4strugglemag

Issue 7 - Summer 2006

When the prison gates open, the real dragon will fly out. - Ho Chi Minh

Here's another issue with a lot of material many of you will find informative and useful. This time we begin with a focus on political prisoners in America. Dan Berger's article on building a political prisoners support movement is important. In this section we are printing the entire 1990, "Special International Tribunal on Political Prisoners in U.S. Prisons." finding. This is not only a serious historical document, it remains very relevant today.

We also have a major section on the USA police state and fascism. This section includes informative words, "The Most Relevant Stance", from a man on death row in Texas.

We have a section, including photos, covering the Vermont memorial gathering for our fallen brother Richard Williams. In another section we salute and discuss Black August 2006.

Readers should check out Akili's letter initiating an open dialog on how Hip Hop culture and more younger people (including prisoners), could/should be more deeply part of revolutionary thinking and struggle. We think this is an important idea and 4strugglemag welcomes and will facilitate feedback and discussion on this.

We invite you to check out everything in this issue and I hope folks will read my legal update and personal appeal, near the end.

Issue 8 will be out in the middle of Fall. In it we will print the 1992, "International Tribunal on Oppressed Nations and Peoples in the U.S." findings. We will begin the discussion on Hip Hop culture and revolution, so send in your thoughts. We welcome feedback generally either on our discussion board (which has been attacked recently but is back up) at: www.4strugglemag.org/board, and/or in letters.

This summer we urge everyone to think and talk about and then take action against the war. All U.S. troops out now -- stop the killing and dying!

Dynamic Peace and Justice,

Jaan Laaman, editor

Table of Contents

Political Prisoners

Building a Political Prisoner Support Movement by Dan Berger
Political Prisoners in the United States by Jaan Laaman
Who are the Political Prisoners Held by the U.S.? by Jericho Boston
Political Prisoners, International Law and Crimes of the U.S. Government by Jaan Laaman
Special International Tribunal on the Violation of Human Rights of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in United States Prisons and Jails
Update on the Case of the Cuban 5 by Rene Gonzale Sehwerert
Running Down the Walls by LA-ABCF

A Send Off for Richard Williams

Words for Richard Williams' Memorial Gathering in Vermont from Jaan Laaman

Police State

Art by Artesia Cabral
Fascism in America - Editor's Note
The Plague of the Panther’s Teeth: Revisiting George Jackson’s Analysis of Fascism by Shaka Sankofa Zulu
What is Fascism? by Kevin “Rashid” Johnson
How Incarceration Violates Human Rights including the rights of women and their families - Statewide Harm Reduction Coalition (SHaRC) of Massachusetts
An Index of Texas Tough Compiled by Robert Perkins, Professor at University of Hawaii
The Most Relevant Stance by Kenneth Haramia Foster
Death Row Walk by Jaan Laaman
Jail Greens: US Government's Priority is to put Environmental Activists Away for Life
Review of Igniting a Revolution: Voices in Defense of the Earth by Sara Falconer
Continuum by Marilyn Buck

Black August

Art by Kevin "Rashid" Johnson
Black August: A Celebration of Freedom Fighters by Doc Holiday
BLA by Nuh Washington
Could You Imagine by Kenneth Lee Broussard

The Struggle Continues...

Solidarity with Palestine - Statements from North American PP/POWs
Letter from Akili
Editor's note
The Allied Resistance Network
An Update and Personal Appeal from Jaan Laaman - Ohio 7 Political Prisoner
Mass Mobilization Thursday, October 5 - Drive Out the Bush Regime!

Political Prisoners

Building a Political Prisoner Support Movement

by Dan Berger
Left Turn Magazine, Issue 20
www.leftturn.org

Political prisoners, if largely unacknowledged, are at the crux of debates over incarceration. Their presence testifies to the ongoing legacy of social problems, which in itself is central to the cycle of crime and punishment. As the anti-prison movement continues to grow in strength and stature, the question of political prisoners demands attention because these movement veterans remain part of current endeavors for social justice. Their lengthy incarceration, including many with life sentences, speaks to the vengeful mindset governing imprisonment in the US. Parole is almost uniformly impossible even after decades of incarceration and despite their having met all the requirements for release.

Supporting and working for the release of political prisoners is at the heart of building movements where activists look after one another and accept collective responsibility. The state uses the imprisonment of political leaders as a bludgeon against movement victories. Their incarceration is a reminder of the strength of radical mass movements. As a result, political prisoners serve collective prison time, for all those who participated in the movements from which they emerged.
Now is a critical time for the political prisoner movement. The end of 2005 brought several setbacks. White anti-imperialist Richard Williams, who had been facing severe harassment since 2001, died after twenty years in prison on December 8. Five days later, in a sobering reminder that the state neither forgets nor forgives, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger denied clemency to Crips founder Stanley Tookie Williams, based largely on the fact that Williams found redemption in politics and dedicated one of his books to a series of radicals, mainly Black people who had served time in prison like George Jackson. The US continues to fight for the extradition of Gary Freeman, an African-American man arrested in Canada in 2004. Although Freeman had been living there for decades, the US government maintains Freeman is a former Black Panther Party member wanted for the attempted murder of a Chicago police officer in 1969. The rational used against Freeman is similar to that used against five former Panthers in the San Francisco Bay Area, who all served time in jail in 2005 for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury investigating thirty-five-year-old crimes. Several of the men were tortured as Panther activists in the 1970s by the same police officers now overseeing the resurrected murder investigation.

Sobering reminders

Federal authorities arrested seven people in four states on December 7, in conjunction with Earth Liberation Front actions dating back to 1998. Three of those arrested are cooperating with police to lessen their sentences, one was found dead in his cell of an apparent suicide, and the remaining three face life imprisonment in a 65-count indictment that named eleven activists all but three of whom are in custody.

With no release date in sight for ex-Panthers, former members of the American Indian Movement, and others still in prison after more than thirty years, these new arrests should prove a sobering reminder of the states willingness to incarcerate political prisoners forever. Without a vibrant movement to free those who have already been imprisoned for decades, new political prisoners are likely to suffer a similar fate.

Despite these setbacks, 2005 also brought some victories and renewed protests. December saw a long-awaited victory for Mumia Abu-Jamal, who will now have a hearing in front of the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals but Mumia remains on death row even after his death sentence has been stayed. December began with days of action in New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco in solidarity with political prisoners worldwide. The five former Panthers turned grand jury resisters were released from jail in November triumphant in their non-cooperation; although it is unclear whether the expiration of this particular grand jury will also spell the end of harassment for these activists. Thousands of people throughout Puerto Rico, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Bay Area protested the September 23 FBI assassination of former political prisoner Filiberto Ojeda Rios, a leader of the clandestine indepentista group Los Macheteros, who had been living quietly under an assumed name in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico.

While the US denies the existence of political prisoners, it pursues a vengeful policy of lifelong incarceration. To acknowledge the political basis of their incarceration would further expose the depths of social problems that these militants have committed their lives to fighting. The veneer of US democracy and tolerance requires that dissidents be branded as criminalsor terrorists. Working to free political prisoners goes hand in hand with exposing the facade that the US is a country where injustice is minimal and solved through electoral politics one point necessitates the other.

Demanding amnesty

Most governments routinely release political prisoners every decade or so, and political internees are often incarcerated together or allowed increased family visits, in tacit recognition of the political nature of their crimes. Not so in the US, where amnesty is a forbidden term. The FBI, Police Benevolent Associations, US Parole Commission, and similar entities, have routinely lobbied hard to prevent parole, even when people meet all standards for release (e.g., good records, jobs available upon release, community support). The government has regularly pointed to the serious charges and prior political affiliations of the prisoners as reasons for ongoing incarceration even where it contradicts the normal functioning of parole and release from prison. Thus, building an amnesty movement becomes a priority.

Although support for political prisoners is at the center of movements in some countries, such is not the case in the US today. It was hard to be an activist in the US in the early 1970s and not know about Huey Newton, George Jackson, or the Attica Brothers. Today, political prisoners languish largely outside the movements consciousness or action. Perhaps it is because letter writing and lobbying are not activities revolutionaries traditionally enjoy. Therefore, securing freedom for the many people who languish behind bars for militant actions taken as part of mass movements will require a thorough challenge to the reigning political culture, as well as a willingness by the radical Left to strategically engage in activities it has generally eschewed.

As months turn into years and years into decades, several political prisoners have become ill. A few have passed away: Merle Africa (1998), Albert Nuh Washington (2000), and Teddy Jah Heath (2001) all died of cancer after more than twenty years inside. Even on their deathbeds, the state remained intransigent about compassionate release or parole for people who pose no threat to society. People are growing old in an environment known for its malign neglect and medical malfeasance, with the government consistently refusing parole because of the supposed seriousness of the offense for which political prisoners are incarcerated.

Prison can be seen as an extension of the repression that drove many of these people to undertake militant action in the first place. It is part of the governments arsenal to destroy revolutionaries. Then as now, the bulk of such repression is meted out against revolutionary people of color, particularly Black and Native-American radicals. The reasons for this are complexthey involve not just white privilege but the fact that the government has taken a firm position against the release of any political prisoner with a murder conviction. Due to the open levels of confrontation between police and communities of color, these liberation movements often adopted different tactics than white militants. But the states intransigence on paroling those with murder convictions has repercussions for political prisoners regardless of raceseveral white anti-imperialists are also imprisoned for the deaths of law enforcement, seemingly with no recourse to release.

State repression

Meanwhile, the US Senate investigating committee called the FBIs Counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) activities little more than a sophisticated vigilante operation that violated even the most minimal standards of official conduct within a democratic society. Despite this, no FBI agent who participated in the repression of legal social movements has been imprisoned for his or her participation in the repression of legal movements. Ronald Reagan’s first act in office was to pardon the only two FBI officials convicted of COINTELPRO wrongdoing.

The political incarceration of people who became active in the 1960s is inextricably tied to state repression. Even when they committed illegal acts or acts of which they themselves are now critical, their continuing incarceration cannot be separated from the legacy of COINTELPRO. Even now, movement veterans captured as a result of movement work in the 1960s are paying for the states crimes through continued incarceration. The ongoing imprisonment of Sixties-era activists together with a new breed of political prisoners coming from an array of modern movementspresents a direct connection between the struggles of yesterday and those of today.

With public outrage over the Bush administrations illegal spying comes the opportunity to raise the issue of political prisoners as longtime victims of government repression. An administration on the defensive increases its repressive apparatus, proof that its stranglehold on power is maintained more through force than consent. Indeed, the treatment of political prisoners has been used to establish precedents regarding policing, prosecuting, and imprisoning any enemy of the state. The lack of pre-9/11 resistance to the branding of leftist prisoners as terrorists, the imposition of lengthy sentences, the use of isolation units, and the media portrayal of dissidents as grave threats to civilians, leaves us on weaker ground to fight this same repression now. A movement to defend, support, and free political prisonersand incorporating political prisoners into the work that we dois a necessary step to building sustainable movements capable of achieving lasting victories.

There are serious challenges to this work, including limited resources, a strategy that makes use of the legal system, public fear of left-wing terrorists, and the difficulty of building working relationships among the various movements who find themselves experiencing state repression. But combating political incarceration, and supporting those in the cross hairs of state repression remains central to creating a better future. After all, the government doesn’t forget who joins and organizes in the movement why should we?

Dan Berger is a Philadelphia-based activist and author of Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity (AK Press, 2006). This article is a revised excerpt from that book. Thanks to Laura Whitehorn for editorial comments on this version.

Political Prisoners in the United States

by Jaan Laaman

There are about 100 political prisoners in various prisons across America. These women and men are listed and recognized as political prisoners by numerous Human Rights, Legal Defense and progressive/socialist organizations. These people all come from the Civil Rights/Black Power/New African Liberation struggles, the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, Indigenous Peoples survival struggles, Chicano/Mexicano Movement,anti-imperialist/anti-war movements, anti-racist/anti-fascist struggles, the Women's Movement, social and economic justice struggles, and especially in the past several years, from the Environmental/Animal Rights Movement. They are Black, white, Latino and Native American. Most of these political prisoners have been in captivity since the 1970's and 80's. Some were convicted on totally fabricated charges, others for nebulous political conspiracies or for acts of resistance. All received huge sentences for their political beliefs or actions in support of these beliefs.

Additionally there are many thousands of revolutionary minded politically conscious prisoners in U.S. jails. These are people who became more politically aware and active once they landed in prison. A lot of these prisoners also get singled out for extra harsh and restrictive treatment like the political prisoners. Since 9/11, the U.S. has also imprisoned thousands of Arab and Muslim visitors to this country, as well as some Islamic citizens and residents.

The U.S. government likes to deny that it holds political prisoners. The harsh punitive conditions of confinement, often in special "control unit type" prisons, that political prisoners face day in, day out, decade after decade, exposes and refutes this government myth. Not only does America hold political prisoners, but they are being held under longer sentences than any kind of prisoners, anywhere in the world! Despite this, these women and men remain committed to their communities, movements and principles. As best as they can, through their voices and very lives, they continue to uphold the politics of justice, equality and liberation, especially for the poor and working class people throughout the world. Political prisoners in the United States want and need your awareness and support.

VENCEREMOS!
Jaan Laaman Ohio 7 anti-imperialist political prisoner
Jan. 2006, Walpole State Prison

The following are organizations that do support work for political prisoners in the U.S.:

Jericho Movement
P.O. Box 650
New York, NY 10009 USA
www.thejerichomovement.com

Partisan Defense Committee
P.O. Box 99
Canal Street Station
Ney York, NY 10013 USA

ABC Federation
P.O. Box 11223
Whittier, CA 90603 USA
www.abcf.net

Who are the Political Prisoners Held by the U.S.?

by Jericho Boston

The U.S. government uses political imprisonment as a weapon against our collective struggle for freedom, self-determination, and human rights. A political prisoner is a person who has made a conscious commitment to a movement for liberation and self-determination, and against racism, colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, sexism, and/or environmental destruction, and as a result, has been targeted and imprisoned.

The Jericho Movement defines political prisoners as "brothers and sisters, men and women who, as a consequence of their political work and/or organizational affiliations were given criminal charges, arrested or captured, tried in criminal courts and sent to prison."

While trying them as criminals, the government maintained files on them referencing their political activities, designed to insure they remain in prison. The Jericho Movement is designed to force the hand of this government as it relates to these women and men who while on the streets, made a conscious decision to organize for our freedom and liberation. Then, after making this decision joined or became affiliated with organizations that advocated and organized for these aims. Then, as a consequence of their work on the streets, and/or involvement in military actions, they were targeted, captured or framed and tried in criminal courts and sentenced to prison.

With Jericho we are pushing for the admission on the part of the United States government that our political prisoners and prisoners of war do exist inside the prisons of the United States, we are pushing for recognition in the international arena and therefore changing how the world views our liberation struggles inside the belly of the beast. We can wait no longer, the time is now.

What is a Prisoner of War?

Some political prisoners define themselves as prisoners of war in accordance with resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly and the Geneva Conventions, which recognize that the crime is colonialism, not the struggle for liberation.

Some of these prisoners are from internally colonized nations within thee official boundaries of the "United States" - such as the New African Nation - who have asserted their right to defend and liberate their people from collective oppression by "any means necessary". Others - such as members of the Puerto Rican independence movement - are from colonially occupied territories whose people are engaged in a struggle for independence. Many have refused to recognize the legitimacy of the U.S. courts, and have appealed instead to international institutions.

Since the beginning of the U.S. war against Afghanistan in 2001, the US has been denying Prisoner of War status even to members of internationally recognized sovereign nations captured while defending their countries from US invasion. The US government has attempted to hold these people beyond the protection of international law and the Geneva Conventions by calling them "illegal enemy combatants," rather that Prisoners of War.

Who are the political prisoners and prisoners of war on this continent?
More than one hundred women and men are currently imprisoned by the United States government for participating in movements for justice and liberation that have their base within the declared colonial territories of the U.S. They are dedicated activists like American Indian Movement activist Leonard Peltier, Puerto Rican independentista Oscar Lopez Rivera, former Black Panther and death-row writer Mumia Abu Jamal, European American anti-racist and anti-imperialist activist Marilyn Buck, and radical ecological activist - and member of the Yaqui Nation - Rod Coronado.

Many of them became activists in the 1960's and 1970's, when many Native people, Puerto Ricans, Mexicanos, and Black people, seeing themselves as colonized nations within the United States, took up the struggle for self-determination. Some of them are European Americans who were inspired to join these struggles for justice.

Many of them were targeted by illegal government counterintelligence initiatives, such as the infamous COINTELPRO, the FBI's classified offensive against liberation movements.

A further wave of incarceration began in the 1980's as the struggle against environmental devastation grew more radical, and groups such as Earth First!, the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front began to emerge. The ecological politics of these movements were prefigured in the commitments of the MOVE organization, in the American Indian Movement, and in the centures
of indigenous struggle against European American settler-colonialism.

The U.S. is also holding a growing number of prisoners detained either for their nationality or for their political support for anti-imperial struggles in their countries of origin. For the past two decades, the US government has increasingly targeted Arabs and Muslims living in the US. Non-citizen Palestinians such as the LA8 have been detained and in some cases deported for speaking on behalf of the Palestinian struggle for liberation and against ongoing US support for Israel. Palestinians and a wider community of Arabs and Muslims have been subjected to detention without trial, the use of secret evidence, extensive and intrusive surveillance, and other forms of political repression.

After September 11 of 2001, this policy has escalated into mass detentions, rendition to foreign countries for the explicit purpose of torture, and the use of secret military tribunals. As the US moves forward with imperial wars in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in the surrounding region, it imprisons still larger numbers of Arabs and Muslims both in Guantanamo Bay and in a wider network of secret prisons throughout the world (for more information see www.cageprisoners.com).

These prisoners and detainees - whether imprisoned for their beliefs, or for active resistance to US empire - have been targeted in order to repress the legitimate struggle of their people to liberate themselves from domination by the United States.

The Jericho Movement

The Jericho Movement is a nationwide organization that works to inform the public and secure the release of America's long held "official" political prisoners and prisoners of war. We have chapters in various cities. Contact us for more information and to support this work.

