## ## ### ## ## # # ### ### ### ### # # # # # # # ## # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ## ### # # # # # # ## # # # # # # # ### # # # # ### # ### ### THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT MIM Notes 84 January 1994 Electronic Edition * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Get MIM Notes 84 from the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM), and get the latest in Maoist news and analysis - put a revolutionary weapon in your hands. This issue covers Amerikan imperialism on the prowl. From the large-scale machinations of international capital to the violent repression of Mexican immigrants in the border areas and the violent expulsion and dispossession of the Black residents of San Francisco housing projects - the ugly business of exploitation rumbles on around the world. But this issue also bring major news of the international communist movement. The Communist Party of the Philippines has publicly announced that it is returning to the Maoist road, raising new hopes for leadership of the worldwide struggle for human liberation. MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the world's oppressed majority, and against the imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in the service of the people. Struggle with it and write for it. MIM Notes is available to subscribers of New York Transfer (write: nyt@blythe.org). Or get a subscription from MIM in e-mail or snail-mail form - $12/year for 12 issues. Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. (Send only cash or check made out to "ABS".) Send questions, responses or submissions to: mim@blythe.org. This issue includes: 1. NEW PEOPLE'S ARMY RETURNS TO MAOISM 2. MAO'S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATED AT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 3. FLIGHT ATTENDANTS STRIKE: MORE PIE 4. CLINTON GRABS FOR ASIAN PROFITS 5. PERUVIAN CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM A HOAX 6. MIM SELF-CRITICISM FOR NOVEMBER PERU ARTICLE 7. FIRE & WATER: GENEVA TOWERS MASSES AREN'T FOOLED 8. LETTERS TO MIM 9. LOCKING DOWN THE BERLIN WALL OF THE WEST 10. MIM TALKS TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ABOUT PERU 11. CIA IS THE BIGGEST COCAINE DEALER 12. LOOKING AHEAD TO THE NEXT WAR 13. THIRD WORLD IN THE FIRST WORLD 14. AMERIKA LEAVES ARISTIDE AND HAITI HANGING 15. PATRIA ROJA STILL FOR UNITED LEFT 16. MINE WORKERS TO WORK? 17. PALESTINIANS: JERUSALEM FIRST! 18. FILM REVIEW: FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE 19. UNDER LOCK & KEY * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - NEW PEOPLE'S ARMY RETURNS TO MAOISM In November, MIM received an invitation from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) to attend its 25th birthday party in the Netherlands. The following is part of the CPP's declaration accompanying the invitation: "The Communist Party of the Philippines will celebrate on December 26, 1993 the 25th anniversary of its reestablishment under the theoretical guidance of Marxism- Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought and on the basis of the long revolutionary experience and concrete circumstances of the Filipino proletariat and people... "The Party and the revolutionary mass movement steadily grew in strength in an all-round way from year to year, from 1968 to 1980. From 1980 to 1985, there was a rapid growth of strength because of the previous accumulated strength of the revolutionary forces and the rapid deterioration of the ruling system under the U.S.-Marcos ruling clique. But overlapping with the brilliant victories were serious errors of line, at first becoming conspicuous through serious damage inflicted on the Party and the revolutionary movement in the major island of Mindanao from 1984 to 1986 and then nationwide from 1985 to 1989. "At various levels of the Party, criticisms of militarism and insurrectionism started in 1988. By 1989, adjustments were initiated in order to correct imbalances in the deployment of personnel and resources in various fields of work. Towards the end of 1991, the entire Party and its Central Committee were ready to launch a comprehensive and fullscale rectification movement, especially because the full information on the disastrous results of 'Left' opportunism has been gathered and the 'Left' opportunists bitterly resisted the correction of their errors.. "The rectification movement was launched in early 1992 with the enthusiastic support of the Party cadres and members, with the exception of a handful of unremoulded petty bourgeois elements who had long practiced bureaucratism, commandism and, subsequently, factionalism and ultrademocracy." * * * NEW DOCUMENTS ALERT! "There must be a conscious and organized effort to build solidarity and cooperation among all the workers and peoples of the entire world in order to bring about the resurgence and advance of the world anti-imperialist movement. "To carry out the task more effectively than before, there must be an international system of aid and cooperation under working class leadership." - Jose Maria Sison, founder of the NPA and former chairperson of the Communist Party of the Philippines Subscribe to International Liberation: A Publication of the International Office of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines - published every two months. U.S. $21 for yearly subscription to Canada, USA or Europe Send cash to Liberation International, P.O. Box 19195, 3501 DD Utrecht, the Netherlands. Get the Theoretical and Political Journal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines. "Stand for Socialism against