The Federal Government says it will consider a request by the US President, Barack Obama, for Australia to resettle some of the detainees in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

It is believed the request was made a week ago by the US embassy to the Prime Minister's senior adviser on foreign affairs, defence and national security, Philip Green.

It is the third request by the US  but the first by Mr Obama for Australia to help close down the prison camp set up by the Bush administration to house captives in the so-called "war on terrorism''.

It is understood the detainees in question are 17 Uighurs, who are Muslims from north-western China. Australia refused in January to accept them after a similar request from the Bush administration in December. It was the second time a Bush administration request regarding Guantanamo inmates was rebuffed.

The 17 Uighurs still in the prison camp have been held for more than six years. US authorities long ago cleared them of being enemy combatants, but will not send them back to China for fear they will be tortured or executed.

It was later revealed that Australia refused to accept any of the Uighurs after being lobbied by Beijing, which considers the men terrorists.

Mr Obama's request presents the  Government with a dilemma of balancing the concerns of the Chinese and the US. The  Foreign  Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith, confirmed yesterday that a request had been received and said each prisoner would be assessed individually.

"The Australian Government will consider this request, on a case-by-case basis, and in accordance with the Government's strict immigration and national security requirements,'' he said.

Soon after his inauguration in January, Mr Obama signed an executive order to close down Guantanamo Bay within a year. About 60 of the 240 detainees have been cleared for release, but face persecution if repatriated.

Professor Geoffrey Garrett, the chief executive of the United States Studies Centre within the University of Sydney, said Mr Obama's symbolic promises such as closing Guantanamo were proving difficult to implement.

Professor Garrett said it was unsurprising that the US would be leaning on its closest allies for help.

He said accepting the detainees could be domestically unpopular and he did not envisage any damage to the US relationship, should the request be ultimately rejected, because relations it was structurally sound.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/obama-pressures-rudd-over-gitmo-inmates-20090529-bq8c.html

What a great opportunity for the Milky Bar Kid to save Obama's ass & be seen by the world as true champions of human rights ....

In the wake of 911, the American military littered Pakistan & Afghanistan with leaflets offering "millions of dollars" to catch "murderers" & "enough money to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life." In response to these promises, local tribesmen & warlords quickly rounded-up twenty-two Uighurs (then refugees from political/religious persecution in China) & sold them to the stupid Americans for substantial bounties.

Having handed-over the greenbacks, the dopey Americans eventually realized their error, telling the Uighurs that they would soon be released. Sure enough, in May 2006, 5 Uighurs were released to a refugee camp in Albania. The remaining 17 were cleared for release but had nowhere to go.

America has reportedly lobbied more than 100 hundred countries to resettle the Uighurs, assuring them that they pose no security threat. However, from the dark belly of its rotten "justice" system, it continues to classify them as "enemy combatants" - simply in order to maintain its asserted authority to imprison them indefinitely at Guantanamo.

The Uighurs are currently confined in individual steel cells in a supermax-style facility known as "Camp VI." Human contact is restricted to two hours a day of "rec" in individual units enclosed by chain-link fences & ill-fated visits by riot guards (called the "Emergency Reaction Force") too frequently resulting in physical abuse.

It would be a dark irony that alleged terrorist David Hicks escaped the obscenity of the American gulag at Guantanamo after 5 years, by pleading guilty to phoney "crimes" whilst, in the process, saving the political bacon of our war criminal prime minister, little johnny rattus, from the jaws of rising public opinion, if the current Awstralyan Labor government lacked the moral courage to save these 17 undisputedly innocent victims of American barbarism from an even worse fate.

Time to check our moral compass ......