1-09-07, 9:17 am

Fervently embracing a cause that she took up after her son’s death, pacifist Cindy Sheehan affirmed in Cuba that the atrocities committed by the government of George W. Bush in the world is shameful for many Americans.

“The war against terrorism has begun in my country and has spread to others, condemning more than 600,000 Iraqis to death and killing more than 3,000 U.S. soldiers (in Iraq) and many Afghans,” she said, criticizing Washington’s crusade.

In an interview with the Prensa Latina news agency, Sheehan deplored the fact that in the name of fighting terrorism, the Bush administration is torturing prisoners held on the Guantánamo naval base, on territory usurped by the United States against the wishes of the Cuban people.

“We are also fighting against my country’s foreign policies on human rights, because it is violating them all over the world,” emphasized Sheehan, the mother of U.S. soldier Casey Sheehan.

“The death of my son (in Iraq) changed my life,” she affirmed, with evident pain, but with the strength of one who has three more children, and is proud to say that “they know about what I’m doing; they think it is necessary, and they support me.”

Cindy Sheehan arrived in Cuba on Saturday, together with four other women who are also members of the non-governmental organization CodePink: Women for Peace, which organizes against the military aggression in that Arab nation, for the prevention of future wars and for social justice.

The pacifist group, which will be joined by other Americans, plans to go to the surroundings of the Guantánamo base in eastern Cuba to protest the continued presence of the prison established there on January 11, 2002.

“We thought that our trip should coincide with the fifth anniversary of the opening of the prison, to protest against the inhuman treatment of the prisoners, who are being held without due process,” noted the so-called “Peace Mom.”

Sheehan, who sees the pain and struggle of the detainees as her own, attended a prayer service on Sunday at Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Havana neighborhood of Marianao, and toured several social projects in the working-class neighborhood of Pogoloti.

“We are here to represent the American community of peace, which is fighting for understanding and peace among all people,” she told the congregation at the service.

“It may be true that our mouths don’t speak the same language, but our hearts do, the language of love, and in the name of that love, we are going to Guantánamo,” to support the prisoners, she said.

She emphasized to Prensa Latina her shame regarding “our government and the atrocities that are being committed in Guantánamo,” and expressed satisfaction at the warmth, unity and hospitality of the Cuban people, and because after arriving in this Caribbean country, “I have been able to dream better.”

“I wish everyone in my country could come and see how beautiful you all are, and see how much life there is here. I am going to fight so that my government ends the embargo (the economic blockade imposed by the White House almost 50 years ago).”

The likewise cofounder of the organization Gold Star Families for Peace, an anti-war group created in January 2005 by parents of soldiers killed in Iraq, said that before her trip here, she knew about Cuba’s struggle to end the blockade.

But until the death of her son, she admitted, she, like many Americans, knew only one side of the story: “the side of the Bush administration.”

Through her humanitarian activism, which led her to a long anti-war protest outside Bush’s vacation ranch in Texas, she was able to learn about the causes of Venezuela, Iran, North Korea and other countries that Washington has unilaterally placed on its list of the “axis of evil.”

“Americans need to find out about and learn the other side of the story, and we are here now to learn about the Cuban side of the story,” she concluded. (PL)

--Translated by Granma International