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Putting Their Lives On The Line!By Bill DavisOn September 1 Charles Liteky, a Vietnam veteran and winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, and George Mizo, a combat veteran of Vietnam, began a water only fast on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington in protest against the "immoral, illegal and insane" U.S. government war moves in Central America. On September 15 they were joined by WWII veteran Duncan Murphy and Vietnam veteran Brian Willson. The fast continued for 47 days until the veterans felt their action had brought about significant increase in public awareness and opposition to Reagan Administration policies in Central America. Charles Liteky, a former priest, received the Medal of Honor for bravery in Vietnam. He received the Medal for rescuing 20 wounded men during a four-hour fire fight despite being wounded himself. On July 29, Liteky, coordinator for the National Federation of Veterans for Peace returned his Medal of Honor to protest the Reagan Administration's policies in Central America and war on Nicaragua. On September 1st the fast began triggered by the Senate approval of $100 million in aid to the "Contras." At the outset of the fast, Liteky and Mizo stated their reasoning: "We're fasting for the lives of the Nicaraguan people who are victims of the U.S.-backed. "Some of us have spent time in Nicaragua. We're in constant contact with people there and we believe that the situation there is nowhere like the Administration is painting it to be. We feel that the Sandinista government has been vilified by the Reagan Administration and the State Department. "We agree with the World Court that the U.S. is guilty of war crimes related to Nicaragua and we are chagrined over the fact that by executive decision, the U.S. was withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the World Court a court that it respected for at least some 40 odd years. "So, to demonstrate the depth of our conviction about the immorality and illegality of what the U.S. is doing in Nicaragua, we have chosen to put our lives on the line and have embarked upon this Fast for Life, on water only." "We will stop fasting when the American people are awakened enough to know what we are doing in Nicaragua to being to demonstrate, to do civil disobedience if necessary, to possibly come to Washington for demonstration; to begin also to pray and to fast, because we feel that this is a spiritual problem. We feel that our government is spiritually ill when it can approve of the kind of policies that it is sanctioning in Nicaragua in the name of anti-communism, democracy and our national interest." "To us this is a pure sham. What the U.S. is interested in maintaining I Central America is the same thing it has maintained for at least 100 years—control, domination. All anyone has to do is look back at the history of the U.S. in Central America and they'll discover what we have done to maintain control. This pertains to Guatemala in 1954; and the ousting of the Socialist leader Allende in Chile in 1973. And now we're trying to do the same thing in Nicaragua. "We are veterans of Vietnam and World War II, we know what war is all about. We are also people suffered along with our brother from Vietnam; and we now know, after the declassified documents on Vietnam and the books that are coming out on it now, that Vietnam was born of a lie. The Gulf of Tonkin was a fabricated incident to seduce Congress into appropriating the necessary monies to begin that war down there...." As media attention began to slowly turn on the seriousness of the fasteners' goals, invariably the questions direct at them took on the usual U.S. media skepticism regarding Nicaragua. Charles Liteky spoke clearly to them saying, "People will say, 'What about the Sandinistas?' Well, I say, What about the Sandinistas? I don't pay taxes in Nicaragua, I am not responsible for what the Sandinistas do. "And they say, Well aren't you afraid that they could spread Marxism all over Central America and eventually up into Mexico." Well, if Marxism speaks to a solution for those people's problems, then certainly they're going to be a lot better off under Marxism than they would be under a person like Pinochet, under the military dictatorship in Guatemala, formerly under Somoza, and under the oligarchy and the military in El Salvador. What are we going to do about it? Are we going to go there in a realistic way and speak to the economic problems of those countries, or are we just going to set up "fortress America" and defend ourselves and maintain the disparity. It all depends on how people answer their conscience. But our government doesn't get involved with how to help poor people. We're not even involved in it there in the U.S. They're taking money away from many of our social programs here to support our military budget. We have 100,000 homeless people right here in the nation's capital. We've got 60,000 in my hometown in San Francisco. Every major city of this country has homeless people, which says to me the government that we elected is not as concerned about the poor people in this country as it is about protecting the status quo for the large middles class and the elite wealthy in this country. The second most frequent question Charles Liteky and many vets around the country hear is, "Is the U.S. going to invade Nicaragua with U.S. troops?" To this Charles replies, "Definitely, definitely. If the "Contras" can't