U.S. Embassy, London - Vigil in Solidarity with NVDA to Shutdown Guantanamo

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report

Sunday January 13, 2008 18:21

by Ciaron O' Reilly - {posted by Eastern Frontier EuroLandia Platoon (non-violent)}

The London Catholic Worker marked the 6th. anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo with a vigil at the U.S. embassy, located near Grosvenor Square in central London.

To vigil is stay awake; to stay awake to the mainstreaming of torture, to attacks on civil liberties, to our complicity with the CIA kidnapping and rendition flights refueling in England to the U.S. gulag that is Guantanamo. As we enter the 7th. year of the Bush initiated war without end, civil society remains asleep, sedated and silenced in the face of a war that escalates in Iraq and Afghanistan and expands into Lebanon, Somalia, Pakistan and who knows where next?

{redjade is jealous of whom took this photo - great shot!}

On arrival at the enormous embassy building, it becomes obvious that those waging war are not asleep. They are alert and preparing for the inevitable blowback of their policies of bombing, torturing and invasion. There is major security related construction underway at the London embassy. Martin remarks that it looks like images of the U.S. embassy in Saigon he saw on a recent documentary dealing with the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. Zelda remarks that it looked like the U.S. embassy in Managua during the U.S. war on the Sandanistas. The revamped embassy architecture speaks to London being considered by the U.S. government as part of the theatre of war. The U.S. assumption is that as they, along with British government, escalate the war - terror will be visited on the city of London. The U.S. is circling the wagons near Grosvenor Square to insure it won't be them who gets hit!

The statue of Eisenhower, and the road in front of the embassy, is surrounded by high metal security fencing. We take a walk to scope out where we can get a foothold into this scene to set up our vigil. Grosvenor Square has a long history, thousands have gathered here over the decades to cry for peace and justice in Vietnam, in Central America, in the Middle East whereever the American Empire has extended its reach. Zelda, Martin and I, from the live-in crew at the London Catholic Worker, gathered on the other side of the park for weeks at a time in the late '90's. At that time, we maintained vigil as the people of East Timor risked their lives to vote the Indonesian out of their country. I think of the genocidal Indonesian General Suharto, loyal servant of U.S. imperial interests and one of the biggest mass murderers of the 20th. century, dying tonight in his own bed. No Hague Court or orange jumpsuit for Suharto and others who wield the sword and slay the innocents on behalf of U.S. interests.

We find a space at the public entrance to set up a vigil line. Scott takes up his position dressed in the orange jumpsuit and hood of Guantanamo. A few of us cross the road to set up some sacred space centred around the candlelit names of those who have died at Guantanamo....

*Camp 1
June 10th. 2006
3 Suicides
Manel al Otaibi
Yasser al-Zahrani
Ali Abdullah

*Camp 5
May 30th. 2007
Suicide
Abdul Rahman al-Amri

*Abdul Razzak, 68
December 30th. 2007
Cancer

Martin begins reading the names of those imprisoned at Guantanamo, their places of origin and their ages. Names of those detained indefinitely that have never been read out formally in a public court. Names that are being read out now by our friends occupying the Supreme Court in Washington D.C. as 81 are arrested demanding that Guantanamo be shut down. http://www.witnesstorture.org/jan11release

Twenty of us gathered from the London & Farmhouse Catholic Worker communities, London Menonite Centre, Jesus Christians, Simon Community, three Muslim friends, an actress from the play "Guantanamo - Honour Bound to Defend Freedom" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3605506.stm, the author of the book "Guantanamo Files" http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/?page_id=17 and folks from the London Guantanamo Campaign who have been moving around the city in orange jumpsuits throughout the day. We start and conclude the vigil with a circle, we remember friends presently in prison - Betsy Lamb, Fr. Louie Vitalie, Fr. Jerry Zawada, Fr. Steve Kelly www.tortureontrial.org - for resisting torture training at Fort Huachuca servicing Guantanamo and left the shrines to the dead of Guantanamo at the embassy.

Amnesty International had been at the embassy in larger numbers that morning, the London Guantanamo Campaign assembled later outside the Houses of Parliament and other friends in over 80 locations around the globe, from Shannon Airport to the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, were demanding the Guantanamo be shut down.

http://www.londoncatholicworker.org