Modern Revisionism" April-June, 1992. "Reaffirm Our Basic Principles and Rectify Errors" Adopted by the 10th Plenum of the Central Committee, July 1992. The new issue for this month, 1993, is coming soon. Send $4 for the new issue and $4 for each back issue. Six different back issues available so far. Send cash or check to "ABS" to PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-3576 MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - MAO'S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATED AT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE On November 6 and 7, Maoists around the world gathered in the suburbs of Dusseldorf, Germany to celebrate Mao Zedong's 100th birthday. Led by the founder of the New People's Army (NPA) of the Philippines, the Germany conference was a big step forward for Maoism internationally. Throughout the conference, the Communist Party of the Philippines publicly re-emphasized its commitment to Maoism and its own rectification movement. Conference organizers united around Mao and the Cultural Revolution - and correctly pointed to the Cultural Revolution as Mao's most important contribution to the revolutionary experience of Marxism-Leninism. Because of the indissoluble link between Mao's theoretical contributions and those of Marx, Lenin and Stalin, we now refer to those contributions as "Maoism," rather than Mao Zedong Thought. The conference was also a forward step for the Marxist- Leninist Party Deutschland (MLPD), which did most of the practical work in connection with this massive event. MLPD comrades demonstrated a generous internationalist spirit and considerable willingness to consider divergent views within the Maoist camp. The Peruvian revolution, led by the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) has generated an international torrent of interest in genuine communism. In this context, the clear return of the NPA to the Maoist road has added more fuel to the fire. This context is favorable for the creation of new and genuine Maoist parties. The prestige of Comrade Jose Maria Sison and the NPA he founded on explicit Maoist principles 25 years ago was a major source of the unity of the conference participants. While in the past, the influence of imperialist country parties on communist parties in the oppressed semi-colonies has been a source of concern, it is only correct that the Communist Party of the Philippines now influence the very building of the Maoist forces in the imperialist countries. Progressive and revolutionary people in the imperialist countries can only extend their thanks to the Filipino people for temporarily lending some of their leaders to the very imperialist countries whose governments must be overthrown for the Filipino people to be free of imperialist subversion and war. MIM LINE UNPOPULAR When a MIM comrade proudly put forward our thesis on the white working class, the comrade was met with complete condemnation from the other participants - including the only real jeering at the conference. Yet MIM proceeds confidently, knowing that the oppressed masses of the Third World will smash imperialism with or without the help of the imperialist working class, and that genuine Maoists will accept this reality. Regardless of the wishes of the imperialist country labor aristocracies or their leaders who wish to use the exploited and superexploited majority of the world to prop up imperialism and the labor aristocracy's position in it, the masses will make history. The better elements in the international Maoist movement already recognize this implicitly by the esteem they accord Jose Maria Sison and the fairly direct role he plays in bringing together the imperialist country Maoists. The role of Jose Maria Sison and Third World exiles in the imperialist countries is only an inkling of the dictatorship of the oppressed nations over the oppressor nations to come. ARMED STRUGGLE DEBATED At the conference, some comrades were criticized for their apparent deviance from Maoism on the question of armed struggle in the First World. The comrades in question were criticized specifically for admonishing First World communists to engage in armed struggle now. MIM and others opposed this view and upheld Mao on the question. Mao said that the armed struggle should only begin in the First World when the bourgeoisie is truly helpless. When First World communists engage in armed struggle before the conditions exist for them to win, they invite only prison or death. The Mao birthday celebration in Germany was carefully organized to stress internationalism, all-sided opposition to oppression and the unity of Maoist forces. The role of the party as an organizational machine was especially evident. A direct role for youth was ensured, partly by a modern music and dance presentation, questions from youth to the speakers and short speeches by the youth to pepper the longer, stuffier presentations by the older participants. One of the oldest members received a standing ovation for recalling in a personal testimonial how in 1963 the Soviet- bloc revisionists attempted to squelch Chinese women at international women's conferences. Another interesting speaker was a worker from East Germany who personally recounted her experience of seeing through the revisionist rule there. Through the use of personal testimonials and experiences, the audience was prepared to more easily understand the realm of more theoretical discussion. Class consciousness walks on two legs - theory on the one hand, and facts or experience from others on the other. Notes: Send $6 cash or check payable to "ABS" for MIM Theory 5. This issue is on "Strategies and Tactics". It has a chapter devoted to armed struggle. