US says Cuba is responsible for hunger strikers

US says Cuba is responsible for hunger strikers
(AFP)

WASHINGTON — The United States said Monday that Cuba had a
responsibility to improve prison conditions, rejecting President Raul
Castro's characterization of hunger strikes as US and European-backed
"blackmail."

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the United States was
concerned about overcrowding, poor hygiene and a lack of drinking water
in Cuban jails, along with the detention of some 200 political prisoners.

"Somehow prisoners are rebelling against these conditions and we're led
to believe that this is the responsibility of the United States?"
Crowley told reporters.

"No, it's the responsibility of the Cuban government. It has fundamental
responsibilities under international law for its citizens, including
those in custody, and they should live up to those obligations," he said.

He noted that Cuba does not allow foreign humanitarian agencies such as
the International Red Cross to monitor its prisons.

Guillermo Farinas, 48, a cyber-journalist who challenged Cuba's state
monopoly on the media, has been on a hunger strike for the past month
and has said he is ready to die.

He decided to give up food when he learned of the death on February 23
of Orlando Zapata, 85 days into his own hunger strike to protest prison
conditions.

Castro on Sunday vowed never to give in to the dissidents' demands,
calling it "blackmail" organized by the United States and Europe.

The Cuban president charged that the United States and Europe were
waging "an unprecedented publicity war" against Havana allegedly
supported by "major Western media."

The United States maintains a decades-old trade embargo on the Americas'
only one-party Communist regime, but President Barack Obama took office
last year offering to improve ties if Castro improved human rights.

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