Posted on 12/08/2005 12:14:11 AM PST by RWR8189
HAVANA - American anti-war activists marched Wednesday from the eastern Cuban city of Santiago toward the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay to protest treatment of terror suspects there.
The 25 members of the Witness Against Torture group had hoped to begin their daylong march a day earlier, but spent Tuesday negotiating with Cuban communist officials about how close they could get to the American military installation, the protesters said by telephone.
Cuba and the United States have had no diplomatic relations for more than four decades, and the American base is surrounded by a miles-wide Cuban military zone peppered with mines.
It seemed unlikely that the marchers would be allowed to cross the military zone to reach the U.S. base's gate and demand that American sentries let them visit the prisoners, as they initially had planned.
"We're really saddened and horrified by what's going on in Guantanamo and the other prisons" where the U.S. military holds terror suspects, said marcher Susan Crane of Baltimore. "Our hope is to get as close as we can (to the base)."
"We want the prisoners to know we care about them," she added.
Most of the marchers arrived Monday in Santiago, about 50 miles southwest of Guantanamo, from the Dominican Republic. Among them was Frida Berrigan, daughter of the late Phil Berrigan, a former Roman Catholic priest whose fight against the Vietnam War and nuclear weapons helped ignite a generation of anti-war dissent.
The United States holds about 500 terror suspects at the remote base in Guantanamo. The U.S. government says they are enemy combatants, not prisoners of war, and are not entitled to the same rights afforded under the Geneva Conventions.
I say we let them in the minefield...ya paz yo money an u takes yer chanzzs
Is it bad that I was thinking the same thing?
Awwww, this one is way too easy. Like shootin' fish in a barrel!
So I says, "They wanna march? Let 'em march!"
Traitors!!!
What is going on!!! How do they clowns get away with this??
Bush better clamp down on these morons.
Unbelievable. I wonder if she has any compassion for the people these scum murdered? The Afghanistani women they stoned to death in the street for simply trying to learn to read and write, or for not wearing a burka.
I wonder if she cares for the women in Indonesia who had their clitoris's cut off with a dull butter knife during forced conversion to Islam, who's husbands, murdered the day before, still hung outside the window.
Castro should have let these traitous scum march through the mine field.
As it is, sholdn't these scum be arrested for going to Cuba and conspiring with the enemy?
No politician is going to do anything about these traitors.
The people have to take action. What the government will do is try put a stop to the civil war the left is spoiling for.
Not likely with these twerps
I just wonder what side the government (elected Prez/Armed forces) will be on when it happens.
These people are crying because we are holding murderers in prison but they are marching on Cuban soil. They are marching in Cuba, a country who has a human rights violation record longer than there little Island. Maybe these protestors should stay in Cuba under Cuban law, then lets see what they have to say two years later.
I wonder how I would feel if I was hanging by my thumbs in one of Castro's gulags when these nitwits marched by to protest the evil American's treatment of terrorists.
Hi! Fancy meeting you here ; )
I think it would be great if Bush would arrange a meeting of the Witnesses for Torture and the Witnesses for Terror (our troops) and see who wins the 'debate'.
Time to pull some passports, allow them to remain in that island utopia.
Meanwhile, if Castro has forgotten where some of those mines are, here is a great way to find them.
Finish the job, and help Castro's political prisoners who haven't threatened anybody but live in inhuman conditions!
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
25 people marching in Cuba seems hardly worth the time to post the story on the Internet. If I got 24 others to march in support of the war in some oddball country would the AP cover that as well? Somehow I doubt it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.