Cuban hunger striker undaunted by health crisis

Havana, Mar 15 (EFE).- Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas said the health problems arising from the hunger strike he began almost three weeks ago to demand the release of ailing political prisoners will not deter him from resuming the fast once he is released from the hospital.

"I feel something of a wreck, in general very sleepy and run-down," he told Efe Sunday by phone from the intensive care unit at Arnaldo Milian Castro Hospital in the central city of Santa Clara.

The 48-year-old psychologist and independent journalist said he suffered a "vein collapse" from fasting, which made it difficult to insert a catheter in the subclavian vein, but that the doctors were finally able to do so.

Fariñas, who has mounted some two-dozen hunger strikes over the past 15 years, began the current fast last month when government agents prohibited him two weeks ago from attending the funeral of political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who died after an 85-day hunger strike seeking better treatment in jail.

Since he was admitted last Thursday in an unconscious state to the hospital in Santa Clara, Fariñas has been injected with saline solutions containing sugar and electrolytes, and he says that now, with increased intravenous nourishment, his very low blood pressure is on the rise.

The dissident has had a family member accompanying him 24 hours a day and he is allowed to receive visitors four days a week.

He also said that during this time not one representative of the Cuban government has gone to see him, just the doctors who treat him and members of his family.

Fariñas' mother, the nurse Alicia Hernandez, told Efe that now the catheter has been inserted, his doctor believes that other nutrients ought to be given him in addition to the dextrose and electrolytes he has received since he was admitted to hospital.

She added that now she is "calmer" because her son is receiving "24-hour medical attention...in an intensive care unit where he has medical attention and all the resources for treating him at any time."

"Anything can come up, because he's sticking to his decision (to keep fasting), but we've achieved something by getting him hospitalized and receiving treatment," Hernandez told Efe.

She said that Fariñas "is conscious, focused and lively," though he has low blood pressure and his health is "deteriorated" from his previous hunger strikes.

Cuba's communist government says there are no political prisoners on the island and denounces most dissidents as "mercenaries" in the service of the United States.

Even so, the international uproar over Zapata's death prompted President Raul Castro to take the unprecedented step of publicly expressing regret, though he denied the government was responsible for the tragedy.