SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The four Chinese Muslims who arrived in Bermuda after their release from Guantanamo remained hunkered in their seaside cottage Friday, wary of the political firestorm their presence has caused.
Most of the day was spent cooking meals and sleeping because the men hesitated to venture outside, one of their lawyers, Sabin Willett, told The Associated Press by phone.
"You don't want to walk down the street for fear of creating an incident," he said.
The men's transition to a tropical lifestyle on Bermuda has been rocky. Britain severely reprimanded officials in its Atlantic island colony over the deal with the U.S. and dozens of residents criticized the government for its decision.
Willett said the four Chinese Muslims, known as Uighurs, were extremely tired and he declined to pass along interview requests.
But Willett said their guarded attitude about their new home Friday was a drastic change from just the day before, when they flew in. On Thursday, they walked through a forest and touched trees and plants and expressed their amazement at a horse that a woman was riding, he said.
"While all of this was going on at a personal level, a political fracas was erupting in Bermuda," he said.
A member of Britain's Parliament, Mike Gapes, who oversees the foreign affairs committee, hinted that Bermuda received something from the U.S. in exchange for taking the Uighurs in as refugees.
"I wonder what promises have been given to the Bermudans, potentially about going a bit soft on the tax haven status," Gapes said.
Bermuda has a thriving offshore financial industry and has been cited by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for insufficient financial transparency.
Bermuda Immigration Minister David Burch denied speculation that the island received any favours.
"I can say that they are completely false," he told The Associated Press by phone. "There is no quid pro quo in this arrangement whatsoever. We were asked to do something humanitarian, and we chose to do so."
Gapes also repeated British complaints about Bermuda reaching its deal with Washington without informing officials in London.
"It is astonishing that an agreement of such significance between the U.S. and Bermuda ... could have taken place without a ripple reaching Whitehall," he said. "The proper authority here is the British government."
Bermuda's opposition party proposed the island's Parliament hold a no-confidence vote against Premier Ewart Brown.
Brown has said that accepting the Uighurs was "the right thing to do." Although detained in 2001 in Afghanistan and Pakistan as suspected Islamic militants, the four men and more than a dozen other Uighurs were determined by American authorities not to be enemy combatants or a danger to the U.S.
The men will soon be enrolled in a guest worker program, and one of them has expressed interest in becoming a mechanic, Burch said. They are considered "undocumented nationals" who will obtain Bermudian status, he said. Most of them have said they lost their passports when bombs fell on their weapons training camp in Afghanistan.
"I think if they have their Chinese passports, they would probably burn them with joy," said Alim Seytoff, vice-president of the Washington-based Uyghur American Association.
China considers the Uighurs held at Guantanamo to be terrorists and has demanded they be returned for trial. The Pacific island nation of Palau has agreed to take in the 13 other Uighurs at Guantanamo despite China's objections.
A Muslim teacher, Basim Muwwakkil, said he expects to meet soon with the four Uighurs in Bermuda and help them adjust to their new lives through the island's Muslim Community Centre.
About 400 Muslims live in the island, about half of whom are locals, he said. The others are from Pakistan, India and eastern European countries, although none are Uighurs, Muwwakkil said. "It's the first time I heard that name," he said.
The U.S. has promised to pay up to $100,000 for the Uighurs' resettlement, Burch said.
