All 2 entries tagged Guantanamo

Guantanamo Suicides are 'an act of war'

As you may well have heard three men have commited suicide at Guantanamo Bay (link).
According to the BBC, a camp commander at GTMO has called the suicides of three inmates (two Saudis and a Yemeni), ''[acts] of asymmetric warfare waged against [the US]''.

You can make your own mind up about that one, but I'm thinking there's just a little bit of spinning going on there. Plus it seems very rich of the US to be accusing detained inmates of adminstering a propaganda war against them, with the Pentagons "Psych Ops" so prevalent surrounding current conflicts.

What's most surprising to me is that these are the first to succesfully commit suicide in the prison. This is not for lack of effort, with dozen's of attempts being recorded over the past 4 years (though this is not surprising with the apparant hopelessness of many of them ever again seeing freedom, despite no charges being brought to them). I'll leave the accused torture/'interrogation' techniques to one side, but they are well documented.

I just can't get over the arrogance displayed by vilifying three men who, by our cherished Western values, were completely innocent.

UPDATE: A 'top government official' has now decribed the deaths as a ''good PR move''. I don't know about the dead inmates, but we're certainly getting a PR blitz coming from the powers that be in the US.

: 11 Jun 2006 11:27 |  Tags: Guantanamo |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Starbucks @ Camp Delta

The action of some protestors in Brighton is documented in an Indymedia UK article, together with some photos.

They are protesting about the Starbucks outlet in the Guantanamo Bay military base. By being (willingly) present there they are showing compliance with the illegal detention without trial of the prisoners there, and upon knowing this, buying coffee at a Starbucks outlet can only be validating the crimes against humanity on the base.

Simple message: if you agree with me and think what's going on at Camp Delta is wrong (both legally and morally), don't buy Starbucks coffee.

As the above article says, "Please consider whether you want to support these crimes against humanity when you drink your coffee".

The same applies to McDonalds (naturally), Subway, Pizza Hut and KFC, all which, after a breif trawl on the internet, have outlets in GTMO.

(sorry…I could have written a more persuasive/eliquently written piece here, but I'm tired..)

: 03 Jun 2006 21:53 |  Tags: Guantanamo Usa |  Comments (42) |  Close comments |  Report a problem