[Mb-civic] Hunger Strike at Guantanamo

[Mha Atma Khalsa]

Today's commentary:
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-10/07feffer.cfm

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ZNet Commentary
Hunger Strike at Guantanamo October 08, 2005
By John Feffer 

For nearly four years, over 500 prisoners have been sequestered in Camp Delta in Guantanamo, Cuba. They have not gone on trial. Only four have been charged with any specific offense. They are not protected under the Geneva Conventions. 

They have no way of telling their stories to the outside world. And now, after suffering all manner of indignations, from solitary confinement and beatings to poor food and medical treatment, they have resorted to a desperate measure. They have gone on a hunger strike.

First dozens, then more than 200 prisoners stopped eating in August. Apparently hunger strikes have happened before at Guantamano, but until recently the U.S. authorities prevented any information about them from reaching the news media. Because U.S. authorities didn't fulfill their earlier promises to improve conditions, more and more detainees have joined the latest action. This time the hunger strikers have pledged to fast until death. U.S. authorities have hospitalized and begun force-feeding more than a dozen. 

The Bush administration claims that the Guantanamo detainees are "unlawful combatants" from the war in Afghanistan. Since they are presumed to be "terrorists," the detainees are supposed to be getting what they deserve. But the detainees include businessmen seized in The Gambia. A taxi driver from Afghanistan spent a year in Guantanamo where he was repeatedly interrogated, put in solitary confinement, never put on trial, and finally released without explanation, apology, or compensation. Two other men released after a year of captivity were, by their own reports, 99 and 105 years old. In early 2004, three minors aged 13 to 15 were released. 

Among those that remain, it is likely that many were handed over to U.S. authorities in exchange for a bounty offered by the U.S. military. On the television show 60 Minutes, a U.S. military interrogator estimated that 20 percent of the Camp Delta inmates are innocent. 

Under U.S. law, however, all detainees are considered innocent before proven guilty. In Guantanamo, the prisoners are not only treated as guilty but are punished in ways that would not be permitted in U.S. jails (though, of course, here too the rules are often honored in the breach). Detainee testimony of the abuse they suffered while at Camp Delta can be found in the chilling book America's Disappeared that was jointly prepared by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Human Rights Watch. 

If the Bush administration treated the Guantanamo detainees according to either international or American law, then the alleged transgressors could use legal means to defend themselves. Instead, they are in a totalitarian space controlled entirely by the U.S. military. The International Red Cross is allowed to visit, but it cannot report on what it has seen. Journalists are not allowed in; lawyers have irregular access.

The Bush administration has used the war on terrorism as a justification to engage in extralegal activities. It has detained thousands throughout the world. It "rendered" suspects by transporting them to countries where torture is routinely practiced. To extract confessions in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon encouraged interrogators to use violence and humiliation. Amnesty International has identified 27 detainees who died under suspicious circumstances in Iraq and Afghanistan. The pictures from Abu Ghraib are just a small part of the story.

Camp Delta sits at the intersection of all that is wrong in U.S. foreign and domestic policy. It represents the illegality of U.S. actions in prosecuting the war on terror. But it also showcases the Bush administration's attack on civil liberties at home. It indicates just how much the military has taken over U.S. foreign policy. But it also shows how the Bush administration has manipulated the media and warped the legal system to its own ends.

Some of the prisoners at Camp Delta might be terrorists. Some might have been enemy combatants. If they didn't dislike the United States before, they surely do now.

But whatever they might be -- taxi driver or terrorist -- they deserve a fair hearing and fair treatment. The hunger strikers at Guantanamo are willing to put their lives on the line to achieve this basic human right. 

John Feffer (www.johnfeffer.com) is the author of North Korea, South Korea.




		
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