a letter to President Obama, telling his story and appealing to the President to act on behalf of the remaining Uighurs in Guantánamo.
The letter was made available by Sabin Willett, one of the Uighurs' attorneys, and is reproduced below:
Abu Bakker Qassim's letter to Barack Obama

Dear Mr. President,
I express my gratitude and my best respect for the contribution of the United States of America to our Uighur community. At the same time, I express my gratitude for your right and prompt decision to close the jail of Guantánamo Bay. I hope you will forgive my English, which I have tried to learn.
I hope my letter will find you in a good health. Please allow me to express my wish and prayer to read my letter.
My name is Abu Bakker and I'm writing on behalf of Ahmet, Aktar, Ejup, with whom I have lived since May 2006 in Albania, the only country that offered us political asylum from Guantánamo when US courts concluded that we were not enemy combatants.
I would like to write something about myself. The Uighur people have a proverb: "Who thinks about the end will never be a hero." Obviously it is human to think about the end, as it is human for me to remember things long ago.
30.12.2000. My last night in my little home. No one was sleeping ... not even my eight-month twins in my wife's womb. No one was speaking ... even my two-year old son ... I had decided that I would confess that night to my wife the end I had thought of in my heart, but I hesitated because of a question my son had asked me, that I could not answer. It was at the beginning of winter. We were standing near the oven, and I was cuddling his hands. He took with his little hands my forefinger.
Dad! Is a fingernail a bone?
No, I said. The fingernail is not a bone.
It is flesh?
No. Neither is it flesh.
So, the fingernail: what is it, Dad?
I didn't know.
I don't know, I said.
So small was my boy, and I couldn't answer his questions. And when he grows up and the questions are not about the fingernail? How shall I answer then?
31.12.2000. Without telling the end, without turning back my head, without fear I started my long and already known way. "Ah, if only ...! Ah, if only I reach Istanbul, am hired in the factory, to work day and night, to save my self and money. God is great! Ah, if only I could bring my wife there, my son and -- the most important -- to see my twins for the first time in Istanbul. To hold them on my breast, to pick up as I could ... to show my son and to tell to them: We are from the place where the sun rises. I would embrace them, I would answer all of their questions, I would teach to them everything my mother taught me, as her mother taught her, to my grandmother her grandmother ... as though in a movie with a happy ending: me film director, me scenarist, me at the lead role. The hero of my dearest people ... Me."
After three years and a half, questions after questions, the military tribunal in Guantánamo asked me:
If you will die here, what will you think at your last minutes?
I'm a husband and a father that is dying in the heroism's ways, I answered and I asked the permission to put a question of my own.
If Guantánamo Bay were closed today, would you be a hero for your children?
I was proclaimed innocent. The lawyer proposed -- meantime we were waiting for a state which will accept us -- to live in a hotel in the Military Base of Guantánamo Bay. No way! We were put in a camp near to the jail, which was called "Iguana Camp." We were nine. Sometimes, one of my friends asked the soldiers about the time. Even today, I hadn't understood why he needed to know the time. I asked the time ... I had reasons ...
In Camp Iguana, there were iguanas. We fed them with bread, so they began to enter in our dormitory. All of us needed their company. Sometimes, when they were late, everyone missed them ...
One morning, I had an unforgettable surprise from my friends. They gave to me cake from their meal, since that day was my twins' birthday. The same day, in our dormitory entered two iguanas and I give to them the cake ... thinking about my kids ... thinking about my end ... My dream finished from Istanbul to Guantánamo, from my kids to iguanas ...
Finally in 2006 I arrived in Albania, my second homeland. The ring of the telephone! What anxiety! Are they alive? For the first time, I spoke with my wife and my kids. They were alive!
Every morning, I go out of my home before the sun rises and wait for him with the hands up and empty. Since I'm still from the country where the sun rises. I think about the family which perhaps I will never see again and I resolve not to forget my vow, seven years ago, to be their hero.
Yet, Mr. President, seventeen of my brothers remain in that prison today. It is three years since I left the prison, and still they are there. Please end their suffering soon. Your January 22 words were so welcome to us, and I congratulate you for that and for your historic election. But many months have passed.
For the four of us who remain in Albania (one of us is in Sweden today, trying for asylum), life is very hard, and our future still seems far away. I hope that one day soon your government and countrymen will meet our seventeen brothers. Maybe when that day comes there would be hope that we might come to America too.
Mr. President.
In life not everyone will reach his desired end. Perhaps you don't know, but we are similar ... Except as to the end. Since you, like me, without thinking abut the end of your long way, managed to be a hero ... I'm at Your side ... I'm proud of you ...
Mr. President.
Please allow me to share with You a thought. Gift a pair of shoes to every child, to every woman, or every barefoot man since the barefoot people doesn't think too much before walking on the dirty mud. Begin with everything from above.
Very truly yours,
Abu Bakker Qassim
Tirana, Albania March 24, 2009
----------------------------------------------------- Source： A Letter to Barack Obama from a Guantanamo Uighur
本文的大意是说: 关塔那摩里关押的那22个Uyghur，都是从Xinjiang跑到阿富汗的，因为在Xinjiang受压制。他们本来想在阿富汗找找有没有反抗压迫的希望，但所在的那个村子很穷，而且只有一把枪，所以也就歇了。转而想碰碰运气去其他国家找找工作，本打算去土耳其
然而恰逢美军攻打阿富汗，他们所在的那个破旧的小村庄也遭到轰炸，于是就跑到巴基斯坦。巴基斯坦的当地人一开始收留了他们，但很快就在美军的重金悬赏下见利忘义，说这几个Uyghur是基地组织或塔利班的嫌疑犯，并把他们卖给了美军。
然而事实上这些人没有一个是基地组织或塔利班的成员，结果就这么糊里糊涂的被关进关塔那摩。2006年，其中5人被释放，如果他们回到支国，那必将面临...，于是就必须安置在其他国家，结果只有阿尔巴尼亚愿意接受他们，于是他们就在当地的一个难民营里安置了下来。
剩下的17人一直捱到2008年，才看到希望，美国政府换届，法院先是否定了布什政府将这些人当做‘敌方战斗人员’的判定。紧接着奥巴马政府也开始否定布什时期的政策，允许一些关塔那摩囚犯在美国境内定居。
文章最后引用了一个叫Abu Bakker Qassim的Uyghur写给奥巴马的信，Abu Bakker Qassim是2006年被释放并被安置在阿尔巴尼亚的五名Uyghur 之一。该信的大意如下：