Jericho Boston
www.jerichoboston.org
jericho_boston@yahoo.com
P.O. Box 301057
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 USA

Political Prisoners, International Law and Crimes of the U.S. Government

Jaan Laaman, editor
anti-imperialist political prisoner

Readers of this magazine know that 4strugglemag is a voice of political prisoners in the U.S. While much of the writing deals with the war and growing police state, the Bush government, and other injustices of U.S. imperialism, we do cover and update issues and cases of political prisoners. The focus is on the views of political prisoners, but our pages are open to insightful voices of all revolutionary minded prisoners and activists outside. We do define political prisoner by international law standards, as those women and men who are in captivity because of their political beliefs and opinions and/or because of their actions in support of these beliefs.

Many younger readers and readers overseas are probably not aware that the U.S. government has been found guilty of holding and abusing political prisoners within its own prisons across the U.S. A "Special International Tribunal" acting under United Nations authority and the jurisdiction of international law and UN conventions was convened and met between December 7 and 10, 1990, in New York City. This Tribunal, which was open to the press and public, dealt with "The Violations of Human Rights of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in United States Prisons and Jails." A panel of noted inter-national judges (including U.S. judges), heard detailed testimony from many witnesses and experts and received substantial paper documentation. After a full review this Tribunal found the U.S.A. government (then under the presidency of the old George Bush), guilty of holding and sometimes abusing and torturing political prisoners, and ordered their immediate release. Of course the U.S. government did not comply with this Tribunal order and in fact many of the same women and men discussed in that case, continue to sit in prisons across the U.S. today.

We are printing the whole Tribunal finding, list of judges, witnesses, etc. This is an important document that all revolutionaries and social justice activists should be aware of.

This is not the only case in recent times where the U.S. government has been found in violation of international law and its own law. Just recently a UN commission found the U.S. government guilty of torture and other Human Rights violations in its prison in Guantanamo Bay.

In 1992, on the 500th anniversary of Columbus's journey to the Americas, another internationally sanctioned Tribunal was held that dealt with "Indigenous Peoples and Oppressed Nations in the USA." The U.S. government was again found guilty by another international panel of judges and ordered to release all its political prisoners. Most of these women and men still languish in U.S. prisons today. 4strugglemag will reprint this second tribunal verdict in our next (no.8) issue.

While there is clear legal evidence in the following document, it is also very informative and not hard to read or comprehend. It presents a concise explanation of some of the illegalities committed by the U.S.A. against us, the people of this country.

Special International Tribunal on the Violation of Human Rights of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War

in United States Prisons and Jails

December 7 - 10, 1990 Hunter College
New York, NY

Members of the Special International Tribunal

Frank Badohu Barrister and solicitor
Jawad Boulus Attorney, Palestine
Lord Anthony Gifford
Barrister in London and a member of the Northern Ireland Bar
and Jamaican Bar; Member of the House of Lords, United Kingdom.
Norman Paech
Professor of Public International Law and Constitutional Law at the University of Hamburg, Germany.
Jose Roberto Rendón Vasquez
Attorney and Professor, Faculty of Law and Political Science at Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Peru.
Celina Romany
Professor of Jurisprudence, Constitutional Law and Human Rights, City University of New York Law School.
Toshi Yuki Tanaka
Professor of Political Science at Melbourne University Australia.
George Wald
Professor Emeritus of Biology at Harvard University, Nobel Prize Winner for Biology, U.S.A.
Coordinator: Dr. Luis Nieves Falcon

Special Prosecutors:
Counsel to the Tribunal Daniel Nina
Richard Harvey
Lennox S. Hinds, Esq., Jan Susler, Esq., Robert Boyle, Esq., Bruce Ellison, Esq., Roger Wareham, Esq.

OUTLINE OF JUDGMENT AND VERDICT
I. CONSTITUTION OF THE TRIBUNAL
II. OVERVIEW
III. THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION
III. 1 NATIVE AMERICANS
111.2 PUERTO RICANS
111.3 BLACK PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES
111.4 MEXICAN PEOPLE (CHICANOS)
IN THE UNITED ED STATES
IV. PUERTO RICAN PRISONERS OF WAR
V. WHITE NORTH AMERICAN OPPONENTS OF UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT POLICIES
VI. CRIMINALIZATION AND DENIAL OF THE RULE OF LAW
VII. TORTURE AND CRUEL, INHUMAN AND DEGRADING TREATMENT
VIII. VERDICT

I. CONSTITUTION OF THE TRIBUNAL

The Special Tribunal on Violations of Human Rights of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in United States Prisons and Jails was convened by 88 sponsoring and endorsing organizations from all parts of the United States. The members of the Special Tribunal assumed jurisdiction pursuant to accepted. principles of international law approved and adopted by the world community under the United Nations Charter, in accordance with the precedents of the Nuremburg and Tokyo Tribunals and following procedures approved by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (Resolution 1503 (XLVIII)).
The Tribunal received extensive written and oral evidence from political activists and experts testifying in support of a detailed indictment of the United States Government, alleging, inter alia, the denial of the right of peoples in the United States and Puerto Rico to self-determination; the criminalization of the legitimate struggle against illegal acts committed by the Government of the United States; the denial of the rule of law to those engaged in such struggles and the use against them of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment.

The Special Tribunal does not sit as a court of law but, like the Bertrand Russell Tribunals on the U.S. war against the Vietnamese people, this Tribunal applies principles of customary international human rights law. Article 38 of the Statutes of the International Court of Justice recognizes the authoritative effect of the findings of such tribunals on contemporary standards of international law.
The Defendant Government and its agencies are bound to respect international human rights law, not least because Article VI of the Constitution of the United States provides that treaties and other international agreements are ''the supreme law of the land."

Although customary principles of law require Petitioners to exhaust their domestic remedies before having recourse to international fora, the ovenvhelming weight of testimony presented to the Tribunal showed that the courts and judicial officers of the United States routinely refuse to allow Petitioners to raise defenses based on international law and that relief under the law is routinely denied. Therefore we find that Petitioners have in fact exhausted all domestic remedies and that the Special Tribunal is entitled to review all of the cases presented for its consideration.

The Tribunal is satisfied that all appropriate steps were taken by Petitioners to inform the Defendant Government and its agencies of the nature and purposes of the Tribunal hearings, including the service of the indictment on President George Bush and other appropriate federal and state officials, and that every opportunity was given to Defendants to attend and present testimony. Although Defendants failed to avail themselves of the opportunity to testify, many of the documents and expert witnesses indicated fairly the basis of the Government's opposition to Petitioners' claims, and the Tribunal has duly noted Defendants' views in reaching its findings.

In examining the evidence and reaching its conclusions, the Tribunal has taken and employed the following definitions:

"Self-Determination": the right by virtue of which all peoples are entitled freely to determine their political status and to pursue their economic, social and cultural development. All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence. (Common Article 1(1) of the International Human Rights Covenants, 1966)

"Prisoner of War": those combatants struggling against colonial and alien domination and racist regimes captured as prisoners are to be accorded the status of prisoners of war and their treatment should be in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Conventions Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, of 12 August 1949. (General Assembly Resolution 3103 (XXVIII)).
"Genocide": any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious groups as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the groups;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the groups conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the groups;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. (International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948 (Article 2)).

"Political Prisoner": a person incarcerated for actions carried out in support of legitimate struggles for self-determination or for opposing the illegal policies of the United States government and/or its political sub-divisions.

II. OVERVIEW

1990 has been a landmark year in the world-wide campaign for the recognition and freedom of political prisoners. The release of Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and other anti-apartheid fighters, and the negotiations for the release of all South African political prisoners, have shown that even the most repressive and intransigent regimes must at some point acknowledge the existence of political prisoners and account for their treatment and continuing imprisonment. For decades the South African government denied the existence of political prisoners, branding imprisoned anti-apartheid fighters as criminals and terrorists. However, the growing liberation struggle of the people of South Africa and world-wide solidarity forced the government of South Africa to abandon this farcical denial of political prisoners. Similarly, the triumph of the liberation struggle of the Namibian people led by SWAPO resulted in the independence and self-determination of Namibia, constituting a resounding affirmation of customary principles of international human rights law.

Ironically, the U.S. government has expressed strong support, albeit selective, for the freeing of political prisoners throughout the world. At the same time, however, the U.S. government vociferously denies the existence of political prisoners at home and resolutely echoes a familiar refrain that those who claim to be political prisoners and prisoners of war are simply terrorists and criminals.
This Tribunal presents a unique and important opportunity to review carefully Petitioners' contention that the U.S. does indeed hold political prisoners and Prisoners of War.

The Tribunal members have approached this responsibility with the utmost of seriousness and careful scrutiny. The U.S. government must be held to the same standard of international law and human rights safeguards that it subscribes to for the other nations of the world, The denial of the existence of political prisoners and the consequent failure to afford such prisoners the fundamental protections of humanitarian international law constitute serious violations of human rights which, if found to be true, would require the immediate attention of world public opinion and rectification by the U.S. government.

Numerous supporting documents which are delineated in the appendix were also submitted. Of particular interest were documents of the Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) showing its program to disrupt and neutralize leaders and organizations of the African-American, Puerto Rican, Mexicano-Chicano and Native American self-determination struggles.

As we will spell out in more detail in the body of this document, the Tribunal finds that the U.S. judicial system (state and federal) has been used in a harsh and discriminatory manner against people struggling for self-determination within its borders and Puerto Rico, as well as against other political opponents of the U.S. government. Some have been falsely accused and had evidence favorable to their defense destroyed or suppressed, others have been tried on overbroad conspiracy charges which rely on associations and beliefs as an essential element, and many have been tried in an armed camp atmosphere saturated with prejudicial publicity designed to intimidate and prejudice the juries before whom they were tried. Most of the Petitioners have also received draconian disproportionate sentences and have been subjected to torture, cruel, discriminatory and degrading punishment.

We also find that the Black and Mexican people living within the borders of the United States, and Native American and Puerto Rican people have the fundamental right to exercise self-determination and to seek and receive support from other opponents of repression, and that the U.S. government has carried out a consistent pattern and policy of repression against these peoples, their leaders and supporters.

We further find that captured combatants in a legitimate national liberation movement are entitled to the special protected status of Prisoner of War and should not be tried and imprisoned by the U.S. government as criminals. Rather, these captured national liberation fighters must be held separately under conditions in accordance with the Geneva Convention and immediate steps taken to transfer these combatants to neutral countries until all hostilities cease between their movements and the U.S. government.

We are mindful that the U.S. judicial system is promoted by many here and throughout the world as one of the most progressive and protective of individual rights. The claim that the U.S. does not have political prisoners has gone generally unchallenged. We believe that the evidence presented at the Tribunal ovenvhelmingly established the opposite case. The U.S. government uses its judicial system to repress the legitimate political movements opposing the government.

It is of critical importance for the international human rights community as well as all freedom-loving people to bring to world attention the plight of U.S. political prisoners.

THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION

Over the last 30 years, since the passage in 1960 of the historic United Nations General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (Resolution 1514 (XV) ) which called for the "speedy and unconditional end to colonialism in all its forms and manifestations," the right to self-determination has evolved to a peremptory norm of International Law - a norm accepted and recognized by the international community of states as a whole from which no derogation is permitted.

Of particular importance to the codification of this fundamental right, is the Universal Declaration of the Rights of People ("Algiers Declaration") which affirms that the peoples of the world "have an equal right to liberty, the right to free themselves from any foreign interference and to choose their own government, (and) the right, if they are under subjection, to fight for their liberation" This assurance is specified in Article 1, "Every people has the right to existence," and Article 6: "Every people has the right to break free from any colonial or foreign domination, whether direct or indirect, and from any racist regime."

In addition, U.N. Resolution 2625 (XXV) known as "The Declaration on the Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Co-Operation Among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations" adopted by consensus in 1970, provides authoritative clarity to the character and importance of the right to self-determination. Its preamble affirms that "the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples constitutes a significant contribution to contemporary law, and its effective application is of paramount importance for the promotion of friendly relations among States."

The Declaration mandates that every state has a duty to promote the principle of self-determination and to assist the United Nations in its realization so as to improve relations among states and "to bring a speedy end to colonialism, having due regard to the freely expressed will of the peoples concerned." The right of self-determination as a peremptory norm of international law has been confirmed by the International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion on Namibia (ICJ Reports 1971) and in its decision in the Western Sahara case (ICJ Reports 1975). As the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties provides, a peremptory norm of international law (Jus Cogens) cannot be abridged or superseded by any act of sovereign will, including a treaty.

Finally the two international covenants on human rights (International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (which the United States has refused to endorse) are initiated by a common Article 1 (1) indicating a place of primacy for self-determination: "All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development".

The Tribunal heard evidence by Puerto Rican, Native American, Black and Mexicano witnesses of their peoples' national development, characteristics, and continuing history of oppression. Witnesses also testified to the long train of repression against the organizations and leaders of their people. Each of these peoples satisfy the objective and subjective criteria for self-determination. Each perceive themselves as separate people and each suffer special targeting and oppression by the U.S. Government.

1 NATIVE AMERICANS
This Tribunal received ample evidence on the history of the Native American People's struggle for their right to self-determination and on the genocide committed against this people by the United States Government.

The history of European and Native American relations reveals theft of 99% of the land base and genocidal practices of war, disease, alcohol, starvation and deculturalization which reduced the indigenous population from approximately 12.5 million to less than 227,000 by 1890.

Meeting substantial resistance, if not outright defeat, at times seeking alliances against others, what became the United States Government entered into some 371 treaties with the indigenous people of North America during the 18th and 19th centuries. The importance of these treaties was embodied in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution as the "supreme law of the land." By this principle, the United States Government has incorporated into its domestic law the content of the treaties signed with the Native American people. However, as was pointed out consistently in the evidence presented to the Tribunal, the U.S. Government has systematically violated or refused to respect the terms of the agreements reached with the Native American people.

Therefore, this Tribunal recognizes that, first, the Native Americans constitute a people within international law definitions who are carrying out a struggle for self-determination. Moreover, this Tribunal takes notice that, despite all the treaties signed by the U.S. Government with the Native American peoples, the U.S. has consistently denied those treaty rights to these peoples. In decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court such as Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. 5 Pet. 1 [1831] and Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 6 Pet. 515 [1832], the Court established the principle that Native American people are domestic and dependent on the U.S. Government, thus denying their right to self-determination. After these two Supreme Court decisions, the so-called "plenary power" doctrine was initiated by the U.S. Government which denied the right of the Native American people to organize and govern themselves. This, for example, is the pattern followed by the enactment in 1924 of the U.S. Congress's Indian Citizenship Act (8 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1401). Through this Act U.S. citizenship was imposed upon the Native American people. In addition, in 1934 the U.S. Congress enacted the Indian Reorganization Act (25 U.S.C.A. Sec. 461)
by which the U.S. Government decided to organize "tribal" councils to resemble corporate boards. The intention behind this was to reduce the autonomy of the Native American peoples to govern their own affairs.

Thus, this Tribunal after carefully hearing various witnesses and taking judicial notice of many historical aspects of U.S. Government policies towards the Native American peoples, considers that the practices of the U.S. Government are in breach of Common Article 1 of the

United Nations International Covenants of 1966 (on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and on Civil and Political Rights) guaranteeing amongst other things, the right of the people to self-determination.

Second, this Tribunal considers that the U.S. Government, has also conducted a policy of genocide against these people. The Tribunal follows the definition of Genocide as established by Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948. This Tribunal recognizes the most cruel policies occurred in the early years of the U.S. republic, when a plan of physical extermination was conducted against the Native American people. After failing to complete exterminate them, a new policy was designed to impose compulsory assimilation, so as to destroy the history and culture of the Native American people.

Tactics employed to achieve this end include the criminalization of Native religious practices, forced transfer of children through mandatory indoctrination at boarding schools for extended periods, adoption by non-Indians, enactment of laws designed to destroy traditional culture, e.g. by prohibiting the holding of land in common. Implementation of policies such as "termination" (where the Federal government literally dissolved selected indigenous populations) and "relocation" (systematic dispersal of Native populations) were combined by the U.S. Government with declarations that certain groups of living peoples were "extinct". Systematic involuntary and uninformed sterilization of Native American women has compounded these genocidal policies, as has the use of the "blood quantum" method of identification to statistically manipulate out of existence certain groups of Native Americans.

Native Americans are the poorest population group in North America with the highest incidence of infant mortality, death by exposure, tuberculosis, plague disease, malnutrition and teen suicide. The average life expectancy of an American Indian male is 44.6 years and for females it is less than three years longer. For white males the figure is 74 years.

The policy of genocide has been legitimized by different laws approved by the U.S. Congress, for example, the General Allotment Act (25 U.S.C.A. Sec. 331 [1887]) used to deprive the Native American people of the land that they consider common and sacred.

In addition, this Tribunal has taken notice of documents that proved the collaboration by the Bureau of Indian Affairs during the 1970's, together with the Indian Health Service, in the systematic performance of involuntary sterilization on Native women. This particular practice, in conjunction with other practices of the U.S. Government, clearly manifests a pattern of committing genocide against the Native American people.

III. 2 PUERTO RICANS

Of the four peoples represented before the Tribunal, the right to self-determination for the people of Puerto Rico is the clearest and most recognized by the international community. With a separate territory, language and culture, the plight of Puerto Rico constitutes one of the last remaining classic colonial cases in the world.

Beginning in 1973 and 1976 and then in each succeeding year, the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonisation has reviewed the case of Puerto Rico, reaffirmed the right of the Puerto Rican people to self-determination and called upon the United States to stop all interference with the free and full exercise of that right. The U.S. has refused to follow these mandates and has consistently used all its coercive powers to block the case of Puerto Rico from being considered by the entire General Assembly.

The Decolonisation Committee resolutions, plus pronouncements from the non-aligned countries and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, provide authoritative support for Puerto Rico's right to self-determination. Even the President of the United States, George Bush, in his recent call for a referendum on the island's status, has acknowledged that the Puerto Rican people have not chosen freely their present relationship with the U.S.
This Tribunal also adopts the findings and verdict of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal on Puerto Rico (Barcelona, January 27-29, 1989), which declared in part:

1. That Puerto Rico and its people have the right to freely determine their political, economic social and cultural condition in accordance with the Algerian Declaration and the principles of International Law.
2. That the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is not the proper way for the Puerto Rican people to exercise their self-determination right, whereas in the referenda which have been carried out on the Island, the required guarantees which govern the true exercise of said right, in accordance with the Resolutions of the U.N., have not been observed.
3. That the U.S. has an international duty to respect the Right of Puerto Rico to its self-determination, in accordance with the obligations it has conventionally and customarily assumed.
Regrettably, the United States Government refused to participate in the Barcelona Tribunal and has ignored its findings.