do it—and I don't see any way in which they're going to be able to do it, and I think our military experts agree with this—the U.S. already has an invasion plan ready to go. Everything points in this direction. The gradual introduction of advisers—the CIA has been there for God knows how long, at least since 1979, working in that area, they've built up a tremendous military complex in Honduras that can be used as a military platform all over the country. The handwriting's on the wall for a military invasion. Then we'll be going in to rescue that "Contras" the people most of the American people are not supporting anyway. "On my trip to Nicaragua, I went up to a mountain village called Venetia that has been relocated from a place about 20 miles away, which the "Contras" had completely destroyed. These 490 people were then relocated to another place, an old coffee plantation that had been abandoned. These people had been there for about a year when we got there and we were the first Americans to come and visit them. "These people began to tell us the stories about how the "Contras" had raided their villages, taken some of their young men. One lady in particular lost two sons, and she had one remaining son and her husband was also deceased. And she told us to go home to President Reagan and put our hand upon his chest and tell him to "stop killing us." That remains with me until this day. I can see the image of that woman. "On the other hand, out government had hired Nicaraguan people, the leadership of whom are the former national guard of one of the most brutal regimes in Central American history. We have hired remnants of this National Guard to be the leadership of the counterrevolutionaries, known as the "Contras." "In a way, they are our proxies in Nicaragua, doing our dirty work." "We're appealing to the American people to wake up, look at what our government is doing with our tax money, make a decision whether or not you think that is right or wrong. And if you think it's wrong. And if you think it's wrong, then we have to get people that we put in office, who are voting for policies like aid to the "Contras" out of office." On Septembern15, Liteky and Mizo were joined in their fast by Brian Willson, and Air Force Vietnam vet and Duncan Murphy, a World War II vet who was present at the liberation of Bergen-Belson concentration camp listening to the stories, working with survivors, hearing of Nazi atrocities. "Forty years later I went to Nicaragua and I head the same stories from the victims on the "Contras." Brian Willson added, "one of the reasons we're fasting is to make it clear to the American people what the bottom line of our (U.S.) policy in Nicaragua is—people are suffering and dying and being maimed. People have to understand what happens when we send guns and weapons to kill those people." Murphy summed it up: "Let Congress go down there and fight. Let them kill the children, mothers and fathers." Vowing to continue their fast to death, unless there were significant changes in U.S. policy toward Central America, the four fasters begin receiving deserved attention from different parts of the country in addition to support from vets groups across the nation. Letters of support began piling up. Congressional support from Tip O'Neil to junior representatives, Senators such as John Kerry from Massachusetts, boosted the fast and placed their statements into the Congressional Record. Kerry stated, "I hope before they are in wheelchairs that we will somehow reconsider to see whether the olive branch of peace is not worth picking up." On the Phil Donahue talk show which featured the hunger strikes, one of the most noticeable members of the audience, actor Martin Sheen, said, "These man have earned the long-standing blessings, 'Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice.' I was in Nicaragua in December of 1984 myself and came back having made the promise to stop the killing." "Do you, one-on-one, have the courage to blow the head off a 12-year-old girl because she is a Sandinista, Communist or Nicaraguan. If not, how can you ask someone else to do it in your name or in the name of the American people?" As the fast continued on October 5th, one of "someone else's" that Sheen referred to was the only survivor from an obviously CIA supported air crash in a remote part of Nicaragua. The appearance of the 45-year-old ex-Marine, Eugene Hasenfus, gave the fasting vets yet more leverage in their fast. As they pressed on, numerous appeals from the famous and from common people rolled into Washington to appeal to the vets to end their fast—to live. Children visit the Capitol building in Washington, on whose steps the vets spent every afternoon, touched the fasters saying, "Please don't die." As they neared death on the 46th day of their "Fast for Life," the fasters ended their fast. The impact of their actions, while difficult to measure had definitely affected people across the country; support that continues to grow to this day shows that theirs was not a futile gesture. On October 17th the four vets and their supporters announced the second phase of their on-going vigil on the Capitol steps. Brian Willson and George Mizo traveled to Nicaraguan border with Honduras, while Charles Liteky travels throughout the U.S. to build support for the continuing effort. Interested individuals or groups may contact the fasters at: Vets Fast for Life —Bill Davis, VVAW National Office
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