This article was originally published in Le Monde.
When debating Margaret Thatcher's legacy, an important element was largely swept under the rug - the 1981 hunger strike by IRA inmates in a Northern Ireland prison.
This dark period of British history is all the more significant that 32 years later, another hunger strike - in Guantanamo Bay - risks backfiring on President Barack Obama, who has been incapable of keeping his promise to close down the post 9/11 military prison.
"Crime is crime is crime. It is not political!" declared the Iron Lady in her high-pitched voice, sounding slightly irritated. This sentence is emblematic of the hard-line approach of Prime Minister Thatcher, with the Irish Republican Movement that was igniting Northern Ireland.
Bobby Sands was the commanding officer of the IRA inmates being held at Maze prison - also known as Long Kesh - where he was serving a 14-year sentence for firearms possession. On March 1, 1981, Sands started refusing food with the aim of obtaining the status of political prisoner, or prisoner of war, for himself and his fellow Irish republican inmates. Five years earlier, the British government had withdrawn the political status for paramilitary prisoners as part of its policy of "criminalization."
On April 9, from his cell, Sands was elected to the British Parliament, during a partial election in a Northern Ireland constituency. On May 5, he drew his last breath.
The news, announced at 2 a.m. with the banging of garbage can lids on Falls Road, in Belfast, triggered days and nights of rioting. 100,000 people attended Sands' funeral.
Other IRA inmates had already taken over the fight. The next hunger striker to die, Francis Hughes, passed away a week later. Maintaining her uncompromising stand, which was supported by the British public, Margaret Thatcher stood firm. From May to October, she let slowly die ten hunger strikers. It was the prisoners' mothers who ended the hunger strike by demanding medical intervention to save their sons' lives.
A major propaganda coup, the hunger strike allowed the IRA to recruit massively, reinforced Sinn Féin - the IRA's political wing - and radicalized the conflict. Donations of American supporters poured in.
The deadly bombings continued, including the attack - which Thatcher narrowly escaped - on her hotel, during a Conservative party conference in Brighton. In 1998, it was Prime Minister Tony Blair who finally signed a peace deal with the rebel province.
The situation in Guantanamo is different, but the weapon that is hunger strike is leading to the same trap. The hunger strike started early February, and quickly spread among the 166 detainees of the camp, all of which were arrested in the fight against terror, after 9/11.
