Hunger Strike Stopped by Cuban Migrants After Agreement is Reached with Authorities. Concern still persist with regards to their physiological status.

by Antonio M. Gordon, M.D.

After 26 days of a starvation nutritional regimen which maintained a certain electrolytic balance, 17 Cubans detained in the US Naval Base (GTMO) in the Southeastern coast of Cuba agreed to surrender their plight. Indeed, this may be the longest hunger strike in the history of an American military installation where foreign detainees not considered prisoners of war staged their feelings in a most dramatic manner. In earlier reports we confirmed that up to 28 Cubans who had been cleared for U.S. Immigration to pass through the GTMO base to a "third country" as political refugees. This procedure would apparently be a complex way of honoring the treaty with the Castro regime after the rafters exodus of 1994.The strikers ended their agony when they were
given reassurances that they would be placed in a "third country' in the near future. The pleas from the Cuban American community, in support for the orderly and safe management of this situation, did not fall on grounds in the various U.S. government offices where the message was directed.
GTMO remains hermetically closed.

Concern had been raised by our Finlay Group of Cuban American physicians with regards to the physical and psychological safety and the rights of the Cuban migrants through this ordeal. Our concerns were not the results of some unrealistic thinking. It is not usually appreciated, for instance, that Cubans coming out of the Castro regime have very little knowledge about their options in an open society. Castro's Cuba is a hermetically closed society. A simple study on patient's rights, for example, would yield that elementary rights which are expected in an American facility are generally not observed in Castro's Cuba. Inform consent has essentially no useful meaning to a Cuban patient from Castro's social order or a physician licensed to practice medicine under Castro.

The nutritional status of the Cubans who entered the hunger strike on 14 February was the other issue questioned. It has been well publisized that the nutritional status of Cubans has dropped by at least 34% since 1992 after the collapse of the USSR. The average Cuban has lost an average of 20 pounds in the past 4 years. Now we  are told by the Cubans detained in the GTMO
base that they have lost 30 to 40 pounds in these 26 days of hunger strike. Considering that they may have started underweight, their situation at present may be dangerous enough to be concerned. Concerned about their immune status and the possibility of contracting or activating tuberculosis or another infectious disease. This must be discussed since their are children in the group and the traffic through the base persits despite the policy of not accepting Cubans automatically for entry into the U.S. In any event, care must be taken to aid these Cubans in their recovery, physically, metabolically, and psychologically, from their current status into a future consistent with their aspitrations.