As clear as the Puerto Rican people's right to self-determination is the historical record that such right has been denied to that people. Testimony established a military, political, psychological, economic, ideological, cultural and linguistic domination by U.S. colonial power over Puerto Rico since the beginning of the U.S. invasion and occupation. The evidence also was compelling as to the use of repression against the national movement for independence, its leaders and organizations. The Nationalist Party and its supporters were fiercely repressed in the 1930's and again in the 1950's when a mass resistance to U.S. attempts to eliminate the independence movement resulted in the killing and arrest of hundreds of people.

Today that repression continues. Seventeen Prisoners of War or political prisoners are serving draconian sentences, exiled from their homeland to jails in the United States. The FBI and the grand jury system are used to investigate, intimidate and intern independence activists and supporters. Thousands of others have been placed under surveillance and on "subversive lists" for their pro-independence sentiments. Presently nine more independence activists and leaders face conspiracy charges in Hartford, Connecticut, hundreds of miles from their homeland.

It should also be noted that some of the colonial conditions imposed on the people of Puerto Rico have genocidal characteristics. These include the forced sterilization of 33% of Puerto Rican women of child-bearing age; the economically forced migration to the United States of one half of Puerto Rico's population; the consequent deculturalization of the population; and one of the world's highest rates of suicide, drug abuse and mental illness.

We again quote from the verdict of the Barcelona Tribunal as to the obligation of the U.S. government to:

a) acknowledge the political prisoner status of those Puerto Ricans incarcerated due to their work and militancy in favor of Puerto Rico's independence and to grant a general amnesty to all Puerto Ricans currently incarcerated because of their involvement in the struggle against colonialism.
b) relinquish the current powers the U.S. Congress has to amend and approve the decisions made by the representative bodies and government of Puerto Rico.
c) completely transfer any power the U.S. Congress or the U.S. government may have over Puerto Rico, to a deliberative body with constitutional character, made up of representatives from all the political and social forces of Puerto Rico chosen on an equal elective basis.
d) negotiate such measures, as a transitional status of the juridical and political condition of Puerto Rico, until the self-determination right is effectively exercised.
We further call upon the United States government to accord Prisoner of War status to those Puerto Rican prisoners captured as anti-colonial combatants.

III. 3. BLACK PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES

It is an uncontested historical fact that Africans, forcibly brought to the area which would become the United States, came from various tribes and regions of Africa. In addition, these kidnapped Africans spoke many tongues and were forged into a new and distinct people, with distinct problems, requiring unique solutions, during the three century ordeal of chattel slavery. It is also historically documented that these Africans and their descendants were considered "three-fifths" of a human being, thereby necessitating an elaborate system of laws, cultural norms and religious canons to deprive people of African descent of their rights as human beings and, by extension, to deprive them of their right to self-determination.

In 1865 at the end of the U.S. Civil War, the U.S. government abolished slavery (13th Amendment) freeing the kidnapped African slaves. Rather than allowing this freed people to choose or reject citizenship and to freely exercise the right to self-determination, the 14th Amendment imposed citizenship upon them, as the Jones Act of 1917 would later do to Puerto Ricans and as the Indian Citizenship Act did to the Native Americans in 1924.

There have been various strategies, necessitated by a system of white supremacy, pursued by Black organizations in the United States in their efforts to obtain freedom and justice for their people. The main strategies at work today within the Black movement are the struggle for independent political power; forms of community control and autonomy; and some groups who advocate independence of the New Africa nation. U.N. General Assembly Resolution 2625 expresses the options available to a people entitled to exercise the right to self-determination:

"the establishment of a sovereign and independent state, the free association or integration with an independent state or the emergence of any other political status freely determined by a people, constitute modes of implementing the right of self-determination by that people."

Whichever strategy prevails which brings about genuine self-determination is for Black people in the United States to decide. However, it is clear that the Black people of the U.S. have not been allowed to freely exercise their right to self-determination. The evidence overwhelmingly established an unbroken pattern of repression against Black organizations and activists fighting for their human, political, economic and civil rights.

While the Tribunal recognizes that the right of self-determination for Black people in the U.S. has not previously been established by international bodies or tribunals, we do not feel that this lack of precedent is determinative of the issue. Rather, this Tribunal believes that the evidence presented before us strongly supports the claim that Black people living within the borders of the United States are a distinct people entitled to self-determination.

Equally compelling is the evidence that Black people in the U.S. have been forcibly denied the freedom to exercise that right. From the inhuman outrage of slavery up to the present circumstance of attacks on community and political organizations, Black people in the United States have never been given the opportunity to choose their destiny. The documents submitted which establish this conclusion are the FBI Counter-Intelligence Program and the testimony on the targeting and repression of the Black Panther Party (BPP), Republic of New Afrika (RNA), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Move organization and the Black Men's Movement against Crack. The evidence also established that the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist hate groups functioned with impunity and often with the complicity of the government in committing acts of violence and intimidation against the Black community.

The history and treatment of Black people in the United States also supports a claim that the U.S. Government is guilty of the crime of genocide against the Black people. There is no question that during the kidnapping of Africans in the slave trade, and in the barbaric Middle Passage to North America, millions of Blacks were killed. In addition, during the more than 200 years of chattel slavery, Black people were wantonly murdered, savagely brutalized and denied all basic human rights.

The condition of Black people living in the United States today strongly suggests that policies of the U.S. Government are designed to lead to the elimination of Black people. The Tribunal was presented with evidence that:

(1) the infant mortality rate for Black people is double that for whites;
(2) Black women, regardless of class, are twice as likely to bear low weight babies than white women;
(3) The gap in life-expectancy rates between Blacks and whites has recently widened from 5.6 to 6.2 years, and "Blacks today have a life expectancy already reached by whites in the 1950's or a lag of about 30 years;"
(4) The rate of survival for Black males over 40 years old in Harlem, New York City, is lower than for men in Bangladesh;
(5) Dangerously high blood pressure is a hidden cost of racial prejudice at least for some Blacks;
(6) In New York City "increasingly large numbers of women of child bearing age are dying . .. combined with the deaths of men in the same age group, the result is the destruction of families and the orphaning of tens of thousands of children, most in low-income African-American neighborhoods;"
(7) AIDS is "more and more becoming a disease of poor, Black and Hispanic heterosexuals in the inner city." It is the leading killer of Black women in the 15-44 year age group in New York and New Jersey.
(8) Unemployment for Blacks is double the rate for whites and nearly 50% of Black teenagers are unable to find works
(9) White families earn 45.5% more than Black families.

III. 4 MEXICAN PEOPLE (CHICANOS) LIVING IN THE UNTIED STATES

Mexican people living in the North of their country came under the authority of the U.S. government after the Mexican-American War of 1841, a war generally recognized as expansionist and unjust and which deprived Mexico of 50% of its territory.

After the conquest and occupation there was a continuing policy of brutal repression and exploitation of Mexican people throughout the occupied territories, including numerous lynchings and other killings.

Mexicano people organized resistance to, and have fought against, this occupation. Among the most famous Mexicano resistance fighters are Tiburcio Vazquez, Joaquin Murietta and the Cortez and Espinoza brothers. Also, Juan Nepomucemo Cortina from Texas who, for fifteen years waged guerrilla warfare against the U.S. government. Armed clandestine organizations also emerged like La Mano Negra and Las Gorras Blancas. In 1915, the Plan de San Diego was another armed uprising calling for self-determination and independence of the occupied territories. It was violently repressed.

Armed Rangers and other law enforcement agencies who formed in California, New Mexico, Texas and Arizona were essentially private vigilantes organized to repress Mexicanos with the consent of the U.S. government. Between 1915 and 1920 about 5,000 Mexicanos were killed along the border by the Texas Rangers, who have also been used to police migratory labor; striking unions, civil rights activists and organizations, and to beat up Mexicano-Chicano candidates running for elected positions.

The FBI and grand jury have been used to repress the Mexicano/Chicano resistance movement. Beginning in the late 1930's, the FBI has consistently investigated and monitored Mexicano/Chicano organizations such as LULAC, the GI Forum, the Associacion Nacional Mexico-Americano. In the 1950's the FBI created the Border Coverage Program (BOCOV) as part of COINTELPRO.. It maintained offices both in the occupied territories and Mexico. Additionally, the Border Patrol and the Immigration and Naturalization Service are special police agencies created primarily to be used against the Mexicano people.

All these repressive actions are supplemented by the terrorist activities of the Ku Klux Klan against Mexicanos/Chicanos.

The homes of Mexicano/Chicano resistance fighters have been bombed and many have been killed. Among the latter are Ricardo Falcon, Rito Canales, Antonio Cordova and Los Seis de Boulder.

The Tribunal heard that a United States border separates the Mexicano/Chicano people and that since the 1850's "Los Rinches" (the Rangers), a police terror force, have killed 20,000 Mexicano/Chicanos. There have also been countless lynchings by North Americans. There is a high incidence of poverty, malnutrition and a proliferation of drugs (50% of incarcerated Mexicano/Chicanos are held for drug offenses). Not only is there a high rate of premature births but although Mexicano/Chicanos comprise 8% of the U.S. population, 25% of all pediatric AIDS cases are found among Mexican/Chicano children. Overall, there is a grossly disproportionate incidence of AIDS infection compared with the general population.

Mexicano/Chicanos have' also been subjected to a policy of cultural assimilation, principally directed towards their Spanish language. The issue has become more acute with the newly imposed legislation compelling the use of the English language only and forbidding the use of Spanish in all official activities including schooling of Mexicano children.

The Tribunal recognizes the claim that the Mexicano/Chicano people living within the borders of the United States are a people entitled to exercise their right to self-determination.

IV. PUERTO RICAN PRISONERS OF WAR

Among the Petitioners are 13 Puerto Rican women and men (Carlos Torres, Adolfo Matos, Dylcia Pagan, Ida Luz Rodriguez, Carmen Valentin, Elizam Escobar, Alejandrina Tones, Ricardo Jimenez, Alicia Rodriguez, Luis Rosa, Edwin Cortes, Alberto Rodriguez and Oscar Lopez Rivera) most of whom have been held in U.S. prisons since 1980. They are serving literal life sentences for their involvement with a clandestine Puerto Rican independence liberation group, Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional (FALN). They are combatants in a struggle against colonialism and for national liberation in accordance with Article I, Paragraph 4 of Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, extending POW protections to "include armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes, in the exercise of their right of self-determination." Pursuant to the Resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly on the Rights of Colonial People and the Legal Status of Combatants Struggling Against Colonial and Alien Domination of Racist Regimes, which provides that combatants struggling against colonialism "are to be accorded the status of prisoners of war and their treatment should be in accordance with the Geneva Convention" (Resolution 3103 (XXVIII), 12 December 1973), these Puerto Rican combatants are entitled to be treated as Prisoners of War.

The U.S. has refused POW status to these anti-colonial fighters, claiming that it is not a signatory to the Additional Protocols. This refusal to accept universally recognized humanitarian protections for peoples fighting colonialism, apartheid and alien domination, should not and does not preclude the according of these protections.

Colonialism has been identified as a crime for over three decades. The U.S. General Assembly has consistently asserted that colonized and dependent people have the right to use all means available including armed struggle to resist colonialism. And, since the General Assembly Resolution 3103 was passed in 1973, captured anti-colonialism combatants have been entitled to POW status. This protected status for people fighting colonialism is specifically designed to assist the customary international law right to self-determination and to deter the colonial power from perpetuating the crime of colonialism.

The expansion of the definition of international conflicts in the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Convention, to include those struggling for national liberation, also constituted recognition by the international community that the protection of anti-colonial fighters was to be elevated to a customary norm of international law.

Clearly today, if not in 1977 when the Additional Protocols were first enacted, now that colonialism has been universally condemned and almost eradicated from the world, those who fight against colonialism are entitled to special protection and should not be criminalized by the colonial power.

We find, therefore, that Puerto Rican combatants who have asserted their right to POW status are entitled not to be tried in the U .S. courts but to be protected under the Geneva Convention. We believe that these prisoners who have been illegally incarcerated and criminalized for over 10 years should be unconditionally released or at the very least, transferred to a neutral country.

Certain other Petitioners who are people struggling for self-determination for Black people in the United States and Native American people have also asserted the right to be considered as Prisoners of War. We believe that these claims have merit as these are peoples fighting against alien occupation or racist regimes. However, the evidence before the Tribunal does not allow us to reach a definitive conclusion at this time, and we recommend that there be further investigation into these claims.

V. WHITE NORTH AMERICAN OPPONENTS OF UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT POLICIES

Testimony was presented on behalf of white North Americans who have been imprisoned for protesting U.S. foreign and domestic policies and against militarism, war and nuclear armaments. The actions of these Petitioners have taken a variety of forms, from symbolic acts of sabotage of weapons of war by the Plowshares group, to armed actions against U.S. military or corporate targets supporting apartheid and intervention in Central America.

The Petitioners involved in these activities share a common belief that it is their responsibility as citizens of the United States to engage in acts of resistance intended to prevent or impede ongoing criminal activity in the conduct of the policies of the U.S. Government.

At the trials of these petitioners, United States courts have routinely denied them the opportunity to present a defense based upon a citizen's right to resist illegal state conduct and based upon their religious and/or political motivations. The Tribunal heard from an expert witness on international law that these defenses are well grounded in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution as well as the Tokyo and Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunals.

We conclude that the United States Government has criminalized and imprisoned white North Americans who have struggled in solidarity with national liberation movements and other peoples struggling for self-determination, for peace and against nuclear armaments and against racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination.

VI. CRIMINALIZATION AND DENIAL OF THE RULE OF LAW

'Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law..."
Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948.

It is a violation of international law for a state to attempt to criminalize the struggle of peoples to achieve self-determination. According to the authoritative United Nations Resolution 2625 (XXV) of 1970: "Every State has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peoples ... of their right to self-determination and freedom and independence", and Resolutions 33/22 and 33/24 (1978) which condemn the imprisonment and detention of people fighting colonialism.

We have heard testimony of the development of a system of repression in the United States, which uses the courts and judicial system as a key element to deny peoples' rights to self-determination and to disrupt people organizing to oppose illegal U.S. government policies.

The evidence shows that the U.S. Government is using a strategy which parallels certain other states (e.g. South Africa, Israel and British administration in the North of Ireland) confronting insurgent movements, through the creation of repressive and anti-democratic modifications to the legal system aimed at the suppression of radical political opposition. This counter-insurgency strategy allows for the enhancement of the power of law enforcement to surveil and infiltrate political groups as well as to coerce cooperation with police investigations and to criminalize political association.

The testimony showed that federal agents are authorized to spy on and infiltrate political, community and religious groups, and substantial evidence was received of such activity. In addition, the Tribunal was informed of the use of highly sophisticated electronic technology to carry out video- and audio surveillance at the homes and workplaces of members and supporters of the Puerto Rican liberation movement.

Additionally, litigation in Puerto Rico has recently revealed the existence of more than 100,000 dossiers collected by the police on activists and supporters of the cause of independence who have been labelled "subversives" by the police because of their legitimate desire and work to end colonization.

The FBI also uses an internment power through the Federal grand jury to force cooperation with investigations into political activities under pain of imprisonment for refusal. The grand jury, a secret proceeding under the direction and control of the government, is used as a tool to intern political people. The government issues subpoenas to a secret hearing where there is no judge and where defense counsel is barred from attending. The coerced witness can be stripped of his/her fundamental right to remain silent and forced to answer all questions about political associations and activities. A refusal to appear or answer results in civil contempt penalties of up to 18 months or criminal contempt, which has no maximum limit of sentence.

Scores of activists in political movements have been imprisoned over the last fiftenn years through this process. The government has even re-subpoenaed activists who have already served time in prison for refusing to collaborate with grand juries, in full knowledge that the person has not collaborated and will not do so in future. This effectively constitutes internment without trial or just cause.
Political activists are often charged with violations of broad conspiracy laws which rely on evidence of political associations and beliefs to prove "criminal" agreements. Two special statutes, Seditious Conspiracy and the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, specifically allow for the criminalization of membership in political organizations and national liberation movements. These statutes have been used to incarcerate political activists with lengthy sentences. The Seditious Conspiracy law specifically criminalizes opposition to U.S. governmental authority and has been used particularly against the Puerto Rican independence movement to criminalize its resistance to colonialism. Under this law a mere agreement to oppose U.S. authority with force, without proof of any act taken in furtherance of that agreement, is subject to a twenty year sentence.

Political prisoners in the U.S. are also victims of false charges and prosecutions in which evidence favorable to the accused is deliberately suppressed. The Tribunal was presented with evidence of three particularly serious cases: Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt, Leonard Peltier and Dhoruba Bin Wahad, in which the government deliberately destroyed and concealed evidence which would have established their innocence.

Those charged with politically motivated offenses are frequently held in preventive detention. Specifically, the evidence showed that the U.S. government's use of the Bail Reform Act of 1984 violates international law by designating as "dangerous to the community" persons who struggle for self-determination. This statute enables the government to jail its opponents for years without trial by means of indefinite preventive detention, thus denying the right to speedy trial or to release pending trial. When the FBI arrested fifteen Puerto Rican independentists on August 30, 1985, the government invoked this law to detain every accused. In spite of the community's clamor for these activists to be released, the courts found almost all of those arrested to be a "danger" to the community and held them under punitive isolation for periods between 18 months to almost four years without trial. The last to be released, Filiberto Ojeda Rios, who had triple by-pass open heart surgery, was released only because the U.S. courts held that his lengthy pretrial custody had become an embarrassment to U.S. democracy. Ojeda was redetained for another year within three months of his release, as a result of a three year old charge arising out of his original arrest.

Excessive pretrial detention violates international law provisions Article II (1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 9 (3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as Article 8 (1) of the American Convention of Human Rights, 1969.

The Tribunal also received evidence of a series of repressive measures employed in political trials. Of particular concern was the evidence indicating a deliberate attack by the U.S. government on the independence and impartiality of the trial jury. The media have been used to poison attitudes in the community from which that jury will be selected. Just as disturbing is the use of "anonymous" trial juries. Under the latter system, by declaring the necessity to keep jurors' identities secret, those same jurors are inevitably prejudiced into believing that they have cause to fear the political defendants. This fear is further exacerbated by the intentional and excessive militarization of courtroom security employed to turn political trial courts into armed encampments. The Tribunal was informed of the use of multiple metal detectors, concrete bunkers, armed marshals, sharp-shooters on roofs adjacent to courthouses and, in one case, the erection of a special bullet-proof glass partition to separate the accused from the public.

