..and thats the last post from xanga

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

The following is from the CD by Fortner Anderson + tape/head: he sings OMAR Khadr was 15 years old in July of 2002 when he was captured in Afghanistan by U.S. Special Forces during Operation "Enduring Freedom." He has remained in U.S. detention since then and is currently one of approximately 500 prisoners held at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba. The United Nations has demanded that this prison camp should be closed and its detainees either released or put on trial. SUBSEQUENT to his capture, Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was imprisoned and tortured at the notorious prison at Baghram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. The tortures described in the piece are those likely to have been inflicted upon him between the ages of 15 and 19. These are based upon testimonies of former detainees of the Guantanamo facility, representations by Khadr's legal councils, and the investigations into torture practices of the U.S. government and its proxies by Non Governmental Organizations such as Amnesty International. THE U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the military trial that the U.S. government had devised to prosecute "enemy combatants" such as Omar Khadr is illegal as it breeches both U.S. law and the Geneva conventions. Yet following that ruling, Omar Khadr remains in a legal black hole unable to obtain due process and possibility of fair trail. He remains subject to cruel and degrading treatment and long periods of isolation. After four years of interrogations he is said to be despondent, subject to profound despair, and suicidal. For those young men caught within the American gulag and in particular, Omar Khadr, it is imperative that we speak out to denounce these blatant violations of human rights and international law. A collective silence of the American and Canadian people will doom these young men and it will show a lie in the heart of our own freedom. To learn more of the plight of the thousands of men held in the vast complex of U.S. and U.S. proxy torture facilities in countries scattered across the globe, please check-out the following web sites: Amnesty International: www.amnesty.org/pages/guantanamobayindex-eng Human Rights Watch: www.hrw.org/campaigns/torture.htm Caged Prisoners : www.cageprisoners.com Canadian Broadcasting Corporation : www.cbc.ca/news/background/khadr/ HE SINGS he is a boy a boy who sings who trills, warbles and chants he is a boy a boy who sings who sings like a bird he is a boy who sings of days drowned under earth of nights rendered into dawn a boy who sings of the broken tomb of his father who sings of his father who sings of the raging grief of his mother who sings of his mother he is a boy who sings he is a boy who sings into pale faces that burn with the pride the pride of their stiff naked lips he sings of a room a table, a bowl and a chair the bowl resting upon the chair his body resting upon the table his head resting resting in the bowl his lungs bursting as his face rests in the bowl of water he sings he sings of his tongue split and splintered to its dark red root he sings of the soles of his feet he sings of the soles of his feet that must not fall he sings of the soles of his feet that fall and the sparks that lift them again he is a boy he is a boy who caws, who squeals, who brays who sings his song who sings his song while hanging who sings his song while hanging from a hook he is a boy that sings while hanging from his wrists hanging from a hook hooded and bound twenty-one days, 16 hours a day he hangs and he sings like a bird he is a boy who sings a song who sings into a hole a hole in the earth the earth where he has been chained chained for 30 days for one hundred days for two hundred days for three hundred days he sings the cold muzzle slipped between young lips teeth and tongue he sings of the shock the shocks and the urine and shit that flow after each shock each new shock to his anus he sings when the coals of Winstons and Camels and Marlboros burn small circular wounds along his arms he sings he sings shackled and draped naked upon a table as a boy from Georgia or Tennessee whispers whispers he sings of his fear the fear in his young cock his young cock caught in the blades the sharp blades of his jailors' scissors he sings of the blood the blood of a young woman spread upon his chest as she whispers whispers desecration into the warmth of his ear he sings of his interrogators whose sons and grandsons will come, will come to beat him beat him in their turn he sings the song of a slow turning wheel turning without end as he crawls to his cot in a cage 6 feet by 12 open to the rain open to the wind open to the night open to the screech of the gulls that wheel above that do not know and do not care he sings four hundred days five hundred days six hundred days he sings of Canada oh Canada the Maple Leafs and the dark eyes of his sister he sings of a merciful and a vengeful god he sings of the martyr's victory he sings like a bird in the butcher's fist he sings as the butcher's red fists beat his song into the sand he sings of the implacable sand and of the red specked breath that flies that flies from countless round pink holes into eternity eternity that holds his song in the teeth of its metal flames eight hundred days nine hundred days one thousand days twelve hundred days he is now seventeen years old he too fears the fire he too fears the end and that there will be no end he sings of his cup his blanket his holy book a song a song of three emaciated comforts in a cage a boy sings his song a song without sound with no voice, cry or scream his song stiff with silence he sings but we do not hear he sings but can not hear we cannot hear in our silence such a fearsome quiet before dawn in darkness he sings he still sings this boy this boy who sings alone ********* Fortner Anderson