Urgent Words Faced with a Flame that is Going Out. Words of Monica Caballero on the hunger strike of Alfredo Cospito
February 3, 2023
I have had the pleasure of reading the words of comrades from different territories who showed their ardent solidarity with the hunger strike waged by Alfredo Cospito to get out of the torture regime of 41 bis. In these lands a group of subversive, anarchist, anti-authoritarian, anti-speciesist and nihilist prisoners also expressed our unconditional solidarity with the comrade. To fraternize with a comrade as valuable as Alfredo is necessary for those of us who position ourselves as deniers and antagonists to the current life governed by authority, and even more so in the difficult moment he is going through,. Sending words of solidarity from prison to a like-minded comrade is never out of place.
In my case, when I have received words of solidarity from a comrade while imprisoned, I have always valued and treasured them as something very precious. But at this moment comrade Alfredo Cospito needs words to be transformed into actions, to attack, coerce, subvert, manipulate, threaten, etc. all those who have the power to change his prison situation and/or who sustain the 41 bis regime.
Alfredo’s situation is no longer worrisome but urgent. The matter is simple, if Cospito’s request is not granted, he will die and there are not too many days left if he continues his hunger strike.
Many difficulties arise when one decides to carry out a mobilization such as a hunger strike. Your struggle spans multiple scenarios; on the one hand you have a whole repressive and judicial framework with its various mechanism bent on dissuading you to stop the strike, on the other hand there is your own survival instinct, your own body!
The body in a hunger strike will revolt to make you feed it.
Given what I have experienced and seen in others, one of the first bodily signs in a hunger strike are headaches, dizziness, fatigue, irritability, insomnia and a terrible appetite that would not allow you to think of anything else. In my case I have stopped feeling hungry after 15 to 20 days of fasting, I have heard comrades that haven’t lost their hunger until approximately day 90. From the second or third week of fasting the striker begins to be accompanied by annoying cramps, which are prolonged and aggravated throughout the body, causing pain, added to the fatigue that will make any daily activity, such as bathing, a tremendous feat. Finally, there is the cold, no matter how much the striker wraps up, to a greater or lesser extent, they always feels cold.
Although it may seem anecdotal in a hunger strike, hunger is not the most annoying and acute sensation, in my case and in what I have known it is the painful cramps and the cold are the main thing.
It is important to mention that there are relevant factors when it comes to understanding the process of a hunger strike, as each body works in a particular way and people will choose to carry out their strike in different ways – for example if one consumes sugar or hydrating salts – along with the varying prison conditions in which it will be carried out. Every prison (at least in the West) has hunger strike protocols that are often not followed.
Whatever the form and conditions in which a hunger strike is carried out or experienced, it is a self-sacrifice that cannot last forever, the body has limited reserves and in Alfredo’s case they are about to run out.
The flame that is Alfredo is dying day by day. He will not give up, he will not surrender ……
Let words be transformed into actions!
Active solidarity with all the anarchist prisoners ¡¡¡¡
End 41 bis
Death to the State and Long Live Anarchy!
Mónica Caballero Sepúlveda
Anarchist prisoner.
Translated by Act for freedom now!