The Tribunal also heard that trial venues are manipulated, particularly in the case of Puerto Rican activists, to deny them a trial in their homeland by their peers. Also, politically accused persons are routinely denied the right to present a full defense, including issues of necessity and justification under international law.
The use of the judicial system to repress political activists violates Articles 6,7,8,9 and 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Articles 9 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Such conduct further violates Article 5 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 1966.

We find most disturbing that the U.S. government continues to incarcerate certain Petitioners despite documentary and other proof, disclosed after conviction, conclusively establishing that they did not commit the offenses for which they have been tried.

Excessive and Inhumane Sentences

The evidence showed that the United States government metes out the longest sentences of any country in the world to its political prisoners. Such excessive and disproportionate sentences imposed on persons active in self-determination struggles and in support of those struggles constitute torture, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of Article 1 of U.N. Resolution 3452 (XXX), the Declaration on Protection from Torture, 1975.

Most of the political prisoners and Prisoners of War are serving the equivalent of natural life in prison. The Puerto Rican POWs, many of whom have already spent more than ten years in prison, have sentences averaging 67 years. The judge who sentenced them stated that he would have given them the death penalty if it had been within his power.

Mumia Abu Jamal currently sits on Pennsylvania's death row under sentence of death. Leonard Peltier has served over 13 years of two consecutive life sentences; Sundiata Acoli is serving life plus thirty years; Herman Bell, Nuh Washington and Jalil Bottom are each serving 25 years to life.

Evidence was presented demonstrating that the political beliefs of Petitioners have been used as a basis to impose, in many instances, sentences of life imprisonment. Moreover, it is clear that the sentences imposed upon Petitioners are grossly disproportionate to sanctions imposed upon members of right wing and/or racist organizations convicted of similar offenses. For example, an assassin of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier was permitted in a plea agreement, wherein most charges were dropped, to receive a sentence of 12 years.

Conversely, Petitioner Yu Kikumura, arrested with three pipe bombs in his car, was charged with twelve separate offenses and received an aggregate sentence of 30 years.

In 1986, a man convicted for planning and carrying out bombings, without making warning calls, of ten occupied health clinics where abortions were performed received a sentence of ten years and was paroled after 46 months. By contrast, Petitioner Raymond Levasseur was convicted of bombing four unoccupied military targets in protest against U.S. foreign policies and received a total sentence of 45 years.

Another acknowledged abortion clinic bomber received seven years following his arrest in possession of over 100 pounds of explosives in a populous Manhattan apartment building. Petitioners Tim Blunk and Susan Rosenberg, charged with possession of explosives in a storage facility, each received sentences of 58 years.

A Ku Klux Klansman, charged with violations of the Neutrality Act and with possessing a boatload of explosives and weapons to be used in an invasion of Dominica, received an eight year sentence. Petitioner Linda Evans was convicted of purchasing four weapons with false identification and was sentenced to 40 years, the longest sentence ever imposed for this offense in U.S. history.
The evidence also established that Petitioners have been denied parole as a penalty for refusing to renounce their political beliefs and associations.

VII. TORTURE AND CRUEL, INHUMAN AND DEGRADING TREATMENT

As part of the system of repression in the United States, we heard testimony that the government uses the prisons as a key element in its efforts to deny peoples the right to exercise self-determination and disrupt people organizing to oppose U.S. policies. The evidence established that the defendants use political beliefs and associations as a basis for classification and placement in highly punitive and restrictive isolation units.

The testimony of Dr. Stuart Grassian, a psychiatric expert on the serious and harmful effects of long-term isolation and solitary confinement made a profound impression on the Tribunal. Evidence was also received which showed that in the early 1960's the U.S. prisons adopted a policy to put into effect brainwashing practices to "modify" the behavior of political prisoners and resisters.

Further, with full knowledge that conditions of solitary confinement, "small group isolation", and restricted sensory stimulation cause adverse psycho-pathological effects, the evidence also showed that the defendants have created and maintained prisons and control units embodying these conditions, such as the U.S. Federal Penitentiary at Marion, Illinois, the Women's High Security Unit at Lexington, Kentucky, and New York State's Shawangunk Correctional Facility.
The U.S. penitentiary at Marion, condemned by Amnesty International as violating virtually every one of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, holds more political prisoners and Prisoners of War than any other prison in the United States. Prison officials place political prisoners at Marion and retain them there for years although they do not meet the stated criteria for assignment there. A U.S. court which found the conditions at Marion to pass constitutional muster was nonetheless forced to describe them as "sordid" and "depressing in the extreme". Locked in their cells over 22 hours daily, the prisoners at Marion are denied meaningful human interaction and essential sensory stimulation. Their visits are non-contact through glass, and they are required to submit to a strip-search before and after visits. Their only source of drinking water is contaminated with carcinogenic chloroform and is reliably suspected of containing dangerous levels of toxins. -

The Women's High Security Unit at Lexington, Ky, which was closed in 1988 as the result of a national and international human rights campaign, was also condemned by Amnesty International, which found that the Federal Bureau of Prisons deliberately placed political prisoners there in cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions because of their political beliefs. The conditions included two years of isolation in subterranean cells, daily strip-searches, sleep deprivation and denial of privacy to the extent that male guards were able to observe the women bathing. Expert medical testimony demonstrated that the conditions were calculated to destroy the women psychologically and physically.

We find that the defendants place political prisoners and prisoners of war in such prisons, and under such conditions, as part of their efforts to destroy them and to repress the struggles which they represent.

The evidence showed that in addition to the use of isolation in control unit prisons, the defendants also use other prison conditions as a means of breaking political prisoners and prisoners of war. These conditions include assassination; torture; sexual assault; strip and cavity searches, including such searches by male staff on women prisoners; punitive transfers; false accusations of violating prison rules; censorship; denial of religious worship; harassment of families; limitation of visits and denial of necessary medical care.

Several political prisoners with cancer have been subjected to lengthy and punitive delays in diagnosis and treatment. Alan Berkman, suffering from Hodgkins Disease, has nearly died several times because prison officials have withheld necessary medical treatment and refused to place him in an appropriate medical facility. Kwasi Balagoon, suffering with AIDS, was not diagnosed until ten days before his death. Silvia Baraldini's palpable abdominal lumps were ignored for months, only to reveal that she had an aggressive form of uterine cancer.

The evidence also showed that the courts of the U.S. have consistently condoned and sanctioned the application of such punitive and harmful conditions and their application to political prisoners and prisoners of war.

We find that the defendants' treatment of political prisoners and prisoners of war constitutes torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of Article 6 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and contravenes most of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. The U.S. Government is also in breach of the First, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and their equivalent provisions in the various state constitutions; the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from being Subjected to Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the American Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention and the protocols thereto.

VERDICT

Based on the factual and legal foundations stated above, the. Special Tribunal declares:

1) Within the prisons and jails of the United States exist substantial numbers of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War.
2) These prisoners have been incarcerated for their opposition to U.S. government policies and actions that are illegal under domestic and international law, including the denial of the right to self-determination, and resistance to genocide, colonialism, racism and militarism.
3) The U.S. government criminalizes and imprisons persons involved in the struggles for self-determination of Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Black and Mexicano-Chicano activists within the borders of the United States.
4) Those peoples legitimately struggling for national liberation are not to be treated as criminals, but must be afforded the status of Prisoners of War under the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Convention.
5) The U.S. government also criminalizes and imprisons white North-Americans and others who have worked in solidarity with struggles for self-determination as well as for peace and against nuclear arms, against racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination.
6) The criminal justice system of the U.S. is being used in a harsh and discriminatory way against political activists in the U.S.
7) The use of surveillance, infiltration, grand juries, preventive detention, politically-motivated criminal conspiracy charges, prejudicial security and anonymous trial juries deprive political activists offair trials guaranteed under domestic and international law.
8) Political people have been subjected to disproportionately lengthy prison sentences and to torture, cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment within the U.S. prison system.
Further the Tribunal calls on the U.S. government to:
1) Release all prisoners who have been incarcerated for the legitimate exercise of their rights of self-determination or in opposition to U.S. policies and practices illegal under international law.
2) Cease all acts of interference and repression against political movements struggling for self-determination or against policies and practices illegal under international law.

The Special International Tribunal on Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in the United States received testimony from the following witnesses:

Dr. Imari Obadele - Representative of the Black Movement.
Ms. Assata Shakur - Former Political Prisoner. (Videotape disposition)
Ms. Eve Rosahn - Representative of the White North American anti-imperialists.
Sister Anne Montgomery - Former political Prisoner and representative of the Plowshares communities.
Ms. Elizabeth Murillo - Representative of the Mexican people living within the borders of the U.S.
Ms. Rita Zengotita - Representative of the Puerto Rican National Liberation Movement.
Mr. Jorge Farinacci - Puerto Rican Activist in the National Liberation Movement, and on bond awaiting criminal trial.
Mr. Bobby Castillo - Former political prisoner and representative of the Native Americans.
Mr. Ward Churchill - Representative of the Native Americans.
Mr. Michael E. Deutsch - Expert on U.S. repressive strategy against movements opposing US policy and seeking self-determination.
Ms. Mary O'Melveny - Expert on disparate sentencing.
Ms. Patricia Levasseur - Former political prisoner.
Mr. Majid Barnes - Representative of the Black Movement
Ms. Alberta Africa - Former political prisoner and member of MOVE.
Dr. Stuart Grassian - Expert on the pyschopathological effects of long-term solitary confinement.
Mr. Rafael Cancel Miranda - Former political prisoner and representative of the Puerto Rican National Liberation Movement.
Mr. Dhoruba Bin Wahad - Former political prisoner and representative of the Black Movement in the U.S.
Mr. Bob Robideau - Former political prisoner, member of the Native American Movement.
Professor Francis Boyle - Expert on International Law
Mr. Jaime Delgado - Former political prisoner and representative of the Puerto Rican National Liberation Movement.
Ms. Jill Soffiyah Elijah - Expert on conditions of confinement of political prisoners and pows in the U.S.
Mr. William Guillermo Morales - Former prisoner of war (by videotape deposition)

Documents Submitted by the Movements

Brief in Support of New Afrikan Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War, Imari Obadale, Kwame Afah, Chokwe Lumumba and Ahmed Obafemi
Report of the International Indian Treaty Council.
"We Will Remember", Leonard Peltier Defense Committee.
Memorandum of Support and Clarification, American Indian Movement of Colorado.
Agents of Repression, Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall. The e Cointelpro Papers, Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall.
FBI COINTELPRO documents on the Puerto Rican independence, Black, Native American, Mexican and Anti-imperialist movements
Los Medios de Repression Utilizados por el Gobierno de los Estados Unidos en Control del Pueblo de Puerto Rico y Sus Medios de Liberación Nacional y los Intentos de Criminalizar la Lucha Puertorriqueña por la Independencia, Comité Unitario Contra la Represión y por la Defensa de los Presos Politicos (CUCRE)
(Repressive Measures used by the US Government to Control the People of Puerto Rico and their Means of National Liberation and the Attempts to Criminalize the Struggle for Puerto Rican independence, the Unitary Committee Against Repression and for the Defense of Political Prisoners) (CUCRE).
Alvaro Hernandez and Alberto Aranda, Chicano Political Prisoners. Committee to Free Alvaro Hernández and Alberto Aranda and the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional Mexicano.
Statement of Eve Rosahn
Statement of Sister Anne Montgomery

Documents Submitted by Former Political Prisoners

Statement of Majid Barnes
Overview of the Black Struggle in the United States as it Relates to Political Repression and United States Domestic Policies of Genocide, Dhoruba Bin Wahad
The Case of Dhoruba Bin Wahad and the Existence of Black Political Prisoners in the United States, Dhoruba Bin Wahad & Robert J. Boyle
Affidavit of Dhoruba Al-Mujahid Bin Wahad
The State of Black America 1990, The Urban League. Statement of Alberta Africa.
Statement of Jorge Farinacci.
Leonard Peltier Writ of Habeas Corpus
Affidavit of Attorney Bruce Ellison
Statement of Patricia Helen Levasseur
Transcript of Interrogation of Jeremy Manning
Legal Dossiers of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War held in the United States, submitted by Freedom Now! Campaign for Amnesty and Human Rights for Political Prisoners in the United States.

Documents Submitted by Expert Witnesses

Political Prisoners and the Denial of Fair Trials, Michael E. Deutsch.
"The Improper Use of the Federal Grand Jury: An Instrument for the Internment of Political Activists", Michael Deutsch, 75 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 1159 (1984).
"New Developments in U.S. Judicial Repression: the Use of Counter-Insurgency Methods Against the Puerto Rican Independence Movement", Michael Deutsch, The National Lawyers Guild Practitioner (Winter, 1988).
Memorandum on Disparat

Update on the Case of the Cuban 5

by Rene Gonzale Sehwerert

Although it is a hard task to write an update on something that doesn't change, I'll attempt to do so through these words, in the hopes of giving the reader an idea of how our legal case stands now.

Let's go back to May of last year, 2005. A decision was reached then by the Committee on Arbitrary Detentions of the UN Human Rigths Commission, stating that our trial had been held in violation of the international standards of due process, as well as American law. The Committee called on the US Government to remedy such an injustice. No matter the call fell on deaf ears, it was the first time some light was shed on our case.

Three months after another victory was won, when the three-judge panel from the 11th Circuit of Appeals, in Atlanta, decided in our favor by ordering a new trial. The unanimity of the decision and the thoroughness of its 93 pages raised the hopes that an appeal by the prosecutors to the full twelve-judge panel wouldn't prosper. History then proved logic wrong when the Court of Appeals accepted a rehearing en-banc, vacating the previous decision by the direct appeals panel.

More papers were again exchanged back and forth until every-thing was ready for the hearing on last February the 14th.

According to all accounts the hearing went as well as expected. The defense was able to make its case as to the denial of due process by holding the trial on Miami. It was a test that the defense attorneys passed by answering every question posed by the judges, which can not be said of the way the prosecutors handled the ones posed to them. Again, the hopes were raised that the court would uphold the decision by the three judges, and this time we expect that both logic and law will prevail.

Four months have elapsed since the hearing and no word from the Court of Appeals have been heard. There is no time limit for them to rule and all that can be done is to wait,...and keep the fight!!!

Raising awareness on the case continues to be a priority. It is imperative to break the wall of silence erected around the case by the media until everybody knows of this history of twisted, vindictive "justice".

On last June the 3rd a little ray of hope broke out when the Washington Post published an article on front page. The writer did a fine job, and the article gave us hope that, on the case of a new trial, the government wont be able to keep the procedures hidden from the public as before.

As for the five of us, we are ready for the fight!!!.

A big hug,

Rene Gonzale Sehwerert
#58738-004
FCI Marianna
P.O. Box 7007
Marianna, FL 32447-7007 USA

Running Down the Walls

by LA-ABCF

This is a report regarding the LA Running Down the Walls- though the numbers were small- we were still able to raise a nice amount of funds for our supported
projects. Here is how the run panned out:

About 25 people showed up for the event through out the day and about ten or so ran at the LA run.

With this years Running Down the Walls, we were able to raise roughly about $900 dollars at just the LA event. Reports have yet to come out from the other
locations.

We had solidarity runs in several locations including five prison runs and two cities. While the funds are always an important aspect of the run- it is always
the solidarity runs that mean the most to us. It shows how important the day is to those we support.

Two statements were read; one from Ali Khalid Abdullah and Jaan Laaman, plus a audio recording from Jaan Laaman, which was played early on in the day. A few words were said from Jen Lamont- wife of poltical prisoner Matt Lamont.

We have received word from a few people that they were not able to find the run location at the park. To those people we apologize for the mix up. We did
attempt to put numerous signs throughout the park - including a syndicalist flag at our location- but I guess we were not as visible as we needed to be.

For those who still wish to give donations- you can still send them to LA-ABCF.

Proceeds will be devided between the Growing Healthy
program and the ABCF Warchest.

Thanks,
Matt Hart
LA-ABCF
P.O. Box 11223
Whittier, CA 90603 USA

A Send Off for Richard Williams

Russell Maroon Shoats Jr. at entrance to the gathering

Editor’s note: The following are words written by Kazi Toure, former political prisoner and longtime comrade of Richard Williams, who died in a federal prison last December. Before he passed, Richard’s children (Netdahe, Henekis and Richard) told him that they would hold a memorial gathering in Vermond in the summer, where his ashes would be dispersed to the fire and wind by his family and friends. Some of Richard’s comrades, friends and family gathered on a Vermont mountainside on the weekend of June 16-18 to remember and honor him).

Some of the many people, including Richard’s sister, former wife, and mother-in-law

We left Boston around 9:30pm Thursday night. Headed up to our comrade's memorial/party, arriving around l a.m.

Fishermen and fish for the people

The trip was relatively easy. We did get a little tripped up on the final stretch and rolled 20 yards past the mark, a fire in the middle of a field which was surrounded by trees. Netdahe and Russell (PP Russell Maroon Shoats’ son) were the only ones there, keeping the fire going... We were grateful and happy to see them, and every thing was reciprocal, every thing was everything, as we sat down around the fire, Netdahe sat Richards ashes down beside me, we twisted something up, reasoned, and let the spirits flow. For those locked, it was a beautiful night. The sky was clear and full of stars something we rarely get to see in the city.

People looking at the photo display of Richard’s life

On Friday people began filtering in. See flick of Russell standing at the entrance arrangement courtesy of Brook (Richard’s daughter-in-law) and Sally (Richard’s ex-wife). Russell, Da and Netdahe hooked up a sound system. Then it was off to get some food and drinks... preparing to honor a real working class hero, someone who understood it was in his best interest as a human being to fight with everything he had against injustice everywhere. Folks came in all day from all over. California, Western Mass, East Boston, Philadelphia, Boston, Maine, New Hampshire, New York ,Vermont and those are only the ones that I can think of. There were approximately eighty to a hundred people present on Saturday. The air was festive a true buzz could be felt by all, I heard the word Freedom and I feel Free more than once and believe it's the way Dickie would have wanted it.

