“Before, we were asking, ‘Why are the Americans doing this to us?’” said Abdulahat. Now, he said, with others nodding in agreement, “We have ended up in such a beautiful place. We don’t want to look back, and we don’t have any hard feelings toward the US.”

Their resettlement on this British colony is a small step toward the US administration’s aim of closing down Guantánamo by January.

While some less affluent residents of Bermuda said it was unfair to offer jobs and citizenship to men the US itself would not take, many others shrugged and expressed pride at Bermudan hospitality. As the men venture from the seaside cottage where they temporarily live until they get jobs and figure out next steps, people often come up to shake their hands and wish them well.

Under the current arrangement, Bermuda will not allow the men to visit the United States. It is unclear whether they will ever be able to do so even if they gain Bermuda citizenship.

The four said they wanted nothing to do with their ostensible home country of China, which has demanded their repatriation and would almost certainly imprison them. Their homeland of Xinjiang, a Muslim region in western China, is landlocked, and many of the Uighur detainees saw an ocean—still a distant, mysterious presence—for the first time ever through fences at Guantánamo.

Palau ponders

KOROR, Palau

Sipping guava juice under cover from a tropical downpour, Tommy Remengesau Jr. says he’s always considered his Pacific island home a refuge from the troubles of the outside world. “While the rest of the planet was in conflict, we remained a piece of paradise,” the former Palauan president. “Now the world’s headaches have come home to roost in Palau.”

... contd.