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Cindy Sheehan and Other Anti-war Activists in Cuba to Demand the Closing of Guantanamo Prison

Cindy Sheehan and other prominent US anti-war activists are already in Cuba. Accompanied by an international delegation, they will head for the illegally-occupied naval base in Guantanamo

CUBA, January, 8, 2007.- Five Americans actively opposed to the US war in Iraq arrived in Cuba on Saturday as the first contingent of a group of 12 international figures who on Thursday will go up to the entrance of the illegally occupied American naval base in Guantanamo. They will be demanding the closing of the detention facility, which has been used to house and torture those who Bush calls “enemy combatants.”

The five Americans are: Cindy Sheehan, well-known as the “Peace Mom” since she decided to fight against the war following the death of her son in Iraq; Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the organization CODEPINK Women for Peace, the group that organized this anti-war action; former US Army colonel and diplomat Ann Wright, who resigned from her job in March 2003 in protest for the invasion of Iraq; Adele Welty, the mother of a fireman killed during the events of September 11, 2001; and Tiffany Burns, an activist with the organization Gold Star Families for Peace.

In statements to the press upon their arrival, Medea Benjamin explained some of the activities that will be carried out in Cuba, emphasizing those that will take place in front of the American military prison. “This coming January 11 will mark the fifth year since the arrival of the first prisoners. Some 400 people are still locked up in that place and it is known that they have been subjected to all types of abuse there,” she said.

Benjamin explained they are part of an international group that is requesting that the prison be closed. She said they expect to arrive in Guantanamo on the 10th and hold a press conference in which “lawyers who have taken the cases to the US Supreme Court will participate.”

The US activist noted that, in addition to the legal experts, the delegation will be made up of film directors, a former prisoner held for four years in Guantanamo and subjected to torture, the mother and brother of an imprisoned youth who has lost an eye during his internment in the Camp Delta detention center.

She thanked the Cuban Government for allowing the group to come to the island to carry out the protest action, and expressed gratitude to Havana’s Martin Luther King Center, the Cuban Institute of Friendship (ICAP) and “all the friends who have helped us make this trip.”

Former US Army colonel Ann Wright commented that on January 11 there will be events around the entire world “to denounce what has been done in that prison. We are here to demonstrate that it has to close. It is necessary to seek justice, but not in that military prison.”

Wright said as an employee of the US Army for 29 years, and as a retired diplomat, she thinks that the Guantanamo prison provides a horrible image for the United States. She stressed that in order to have the prison closed, true jurists needed to be involved in the process.

Cindy Sheehan was categorical in responding to the question as to whether she feared reprisals by the Bush administration, which prohibits travel by to Cuba by American citizens. She responded “Anyone who knows me, knows that I am not afraid of anything.”

“What is more important is the inhumanity that my government is perpetrating at Guantanamo, and if I were afraid I’d do absolutely nothing,” said Sheehan, adding that she is worried about the people being kept in Guantanamo, who are treated inhumanely. She said she was concerned that acts of retaliation could be carried out against US soldiers due to such treatment; my son, she said, died precisely for that reason. “I’m worried for the Iraqi people, who are dying daily because of my country. That is why I think that it is now the time for people to stand up and take on the cause of ending the war.”

Medea Benjamin concluded that they have hope for change through Congress, and that they have gone all the way to Capitol hill to tell them that “we don't want an escalation of troops in Iraq, as President Bush is requesting. On the contrary, the vast majority of the American people are asking that the troops return home.”

“When we return to the United States will be lobbying so that they (the legislators) also reject the new proposal that denies the right of people detained in Guantanamo to have a fair trial. We will return to request that they reject the Military Commissions Act.”

Adele Welty pointed out that she was a part of the delegation because her son died on September 11. “He was a fireman and lost his life in the line of duty at the World Trade Center. He risked his life because he respected life and human dignity; however, in my son’s name and in those of each who died on September 11, there are tremendous acts of inhumanity being carried out in Guantanamo, in Iraq and in Afghanistan. I do not want such inhumanity or war to be the legacy that my son leaves.” By: Juana Carrasco Martin. (Cubaminrex-Juventud Rebelde)

 

 

 

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