Richard’s ashes in the urn

Sekou came through with over twenty pounds of rainbow trout he and his fishing buddy had caught over the previous week. They set up their own grill and treated folk with some marvelous fish plates. See flick...Sally arrived around the same time with Richards oldest son Richard jr. his wife and their son. They flew in from Cali. wasting no time setting up their tent. We had an area of 60 yards wide and 100 yards long, surrounded by trees. Netdahe and Russell cleared the area with some rigged up stick and blade. They had dug a pit ten feet in circumference for a fire. Early in the afternoon Henekis set up a collagbe of pictures of her father’s life inside and out. Then we made a table for the urn. See flicks…

Richard’s daughter Henekis at the campfire, speaking about her father

Saturday evening around dusk we started the ceremony... Netdahe started it off explaining Richards last wishes, placing some of his ashes on the fire...Russell poured libations for those who have passed over and people took turns sharing partRichards life...It was really a good send off...The next day on Sunday Russell, Ricky (PP Jaan Laaman’s son), Netdahe, Henekis, Brook, and a few others took a hour hike up a mountain to release the rest of his ashes...They say when they threw the ashes off the mountain they fell some one hundred feet or more then a current of air picked the ashes up and brought them all the way back up to them...as if to say, thank you. The whole feel was so right that folk decided to do something annually.

Words for Richard Williams' Memorial Gathering in Vermont

from Jaan Laaman

(This statement was read by Rick Laaman to the people gathered in VT)

Richard, my brother, my comrade, my friend, I have written many words about you - for you, since your passing last Dec.7, in that stinkin federal prison in North Carolina. I wanted to say something new on this saturday in June, up there in the clean Vermont air as some of your closest people - family and friends, gather to remember you with fondness, love and respect, and I think a little humor too.

I find myself talking about you quite often in conversations here in Walpole, to my son Rick and other family members, often with Kazi and with other comrades too. You've never stopped being with me, with us, Richard. You never will.

I miss you bro. We all miss not having you in this unfinished struggle for Freedom, Justice and our Revolutionary future. No matter what the situation demanded, you were always there, doing what was necessary and possible, and quite often just taking on the impossible as well. It seems like there were always risks to be taken, sacrifices to be made and work to be done. I can't recall a time evcr, when you hesitated to take up the task.

The sacrifices, especially the reality of not being with your children, both during a lot of the underground days and the later years in prison, were hard. Of course they were most hard on the children. But I clearly recall conversations we had about the difficulties our children were having, and how it was for the children, our own as well as the babies in South Africa, El Salvador, Palestine, Puerto Rico and more, for the future of all these children, that we had to and wanted to fight for the revolutionary future we all need.

I remember we discussed the hope that our kids would come through their childhood with some happiness and success, and that they would have at least a little understanding of why we had to do what we did. Well my brother, your children - our children, are bascially healthy, intelligent, balanced, a very decent and nice group of human beings, who are gathered here today remembering you - your life and its meaning. And there are many more of us, in spirit, there with all of you in Vermont right now, honoring and remembering you Richard. We loved you in life my brother and we are just gonna keep on loving you still.

Police State

Artesia Cabral
#104119
P.O. Box 392005
Denver, CO 80239-8005 USA

Fascism in America - Editor's Note

From its inception 4strugglemag has pointed out and analyzed the growing police state that is creeping across and settling into America and all of our lives, like a virulent virus. The state uses fear, intimidation and the war to increase its police state power, even as more voices are speaking out against this government repression.

The reality of increasing police powers at the expense of the publics' rights and peoples' freedom, is the reality of fascism. In order to more fully understand fascism, 4strugglemag is printing a slightly edited analysis of fascism here in the U.S., by Shaka Sankofa Zulu, Chairman of the New African Black Panther Party - Prison Chapter (NABPP-PC). Following that we are printing excerpts of the essay "What is Fascism?", by Kevin Rashid Johnson, the Minister of Defense of the NABPP-PC.

The original Black Panther Party was one of the most important and dynamic organizations in modern American history. It was of course known for its militancy and "serve the people" community programs. What some readers may not be aware of, is that the Panthers were also viewed, by many in the New Left, progressives and revolutionaries, as the organization that usually offered the best clear breakdown and analysis of the economic, social and political realities in the U.S. This new Panther Party is continuing this important work and we recommend that people check out their publication, "Right On!" You can contact them at:

Rising Sun Press
P.O. Box 4362
Allentown, PA 18105

The Plague of the Panther’s Teeth: Revisiting George Jackson’s Analysis of Fascism

by Shaka Sankofa Zulu
Right On! #2, Winter '05-'06

The revolutionary nationalist must face the objective fact of re-examining everything we know today about the nature of fascism and its real role in modern day capitalist economics. Monopoly capitalism and it’s lieutenant sector, along with the bourgeois corporate media, have the people duped into thinking that fascism is a thing of the past, when a brief examination into the ideology and practice of Amerikkkan neo-liberal capitalistic imperialism shows that fascism is alive and well.

In Amerikkka, fascism has many disguises, but its primary function consists in economic exploitation and the dumbing down of a society, so that critical thinking becomes obsolete and participation benefits state power… Fascism is monopoly-corporativism, and the class that wields this power is very small. This small class controls the major means of production and distribution in the world, but its primary power structure rests here in Amerikkka. This small group, controls what we today call "Globalization," and this class or I group has positioned itself firmly against socialist revolution. Therefore, they are our primary enemy.

First and foremost, we subscribe to the idea that Amerikkka is a qualitatively different fascist state than the fascists we read about in books. Amerikkkan fascism stands undetected because no exact example or definition exists as to its characteristics. As stated by comrade George Jackson, "The nature of fascism, its characteristics and properties have been in dispute ever since it was first identified as a distinct phenomenon growing out of Italy's state-supported and developed industries in 1922." But we are able to identify Amerikkka as a fascist state, because of two distinct features of fascism: "its capitalist orientation and anti-labor, anti-class nature." When comrade George states that it has an "anti-class" nature, he is making reference to fascism's "anti-people" nature as well. Fascism has the ability to seduce progressive and non-progressive people into championing its politics. The astute fascist will be skilled in the science of appealing to the real and imagined needs of the people. It will position itself as the savior and protector of the people.

We will show in this pamphlet that all silly arguments to the contrary are a waste of time, and that the revolutionary leftist movement must prepare now - should already be prepared - to accept this fact. Here's Comrade George:

"Fascism exists in this country, and it exists in disguise, and the disguise takes the form of all those idiotic, ridiculous statements about a welfare state. If anybody with any intelligence at all can look at the united states and come up with a conclusion that this is a welfare state or any resemblance of a welfare state, it's pure chicanery, an evasion of fact, dereliction of duty, and in most cases what they're doing is really cleaning up the fact that they didn't oppose capitalism, they didn't oppose hierarchy when they should have opposed them, in the 30's and 40's. They didn't fight then."

This definition explains the real nature of this system, which leapt into monopoly-corporativism at the close of the Civil War. Capitalism-imperialism has finally completed its last and highest stage of reform. We have to realize that fascism is shattering and crushing any hopes of justice and freedom for the people, unless its a hope or freedom that's tied economically into the system of bourgeois capitalism. We must also realize that fascism cannot defeat a politically determined revolutionary people.

As Black revolutionaries, we recognize the existence of the Black Nation in diaspora. That is to say, we hold that the tens of millions of Black people scattered throughout the Amerikkkan industrial centers constitute an
oppressed nation, a colony. We seek the liberation of that colony - as a nation, and not a mere class or racial minority. The predominantly white Left must join us in this struggle, for it will be the center city colonies and the Indian reservation kamps that will serve on the front-lines of militant revolutionary struggle. We all agree that the power to cripple imperialist militarism springs from the bosom of organized labor, however, the failure to define the Amerikkkan ruling class as fascist has lead to different views, which prevent unitary conduct and revolutionary struggle.

Comrade George had this to say on the problem:

"The second notion that stands in the way of our understanding of fascist-corporativism is a semantic problem. When I am being interviewed by a member of the old guard - and point to the concrete and steel, the tiny electronic listening device concealed in the vent, the phalanx of goons peeping in at us, his barely functional plastic tape-recorder that cost him a week's labor, and point out that these are, all manifestations of fascism, he will invariably attempt to refute me by defining fascism simply as an economicgeo-political affair where only one political party is allowed to exist aboveground and no opposition political party is allowed. But examine that definition of totalitarianism comrade.

"No opposition parties are allowed in China, Cuba, North Korea or North Vietnam. Such a narrow definition condemns the model revolutionary societies to totalitarianism. Despite the presence of political parties, there is only one legal politics in the U.S. - the politics of monopoly-corporativism."

There is not one iota of evidence to dispute this position. The politics of Amerikkkan capitalism rest on a two party system, but them share the Last year Slone which was `an election year to decide the next President for four years, the Republicans spent over 200 million dollars raised from monopoly-corporativism. The Democrats were not too far behind, but the corporate bashing slowed the influx of huge donations from oil and military companies.

In my first pamphlet called "Dossier of Struggle" I laid down this line: I don't care who owned Mom and Pop stores, corporate power pays their rent by furnishing products to sell on the market. And if they refuse to adhere to the dictates of corporate interest, the ruling class will simply send in a Wal-Mart that will force the stubborn store into bankruptcy.

I have termed this the economic face of fascism, and it may leave the impression with some that this is "good ole fashion business," but let me rush to drop this line from the BLA study guide: "...We see many of our people go into retail trade business as soon as they are able to scrounge, borrow, or steal the bare minimum to become "black capitalists." Much to their disillusionment they generally find that to own a corner grocery store, liquor store, or whatever is a great hassle that requires total dedication, work, and sacrifice -- just to keep their heads above water. Unable to take full advantage of the discount which accrues to wholesale purchase, they cannot compete with the monopoly retail capitalist who either own the wholesale outlet out-right, or make their purchase in such huge wholesale lots that their discount is enormous."

Attorney Lynn Stewart, who defended accused "terrorists," was hauled before the courts to neutralize her and to send a message to others; people have been detained in military barracks for suspicion of having sympathies for, or a picture of, Osama Bin Laden; 2.3 million people are incarcerated in prisons across the country. This is the disguised form of fascism that's hidden from public scrutiny.
People that are more concerned with the trappings of this pseudo mass society and its spectacular leisure sports; parades where strangers meet, shout each other down and often trample each other on the way home will never see the ugly reality of fascism. Amerikkkan fascism is so effective in emotionally appealing to people's desires and fears that when we point out to them that Amerikkkan capitalism has had 200 years to disguise and refine its face, and 50 years to consolidate fascist control of the country, they would simply dismiss us. Comrade George referred to fascism's early roots when he made this statement: "a great many of the early trends of amerikan history prepared the way for the ultimate success of fascism in its highest form."

50 YEARS OF FASCIST CONSOLIDATION

Fascism consolidated its power here in Amerikkka during the close of World War Two. This was the second world war for colonial markets and imperialistic economic-military dominance. The point here is that Amerikkka sat out this war for three years thinking perhaps that Great Britain and France would defeat Hitler, but when France fell under German military might and Britain faced imminent defeat as well, and it looked like the contest would be decided between Germany and socialist Russia, Amerikkka had to find a way to militarily get into the game, so it threatened and bullied Japan behind closed doors. In short, Japan was given the impression that it faced imminent attack from the military might of the Amerikkkan ruling class, so it hit first and gave the excuse Amerikkka needed to join the fight. Capital migrated to the U.S., because strategically it was physically removed from actual fighting on its land. Plus Amerikkka represented at that time the champion of finance and industrial capitalism.

If one was to go back and review the history of that time, it will be obvious that the U.S. ruling class's problem was not with Hitler, but the real source of its worries was Japan extending colonial dominance over the Pacific Islands and the Philippines, which were Amerikkkan colonies. This was the economic motive for their participation in the fight.

Much of the Amerikkkan monopoly capitalist. ruling class- supported Hitler, including President Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, who was Hitler’s banker in the U.S. and was later convicted during the war under the Trading With the Enemy Act. Henry Ford was awarded the Iron Cross- by Hitler. The 'Rockefellers, Morgan Trust and GM (to name a few) had major commitments to the Third Reich. They did not care about the Jews being interned in concentration kamps. That only became a part of the agenda when France, Russia, Great Britain, and Amerikkka formed the allied force (the Jews were being interned and murdered in kamps since 1939. Almost three years before Amerikkka got involved).

Ponder on this:

"Hitler understood that German capitalism could not pull itself out of the depression without expanding across its boundaries to steal the minerals, seaports, factories, and workers of surrounding countries. By contrast, Roosevelt's strategy was to use the threat of U.S. military power to keep Germany and Japan out of important U.S. markets. But while Germany and Japan were definitely the aggressors, it must be understood that the United States had previously committed genocide against the Indians in the white man's invasion of the continent; kidnapped millions of people from Africa and brought them to the U. S. as slaves; stolen the land of Chicano people in the Southwest; annexed Hawaii and Puerto Rico; and spread its tentacles into much of Latin America by the 1930s. If the United States was more defensive than Germany during this period, it was primarily because it had so much stolen wealth to defend."

Roosevelt himself admitted that the U.S. government had become an appendage of the great financial interests going back as far as Andrew Jackson's administration. Even though there were powerful financial interests in this country backing Germany, the "smart money" saw the, opportunity to come out of WWII as the top_ imperialist power and scoop up the colonial markets and resources of France and England by coming to their aid: Which is exactly what happened.

Because the Soviet Union was at this time a socialist country and the headquarters of the world communist movement, many socialist and revolutionary people saw the U.S. joining the Allied cause as a progressive step, and they tended to turn a blind eye to the actual class nature of the capitalist democracies and to forget that they are fundamentally class dictatorships with their own imperialist designs.

This ideologically and politically disarmed the workers and other progressive people and the oppressed generally by promoting the illusion of post-war partnership and democratic transition to world socialism, as well as the illusion that fascism was something other than monopoly capitalism stripped of the pretence of liberal democracy or human rights. People were not prepared when the U.S. irnperialists immediately launched the Cold War at the end of WWII wartime allies and the Left and progressive people home, driving _ them from the trade unions, universities, Hollywood and the mass media in an anti-communist witch hunt.' Those who had been openly fascist before the war, such as the Dulles brothers, Joe McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover and the Bush clan, were now super-patriots, rehabilitated and leading the crusade.

Having failed to challenge the term "totalitarianism," a term ...devoid of class content, when applied to the Nazis regime, the Left was now tarred with the same brush, while the real history of Amerika, the genocide, slavery and cruel exploitation of the workers was white-washed away. Hand in hand with repression came concessions under the banner of Cold War liberalism, higher wages, improved working conditions, civil rights legislation, unemployment compensation and social security as well as graduated income taxes.

Of course, we are seeing all this disappear in the post-Cold War period. But still, many so-called "leftists" call on us to hitch our hopes to the Democratic Party and abandon thoughts of making revolution or building socialism. They seek to sidetrack the true Left and keep the oppressed masses "in their place."
The New Afrikan Black Panther Party Prison Chapter NABPP-PC) must come to terms with this fact that we must organize ourselves for the eventuality of socialist revolution aimed at putting workers in power – a revolution to crush and smash monopoly capitalism – and overthrow fascism.

A TOOL OF REACTIONAY BRIBERY

The New Afrikan partisan connected to the revolutionary New Afrikan Black Panther Party understands that these loud debates with so-called "leftist elements" are only distracting us from the task of revolution. This ploy by so-called "leftists" to trick us into holding our revolution in abeyance has been exposed. We will fight this revolution without them, but if possible, the joint operation by both the New Afrikan and white leftist revolutionaries will make the task simpler. But we can't afford to wait while our oppressor is bribing and co-opting us to do its imperialistic work against world revolution. Comrade

George said this:

"The shock troops of fascism on the mass political level are drawn from members of the lower-middle class who feel the upward thrust of the lower classes more acutely. These classes feel that any dislocation of the present economy resulting from the upward thrust of the masses would affect their status first. They are joined by that sector of the working class which is backward enough to be affected by nationalistic trappings and loyalty syndrome that sociologists have termed the Authoritarian Personality.' One primary aim of the fascist arrangement is to extend and develop this new pig class, to degenerate and diffuse working-class consciousness with a psycho-social appeal to man's herd instincts. Development and exploitation of the authoritarian syndrome is at the center of 'totalitarian' capitalism (fascism). It feeds .on a small but false sense of class consciousness and the need for community."

While we accept the notion that the "gravediggers of capitalism" most certainly are the workers, however, our struggle is not simply one of proletariat verses the bourgeoisie; our struggle is a national liberation struggle, in which the whole of the Black Nation is oppressed and exploited by the ruling power structure. We must confront our oppression as an oppressed nation. We will not wait until the White Left becomes upset at the prospect of loosing their S.U.V. trucks before we move the central city against exploitation and fascist arrangement. The White Left must realize that in any fight against imperialism, New Afrikans will be on the frontline dying and sacrificing as revolutionaries and "it is our objective to move ourselves and the people into actions that will culminate in the seizure of state power. Our real purpose is to redeem not merely ourselves but the whole nation and the whole community of nations from colonial-community economic repression."

NEW AFRIKAN WORKERS ARE THE MOST DYNAMIC FORCE IN AMERIKKKA

The workers will awaken when they are approached with "clipboard in hand" and on it laid down a set of ideas and ideals as to how a particular set of socio-political problems should best be addressed. But these ideas and ideals should come from understanding the actual needs of the people. And we must not expect everyone to respond positively to the idea of revolution. The degree and depth of "psycho-social conditioning instilled from birth" will work against us from time to time.

Another area that needs to be disputed pertains to this misconception that North Amerikan White workers by themselves are the only revolutionary force in this country. We reject that. The argument could be made that these particular White workers are the most greedy and individualistic class in all of labor's history. And if one desired to extend this argument and say that Amerikkkan workers seem to adore and admire its bosses and bankers, he/she will have a valid position to stand on. Example: How did all of those millionaires get power?

The argument that the rich simply paid their way into office is so silly that it barely merits response. The thing is this, trying to analyze what is happening with this system and the workers that propel it forward must be viewed from a historical position. And the historical record indicates that the rich never paid their way into power. They actually created this system that favors them. "On May 14, 1787, the constitutional convention with George Washington presiding officer, the work of framing the nation's constitution proceeded with fifty-five persons and only two were not employers!!!" So the rich merchants and putrid slave masters created this system to serve their own class interests. And don’t forget the fact that New Afrikans classified as three fifths of a human being, with no rights at all, while the Indians faced genocidal extirpation.

THE ENEMY IN RADICAL CLOTHES

Fascism has proven over time to have three faces that sometimes fool people into thinking they are progressive or revolutionary. Comrade George put it this way:

"Historically it has proved to have three different faces. One 'out of power' that tends almost to be revolutionary and subversive, anti-capitalist and anti-socialist. One 'in power but not secure' -this is the sensational aspect of fascism that we see on screen and read of in pulp novels, when the ruling class, through its instrumental regime, is able to suppress the vanguard party of the people's and workers' movement. The third face of fascism exists when it is 'in power and securely so.' - During this phase some dissent may be allowed."

