A new, long-term hunger strike has broken out at the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, with more than a dozen detainees subjecting themselves to daily force-feeding to protest their treatment, military officials and lawyers for the detainees
Although the lawyers claim our guests have been "driven" to their treatments by "harsh conditions" at the new "maximum security complex" at Guantánamo to which the hunger strikers were recently moved, the numbers themselves bespeak the popularity of the camp's fitness regime:
The 13 detainees now on hunger strikes is the highest number to endure the force-feeding regimen on an extended basis since early 2006, when the military broke a long-running strike with a new policy of strapping prisoners into "restraint chairs" while they are fed by plastic tubes inserted through their nostrils.
Ever health-conscious, Our Glorious Forces in the Field also ensure that "the hunger strikers are now monitored so closely the they have virtually no chance to starve themselves."
So it's a win-win all-around, right? The strikers lose weight, and the United States taxpayer helps ensure "virtually no chance" of starvation.
Indeed, as a weight-loss, the hunger strike can't be beat.
Newly released Pentagon documents show that during earlier hunger strikes, before the use of restraint chairs, some detainees suffered sharp weight losses. A handful of those prisoners lost more than 30 pounds in a matter of weeks, the records show.
. . .
For instance, the medical records for Mr. Joudi, a 36-year-old Saudi, show that when he was hospitalized on Feb. 10, he had been fasting for 31 days and had lost more than 15 percent of his body weight.
Still, some people will complain about anything.
Lawyers for half a dozen Camp 6 detainees said their clients were uniformly despondent about the move even though, as military officials note, the new cells are 27 square feet larger than the old ones and have air-conditioning, nicer toilets and sinks, and a small desk anchored to the wall.
. . .
"My wish is to die," one reported hunger striker in the camp, Adnan Farhan Abdullatif, a 27-year old Yemeni, told his lawyer on Feb. 27, according to recently declassified notes of the meeting. "We are living in a dying situation."
Harsh. But Our Glorious Forces in the Field were characteristically upbeat in response.
Commander Durand, the Guantánamo spokesman, dismissed such accounts as part of an effort by the prisoners and their lawyers to discredit the detention mission. He described new unit as much more comfortable than the detainees' previous quarters, and he denied that they suffer any greater sense of isolation in the new cellblocks.
"Anytime something changes, people will seize on that as an opportunity to say that things are getting worse," he said. "This was designed to improve living conditions, and we think it has."
To date, of the 385 detainees in the camp, nearly 11 have been charged with some kind of wrongdoing.
zarth
Seattle, WA
December 2004
APR 08, 2007 02:05 PM