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - FLIGHT ATTENDANTS STRIKE: LABOR ARISTOCRACY FIGHTS FOR MORE PIE by MC11 To see the November picket lines of striking Amerikan Airlines flight attendants or listen to the continuing blow- by-blow media coverage of the negotiations, you might get the impression that there is actually a substantive, material conflict between the overwhelmingly white union and the management of the world's largest airline. You would be wrong. The five-day Amerikan Airline strike, hailed as a victory for the Amerikan labor movement by liberals and Trotskyists alike, represents a process of give-and-take between allies. It may indeed turn out to be a "victory" for the union half of the partnership. The flight attendants may indeed get a better deal out of the state- governed arbitration. But for the majority of the world's workers, including Blacks and Latinos within the U.S. borders, it's a meaningless charade. Of course, such delicate redivisions of the capitalist pie go on all the time, with the U.S. owners of the means of production deciding to spend a little more or less buying off their white workers, whose per capita income comes to $22,372 a year. (That compares with a $13,378 per capita income for U.S. Blacks, and per capita incomes for Mexico, Haiti and Peru of $5,918, $933 and $2,622 , respectively).(1) This redivision of imperialist plunder is not class struggle. On Nov. 1, Amerikan Airlines implemented a new contract with an average 7.8% raise per year for flight attendants, or 35% over four years. With the pay raise, domestic Amerikan flight attendants are paid between $17,000 and $34,000 per year. Senior international flight attendants make more than $40,000.(2) Like the large majority of white workers in the United States, flight attendants are overpaid compared to the rest of the world. Take the 900,000 members of the United Auto Workers union, which recently concluded contract negotiations with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. Amerika's auto oligopoly agreed to give their workers - currently making $34 per hour in wages and benefits - a more than 6% raise in wages over the next three years, plus a 13% raise in pension benefits. Workers who are laid off will continue to get 95% of their salary.(3) And their salaries are worth even more because their cars, food, clothes, kitchen appliances and video game cartridges are subsidized by super-exploited Third World labor. MIM does not find the plight of Amerikan Airlines flight attendants particularly compelling. More importantly, we see attempts to characterize their demands and their organizing as progressive or useful to the working class as a whole to be dangerously misleading. At this stage, their loyalty lies ultimately with the capitalists and the Amerikan state that they control. A little strike does nothing to shake this fundamental alliance. If you want to make the lives of most of the world's workers any better, white union organizing is not the way to go about it. Sure, the work rules the flight attendants complain about, like being on call 24 hours a day, waiting in airports between flights without pay, weight and appearance requirements to keep their jobs, sound like a drag - if you consider them from a totally limited First World perspective. Try comparing it to picking fruit 20 hours a day at 50 cents an hour, as thousands of U.S. Latinos do, or laboring for free in Amerikan prisons as thousands of U.S. Blacks do, or working for dirt-cheap wages in Amerikan factories as countless Third World workers do every day. Being a white flight attendant starts to sound more like paradise. The flight attendants want more money and better working conditions for themselves. And that's about as radical as their demands get. In these final, ugly stages of capitalism, the labor aristocrats depend on the capitalists and vice versa, and they both know it. Perhaps that's why they both wanted state mediation of their so-called conflict. The union claimed victory when President Clinton intervened in the strike, asking Amerikan Airlines chairman Robert Crandall to enter mediation. But the New York Times subsequently reported that Crandall himself initiated the proposal for arbitration in a phone call to the White House.(4) In any case, it's clear that the state is an important third party in the white nation triumvirate. There are, of course, other views. It's always fun to check out the various cheerleading Trotskyist responses to white working class struggles. In stark opposition to MIM, Trotskyists hold to the belief that white workers are the key to revolution. The Militant was quick with the empty rhetoric: "This strike graphically demonstrates once again that it is the workers who run the industries, not the bosses."(5) Our favorite, though, is the Trotskyist Worker's League, which criticized union leadership for going into a binding arbitration process not likely to win them all they demand. "The bureaucratized trade unions, with their hundreds of thousands of lavishly-paid officials and billions in assets, represent social interests not only distinct, but directly opposed to those of the working class," said the League's International Workers Bulletin. "That the Amerikan Airlines strikers were so easily hoodwinked is a sign of the depth of the crisis of the labor movement."(7) False consciousness? MIM doesn't think so. They are too well-paid. They have bought too deeply into capitalist culture. Amerikan Airlines' flight attendants are simply not allies of the proletariat. Notes: 1. Human Development Report 1993, p. 135 2. New York Times 11/20/93 p. A6. 