iwwobblie
26th December 2003, 23:57
Cuba Says Guantanamo Prison a Concentration Camp
Fri Dec 26, 1:01 PM ET
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba has charged the United States with running a concentration camp at the Guantanamo base on the eastern tip of the island, in the government's first attack on use of the facility to hold terror suspects.
"In the territory illegally occupied by the Guantanamo naval base, hundreds of foreign prisoners are subjected to indescribable abuses," said a statement passed by parliament earlier this week and broadcast by the state-run media on Friday.
Communist-run Cuba's National Assembly said prisoners were isolated and denied the right to communicate with their families or to prepare an adequate defense.
"Some of the few freed have spoken of the horrors of this concentration camp," said the statement, appealing to lawmakers throughout the Americas to halt U.S. human rights violations related to the war on terror.
President Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s government surprised observers when after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington it offered logistical support to Washington as it transformed the base at Guantanamo into a prison for suspected Taliban soldiers from Afghanistan (news - web sites).
Since Castro came to power in a 1959 revolution the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay has been a flash-point of hostilities between the two countries.
Castro insists the area is illegally occupied by the United States which leases it under a pre-revolution agreement.
Castro refuses to cash U.S. checks for use of the base, which he keeps in a desk drawer to show visitors and reporters.
Havana, up to now, has refrained from criticizing Washington's use of the naval base even as international unease with conditions there mounts.
The United States has kept more than 600 people from several countries captive for nearly two years at Guantanamo following the undeclared war against the Taliban government in Afghanistan and al Qaeda. Earlier this month, a U.S. appeals court ruled that they can not be held indefinitely and cannot be denied lawyers.
Fri Dec 26, 1:01 PM ET
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba has charged the United States with running a concentration camp at the Guantanamo base on the eastern tip of the island, in the government's first attack on use of the facility to hold terror suspects.
"In the territory illegally occupied by the Guantanamo naval base, hundreds of foreign prisoners are subjected to indescribable abuses," said a statement passed by parliament earlier this week and broadcast by the state-run media on Friday.
Communist-run Cuba's National Assembly said prisoners were isolated and denied the right to communicate with their families or to prepare an adequate defense.
"Some of the few freed have spoken of the horrors of this concentration camp," said the statement, appealing to lawmakers throughout the Americas to halt U.S. human rights violations related to the war on terror.
President Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s government surprised observers when after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington it offered logistical support to Washington as it transformed the base at Guantanamo into a prison for suspected Taliban soldiers from Afghanistan (news - web sites).
Since Castro came to power in a 1959 revolution the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay has been a flash-point of hostilities between the two countries.
Castro insists the area is illegally occupied by the United States which leases it under a pre-revolution agreement.
Castro refuses to cash U.S. checks for use of the base, which he keeps in a desk drawer to show visitors and reporters.
Havana, up to now, has refrained from criticizing Washington's use of the naval base even as international unease with conditions there mounts.
The United States has kept more than 600 people from several countries captive for nearly two years at Guantanamo following the undeclared war against the Taliban government in Afghanistan and al Qaeda. Earlier this month, a U.S. appeals court ruled that they can not be held indefinitely and cannot be denied lawyers.