[Marxism] Hunger striking prisoners in grave condition

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Suicide bombers in Baghdad, until recently all male, now joined by
hunger strikers in Guantanamo. When will they ever learn that people
don't like liberators who come bearing bayonets? And when will they
finally figure out why that peoples don't like being occupied by a
foreign power? The final words of the Bayamesa, Cuba's national
anthem are so eloquent: "To die for ones's country is to live.")
==================================================================

GRANMA INTERNATIONAL
Havana. September 28, 2005
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2005/septiembre/mier28/40guantanamo.html

GUANTANAMO NAVAL BASE 
Hunger striking prisoners in grave condition ?
Pentagon keeping strict control of information on the protest

BY NAVIL GARCIA ALFONSO
Granma International staff writer

ENDANGERING their lives by committing themselves to a persistent
hunger strike would seem to be the only way for prisoners on the
illegal U.S. naval base in Guantánamo, Cuba, to expose their
unjustified imprisonment and the precarious conditions of life to
which they have been subjected.

After two very difficult months of protest, U.S. military authorities
continue to keep an iron grip on information as to the health of
participating prisoners. But in the last few weeks, the situation has
taken a turn for the worse with 18 prisoners at the point of
starvation and 13 were intravenously or nasally force fed.

The delicate state of health of the prisoners and legal pressure
brought to bear by their lawyers have forced the military authorities
to provide information on the events, always in a very "controlled"
way and lacking detail.

According to Base spokesman Major Jeffrey J. Weir, only 36 are still
on hunger strike, and the forced feeding is a measure "to prevent
other prisoners from joining this form of collective suicide or
falling into a deplorable condition. We are assuring their lives."

However, lawyers who have had access to prison areas affirm that the
number of striking prisoners is closer to 200, and that the reason
for the protest is to demand a trial with due legal protection or
immediate release.

Many of the almost 500 prisoners that the United States is holding on
the Guantánamo Naval Base have been there for more than three years
without being formally charged and without any legal procedure being
initiated. The majority of them were arrested during the U.S. war on
Afghanistan and are accused of having contact with the Al Qaeda
terrorist ring or with being members of the deposed Taliban
government, which was attacked after the events of September 11,
2001.

Last week, lawyer Tom Wilner, who represents 11 Kuwaiti prisoners in
Guantánamo, urgently requested a hearing on the hunger strike, which
began more than five weeks ago, affirming that the physical condition
of those involved was "extremely calamitous."

According to a recently declassified file, Wilner is demanding that
Federal District Court Judge Collen Collar-Kotelly of Washington
order the government to regularly provide information on the health
of his clients and allow direct communication between the prisoners
and their families.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, an NGO based in New York,
reports that contacts with family members have been cut back, and the
U.S. Defense Department is doing everything it can to prevent lawyers
from meeting with their clients involved in the protest.

In recent months, the hunger strike has officially become the most
effective instrument among the Guantánamo prisoners for attracting
international attention to the inhumane treatment and torture to
which they are subjected during interrogation by soldiers.

Previously, another hunger strike in June and July was controlled by
officials who promised to improve prison conditions, but the inmates
decided to renew their protest in August because no substantial
changes were made.

What sparked the hunger strike on this occasion was the beating given
to a Tunisian during an interrogation session, during which he was
struck with an iron chair and an empty thermos, according to other
prisoners. One Algerian inmate says that he saw the state of the
Tunisian after the interrogation and affirms that one of his eyes was
swollen and bleeding.

There is a lot of skepticism regarding the issue of the prisoners at
the Guantánamo Naval Base. The U.S. government is rigidly maintaining
its position of keeping the close to 500 people from 40 countries
imprisoned without charges. Attempts by lawyers have been fruitless,
and the incarceration is simply another example of U.S. military
extrajudicial proceedings. The Pentagon?s direct influence on the
issue is making possible solutions even more difficult.

When a prisoner refuses to accept nine consecutive meals, the
authorities acknowledge a hunger strike. During the current protest,
according to lawyers who visited the prison, several inmates have
become so ill that they are collapsing and vomiting blood.

TORTURE AND HUMILLIATION

Prisoners, former prisoners, family members and attorneys are
accusing the U.S. military of torture, religious persecution, sexual
humiliation and the use of drugs in order to obtain information
during interrogations.

Attorney Tom Wilner affirms that one of his clients, Fawzi Al-Odah of
Kuwait, had visible marks of torture on his body after an
interrogation session for which he was violently removed from his
cell.

"I didn?t want to go to that interrogation, because during a previous
one, they chained me up and forced me to urinate on my own body,"
Odah told his attorney, according to a U.S. media report.

International organizations defending the rights of political
prisoners and prisoners of war agree that torture has not be
eradicated and that direct physical aggression is still frequently
used at the Guantánamo prison.

In addition, the treatment is differentiated, given that officials
apparently divide the prisoners into two different groups: those who
cooperate and those who don?t. The first are dressed in white, and
the second in orange uniforms. Those who are considered uncooperative
receive worse treatment.



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