3. Los Angeles Times 10/25/93. 4. NYT 11/24/93. 5. The Militant 12/6/93, p.11. 7. The International Workers Bulletin 11/29/93 p. 9. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - CLINTON GRABS FOR ASIAN PROFITS by MC86 Armed with corporate Amerika's North American Free Trade Agreement, Clinton headed for Seattle on November 20, where he cajoled and threatened thirteen heads-of-state summoned from the shores of the Pacific Rim - the fastest growing source of super-profits in the world. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad boycotted the meeting. He fears that the United States - which controls 34.4% of the world's industrial economy(2) - is interested in preventing the smaller Pacific Rim capitalists from combining into trade blocs.(3) Japan, which controls 19.8% of the world's industrial economy,(2) went to the conference to protect its huge Pacific Rim corporate investments from being eaten by United States-affiliated multinationals. NAFTA formalizes Amerika's increasing expropriation of Mexico's industry, agriculture and banking system. The agreement insures the continued subsidy of Amerika's fat and filthy living standard by Mexican workers. The last time an Amerikan President invited a cabal of Asian leaders to cocktails was 1966 in Manila.(4) President Johnson told his gathering of lesser capitalists to get their guns behind him in Vietnam - or else. President Clinton, commander of 300 military facilities in the Pacific,(5) told APEC: "Lower your tariffs - or else." The reward for favoring the United States in bilateral trade relations is access to advanced technology, weapons systems and enjoyment of the North Amerikan consumer market. The punishment for maintaining high taxes on goods imported from Amerika will be the destabilization of Asian-Pacific markets as Amerikan-controlled commodities are dumped into the newly industrialized zones. The U.S. economy runs an even balance of trade accounts with Europe and a surplus with Latin America. It is in debt to the APEC economies to the tune of $80 billion. In 1993 the United States is slated to run an intolerable $20 billion trade deficit with China alone.(6) The U.S./Canada/Mexico axis needs to quickly rupture trade agreements blooming between Japan, China, southern Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei (APEC). Dollar-based financiers facing potential bankruptcy are working overtime to divide and conquer their competitors in Berlin, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo and Beijing. At stake is control of 40% of world market-share and the new means of production in the labor-extensive APEC zone. If China continues to transform into a capital-exporting imperialist power, a hard rain could fall under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. DEPENDENCY A TWO-WAY STREET The world's 35,000 multinationals directly employ only seven million out of the 4.16 billion Third World people from whom they draw daily tribute. First World corporations support a population of 1.22 billion people who receive 83% of the world's income. Twenty percent of the earth's population owns an annual group income 150 times greater than the income of the poorest 20%.(7) Two-thirds of imperialist-country workers pull down plump salaries for administering the extraction and sale of surplus value from starving, productive manufacturing and agricultural workers in the Third World.(8) Most of the remaining one-third earn fancy wages for assembling and packaging end-products of parts and raw materials extracted from the labor of the Third World proletariat.(9) The 1990 per capita Gross Domestic Product adjusted for purchasing power of the combined Japanese, North Amerikan and European populations is $14,400. In the United States it is $21,449! Compare this to $2,170 for non-imperialist country populations - most of whom never see one-tenth of this amount.(10) Inside the Third World there exists a Fourth World: the countries with a per capita purchasing power of $740.(11) These countries compose one third of the 173 nations recognized by imperialist statistics. These countries contain most of the 1.3 billion people who live in what the United Nations calls "absolute poverty," i.e. below-survival economies.(12) The international owners of constantly-merging capitals and their corporativized populations exist only to consume. Four-fifths of the world's people are forced to work themselves to death producing goods and raw materials for the privileged one-fifth. That is - provided they are not among the 17 million who die every year from curable maladies such as diarrhea and malaria. Or the 34,000 children who die every day from starvation(13) in a world where First Worlders live an average of twenty-five years longer than Third World proletarians.(14) Clinton and the APEC capitalists boast that increases in Third World production and First World consumption mutually benefit the international working classes. In contradiction to this lie: in relation to the First World, the real per capita GDP for the overall non-imperialist country masses fell by 2% over the last thirty years!(15) As a group, the super-exploited masses of South-east Asia receive 43% less value in exchange for the use of their labor-power than the already super-exploited masses of Latin America/Caribbean.(16) In the United Nation's 1993 ranking of "Human Development," indexing life expectancy, income and education, Mexico - life expectancy 69.7 years - ranks 53 in the total of 173 countries. Guinea - life expectancy 43.5 years - ranks last.