Deutsche Presse - Agentur
While Mbeki's emphasis on a more equal relationship between Africa and the West recalls Biko's 'psychological liberation' the ANC has yet to deliver the type of freedom Biko yearned for.
Thirteen years after democracy, nearly half of South Africans live on less than 3,000 rand (410 dollars) a year and inequality is growing.
Political freedom that does not touch on the proper distribution of wealth will be meaningless, Biko wrote. 'If we have a mere change of fact of those in governing positions what is likely to happen is that black people will continue to be poor.'
Report by John Yeld of the Cape Argus
TITLE: 'Us Detainees in War On Terror Echo Biko's Fate'
Sept 7th, 2007
This report appears at the allAfrica.com site
URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/200709070644.html
There are strong parallels between the treatment meted out to murdered Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko and detainees held in the notorious US prison at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere in the so called "war on terror", says a group of more than 260 doctors from around the world.
The group, which includes South Africans, has called for the US doctors involved in treating these prisoners especially those helping to force feed detainees on hunger strike by inserting tubes into their noses to be reported to their professional medical bodies for breaching internationally accepted ethical guidelines.
The doctors express their outrage in a letter that appears in today's edition of The Lancet, the prestigious independent medical journal published in Britain.
The 30th anniversary of Biko's death from severe head injuries is next week.
Biko was savagely beaten by Port Elizabeth security police while being held in solitary confinement and driven naked in the back of a police Land Rover to Pretoria, where he died a lonely death in a police cell.
The Lancet letter is signed by six doctors one of them Dr Trefor Jenkins of the department of human genetics at the University of the Witwatersrand "on behalf of 260 other signatories", who include 21 South Africans, two of them from Cape Town.
The letter says the doctors who treated Biko, Benjamin Tucker and Ivor Lang, had provided grossly inadequate medical treatment and falsified records.
"The regulatory authorities failed to take firm action and it was only grassroots efforts by doctors that led, almost eight years later, to Benjamin Tucker being found guilty of improper and disgraceful conduct and being struck off the medical register; Ivor Lang was found guilty of improper conduct and given a caution and reprimand.
"There are strong parallels between the Biko case and the ongoing role of US military doctors in Guantanamo Bay and the war on terror."
There are strong parallels between the treatment meted out to murdered Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko and detainees held in the notorious US prison at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere in the so called "war on terror", says a group of more than 260 doctors from around the world.
The group, which includes South Africans, has called for the US doctors involved in treating these prisoners especially those helping to force feed detainees on hunger strike by inserting tubes into their noses to be reported to their professional medical bodies for breaching internationally accepted ethical guidelines.
The doctors express their outrage in a letter that appears in today's edition of The Lancet, the prestigious independent medical journal published in Britain.
The 30th anniversary of Biko's death from severe head injuries is next week.
Biko was savagely beaten by Port Elizabeth security police while being held in solitary confinement and driven naked in the back of a police Land Rover to Pretoria, where he died a lonely death in a police cell.
The Lancet letter is signed by six doctors one of them Dr Trefor Jenkins of the department of human genetics at the University of the Witwatersrand "on behalf of 260 other signatories", who include 21 South Africans, two of them from Cape Town.
The letter says the doctors who treated Biko, Benjamin Tucker and Ivor Lang, had provided grossly inadequate medical treatment and falsified records.
"The regulatory authorities failed to take firm action and it was only grassroots efforts by doctors that led, almost eight years later, to Benjamin Tucker being found guilty of improper and disgraceful conduct and being struck off the medical register; Ivor Lang was found guilty of improper conduct and given a caution and reprimand.
"There are strong parallels between the Biko case and the ongoing role of US military doctors in Guantanamo Bay and the war on terrhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifor."
Although one of the signatories, neurologist Dr David Nicholl of the City Hospital in Birmingham, UK, had reported the American doctors to several US medical bodies, nothing had happened, the letter said.
"The failure of the US regulatory authorities to act is damaging the reputation of US military medicine.
"No healthcare worker in the war on terror has been charged or convicted of any significant offence, despite numerous instances documented, including fraudulent record-keeping on detainees who have died as a result of failed interrogations.
Continue reading... [page 2]
Related Sites:
Zionist Papers fail to place Sept 12th in it's proper global perspective
Medical News Today deals with the Lancet Letter
Tribute report by Dida Halake at Accra Mail
Steve Biko Biography at SAhistory.org
USA Watch - US Torture
American Civil Liberties Union
Amnesty International
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