During the "out of power" phase, we see all kinds of language that convinces some people that this is a revolutionary group that's really for the people. This group participates in programs that awaken social awareness. You see them at anti-war demos chanting "No Blood for Oil!" They talk about putting pressure on George Bush, but "realistically -admit" that "we" can't just pull out "our" troops just yet.

The second phase of "in power but not secure" is when all the people that supported this same sounding revolutionary group have moved to put them in the seats of power. During this period, the group spends very little time on building the country, but rather it has other pressing needs, which require the imprisonment of its former allies and comrades. The new group chases down all imaginary and credible threats to its existence.

The third phase of "in power and securely so" is that period when Neo-Liberalism has pacified the masses and suppressed the real Left. All the productive points of state and ruling class interest are now' securely manned by the new shock troops. The state feels secure enough to allow us the luxury of faint protest. Take protest too far, however, and they will show their other face. Doors will be kicked down in the night and machine-gun fire and buckshot will be the medium of exchange.

If the state is secure and strong, it will permit elections that cost the average person $100 million or so dollars to get elected. And if a few Blacks are elected to the Congress or Senate, they will be confined and alienated by committees that restrict passage of anything. Congressman John Conyers every year keeps putting on the record his bill called H.R. 40 that calls for the study of reparations. This is only calling for the study of reparations, but each year the bill faces certain death by powerful committees. The amount of money being expended in these foolish elections could be used to build infrastructures that serve the needs of the people.

"Elections and political parties have no significance when all serious contenders for public office are fascist and the electorate is thoroughly misled about the true nature of the candidates. One cannot say all the people who vote are unaware, just as one cannot say the twelve hundred professors who backed Mussolini were all frightened. Those who am aware and still do nothing' constructive are among the most pathetic victims of the totalitarian process."

We have to take to the streets and the communities where our vote in the people will do some good. The people will respond positively when they see constructive programs to better their condition and the building of people's power. Many times in the past we have approached people with programs that originate in our heads and they no where conform to the actual reality of the people.

Let's not delude ourselves any longer. We are dealing with a cold vicious class of cutthroats and compromise with them means putting bullets in our heads.

THE NEW AFRIKAN BLACK PANTHER PARTY - PRISON CHAPTER

The New Afrikan Black Panther is the individual that understands and perpetuates the ideology of New Afrikan revolutionary nationalism and strongly supports independence for the people based on 'from the masses to the masses." The revolutionary Party will essentially comprise elements from the Black workers, the Iumpen and lower-middle classes that have surrendered their non-proletarian ideology to combat the aggressive neo-colonial factions in leadership positions in the central cities of Amerikkka.

The neo-colonial agents must be exposed for their outright collaboration and betrayal of the people. The Black Panther has no needs that outweigh the importance of independence, the Black Panther must live with the people; struggle with them; study with them; fight beside them, and if need be, die for them.

THE MASSES OF THE PEOPLE

The meaning of "The People" comes through clearly when one thinks of their mother, father, sister and brother, but the broader concept is what's being referred to here. When we say "The People," we mean those people that support and actively mobilize and organize for revolutionary socialist government, those who no longer consent to be ruled as slaves and who realize that they have nothing to lose but their chains.

CLASS STRUGGLE

The New Afrikan Black Panther Party - Prison Chapter embraces class struggle as a means to organize, agitate, and educate the people.- However our class struggle incorporates resisting national oppression the racist domination of the Black Nation (i e neo-colonialism). Let me make it clear that the Panther has many enemies, including collaborationist Negroes and their slave masters; so to prevent these collaborators and class enemies from subverting the cause of revolution, we have to engage in class analysis and struggle. Example: The underclass does not benefit from the wealth accrued by monopoly-corporativism, but elements of the black upper-middle class have a stake in the maintenance of monopoly-capital because their big houses and lifestyle comes from it. These Blacks serve as managers and executives in these companies. They are what we today would call agents of fascism.

We are not talking about all upper-middle class Blacks, just the ones that hobnob with the likes of Condilezza Rice and Clarence Thomas (or wish they could). These turn-coats work harder than the man to maintain economic disparity and the oppression of us. In short, the class struggle will be, between two forces: New Afrikan people under the leadership of a progressive/aggressive, revolutionary vanguard party and its allies verses the monopoly capitalists (not all white people) and their functionaries.

ON SEXISM

The ugly head of sexism and gender disparaging has its roots, fundamentally, within the capitalist patriarchal system. We implore all revolutionaries to fight against the relegation of woman to second-class status within the revolutionary movement and in the broader society. Always remember that socialism is not just an economic system, but more than that, it is a new way of human relations. Comrade "Rashid" Johnson sent me a piece on wimyn and their role in struggle that will be quoted here:

'We can't generate People's war if we continue to act & to think as if all people are men, and as if all children are boys. We can't build a mass movement if we fail to allow wimyn a proportional share of power."

A LAST WORD

We implore all serious people to get connected with a progressive group in their community. The hour of procrastination won't save those people that sleep on park benches around the corner from your house. They need you now!

SEIZE THE TIME! DARE TO STRUGGLE AND
DARE TO WIN!

All my quotes/sources come from Blood In My Eye: The Political Thought of Comrade George Jackson, and the BLA Study Guide.

What is Fascism?

by Kevin “Rashid” Johnson
Excerpted from Right On! #2, Winter '05-'06

“Fascism is capitalism in decline.”
-V.I, Lenin

In the late 19th Century, banking and industrial capital merged to form finance capital and ushered in the Age of Proletarian Revolution. V.I. Lenin pointed this out in Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism. However, Lenin by no means meant that Imperialism (monopoly capitalism) would not itself continue to evolve until it was overthrown. In fact, he emphasized that we must define imperialism "as capitalism in transition, or, more precisely as moribund capitalism," or capitalism in decay, capitalism rotten ripe for revolution.

He emphasized that this decay was by no means negated by the rapidity of its growth, that the accelerated growth rate was symptomatic of its rottenness and parasitism. And that this decay manifested itself most profoundly in the countries richest in capital. Since Lenin's time, we have seen the evolution of Fascism as an even more virulent form of imperialism.

Lenin also recognized that in whatever stage of its evolution, capitalism balances two approaches to maintaining its power and control over the working masses 1.) The Carrot — bribery and liberal concessions, and 2.) The Stick — violence and repression. In Lenin's words:

"The receipt of high monopoly profits by the capitalists in one of the numerous branches of industry, in one of the numerous countries, etc., makes it economically possible for them to bribe certain sections of the workers, and for a time a fairly considerable minority of them, and win them to the side of the bourgeoisie of a given industry or given nation against all the others. The intensification of antagonisms between imperialist nations for the division of the world increases this striving. And so there is created that bond between imperialism and opportunism, which revealed itself first and most clearly in England, owing to the fact that certain features of imperialist development were observable there much earlier than in other countries."

Fascism emerged in Italy and spread to Germany and other countries which did not have the colonial base to extract super-profits from to compete with the Western Democracies in the employment of bribery for the workers. Thus they employed "the stick." Ironically, Fascism, founded in 1919 by Benito Mussolini, should come from the name of a bundle of sticks. The Italian name of the movement, fascismo, is derived from fascio, "bundle, (political) group," but also refers to the movement's emblem, the fasces, a bundle of rods (sticks) bound around a projecting axe-head that was carried before an ancient Roman magistrate by an attendant as a symbol of authority and power…

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy, Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism – Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2.. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights – Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause – The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic, or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists; terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military – Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. _Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions am either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts – Fascist nations tend to promote -and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment – Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often wiling to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations am a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

How Incarceration Violates Human Rights

Including the rights of women and their families

Statewide Harm Reduction Coalition (SHaRC) of Massachusetts

www.StopChicopeeJail.org

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted on December 10, 1948 in order to protect the rights and freedoms of all people worldwide. The United States is a signatory to this document. Yet systemic violation of human rights is a factor both leading up to and during incarceration, as shown in the following examples:

Article 2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.…

As of June 30, 2004, the US incarcerated adult white males at rate of 717 per 100,000, adult latino males at a rate of 1,717 per 100,000, and adult black males at a rate of 4,919 per 100,000 (Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004). The biased application of discriminatory drug war laws accounts for much of this discrepancy. The majority of illicit drug users are white, while the majority of those incarcerated for violation of drug laws are people of color. This racism, an integral part of US institutions including prisons, is in violation of Article 2. (http://prisonsucks.com)

Article 4. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution abolished slavery in the United States except in cases where it was the punishment for a crime for which the accused person was duly convicted. Again, biased application of discriminatory law ensured that the labor of former slaves was accessible for a fee to former slave owners. Today corporations including Victoria's Secret, Eddie Bauer and Toys R Us use prisoner labor. Prisoners receive as little as .20 per hour. Some don't get paid at all. Political Prisoner Ruchell Magee notes “slavery is being practiced by the system under the color of law.... Slavery 400 years ago, slavery today; it's the same thing, but with a new name. They're making millions and millions of dollars enslaving blacks, poor whites, and others--people who don't even know they're being railroaded.” (http://www.prisonactivist.org/crisis/labor-of-doing-time.html)

Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Strip searches, body cavity searches, beatings, rapes, deprivation of food and proper clothing, isolation, and medical neglect are part of how prisons are run. Prisoner Marcia Bunny notes, “our current standard of medical care is tantamount to a death sentence.” (“One Life in Prison: Perception, Reflection, and Empowerment”).

A British documentary called “Torture, Inc: America’s Brutal Prisons” shows prisoners being brutalized by attack dogs, stun guns and tasers, toxic chemicals, and restraint chairs.
(http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm)

And the recent report submitted by the US Human Rights Network to the UN Committee Against Torture regarding police brutality in the US makes clear that torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment begins well before trial or conviction.

Article 16.
(3) The family* is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Prisons hurt families by splitting up loved ones and removing income-earners and nurturers. This assault is in violation of protections that families are entitled to. An audio compilation entitled “The We That Sets Us Free” put out by Justice Now, an organization that works with women in prison, notes that “prisons destroy the right to family of people of color and poor people of all races”(www.jnow.org). *SHaRC affirms that all kinds of families are affected by the prison system.

Article 21.
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

In all but three states, people convicted of felony offenses have their right to vote taken away, either temporarily or permanently. In Massachusetts, people with felony convictions are barred from voting while serving their prison sentences; they are rarely informed of the return of these rights upon their release. This disenfranchisement denies a person his or her suffrage rights and violates Article 21 (for more information see www.righttovote.org).

Article 23.
(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Work conditions outside of prisons are unfavorable for too many people. As corporations moved factories overseas, prisons were built to deal with the unemployed and underemployed. Now corporations are being encouraged to use prsoner labor, which is even cheaper and subject to far less oversight. Historian Manning Marable discusses the problems facing communities of color, noting that “mass unemployment, mass incarceration, and mass disenfranchisement” feed and accelerate each other creating more dispossession and poverty (http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=6034). This lack of work with favorable conditions and compensation outside prison, itself a violation of Article 23, contributes to people going to prison, where they face harsher violations of the right to work.

Work conditions in prisons are also not favorable and prisoners do not receive favorable remuneration. There are no minimum wage or overtime protections, and workers are not allowed to form or join unions for the protection of their rights and interests. Beverly Henry, a female prisoner in California describes being paid 55 cents an hour sewing American flags. (“Reclaiming the Red, White and Blue For All Americans” (http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0105-31.htm).

Upon reentry a prisoners' record creates insurmountable obstacles. Jobs held behind prison walls often become unavailable upon release. Background checks are a more frequent occurance for low-wage and human service work, thus disproportionately impacting poor people and women. In addition, the effect of a criminal record is more severe for people of color (Pager, D., 2003, The Mark of a Criminal Record, American Journal of Sociology).

Article 25.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

By incarcerating mothers, the primary nurturers and caregivers, prisons violate rights of mothers and children to special protection. According to the May 1994 issue report of Women's Economic Agenda Project, 90% of women in prison are single mothers (http://prisonactivist.org/women/women-in-prison.html). Incarceration of mothers, or anyone, for acts incited by conditions of poverty, in lieu of providing for basic human needs, is itself a violation of rights (http://www.stopchicopeejail.org/women_paper.html).

Article 26.
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

The US education system is inadequate for so many people of color and people living in poverty, and is one of the major reasons people end up in prison. As education budgets are cut, police, court and prison funding grows exponentially. New laws circumvent parental involvement while police and the courts are given legal authority to oversee youth and children. Positive family structures are actively destroyed by such laws and result in unnecessary and senseless involvement of children, youth and parents in the criminal justice system. Garrett Albert Duncan argues that “urban pedagogies effectively serve an economic function: to channel young people of color in the US into the prison system.” (“Urban Pedagogies and the Celling of Adolescents of Color” in Critical Resistance to the Prison Industrial Complex, www.criticalresistance.org).
Likewise, educational programs in prisons have been severely cut, in violation of Article 26. David Matlin notes in Prisons: Inside the New America, “In August of 1994, President Clinton’s Crime Bill destroyed the monies designated on a nation-wide basis for all Prison Education programs.” Without job-training or education, people incarcerated face immense difficulty in obtaining education or finding employment and housing upon release. Given that poverty and homeless are also major indicators of who goes to jail or prison it should come as no surprise that many people often end up back in prison.

In order to protect human rights, we must end the system of racism, violence, and exploitation, a system where prisons play a major role. We need alternatives to warehousing people of color and people struggling with poverty and addiction. Instead of investing money in more prisons, money should be invested in communities for them to solve their own problems, ending the conditions that send people to prison.

An Index of Texas Tough

Compiled by Robert Perkins, Professor at University of Hawaii

Minimum number of Texas residents under criminal justice supervision: 740,905
Population of Washington D.C.: 571,641
Estimated number of non-violent offenders imprisoned in Texas: 89,400
Total prison population (both violent and non) of the U K., the most incarcerated country in Europe: 82,241
Number of Texas inmates who leave prison and return to their communities each year: 65,169
Estimated number who will return to prison within three years: 23,070
Number of state prisons built in Texas between 1980 and 2004: 94
Total number of university campuses in Texas: 94
Total number of state prisons in Texas (not counting jails, federal lockups, and juvenile facilities): 114
Incarceration rate in Texas (inmates per 100,000): 704
Incarceration rate in the People's Republic of China and the Islamic Republic of Iran, respectively: 117, 226
Percent increase in Texas's prison population between 1980 and 2004: 566
Percent increase in Texas corrections spending between 1980 and 2004: 1,600
Ratio of growth in Texas corrections to higher education spending between 1980 and 2000: 7:1
Number of Texas black men added to the prison population vs. the college student population (1980-2000): 4:1
Estimated portion of black children in Texas with at least one parent in prison on any given night: 1 in 14
Estimated percent chance in 1950 that a black man born in Texas would go to prison during his lifetime: 3
Estimated percent chance in 1996 that a black man born in Texas will go to prison: 29
Approximate percentage of Texas's overall population that is non-white: 40
Approximate percentage of Texas's prison population that is non-white: 70
Rate at which blacks are incarcerated compared to whites in Texas: 7 to 1
Total number of women prisoners in Texas: 14,031
Total prison population (women and men) of Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Finland combined: 10,800
Minimum number of Texas women subject to lifetime ban on food stamps because of a drug conviction: 4,700
Estimated number of Texans imprisoned for marijuana possession alone: 3,000
Rank of Texas's spending on indigent criminal defense among fifty states: 50
Rank of Texas.in number of juveniles incarcerated in adult prisons: 1
Rank of Texas in number of prisoners held in supermax control units: 1
Rank of Texas in number of inmates shipped to private for-profit prisons: 1
Rank of Texas in number of inmates sexually assaulted in prison (in both absolute and per capita terms): 1
Rank of Texas in executions since 1977: 1
Rank of Texas in executing juveniles and mentally retarded inmates before recent Supreme Court prohibitions: 1
Number of exonerating DNA tests ignored by Texas's highest court in upholding Roy Criner's rape conviction: 2
Number of times the Supreme Court rebuked Texas's highest court for defiantly ignoring its rulings in 2004: 3
Most recent year in which a federal judge ruled Texas prisons "unconstitutional...malicious and sadistic": 1999
Percent drop in Texas crime rate following a 139% increase in the prison population (1991-2001): 34
Percent drop in New York crime rate following an 11% increase in the prison population (1991-2001): 53
Estimated percentage of Texas prisoners with a substance abuse problem: 85
Number of prison substance abuse counselors laid off in, 2003: 100

The Most Relevant Stance

by Kenneth Haramia Foster

The death row walk is undoubtly one of extreme complexities. The struggles with life, torture, despair, hope, death etc. are ones that can be put in no simple words. Each of us as unique beings will deal with these things in different ways and because of our unique essences and beliefs there's just no way that another man can instruct the other in exactly how to walk their path. However, it is my hopes that as ones who face a common fate. and go through common things, we can listen to each others experiences, especially when they may lead to the greater good.

I came to the question – do we humanize the death penalty? Have we sat by so thoroughly inactive that we inadvertently promoted this process? This comes to mind when Texas dearth row inmate Tony Egbuna Ford launched a month long protest against his execution date. Brother Ford decided to non-violently protest his execution to make a statement to society that he was not ok with the death process he was going through.

How many have done this? In Texas, 4 men have physically fought before their executions; Desmond Jennings, Ponchai Wilkerson, Emmerson Rudd, and Shaka Sankofa. Todd Willingham made them drag him. This is 5 out of 300-something executions. What this means is that 300-something men walked to their murders – the majority having elaborate death feasts (that which probably won't even digest) before their executions. I asked myself; what message does this send to society'? The conclusion I came to was; I'm okay with this.

This statement creates controversy as many feel their manhood is being questioned. Well, it is not. What is being questioned is our wide range vision towards this capital punishment process. It is my wholehearted opinion that no death row inmate should walk to their execution. I passionately express that to those inmates who condemn the death penalty (the reality is that all death row inmates do not = he that to your surprise), and get out there and launch campaigns to save their lives, If we can do that in the outside world, we can do that on the inside. I believe it's our duty to make this statement – to burn this into the psyches of our captors, other inmates, the system and the media. As one says "the death penalty is wrong", we should stand on that until the end.
I know this is a sensitive time (facing a date) and one may not he willing to sacrifice like Brother Ford. Due to his protest the administration took his property, showers, recreation, and suspended his visits. They didn't take his spirit or dignity though. and for those of us standing with him, we are going through the same restrictions, yet we are not broken either. Tony had prepared for all this saying his goodbyes a month ahead of time and dedicated his last month to the struggle. What courage and dedication! Many won't do this, but that's not a total loss. When those people come to walk you to that death chamber, just refuse to participate. What are they doing to do? Write you a case? You don't have to physically tight. If media comes to see you, tell them what you will do. Let the world know that "I'm not participating in my own murder!" What do all of you think society would feel seeing hundreds of men and women doing this? I think it would he very provoking. It's almost 3,600 death row inmates nationwide, but how often does this happen?