总统先生，我很感激美国对Uyghur社区的捐助，也很感激您做出的，关闭关塔那摩监狱的决定。我的英语不好，正在学，请见谅。
我的名字叫Abu Bakker，我代表和我同在阿尔巴尼亚的Ahmet, Aktar, Ejup写这封信。我从 2006年5月开始居住在阿尔巴尼亚，在美国法院澄清我们的身份以后，这是唯一一个肯给我们提供政治庇护的国家。
我想跟您谈谈我自己，Uyghur民族有一句民谚：凡事只看到结果的人永远成不了英雄。所以我经常回忆起往事。
2000年12月30日，那是我在家里的最后一个晚上。全家人夜不能寐，我两岁的儿子没有睡，甚至还未出世中那对双胞胎也没睡。我当时准备向我妻子坦白内心的想法，但是一直犹豫不决，因为想起我儿子曾问了我一个问题，我回答不上来。冬天刚来的时候，我们一家子站在炉子边，我拉着儿子的小手，他则牵着我的食指。
‘爸爸，指甲是骨头吗？’
‘不是’我说‘指甲不是骨头’
‘那指甲是肉吗？’
‘也不是肉’
‘那指甲到底是什么？爸爸？’
‘我不知道’
...
我说我不知道。
我的儿子这么小，我竟然连他的问题都回答不出。当他长大以后，要问的肯定不止指甲了，那时候我对他说什么呢？
2000年12月31日，我什么也没说，头也不回地上路了。
‘啊，只要，只要我能到达伊斯坦布尔，在工厂里找个工作，养活我自己的同时并攒钱。上帝保佑，只要我能把我妻子和我儿子接到伊斯坦布尔，最重要的是能再伊斯坦布尔看到我的双胞胎宝宝的降生。把他们抱在怀里，指着东方告诉他们，我们来自太阳升起的地方...我将拥抱他们，回答他们所有的疑问，并且把一代代流传下来的东西教给他们...这一切就好像是大团圆结局的电影一样，导演是我，编剧是我，主演也是我。对于我爱着的人们，我讲成为他们的英雄’
三年半以后，问题接踵而至。关塔那摩的军事法官问我：
‘如果你死在这，在你生命的最后一刻，你会想些什么？’
‘作为一个丈夫，同时也是个父亲，我将英勇的面对死亡。’我回答完毕并且要求问一个问题
‘如果关塔那摩今天就被关闭，你算不算是你孩子眼中的英雄？’
最终证明我是被冤枉的。我们当时呆在关塔那摩军事基地的旁边的一个小旅馆里等待被某些国家接受。OH，不，那不是旅馆，那是一个营地，被称作‘Iguana Camp’。我们一共9个人一起，其中一个有时候会向士兵打听时间。时至今日我都不知道他为什么要询问时间。我问了时间...我有原因...
在Iguana Camp，有许多蜥蜴（Iguana 本就是蜥蜴的意思），我们给它们喂面包，所以它们会时不时的走进我们的房间。我们很需要它们的陪伴，有时候它们会迟到，大家就都会挂念。
有天早上，朋友们做了一件让我感激一辈子的事情。他们从自己的食物里拿出一个蛋糕给我，因为那天是我双胞胎宝宝的生日。同样也是那天，有两个蜥蜴爬到我们房间，我把这个蛋糕喂给它们。想到我的孩子，我的结果... 我的梦想破灭了，残酷的现实把我从伊斯坦布尔拉到关塔那摩，不见我的孩子，只看到蜥蜴...
终于在2006年，我来到了阿尔巴尼亚，我的第二故乡。电话声响起，多么紧张呀，他们还活着吗？我很久以来第一次和我妻子通话，是的，他们还活着。
每天早上，天不亮我就出门，举着双手期待朝阳。我仍然来自太阳升起的地方，我怀念我的家人，虽然我可能再也见不到他们了，我仍然没有忘记7年前的那个梦想--做他们心中的英雄。
是的，总统先生，我的17个兄弟，直到今天仍被关押。我离开那里已经3年，而他们还在那里。请停止他们的痛苦吧。您在1月22日的讲话，非常振奋人心，我祝愿你获得历史性的胜选。但那已经是好几个月以前的事情了。
我们四个仍在阿尔巴尼亚（另一个今天去了瑞典，试着寻求政治庇护），生活很艰苦，未来遥遥无期看不到希望。我希望有一天您的政府和人民能够会见我那17个兄弟。那天也许将是我们几个也回到美国的时刻。
总统先生
人生未必尽如人意。可能你不知道，但在这方面，我们都一样。如今看到您的英雄举动（指签署关闭关塔那摩的法令），我支持您的英雄之路，为您骄傲。
总统先生
请允许我告诉您一个想法。既然赤脚的人会毫不犹豫地走在肮脏的泥土中，那么何不送一双鞋给他们呢？一切的一切，就请从‘一双鞋’开始吧。

阿尔巴尼亚，地拉那 2009年3月24日