02/11/2006
By Jane Sutton
GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Nov 1 (Reuters) - U.S. medical officers at the Guantanamo Bay detention center adjusted the force-feeding schedule for two long-time hunger strikers so they could fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, doctors at the U.S. navy base said. The pair of foreign terrorism suspects have refused food for more than a year in order to protest their indefinite detention without charge at the controversial U.S. prison, which holds more than 400 al Qaeda and Taliban suspects. To prevent them from dying, the U.S. military had been force-feeding them with liquid nutrients administered twice a day via tubes inserted into their nostrils and down into their stomachs, doctors at the detainee hospital told journalists. But the schedule was adjusted during Ramadan so the prisoners could participate in the just-ended, monthlong fast, during which devout Muslims abstain from food during daylight hours. The first feeding was conducted before sunrise and the second was delayed until after sunset. "We moved it to the nighttime hours," said Dr. K, the senior medical officer at the hospital, who did not want to be further identified for security reasons. The two detainees being force-fed are the last holdouts of a hunger strike that included a fifth of the camp population in June this year. Medical personnel in early 2006 began strapping the hunger strikers into restraint chairs to prevent them from vomiting up the tube-fed liquid. Detainees have said that the force-feeding caused unbearable pain and amounted to torture, and the practice has drawn sharp criticism from human rights groups. Medical associations have called it unethical. But Guantanamo officials say it is part of a long-standing policy of preserving the life and health of the suspected al Qaeda and Taliban captives held at the base since 2002 in the U.S. war on terrorism. "It's not our goal to break a hunger strike, to participate in any kind of punishment," said a senior nurse, who likewise did not want her name used for security reasons. Medical officials at the base, who prefer the term "involuntary feeding" to force-feeding, said the two longtime hunger strikers had grown well accustomed to being tube-fed and cooperated to the point of choosing which nostril would be used at each meal. "There really isn't any force involved in the process," the senior nurse said, adding: "Force has kind of a negative connotation." Rear Admiral Harry Harris, who commands the task force running the detention operation, said Ramadan was "very calm" this year, without the spike in unrest seen among captives during previous Ramadans. But he said the feast that marks the end of Ramadan, the Eid al Fitr, was served twice because some detainees did not believe the month had ended and fasted an extra day because they thought the U.S. military was trying to trick them. Washington is under international pressure to close the prison at the remote U.S. naval base in Cuba. Many detainees have been freed and the Pentagon has decided some 120 more could go home, although other nations have been reluctant to receive them.
SOURCE: Reuters via Alertnet.org |