Some will try to manipulate you and say "a real man would walk head high". This is nothing to he proud of. It's an abomination. Some will say "what's the use, you're going to die anyway". The purpose is to expose this to the world. Since 1976. there have been over 1.000 executions. There could have been hundreds of statements saying "I'm not ok with this", and that has nothing to do with being at peace or remorseful -- that is if you're guilty or wrong for your crime. One protest does not contradict the other.

In my eyes I see this as the final statement against this death penalty. If you're a Christian and believe in non-violence, lay it down and pray out loud about the blood on these guards' hands. If you're a Buddhist, speak about their Karma. If you're a Muslim, remember your code of righteous Jihad. All of the Prophets were warriors.

Our lives have been changed by this process. Our families crushed. We need to help end this process so that the cycle of pain ceases. This one way we can play a role. This is one way we can allow the barbaric nature of the system be seen. I appeal to your conscience and principles. As politicians seek to further oppress us we have to step it up a notch to end this death penalty. I do believe that the above movement is one long overdue. I hope that you'll deeply consider it.

In Spirit, Strength and Struggle,

Kenneth Haramia Foster
#999232
Polunsky Unit – Death Row
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston TX 77351 USA

(Note: When Tony Ford launched his protest in November a group of comrades [known as DRIVE: Death Row Inner-Communalist Vanguard Engagement. See www.drivemovement.org] simultaneously started a non-violent protest against death row and its decaying conditions. The protest is still active. Tony Ford received an indefinite stay and since then several others protested their execution: Shannon Thomas, Marion Dudleto, Tommie Hughes and Kevin Kinoy).

Death Row Walk

The foregoing essay was an unsolicited submission sent to 4strugglemag. We get a good number of articles in this way and they are often insightful. Haramia's piece has given me many hours of thought.

As a socialist and Human Rights worker I have consistently opposed the death penalty. As a long held prisoner, part of the community of political prisoners, the reality of government repression, including executions by the state, has been a part

of my life. Since I've been a soldier for the people or a prisoner for most of my days, I've had my share of intense and horrible experiences, but the idea of death row and the U.S. government methodically killing prisoners leaves me with an eerie hollow feeling. How men and women on death row should conduct themselves as the state does its ritualistic, almost fetishistic process of legal murder, is not something I would presume to dictate. But I think the issue is important and I certainly support resistance by the people on death row. This magazine will welcome and publish further thoughts, especially from people directly effected, but others also, about death row.

FREEDOM IS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE!
Jaan Laaman, editor

Jail Greens: US Government's Priority is to put Environmental Activists Away for Life

After the attacks of 9/11, the US federal government has been targeting communities of dissent under the guise of a "War on Terror." Immigrant communities, anti-war organizers, and now environmentalists are facing widespread sweeps of arrests, mandatory minimums in sentencing, abuses of grand juries, specially targeted legislation, and even paid agents provocateurs. This has activists accusing the government of "Green Scare" tactics harkening back to the McCarthy era of repression against accused communists in the 1940's and 50's known as the Red Scare.

In December, 2005, seven individuals in four states were arrested, accused of seven unsolved acts of property destruction between 1996 and 2001, some of whose statute of limitations were about to expire. Most of these incidents were claimed by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) or Earth Liberation Front (ELF). Bill Rodgers, one of those arrested, died in custody. Four indictees remain in whereabouts unknown, and four others have since been arrested bringing the number of arrested and indicted to thirteen (and may still grow) in what the FBI has called "Operation Backfire." The only evidence the government has shown they have is from one cooperating witness, Jacob Ferguson, a heroin-addicted self-professed serial arsonist. Despite this flimsy evidence, those charged face
sentences up to life in prison with no chance of parole!

The US government has said that the ELF and ALF are the the largest domestic terror threats in the United States. Yet the charges against the indictees are not terrorist charges, but charges of arson and conspiracy, some of which carry mandatory minimums. Mandatory minimums give the judge no flexibility in sentencing and the "use of a destructive device" charge that many of the accused are facing carry a mandatory minimum of 30 years for one, life for two. The extremity of the sentences have caused all but four of the defendants to become cooperating witnesses for federal prosecutors in attempts of pleading for leniency. Daniel McGowan is one of the four who are not cooperating and he is currently facing two of the "use of destructive device" charges.

Daniel McGowan is a social justice and environmental activist who is also a graduate student earning his master's degree in acupuncture and works at a nonprofit called WomensLaw.org that provides legal resources for victims of domestic violence. Now he is currently on house arrest as he awaits his trial which is set, as with all other defendants, for October 31, 2006, though this date may be easily pushed back indeterminately. He is accused of an incident at a poplar farm that grows genetically modified trees and one at a lumber company that clearcuts forests in the Pacific Northwest. His charges include two of the destructive device charges (one for each incident), charges of conspiracy, and an arson charge for each separate truck or building that burned. If convicted of all charges, Daniel would face a minimum of life, and a maximum of life plus 335 years.

The 83 page, 65 count indictment that charges Daniel and the other defendants in Operation Backfire was the result of a grand jury hearing. A grand jury hears evidence only from the prosecutor and determines if there is enough evidence to indict an individual for a crime. Those subpoenaed are not allowed to have counsel present during the hearing, and are, unlike a trial jury, not screened for bias. Grand juries date back to colonial days when they were used as a buffer between defendants and the King's prosecutors - a type of civilian oversight that did not allow the prosecutor to indict people willy-nilly. Grand juries do not exist in Australia, the UK abandoned them in the 1930's, New Zealand in the 60's,
and Canada followed suit in the 70's. Less than half the United States
use grand juries, but those who still do do not use them as a check-and-balance as intended, but as a tool for the prosecutor to indict someone with flimsy or no evidence (e.g., Operation Backfire), or to simply harass individuals by subpoenaing them to a grand jury as in the case of Jeff Hogg.

Jeff Hogg was called to a grand jury on May 18, 2006 to respond to questions from the prosecutor about arsons that happened in the Pacific Northwest years ago. It is quite likely that the subject of this grand jury were incidents covered by the Operation Backfire investigation which would be yet another abuse of the grand jury which can only be used to ground an indictment, not gather intelligence for a current case. The procedure of Jeff's grand jury testimony is a textbook example of how grand juries are used against targeted communities.

The prosecutor posed questions to Jeff to which he pled the 5th Amendment which protects him from incriminating himself. At that point, the prosecutor granted him immunity which legally protects one from one's own testimony, but does not protect one from being indicted on the crimes being discussed. It is a precarious position, but immunity compels one to answer questions posed by the prosecutor. So if one still refuses to cooperate, as did Jeff, they can be brought before a judge and be held for contempt of court until the grand jury expires. Jeff, a nursing student and caretaker for autistic adults has been jailed and could be detained until September 30th. His contempt hearing, which is by law open to the public, was held in closed quarters with even lawyers (other than Jeff's
counsel) barred from entering.

No one seems to know how many people have currently been subpoenaed, nor how many grand jury sessions are currently open, but it is known at this time that Craig Rosebraugh, former spokesperson for the ELF, has been subpoenaed to a grand jury for his eighth time. Knowing his history of refusing to testify before grand juries, it seems clear that the government is harassing and repressing individuals from the environmental movement, perhaps because of the success of certain campaigns within the movement.

When a movement thrives despite draconian measures taken against it, the government and private interests push for special legislation that targets that movement. One such piece of legislation is the "Animal Enterprise Protection Act" which may soon become the "Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act." This loosely written act defines any action that impedes or hinders the normal operation of an animal enterprise (e.g., fur farms, vivisection laboratories) causing economic damage over $10,000 as domestic terrorism.

The SHAC 7, moderators of a website campaigning against Huntington Life Sciences (HLS) were recently convicted under the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, though the individuals were not accused of directly participating in any illegal action.

The history of Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty (SHAC) is an activist success story that has brought a corporation to the brink of collapse. HLS is the world's largest contract animal testing corporation, conducting experiments on dogs, rabbits, monkeys, and other animals involving household cleaners, pesticides, and drugs. SHAC pressured not only HLS, but their clients and service providers to drop their accounts through a diversity of nonviolent civil disobedience and direct action tactics.

Over 200 clients, shareholders, insurance brokers, banks, and other financial institutions who had worked with HLS in the past vowed never to deal with them again. SHAC claims that HLS is $89 million in debt and there are no banks or insurance companies that will take them as clients.

The SHAC 7's website listed companies and individuals with ties to HLS and reported actions taken against them. When the six members of the SHAC 7 (charges against one individual were dropped) were in court, the prosecutor claimed that their running of a website put them in a larger conspiracy with underground activists who were doing illegal actions against companies with ties to HLS. If the actions of an underground movement aid an aboveground campaign, the logic here goes, then the campaign's organizers should be held responsible for the actions. In the end, the six were convicted of conspiracy to violate the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, plus counts of interstate stalking via the internet. They await sentencing which is scheduled for September 12, 2006, some people facing up to eleven years in federal prison.

Sometimes, people are more talk than action, so the federal government uses paid plants to instigate actions as in the case of "Anna" who posed as a medic at demonstrations and went to convergences across the nation to gather intelligence about "anarchist activities." At the 2005 Philadelphia Bio-Democracy protests, "Anna" recruited three people to engage in eco-sabotage activities. Now, Eric McDavid and two other defendants now cooperating have been arrested and charged for conspiracy.

The three never actually engaged in the activities and "Anna," who was paid $75,000 plus expenses over two years rented a cabin, paid for and procured supposed bomb-making supplies, and scouted potential targets.

Eric has been denied bail and has been kept in solitary confinement at a Sacramento jail since his arrest in January. He faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted.

This is not the first time a paid agent provocateur was used against the environmental movement. In the late 1980's, a paid informant became Peg Millet's lover who drove her and one of her friends to topple a support tower allegedly as a test run for an action at Palo Verde, a nuclear power plant 50 miles west of Phoenix. Federal agents were waiting for them and Peg and others received three years in prison. Dave Forman, one of the founders of Earth First!, was also arrested and accused of funding the three, but he claims that federal agents coerced him into making a $100 donation and that he had no knowledge for what the money was being used.

He was found guilty and ordered to pay a fine.

The War on Terror clearly has misplaced priorities. Supporting the current green scare indictees and others currently serving time like Jeff "Free" Luers (who received over 22 years for damaging 3 SUVs that were later restored and sold) is not just an alienated gesture of solidarity, but a vital strengthening of communities in struggle that only together can challenge an escalating repression. Tactics of divide and conquer between radical and moderate elements and between different but sympathetic movements worked to disempower the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. If we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat it.

Daniel McGowan - www.SupportDaniel.org
Jeff Hogg - www.GreenScare.org/JeffHogg.html
SHAC 7 - www.SHAC7.com
Eric McDavid - www.SupportEric.org
Jeff "Free" Luers - www.FreeFreeNow.org
Green Scare - www.GreenScare.org

Review of Igniting A Revolution: Voices in Defense of the Earth

by Sara Falconer

Think environmentalists seem flaky? Wondering if “eco-terrorist” is an oxymoron? The newest release from AK Press is an essential primer for the curious and veteran organizers alike, challenging misconceptions and exploring many issues surrounding revolutionary environmentalism.

Igniting A Revolution: Voices in Defense of the Earth, edited by Steven Best and Anthony J. Nocella, II, is a lengthy collection of essays and poetry from voices on both sides of the prison walls: John Zerzan, Fred Hampton, Jr., Jeffrey “Free Luers,” Ashanti Alston, Sara Olson and many more. Ample space is devoted to history, spirituality, primitivism, repression and tactical debates, from a range of diverse and sometimes conflicting perspectives.

The first section in particular stands in stark opposition to any notion that environmentalists are wishy-washy. Several well-researched and well-argued pieces document the development of radical environmentalism and the birth of the Earth Liberation Front.

In addition to academic analysis, there are personal accounts of experiences from eco-warriors, and at times these present an overly romantic and uncritical view of a controversial movement. Still, the passion and dedication of these activists is quite compelling. Even the primitivist perspectives, which I personally find less than convincing, are an interesting read.

Perhaps most fruitful is the final section, “Social Movements and Alliance Politics,” which situates revolutionary environmentalism in the context of feminism and anti-racist organizing. And this is a primary strength of this carefully thought-out book: the attempt to unite the struggles of eco-warriors with larger movements for social justice. These connections are vitally important now, as environmental activists face COINTELPRO-style repression from the U.S. government.

No matter what your level of engagement with environmentalism or radical tactics, Igniting A Revolution will provide plenty of food for thought, from Marilyn Buck’s visceral, jarring poetry to Ann Hansen’s thoughtful commentary on direct action. You’ll be moved… but will you be moved to act?

Continuum

by Marilyn Buck

stocks and bonds tied tight public dunkings and drownings
massacres and land grabs
Indian scalps Vietnamese ears on belts posed in
front of tiger cages
shackles and manacles
whips across African backs
chained in darkness below decks boiled in oil tendons cut
for fleeing from the terror
genitals ripped lynchings rape sanctioned under law children sold further South collective punishment
solitary confinement
food mixed with piss
pushed through metal door slots
four-pointed bodies on steel slabs paraded naked, testicles twisted
only urine to drink are you thirsty yet?
electrified cattle prods
alligator clips on eyelids
on vaginal lips
restraint chairs strung up by arms isolated
in the dark in the light
no sleep deprived of diurnal rhythm humiliated, beaten bloodied accidental death

forced to tell a story constructed by the captors
the secrets behind the American dream democracy behind steel-bolted

doors. Inquisition never sleeps its eyes probe with laser
beams of national security
and manifest destiny

Marilyn Buck
#00482-285 / Unit A
5701 8th St. Camp Parks
Dublin, CA 94568 USA

Black August

Black August: A Celebration of Freedom Fighters

by Doc Holiday

BLACK AUGUST - CONCEPT AND PROGRAM

The month of August gained special significance and importance in the Black Liberation Movement beginning with a courageous attempt by Jonathan Jackson to demand the freedom of political prisoners, which the Soledad Brothers' case was the center of attention. On August 7, 1970, Jonathan Jackson, William Christmas, James McClain, and Ruchell Magee were gunned down at the Marin County California Courthouse that attempt for freedom. Ruchell Magee remains the sole survivor of that bid for liberation, he also remains a POW in the California prison system doing life. Though this rebellion was put down by gory pigs and their agents, it was internalized within the hearts and minds of the people on the outside in the larger prison as well as those in the concentration camps (prisons), internalized in the same fashion as we honor other heroic African Freedom Fighters, who sacrificed their lives for the people and their liberation.

On August 21, 1971, almost exactly a year following the slave rebellion at Marin County Courthouse, George L. Jackson (older brother of Jonathan Jackson as well as one of the Soledad Brothers) whose freedom was the primary demand of the Marin rebellion, was assassinated at/San Quentin prison in an alleged escape put forth by prison administration and the state to cover its conspiracy. Comrade 'George Jackson was a highly respected and influential leader in the Revolutionary Prison Movement. Jackson was also very popular beyond prison, not only because he was a Soledad Brother, but also because of the book he authored appropriately entitled "Soledad Brother." This book not only revealed to the public the inhumane and degrading conditions in prison, he more importantly, correctly pointed to the real cause of those effects in prison as well as in society, a decadent capitalist system that breeds off racism and oppression.

On August 1, 1978, brother Jeffery "Khatari" Gualden, a Black Freedom Fighter and POW, captured within the walls of San Quentin was a victim of assassination by capitalist-corporate medical politics. Khatari was another popular and influential leader in the Revolutionary Prison Movement.

An important note must be added here and that is, the Black August Concept and Movement that it is part of and helping to build is not limited to our sisters and brothers that are currently captured in the various prison kamps throughout California. Yet without a doubt it is inclusive of these sisters and brothers and moving toward a better understanding of the nature and relationship of prison to oppressed and colonized people.

So it should be clearly understood that Black August is a reflection and commemoration of history; of those heroic partisans and leaders that realistically made it possible for us to survive and advance to our present level of liberation struggle. People such as: Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Gabril Prosser, Frederick Douglas, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Paul Roberson, Rosa ?arks, M.L. King, Malcolm X, and numerous others in our more contemporary period. It must be further clarified that when we speak of "culture development," we are not advocating Cultural Nationalism an or merely talking about adopting African names, jewelry, dashikis, e c. Our primary interest lies not only in where we came from, but the nature of "WHY" we were forcefully brought here, understanding the character of "CONTINUOUS" struggle with the recognition that it is a protracted struggle and developing the necessary lifestyles to guarantee its success.

TENETS OF THE BLACK AUGUST PROGRAM

1.) A fast which historically has been used as an expression of personal commitment and resistance. Hence, from sunrise until evening meal we will abstain from eating.

2.) We abstain from consuming any type of intoxicants for the entire month of August. The necessity for this should be self-evident for all serious participants of Black August.

3.) We limit our selection of television and radio to educational programs, i.e. news, documentaries and cultural programs, etc.

4.) During BA we emphasize political and cultural studies for individuals involved in BA. Participants in BA should pair off with someone else you know to study and share knowledge of African affairs.

5.) As an outward expression of BA we wear a Black arm band on the left arm or wrist as a tribute to those Africans who have died as a result of their sacrifice for African Liberation. The arm band can be worn either on the inside or outside of your clothing.

Black August is a revolutionary concept. Therefore, all revolutionaries, nationalists and others who are committed to ending oppression should actively participate in Black August. Such participation not only begins to build the bridges of international solidarity, but it is through such solidarity that we strengthen ourselves to struggle for victory.

James "Doc" Holiday
86555-012
P.O. Box 1000
Marion, IL 62959 USA

BLA

by Nuh Washington

Black

is a political condition,
a state of oppression and consciousness a nation seeking to become,
A people who hope.

Liberation

is freedom from oppression
freedom to define, to determine one's destiny free from despair
A slave to hope.

Army

is a politically armed unit to defend and preserve
after it achieves
Liberation for those who hope.

