Ft. Detrick’s bio-weapons kill
By
Kermit Leibensperger
Frederick, Md.
Published Jun 11, 2005 5:10 PM
About 200
citizens of Frederick, Md., and the surrounding area rallied at Baker Park on
June 5, then marched through town to a community festival to spread the word
about the massive expansion of Ft. Detrick. The expansion includes building
BSL-4 labs, used for experimentation with infectious agents for which there
exists neither a vaccine nor a cure.
The tax money to be wasted on the
Department of Homeland Security’s bio-weapons programs “dwarfs the
size of the U.S. program back when [the U.S. was] overtly producing bio-weapons
for offensive use,” according to http://www.frederickpac.org. Frederick
Progressive Action Coalition spokesperson Chris Stevenson’s call for a
halt to all operations at Ft. Detrick was well-received by the predominately
young crowd.
Watu Mwariama of the African People’s Socialist Party
and a Frederick resident, told of Ft. Detrick’s abuse of prisoners,
alcoholics and drug abusers as guinea pigs. Agents of the fort go into prisons
and poor neighborhoods, offering a few dollars to people for allowing themselves
to be injected.
One federal employee, filled with horror and regret for
not knowing what he was doing by injecting people, took a sick ex-prisoner into
his home whose health had been ruined by the experimental injections. The skin
came off the body of another poverty-stricken Frederick resident who took money
in exchange for participating in an experiment, said Mwariama.
He also
reported there have been many deaths from mysterious causes of Black custodial
workers, whose jobs included handling dead and infected animals at the
fort.
Unity of opposition to the bio-weapons labs was also expressed by
many local and area activists, including representatives of Code Pink, Democracy
Rising, Green Party, Institute for Social Ecology, International Socialist
Organization, Women in Black, several local folk singers, and nationally
acclaimed revolutionary rapper Son of Nun, whose politically incisive lyrics
received the loudest applause of the day.
The marchers were well-received
by the town’s people as they chanted, “Exxon Mobile, B.P., Shell.
Take your war and go to hell!” and “We’re under attack from
our own anthrax!”
Frederick Progressive Action Coalition organized
the protest.
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