U.S. Military Tube-Feeds 13 Gitmo Strikers
By ALEXANDRA OLSON Associated Press Writer
September 09,2005 | SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The U.S. military is tube-feeding more than a dozen of the 89 terror suspects on hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, a spokesman said Friday.
Some of the 89 striking detainees at Guantanamo have not eaten for a month, said Guantanamo detention mission spokesman Sgt. Justin Behrens. The others have refused at least nine consecutive meals, he said.
Fifteen have been hospitalized and 13 of those were being fed through tubes, Behrens said in a written response to questions from The Associated Press. Medics are monitoring all 89 and checking their vital signs daily, he added.
Previously, the military has said that 76 inmates were participating in the hunger strike.
The Guardian:
More than 200 detainees in Guantánamo Bay are in their fifth week of a hunger strike, the Guardian has been told....
British human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith...pointed to an American army claim that only 76 prisoners at the base were refusing food, saying that they were attempting to play down what could be a political scandal if a prisoner were to die.
AP:
Guantanamo prison spokesman Maj. Jeff Weir...said he did not know the reason behind the hunger strike.
"As far as their reasons for hunger striking it seems to be a myriad of different reasons that they all have, the largest one seems to be like they want to protest their continued (detention)," he said. "Their future is uncertain from a legal point view so they are trying to find out exactly what their future entails."
Guardian:
Yesterday, Mr Stafford Smith, who represents 40 detainees at Guantánamo Bay, eight of whom are British residents, said many men had been starving themselves for more than four weeks and the situation was becoming desperate....
The hunger strike is the second since late June. The first ended after the authorities made a number of promises, including better access to books, and bottled drinking water.
The men claim that they were tricked into eating again.
In his statement, Mr Mohammed [one of Stafford Smith's clients, whose August 11 letters were delivered last Wednesday] described how during the first strike men were placed on intravenous drips after refusing food for 20 days.
He said: "The administration promised that if we gave them 10 days, they would bring the prison into compliance with the Geneva conventions. They said this had been approved by Donald Rumsfeld himself in Washington DC. As a result of these promises, we agreed to end the strike on July 28.
"It is now August 11. They have betrayed our trust (again). Hisham from Tunisia was savagely beaten in his interrogation and they publicly desecrated the Qur'an (again). Saad from Kuwait was ERF'd [visited by the Extreme Reaction Force] for refusing to go (again) to interrogation because the female interrogator had sexually humiliated him (again) for 5 hours _ Therefore, the strike must begin again."
The thing I most want to know about the Bush administration is, how many of the people at the highest level believed they didn't have to plan for the aftermath of any of this because they actually thought they were setting off a Biblical Armageddon? And does that number include Chimpy McBushitlerCo?
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