Maldives “tied acceptance of prisoners” to American help with IMF assistance
30 Nov 2010, 6:31 PM
Ahmed Nazeer
Secret US diplomatic cables obtained by Wikileaks reveal that the Maldives agreed to resettle detainees from Guantanamo Bay in return for American help with obtaining assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), according to the New York Times.
The paper reports that the cache of correspondence made public by Wikileaks reveals that “American diplomats went looking for countries that were not only willing to take in former prisoners but also could be trusted to keep them under close watch.
“In a global bazaar of sorts, the American officials sweet-talked and haggled with their foreign counterparts in an effort to resettle the detainees who had been cleared for release but could not be repatriated for fear of mistreatment.
It reveals that while the Bush Administration offered the South Pacific nation Kiribati an “incentive package” of US$3 million to take 17 Chinese Muslim detainees, “the Maldives tied acceptance of prisoners to American help in obtaining International Monetary Fund assistance.”
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