By Brendan Oliver Bergh
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

HAVANA, Cuba – The prisoners of Guantanamo Bay live in a legal quagmire. Deemed either too dangerous to be freed, or pushed under the rug, hoped to be forgotten by the United States legislature, executive and judicial branches that have kept them there. Due to their status as non-Americans, in a territory not of the United States, they are forbidden from exercising many legal remedies that the United States Constitution upholds, habeas corpus, article 3 courts. Instead they took what they felt was their only available remedy, a hunger strike.

Over the weekend detainees clashed with the prison guards with makeshift weapons: batons, broomsticks and water bottles crafted together with duct tape. Beyond the mere hopelessness many feel, there have been a number of setbacks for the detained. Revelations that a figure was secretly monitoring and censoring the pretrial hearings of men, and the discovery of a listening device in the client-attorney conference room drove many to begin their three-month hunger strike. After the clashes, detainees were separated and each placed into solitary confinement.

Unwilling to allow the detainees to slowly kill themselves, guards were forced to subdue them, and insert feeding tubes up their noses in order to stave off starvation. One inmate describes the feeling as “painful,” and claimed that “As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t. There was agony in my chest, throat and stomach. I had never experienced such pain before. I would not wish this cruel punishment upon anyone.”

The hunger strikes and physical defection are just the latest from the Guantanamo Bay detainees who are seeking international recognition of their plight. Despite an executive order by President Barack Obama, the prison remains open due to funding plights. After Congress passed legislation that effectively eliminated any way for detainees transfer into the sovereign United States the camp remains in limbo, surviving on an ever shrinking pool of funding leading to cuts in resources.

Attorneys for the detained have stated that it is unclear how the hunger strike will eventually end. The strike originally arose out of the detainee’s sense of hopelessness that the administration will ever be closed. But until either another country agrees to take the prisoners, or Congress alters legislation, it is unclear how the detainee’s story will end.

For more information, please see:

Truth-Out – Gitmo Trial Ethics Breaches Called Possible Obama Plan To Close Prison – 15 April 2013

Policy Mic – Guantanamo Hunger Strike: Abused Prisoners Riot At GITMO – 15 April 2013

Wired – It’s Forced Feeding Vs. Scotch-Tape Batons As Gitmo Detainees Continue Hunger Strike – 15 April 2013

The New York Times – Gitmo Is Killing Me – 14 April 2013