 December 2005 January 2006
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Sara Burke, Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Editorial material in Peacework is published under a Creative Commons  Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
Why Am I Marching to Guantánamo? Against Torture, and for Humanity Frida Berrigan is a member of the War Resisters League's National Committee. This statement is excerpted from the www.WitnessTorture.org website. Jesus commands that we visit the prisoner and comfort the afflicted, and reminds us "what you do to the least among us, you do to me." I am marching as a person of faith trying to apply these mandates to an ever more violent world. As a US citizen and as a Christian, when the prisoners in Guantánamo began their first hunger strike this summer, I was forced to think more seriously about how to say no to torture and yes to humanity. I had to think about the depth of powerlessness and despair as well as the intensity of will and defiance that goes into the decision to starve oneself. It is an act against biology. But refusing to eat is the prisoners only way of drawing attention to their predicament. They have no other tools except deepening their own suffering. These fathers and brothers and sons now imprisoned in Guantánamo have been swept up in indiscriminate raids, bound and blindfolded and shipped to an arid military base that is off the map of international law, a wasteland of injustice, a modern heart of darkness. Why are these men now starving themselves and being savagely force-fed? They are crying out for the world to hear their suffering. We 25 Catholic Workers have committed ourselves to responding to their cry, reaching out human-to-human, across battle lines, borders, religion, and ethnicity. Our group includes professors, activists against the death penalty, people who run soup kitchens, a nun, a priest. We are all marching to Guantánamo with a simple request -- a request coming from the mandate to Christians to perform the Works of Mercy -- to visit the prisoners. We believe our own dignity and humanity are bound to the dignity and humanity of all people, and we want the prisoners to know that as Christians, we condemn their treatment. But I am not marching just because Jesus commands us to perform works of mercy, or because the late Pope named torture as evil. On June 20, 2005, at a European Union event, President Bush invited me, and anyone else in the world community to inspect Guantánamo. Countering questions about torture and the United States' commitment to human rights, President Bush said, "You're welcome to go down there yourselves... and take a look at the conditions." But he was being disingenuous. A few weeks ago a United Nations Panel of Experts declined a rigorously scripted inspection of Guantánamo, saying US officials "did not accept the standard terms of reference for a credible, objective and fair assessment of the situation of the detainees at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility." I am trying to see for myself, and it will be hard. The US Naval Base at Guantánamo is not easy to get to. It is no accident that the prisoners were put there, so ordinary Americans like me would not see them, or the inhuman and illegal treatment under which they suffer. So, while we walk for the works of mercy, we also walk to tell the story of how hard it is for Americans to get to the place where these men are being held, deliberately hidden from the American people and the world.
In my name and with my money, my government
is committing immoral and illegal acts, mocking and ignoring international
law -- all at a place it is illegal for me even to visit.
I march to say no. Will you join me? Visit WitnessTorture.org to learn how.
[Ed. Note: The Catholic Worker 25 marched
to Guantánamo, vigiled outside the base, and fasted. The
US military refused all requests by the vigilers to inspect conditions
at the base. The protests generated more than 150 stories in media
outlets across the US. On December 17, the last of the Guantánamo
25 returned to the US. They were stopped by the Office of Foreign
Assets Control and asked about their actions in Cuba. Because
travel to Cuba by US citizens is in most cases still banned by
the US, the 25 risked prosecution in order to participate in the
protest.] 
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