The National Safety Court of
Bahrain sentenced 20 medical workers Sept. 29 to prison terms ranging from five
to 15 years for crimes against the state. They were arrested as part of a
brutal crackdown against anti-regime protesters that started in February. This
crackdown targeted the health care system, in particular Salmaniya Medical
Complex, Bahrain’s largest public hospital.
Salmaniya is Bahrain’s main
referral hospital, ambulance depot, center for emergency care and blood bank.
According to an April 12 report in The New York Times, demonstrators held
protests in the parking lot in front of the emergency ward, and some doctors
joined the protests while supposedly on duty.
Security forces stormed the
hospital; hauled away patients; and arrested and brutalized doctors, nurses,
paramedics, ambulance drivers and other medical workers. Both patients and
workers were tortured while in custody. Many were disappeared. Security forces
accosted ambulances and set up roadblocks around the country detaining
individuals bearing evidence of wounds from birdshot used against protesters.
The hospital and clinics were
emptied by soldiers wearing black masks to hide their identities. “To many
doctors at Salmaniya,” the Times reported, “the hospital has been converted
into an apparatus of state terrorism, and sick people have nowhere to go for
care.”
When medical workers are
persecuted for giving aid to protesters, some may refuse to do so, resulting in
further suffering and death and potentially deterring dissent. Since doctors
can document and present medical evidence of brutality and torture, silencing
or discrediting them aids the state in escaping accountability for those
crimes.
A long and sordid history
U.S. imperialism has a long and
sordid history of obstructing access to health care as a tool of war and
oppression.
In Nicaragua, the
counterrevolutionary contras deliberately attacked health clinics as a tool of
their U.S.-backed dirty war against the revolutionary government. The U.S.
bombed hospitals in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. The bombing of North Vietnam
destroyed hundreds of hospitals and health care facilities. Sanctions against
Iraq and Vietnam severely limited imports of medical supplies and equipment.
This writer witnessed firsthand the
deplorable effects of the U.S. blockade against Vietnam in 1991. At the
emergency room in Ho Chi Minh Hospital, doctors had no antibiotics to treat
burn victims, only mercurochrome, a topical antiseptic and no equipment to
manage airways. There was only one colposcope, an instrument crucial for
diagnosing cervical cancer, in the entire country.
The ongoing U.S. blockade of Cuba
deprives the people of vital access to medicines and medical technology. Were
it not for Cuba’s prioritization of health care, provided free to all, the
effects would be devastating.
Israel bombed hospitals in Lebanon
in 1982 and 2006. Israel bombed, shelled and incinerated hospitals and a
warehouse storing medical supplies in Gaza during the massacre carried out
starting in late December 2008. Israel routinely obstructs Palestinians’ access
to medical care and maintains a blockade of Gaza that drastically hinders
Palestinian health care.
In Libya, NATO has bombed
hospitals, clinics and other medical facilities. NATO has continued to bomb
Sirte, supporting the “rebel” attack on the town. As a result, a dire medical
situation has been declared by numerous aid agencies. The International
Committee of the Red Cross reports people are dying for lack of basic medical
care, especially a lack of oxygen. An
ICRC worker who led an aid team stated that wounded or ill people cannot
get to the hospital because of the fighting and NATO airstrikes.
According
to the ICRC, after their team went in, National Transitional Council fighters
launched a ferocious attack with rockets, anti-tank cannons and machine-gun
fire from a position less than a kilometer from the hospital. Gadhafi loyalists
responded with mortar and sniper fire.
According to an Oct. 3 report on
MSNBC, a Red Cross convoy trying to take medical supplies into the city on that
day had to turn back because NTC forces opened fire on the town. The report
also stated that medical workers fleeing the city said people wounded in
fighting were dying on the operating table because fuel from the hospital
generator had run out.
Although it is impossible at this
point to know how many people have died at the hands of either side in Libya,
it is clear that NATO bombing and other military support rather than preventing
a potential humanitarian catastrophe has contributed greatly to an actual one.
