Kurds' First Stop To U.S.: Guam
THOUSANDS of Kurdish refugees who helped U.S. interests in Saddam Hussein's Iraq are tucked away in a remote corner of Guam, awaiting asylum in the United States.
ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam - Jamil Khalil Samin sat outside a sun-bleached concrete building that until recently housed U.S. military officers. He smiled at a group of Kurdish children playing in the street.
Before coming to Guam from Iraq, he saw a lot of suffering, Samin said. He tried to do something about it, using his skills as a civil engineer to rebuild what Saddam Hussein's forces had ruined.
That, however, put him in a delicate political position. By helping strengthen the Kurds, Samin also was helping the United States weaken Saddam's hold in northern Iraq.
As far as Saddam was concerned, he was a spy - a charge Samin denies, although he makes no secret of his dislike for Saddam. So when Saddam's troops regained strength in the north last year, Samin's life was in danger.
But like 6,600 other asylum-seekers, Samin and his family made it to the Turkish border and then to this military outpost in the western Pacific in one of the biggest evacuations of threatened U.S. allies in recent years.
Now they wait - in transit to a new life in America - on a tightly secured corner of this tropical island, away from the beaches and swarms of sunbathing Japanese tourists at its far end.
The asylum-seekers are mostly Kurds who worked directly for U.S.
interests and international humanitarian groups in Iraq or were members of dissident groups.
"They're being granted asylum because if Saddam got his hands on them, he would kill them, no doubt about it," said Col. Frank Hicks, who came to Guam with nearly 400 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to run a temporary overflow camp.
Along with shelter, the Kurds have been provided with food, medical care, English lessons for those who want them and a weekly newspaper in Arabic that introduces U.S. culture and history.
Though safe, the Kurds are by no means free.
Fences surround their complex, and Marines guard all gates around the clock.
Guam, population 150,000, was chosen in part because of its isolated location - 1,600 miles east of Tokyo and 3,800 miles west of Hawaii.
More than half of the Kurds have already been sent on to the United States, many to sponsors in Tennessee or Virginia, where there are established Kurd communities. Rear Adm. Martin Janczak expects the last batch to be gone in a few weeks.
Many of the Kurds are in Guam with their families, and many are young married couples. Since the first wave arrived in September, 58 babies have been born in the compound. All babies born on Guam are automatically U.S. citizens.
Ron Munia, field director with the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement, said the outlook for the Kurds in America is good. They have a high education level and include a large number of technicians and other specialists with marketable skills.
He added that it is America's obligation to give them the chance.
"If we go in and do our Desert Storm and get their assistance but don't help them when the Iraqi army comes, the message will be clear," Munia said. "Getting people to help us will be extremely difficult in the future."