Nuh Washington, New African POW
In Memorium: Feb.28, 1941 - April 28, 2000

BLA Warriors

Kevin (Rashid) Johnson #185492
Red Onion State Prison
P.O. Box 1900
Pound VA 24279 USA

Check out Rashid's new site! Buy prints and t-shirts featuring his amazing art, and help support grassroots organizing: www.massartillery.com.

Could You Imagine

by Kenneth Lee Broussard

Could you imagine losing everything you love in the blink of an eye
And not knowing from one second to the next whether you will live or die? Could you imagine being thrown into the hole of a ship and stacked
up like a cord of wood,
Knowing that your captor has intentions and that none of them are good? Could you imagine?
Could you imagine being chained to that ships floor for months at a
time just barely alive,
And being given enough food for a rat to survive?
Could you imagine?
Could you imagine having the courage to face man eating sharks and
die in a watery grave,
Rather than spend your life being someone else’s slave?
Could you imagine?
Could you imagine someone speaking a language you don't understand no matter how hard you try,
Then being beaten by that same person because you don't reply?
Could you imagine?
Could, you imagine someone’s idea of fun is getting a rope and saying "let's hang another one"?
Could you imagine?
Could you imagine being hated because your skin is dark as night
and being systematically slaughtered with no end in sight?
It pains my soul and it's a crying shame that all I can do is imagine, But best believe I feel my ancestors pain.

Kenneth Lee Broussard #894395
Michael Unit
P.O. Box 4500
Tennessee Colony, TX 75886 USA

The Struggle Continues...

Solidarity with Palestine

The following are statements from North American political prisoners in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners. They were read at a May 2006 event in Montreal as part of Sumoud’s (http://sumoud.tao.ca) annual speaking tour.

In the wake of Israel’s brutal assault on the people of Lebanon and Palestine, we must continue to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters struggling internationally. Tadamon!, which means “solidarity” in Arabic, is a Montreal-based collective of media activists and social justice organizers dedicated to this very purpose. Visit http://tadamon.resist.ca for daily updates from Beirut, and to learn how you can participate in local demonstrations.

From Russell “Maroon” Shoats:

From a Black political prisoner in the United States of America, to my comrades – the Palestinian political prisoners – our struggles are long and filled with pain, but we will be free!

From Jalil Abdul Muntaqim:

BISMILLAH IR RAHMAN NIR RAHEEM:

"And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers," Sura 3/Ayat 85

As Salaam Alaikum:
Inshallah, this statement will find all of you in the best of Allah (SWT) health and mercy. I wish to extend my solidarity and support for the political prisoners and detainees in the West Bank, Gaza and throughout the occupied territory of Palestine.

I am a former member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army who has been in prison since August 28, 1971, when I was first captured at the age of nineteen. I was accused and convicted of engaging in underground activities against the then President Richard Nixon government, opposing racism and imperialism. I have always stood in support of the Palestinian people to be self-governed and to establish an independent sovereign nation. As the founder of the Jericho Amnesty Movement, I have always equated Zionism as a racist apartheid system supported by U.S. imperialism. Therefore, the task for those of us who understand the extent of U.S. support of Zionism is to provide our support to those who suffers under such racist oppression.

However, the greatest solidarity we can extend is to build and strengthen the struggle here opposing white supremacy and U.S. imperialism. The best support I can provide Palestine is to continue to contribute to the struggle opposing national oppression in this country. The parallels between our peoples' struggle are numerous, just as opposition to a sovereign Palestine is the same opposition to a free and independent Black nation.

Inshallah, this message of solidarity will be accepted in the spirit of a Muslim and political prisoner, who after 34 years of imprisonment, continues to seek the means to contribute to the overall struggle opposing U.S. imperialism and its Zionist cohorts.

Mas Salaam.

From Rene Gonzalez Sehwerert (of the Cuban 5)

Dear friends:
From within the walls of our cells, scattered throughout the geography of the empire that punishes us for fighting terrorism, the five of us, proud and unrepentant Cuban revolutionaries, extend our embrace of support and solidarity to our Palestinian brothers.

The unspeakable crime being committed against the Palestinian people, in the name of greed and Capitalism, is a shame imposed on humanity as a whole by an establishment for which any colonial adventure, no matter how brutal and criminal, has always been deserving of support and complicity.

Among the oppressed brothers from Palestine, the political prisoners carry a heavy burden. Out of the world scrutiny, ignored by an accomplice, corporate media, which presents the Holocaust now being repeated in the Middle East as a civilizing enterprise; the Palestinian prisoners have to face the most infamous abuses on their own, resorting only to the strength of their courage and the historical righteousness of their cause.

If it wasn't enough, Palestinian children are special targets for repression. Terrorizing the future seems to be a rational thing to do for those who, by the arbitrary abuse of their power, don't seem to notice that they are denying, to all of humanity, even the possibility of a future. Reduced to the dehumanizing notion of "collateral damages" or hidden from us on the Zionist dungeons, the Palestinian children are a living indictment against the world's silence and indifference.

Let us not be part of such indifference. The Palestinian people deserve to develop in peace and justice. The Palestinian prisoners deserve our support and solidarity. The Palestinian children deserve to be nurtured, loved and care for in a peaceful, sovereign homeland.

We don't have the right to rest until the Palestinian people, their political prisoners and their children, have achieved their right share of peace and justice!

From Janet, Debbie and Janine Africa (of the MOVE 9):

Salute and solidarity to all our strong, loyal, committed revolutionary sisters and brothers in Palestine.

The committed example that you continue to set in your country is being felt by all of us here in the USA too. The Move Organization is generating a united, revolutionary vibration to you and all political prisoners around the world through our unending fight for freedom and justice. We are linked together as one to confront and expose the demon intimidation tactics the oppressor uses to beat down and kill off the fighting spirit in all freedom fighters. We must keep fighting back, no matter what or how things may seem. We are obligated to show others the urgent need for change and guide them, in the direction of revolution. We must never let ourselves be divided despite any so-call differences, because finally, we have the most important thing in common our fight against the enemy, the oppressor, the enslaver, this system, and any difference among us is secondary to that. What this system fears most is unity because they know unity is power. Power of the people is the key to bring this system to its knees.

We have committed our lives to revolution. Our men, women, children, our infants have lost their lives, they were murdered by this system. We know all of you have lost family, loved ones and comrades too. The Move 9 have been unjustly imprisoned for almost 30 years, we are innocent. Put despite our innocence, We've been beat jailed, and had family members murdered, not because we are guilty of any crime but because we stand up against this rotten, corrupt government and fight for what is right and because we expose these government officials, Judges and police for the diabolical monsters they are. We know all of you have suffered injustices there, the stories we've heard affect us personally and pushes us to fight harder, cause while we are located in different parts of the globe we understand and can relate to what you are going through, and we bond with you in this fight. Stay strong my brothers and sisters and Know that we will not let the lives of our family, your family, any freedom fighter be in vain. We will never stop fighting this system. The seed for this revolution is planted, and though we may not cross paths in our life time, our roots will be planted in the same soil. LONG LIVE ALL FREEDOM FIGHTERS LONG LIVE REVOLUTION!

From Ramon Labanino Salazar (of the Cuban 5):

"Indoblesables"

Vienen a pedirme que me rinda
Que traicione mi nacion y mis ideales
Hasta joyas y bellezas se me brinda
Y riqueza y dinero tendre a caudales.

Vienen a decirme que traicione
Que no hay razon para que batalle
Que cavente de amor y de emociones
Son los principios cual infertile valle
Tercos, insolentes, infames
No conocen la fidelidad a los ideales
Que prefiero morir combatiendoles
Que rico vivir entre infames.

Yo vivire y luchare entre los nuestros
Y la traicion se la deso a los cobardes.

"Invincibles"

They come to ask me to surrender
to betray my motherland and my ideals They promise jewels,
beauties and money I will have a lot.

They come to ask me to betray
They say there is no reason for me to battle that principles are like infertile valley without love and emotions to share.

STUBBORN, INSOLENT, INFAMOUS!

They don't know about loyalty to ideals that I rather die
fighting all my years than living among infamous.

I WILL LIVE AND FIGHT AMONG THE OURS (MY PEOPLE)
AND LET TREASON TO BE USED BY THE COWARDS.

I dedicate this poem to the Palestinian People, because your struggle is our struggle, and to all political prisoners all over the world, on behalf of the Cuban Five.

The struggle continues! We shall overcome!

Letter from Akili

Dear 4strugglemag folks...

I just finished the last issue of 4struggle, and it seems the printed version is growing by leaps and bounds.

The purpose of this quick note is to make a suggestion. I noticed a couple of the articles hit on a common dilemma we politicized prisoners of conscious seem to have. The main questions are how do we fit into the struggle to support PP/POWs? What should our role be? What's expected of us? Also, How do we settle and come to terms with the new contradictions living and growing up in these times present? What I mean is for us, the "hip hop generation," to use a catch phrase, the need for struggle or (better yet) the avenues for struggle have been somewhat buried under a mountain of illusory success, gold chains, big houses, endorsement deals worth millions of dollars, etc. etc. The hip hop culture as screwed as it is by big corporations is now the driving force of amerikan commerce, so of course it's the driving force of everything that goes with that: oppression, dope, capitalism, war, etc etc.

My question is, how would you feel about doing a hip hop issue, or section where we can juxtapose hip hop's role and our job as members of the hip hop generation and PPOC/POCs. You could set it off by asking 3 or so questions in the next issue. I would suggest something like:

1. How has hip hop influenced consciousness of the hip hop generation?
2. Does the Hip Hop Generation have a role in struggle today? What is it?
3. What should PPOC/POCs be doing, or how should we he using hip hop to bridge the gap and support PP/POWs?

That will give some of the brothers and sisters time to collect their thoughts and send in some articles, poems, etc. The point is that we are losing our true leadership. You cats aren't getting any younger, sitting in these hell holes and the system is constantly mouthing into new forms of keeping PP/POWs off the streets and out of the limelight.

For example here on the doc of the bay – they just implemented a system now where they've taken all the old solid cats like Hugo and others who've been struggling, fighting, and not bending, breaking, or cracking, for all those years under the worst conditions the state can offer, all while still educating the next generation like myself, and stuck them in 3 or 4 units away from the rest of the population in the SHU. So now you've got isolation, in isolation, in isolation. They've created a super SHU, within the SHU to deliberately keep the older guys away from the younger ones. No guidance. No leadership. No experience. So what do you think will happen – all we have to do is look at our communities for the answer! Chaos, petty criminals pretending to be leaders, etc. etc.

Not to mention the fact that the rallies, the world wide marches, the petitions to the UN...and all the asking for justice from an unjust system, government...isn't going to, hasn't been working by itself. Someone...a group of someone's have to begin to take up the mantle of responsibility just as the PP/POWs did for us, and address the need for liberation of all illegally held prisoners of war and political prisoners, with direct action. This is the type of direction the politicized prisoners of conscious and prisoners of conscious need to receive. This is the message hip hop must begin to send. I think a good place to start is with 4struggle, by opening up that dialogue...and a section on the role of hip hop and PPOC/POCs who are part of the hip hop generation will do that just fine.

Strength and continued courage,

Akili (Aron Castlin)
J-99402
PBSP
P.O. Box 7500
Crescent City, CA 95532 USA

Editor's note

4strugglemag welcomes and endorses Akili's suggestion. Political prisoners are a very small part of the overall 2 12 million prisoners in America today. We of course continue to stand for the revolutionary principles, morality and struggle our lives are dedicated to, and we will continue to contribute as we can.

There are thousands upon thousands of revolutionary minded prisoners, "Prisoners of Conscious and Political Prisoners of Conscious (POC, PPOC)" as Akili names them, within prisons across America today. The majority of these people are young men and women of color and they are and will be, the leaders, thinkers and actors in the coming wave of survival and liberation struggle.

The three questions Akili proposed are a good starting point for a wide discussion, for both prisoners and people outside. 4strugglemag will help facilitate this dialog by printing material we receive. This material can be a letter or essay, graphics, poetry or rhymes. We will reserve a section in the next issue (no. 8) to begin this discussion, and as it continues we can devote more space or an entire issue to this question.

Communicate to Educate-Educate to Liberate!

The Allied Resistance Network

The Allied Resistance Network is an organization of prisoners from across the United States working to develop a revolutionary mentality and movement within the prisons of this country. The Allied Resistance Network was formed in early 2005, with a call for a network of prisoner revolutionaries from comrades imprisoned in Missouri, Kansas, and Indiana. A year later, the network has affiliates and contributors active in prisons all across the country.

The network puts out a (near) monthly newsletter that is sent out for free to any prisoner that requests it. The newsletter usually runs several feature stories dealing with timely news and analysis of breaking events occurring both outside and inside the prisons. Poems, essays, and prisoner art also fill the pages of the newsletter. The newsletter accepts submissions that meet our mission statement from any prisoners, not just affiliates of the network.

Kansas Mutual Aid, an organization of "free world" prison abolitionists located in Lawrence, Kansas is responsible for printing and distributing the newsletter. You can write to them for subscriptions, to submit writings and art for the newsletter, or to request free literature about the struggle for social justice at:

Allied Resistance
c/o Kansas Mutual Aid PO Box 442438
Lawrence, KS 66044

You can also access information on the network on the internet at www.alliedresistance.org and you can e-mail Kansas Mutual Aid at kansasmutualaid@hotmail.com.

It is the hope of the Kansas Mutual Aid collective that control over the newsletter and the actions of the network is in the hands of the prisoners involved with the network, and not just those of us on the outside. We wish to help facilitate the creation of a space for prisoners to organize themselves and to provide the tools to do so.

We hope to continue to evolve the newsletter in the future, and look forward to hearing from any and all active or interested in our joint struggle for a free and just society.

4strugglemag recommends people, prisoners in particular, check out Allied Resistance (AR). Most of the writing is from revolutionary-minded social prisoners. Ongoing discussions on topics like reparations, the war, racism, revolutionary unity among Black, white, and Latino prisoners are usually insightful and very real. Political prisoners’ words can also be periodically found, but mostly AR is an important grassroots prisoners zine.

An Update and Personal Appeal from Jaan Laaman - Ohio 7 Political Prisoner

Dear 4strugglemag readers, friends and fellow peace, justice and revolutionary activists,

Allow me to update my legal situation from earlier this year. I am still in Walpole - Massachusetts state prison. As I explained before, I have been locked up for over 21 years now. While I expected to finish my state sentence in March, and then be taken to the federal system to begin a 53 year, sentence, Massachusetts "found" an additional 3 to 5 year sentence they claim I still must complete.
I am the last Ohio 7 person, with a release date, who is still in captivity. My Ohio 7 comrade Tom Manning is also still in prison, doing a life sentence without a real parole date.

Last year I discovered a possibility of reopening and challenging my Mass case. If I can overturn this, I would be overdue for release on federal parole. Of course any legal effort is a huge and uphill battle, particularly for political prisoners. This is a realistic% possibility though, and the first appeal I am even hopeful about as well as determined to win. I need good and committed legal repre-sentation to fight this appeal. Because of the war and present repressive climate in the country, I have to hire and assemble my own legal team. Just weeks ago, I lost my last chance to get a legal aid/state appointed and paid for appeal attorney. No government agency wants to assist me in gaining justice and freedom, especially if there is some real chance of my winning. My defense is totally in my hands and the hands of the people now.

Some months ago I established a Legal Freedom Fund and began raising funds for my fight for justice and freedom. Thankfully some people have stepped forward and supported me, especially family and close associates, but I am still in REAL need of at least many thousands of dollars more and I am asking for your help now.

This is the first time in my life I have tried to raise money for my own legal defense. I do admit, I feel awkward asking for your help like this, but it is so necessary. The only way I can launch and wage this legal battle is with your support now. My Freedom Fund is staffed by a few sincere volunteers and all proceeds go directly towards paying for defense fees and lawyers. This is a one time legal effort which will be resolved one way or the other in the next year or so. Of course my hope and intention is to overturn my case, prove my innocence and finally join my now 24 year old son and family and all of you outside again.
I need your help to do this now. Make checks out to: Jaan Laaman Legal Freedom Fund, and send them to-

Jaan Laaman Legal Freedom Fund
P.O. Box 681
East Boston, MA 02128

I am encouraging groups and organizations to hold fundraisers, parties or other events to support my fight for freedom. You can contact the Freedom Fund P.O. Box or me, to discuss such efforts.

Seriously consider helping me now, and thank you for your support.

FREEDOM IS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE!

Jaan Laaman (W87237)
P.O. Box 100
South Walpole, MA 02071

Mass Mobilization Thursday, October 5 - Drive Out the Bush Regime!

The Bush Regime Must be Stopped!

On Thursday, OCTOBER 5TH 2006: All day and into the night, across the country, we must decidedly break the paralysis that still grips too much of American political life.

Taking off work, taking off school, shutting down campuses and coming together in mass gatherings, we must let the country and the world know that:

---millions of us reject this illegitimate regime that is as criminal as it is dangerous to humanity & the existence of this planet.

---we refuse to grow accustomed to a political climate that is becoming everyday more frightening & reactionary.

We are what we've been waiting for.

Despite Bush's popularity ratings now running lower than Nixon's, majority opposition to the unjust Iraq war and popular support for Bush being censured or impeached, the political will of the people is being betrayed and finds no voice. We are told to put our hopes into what powerful interests dictate as "electable".

Ask yourself this: Where will this country and the world be, on the day after the elections of 2006? Will we be debating:

- What the minimum voltage level for the electrodes attached to prisoners' genitals is, in order to meet the definition of torture?
- Whether war on Iran will use nuclear weapons, or just white phosphorous bombs and conventional forces like in Iraq?
- Whether birth control should be outlawed in just a few states, or the whole country?
- Whether gay parents should have their children taken away immediately, or just be prevented from adopting in the future?

Will hopes and energies have been squandered again, leaving us further locked into politics that is cementing this situation in place for generations?

Or do we need a powerful movement that is not afraid to give voice to the peoples' will, to speak the truth, building toward and bursting out society-wide on
October 5th, that won't stop until the Bush regime is driven from power?

On October 5th we will make a breach in the walls being cemented all around us to say Enough! with mass political action that does not compromise with torture & unjust wars, that rejects bowing down to theocrats and the immorality of empire.

On October 5 join us in a day of honest, courageous resistance. What will you do to take responsibility for the future?

Change the course of history. This regime does not represent us and we will drive it out!

For more information and to contact World Can’t Wait:

worldcantwait.org
info@worldcantwait.org
866-973-4463
305 W. Broadway #185
New York, NY 10013 USA