In all the atrocities listed
above, the U.S. has either been the perpetrator or has provided weapons or
other military support. It is likely that U.S.-made weapons have been used
against the medical workers and other people of Bahrain. In 2010, the U.S. sold
over $200 million worth of weapons to Bahrain, up from $88 million in 2009, and
the Department of Defense recently agreed to provide the monarchy with an
additional $53 million of weapons. The deal will provide 44 armored vehicles,
hundreds of missiles, bunker buster bombs and night-vision technology.
Saudi Arabia aided the crackdown
in Bahrain in response to the uprising against the monarchy by sending troops as well as police, armored
personnel carriers and tanks across the causeway on March 14. This was two days
after U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited Bahrain and met with
Bahrain’s king and the commander-in-chief, who graduated in 1973 from the U.S.
Army College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Gates praised the king’s
“willingness to engage with the opposition,” lauding his efforts as
“a model for the entire region.”
In 2010, the U.S. struck a deal
with Saudi Arabia worth $67 billion to provide the monarchy with 84 F-15 jets,
70 Apache gunships, 72 Black Hawk helicopters, 36 light helicopters and
thousands of laser-guided smart bombs. The U.S., including defense contractor
Lockheed Martin, is training thousands of Saudi security forces to defend the
elites from the masses and is moving forward on a nuclear cooperation
agreement.
Bloody crackdown in Bahrain
With the assistance of Saudi and
UAE forces, all armed to the teeth with U.S. weaponry, Bahrain has carried out
a bloody crackdown and wave of intense repression. Thousands of public sector
workers have been fired for taking part in protests. Protesters have been
abducted, shot, beaten, killed and sentenced to life in prison, even to death,
by the secret military courts set up under martial law.
Those medical workers persecuted
as an integral part of the crackdown maintain their innocence of the charges
and plan to appeal their convictions. They were accused by the regime of
stealing medicine, possessing weapons, occupying a government hospital and
“inciting hatred to the regime and insulting it, instigating hatred
against another sect, and obstructing the implementation of law, destroying
public property and taking part in gatherings aimed at jeopardising the general
security and committing crimes.” Convictions were based on confessions
extracted under torture or threats of torture, signed while blindfolded.
The
medical workers say the charges were brought by the authorities to punish
medical staff for treating people who took part in anti-government protests.
Human rights organizations, such as Physicians for Human Rights, have
emphasized this aspect of what happened in their condemnation of Bahrain’s
actions against the medical workers. PHR’s report “details systematic and
targeted attacks against medical personnel, as a result of their efforts to
provide unbiased care for wounded protestors.” The report concludes, “The
assault on health care workers and their patients constitutes extreme
violations of the principle of medical neutrality and are grave breaches of
international law.” Such attacks are war crimes.
As a
physician, and someone who was criminally prosecuted for attempting to stop
police from brutalizing an anti-war protester and for giving medical aid to
that injured protester, this writer recognizes the importance of the principle
of medical neutrality. When medical workers are targeted for providing medical
care to anyone considered an enemy of the state, a dangerous precedent is set.
In my case, much was made at trial of the fact that I was a protester at the
event where the injury occurred. Ultimately, the jury found that argument not
persuasive evidence of guilt of any crime.
In the
case of the medical workers targeted in Bahrain, some not only provided medical
care to protesters but also spoke out against the brutality of the regime. Some
went to the media. In a statement released by the medical workers, they stated,
“Our only crime was that during the unrest earlier this year we were outspoken
witnesses to the bloodshed and the brutal treatment by the security forces.”
One of the doctors reportedly
pleaded with the government to stop the killing, to stop shooting the
protesters. The medical workers were ethically obligated to do more than treat
the protesters. They were obligated to try to stop the brutality. It is the
obligation of doctors and other medical workers to work for the creation of a
just society.
The doctor and revolutionary Che
Guevara wrote in a letter to his children: “Above all, try always to be able to
feel deeply any injustice committed against any person in any part of the
world. It is the most important quality of a revolutionary.” It is also the
most important quality of a doctor.
