WITNESS AGAINST TORTURE

Members of the Catholic Worker movement camping out at a Cuban military checkpoint outside the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay started their first day of a water-only fast Monday to protest the treatment of suspected terrorists detained at the base.

The marchers are walking under the banner of Witness Against Torture and are demanding access to the prisoner camp to meet with inmates. The activists arrived late Sunday at the checkpoint, which is about five miles from the U.S. base, after a five-day march from the eastern Cuban city of Santiago.

"We can see the windmills of the U.S. base, we can see some lights off in the distance," Frida Berrigan, 31, said on her cell phone.

Berrigan is the daughter of the late Phil Berrigan, a former Roman Catholic priest whose protests against the Vietnam War and nuclear weapons helped ignite a generation of anti-war dissent.

Inside the prison camp dozens of prisoners are on hunger strike to protest what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment. Twenty-five of those prisoners are being fed through tubes.

The prisoners' hunger strike is part of what inspired the 25 American activists to travel to the island, where most of them arrived Monday from the Dominican Republic.

The marchers ate their last meal Sunday night before bunkering down in tents outside the checkpoint, which is on the edge of a miles-wide Cuban military zone peppered with mines surrounding the U.S. installations. If the activists are granted access to the base, Cuban authorities have agreed to provide them with a military escort through Cuban base.

During their 66-mile march from Santiago, the activists slept in Cubans' backyards and at farms. Response from local citizens has been positive so far, Berrigan said.

"I think we've seen a lot of gratitude on the part of people we've encountered (for the fact) that Americans are taking responsibility for an American problem, for the torture and the impunity and the lawlessness of what purports to be the world's largest democracy," she said.

Jennifer Harberry, a lawyer, activist and author of Truth, Torture, and the American Way, called the Catholic Worker protest "enormously important" in drawing attention "to the fact that outright torture is being used right now in Guantánamo by U.S. interrogators."

"It's really important that the U.S. population understand that what's going on in Guantánamo fits the legal definition of torture under our own felony statute," she said, pointing to a statute of the U.S. code that defines torture as an act intended to inflict physical or mental pain upon another person within his control.

Activist Grace Ritter said the group was urging Americans to call the base and President Bush to demand that Witness Against Torture representatives have access to the prisoners.

"If there isn't any torture going on as President Bush has said, then they should feel comfortable allowing us in and showing us around," said Ritter, 24, of Ithaca, N.Y.

U.S. officials have not commented on what, if any, repercussions the protesters will face upon their return, but the penalty for Americans traveling illegally to Cuba ranges from a $7,500 fine for first-time offenders to $250,000 and 10 years in jail.

Following is a statement given yesterday by Sister Anne Montgomery (who is also a member of Christian Peace Maker Teams) as she marched to Guantanomo Bay:

"In May of 2003, three Christian Peace Maker Teams members were refused entrance to Airport Detention Center near Baghdad Iraq. As we stood there, two taxis arrived filled with families desperate to get information about fathers, brothers, and sons seized in raids of homes and on the street.

"After that we found many other families in the same situation. We began a campaign, not claiming innocence or guilt of the prisoners, but calling for their basic human rights to be respected. Now twenty five of us Christians from peace groups across the United States are marching toward Guantanomo where Iraqis and others are being held. They are being held with out access to visitors, legal representation and many are experiencing torture and inhumane, degrading, and humiliating treatment.

"Tom Fox, a Christian Peace Maker Team member who is being held hostage in Iraq, said just before his capture, “War and oppression make people less human than they should be.”

"We march praying that all prisoners. We are marching as close as we can get to Guantanomo praying for prisoners, guards and all who war makes less human than they should be.

"We will arrive tomorrow fasting and praying at the first gate of the demilitarized zone. We beg for release or fair trials for all the prisoners held there. We humbly beg the same thing of the kidnappers of the CPT members held hostage in Iraq. Sources: Village Voice, Witness Against Torture, Houston Chronicle