(17) The logical solution to these discrepancies is not the creation of a few more jobs serving a dying imperialism. The solution is immediate termination of the bosses and full employment for the whole world. Capitalism has completely failed human development. It is utterly incapable of even approaching the economic and social accomplishments of the dictatorship of the proletariat in this century. As North Amerika, Japan and China compete for Pacific Rim super-profits: it will be the masses in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, Chile and Peru who suffer trade embargoes, naval blockades, military invasion - and even the puff of tactical nuclear weapons. To this end, the United States reigns supreme as the world's premier exporter of major conventional arms with a global market-share of 21.97%.(18) The monopoly groups continue to compete and collude with each other for dominance in the ongoing world war against the oppressed nations. Non-exploited First World salary- hounds egg on their own warlords because they know: "Creating a job for a factory worker in Seattle may first require creating six jobs in Jakarta."(19) BOTTOM OF THE NINTH It takes a baseball team of super-exploited Third World workers - laboring in a Yankee Stadium full of unemployed proletarians - to support one Amerikan settler in style. Fortunately, the bases are loaded and the Paper Tigers have two strikes against them. United States business relies on a direct foreign investment of $421 billion in the world economy; one-quarter in the Third World.(20) The extraordinary profit-generating capacity of this $105.7 billion sustains the circulation of the rest. As a parasite-economy, the United States sports the lowest percentage of exports (7%) and imports (9%) to its Gross National Product of any western industrialized country. It also has the lowest Gross Domestic Investment/Savings rates.(21) This slump indicates a concentration of economic activity in the consumption process - as opposed to the process of production. Wandering U.S. capital cannot re-capitalize itself on a domestic foundation of diminishing real assets. The jet- setting Amerikan bourgeoisie strives to own and control foreign means of production fueled and surrounded by starving masses who can only effectively combat imperialist anarchy with socialist organization.(22) The structurally enforced poverty and dependency of nations is but a prelude to universal independence. Three-hundred military installations will be easily overrun during protracted revolutionary world war waged by the ever-growing international proletariat for its own survival - using stockpiled weapons "Made in the USA." Notes: 1. Mexico, Australia's colony Papua New Guinea and Chile were granted invitations to next years meeting in Jakarta. 2. Human Development Report 1993, United Nations Development Programme, Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 202. U.S. contains 4.5 percent of world population. 3. NYT 11/21/93, p. Y11. 4. Ibid., p. Y10. 5. Asian Affairs October 1993, p. 341. 6. NYT 11/19/93, p. A7. 7. HDR 1993, pp. 11, 35, 37, 181. 8. Ibid., p. 42. 9. While services such as transportation do reproduce ("add") value, imperialist technology has reduced the critical mass of workers necessary to create the surplus- value vital to expanded reproduction in the face of ineluctably falling profit rates. Consequently, the ex- proletarians of the highly industrialized areas are reduced to "service" tasks extraneous to the process of production and, ironically, they must frenetically consume the world's wealth in hideous excess in order to maintain the necessary structural balance of sectorial commodity exchanges between the means of production and the means of consumption. Underlying the relative resilience of imperialist-capital's resistance to self-immolation is the constant accumulation of capitals in gendered society through the devaluation of the labor-power necessary to produce and reproduce the commodity: labor-power. 10. HDR 1993, pp. 171, 193. The ex-Soviet Union nations are omitted from these particular calculations. The Russian Federation is ranked #37 as a "developing country" in the pig's index. 1992 real wages in Russia were $120 a year. 75% of family expenditure went to food. 11. Ibid., p. 171. 12. Ibid., p. 141. 13. Ibid., p. 12. 14. Ibid., p. 213. 15. Ibid., p. 149. 16. Ibid., p. 213. 17. Ibid., p. 135. 18. Ibid., p. 205. 19. NYT 11/21/93 Section 4, p. 1. 20. Asian Development Review 1993 vol. II No. 1, p. 15. 21. HDR 1993, p. 211. 22. During the 1970s and 1980s finance capital leveraged the restricted development of Third World industrial and marketing infrastructures while breeding an international class of comprador bureaucrats. These people are now in a position to play the imperialist groups off against each other even as they struggle internally with national bourgeoisies and revolutionary movements. The comprador and imperialist classes will fall into the open grave together. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - PERUVIAN CONSTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM A HOAX: MASSES VOTE FOR REVOLUTION by MC432 & MC234 On October 31, a slim majority of Peruvian voters approved a new constitution that would allow fascist President Fujimori to run for reelection for two more terms and would allow the State to apply retroactively the death penalty to revolutionaries. With the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) in control of more than one third of the countryside, and significant opposition to the new constitution from the legal left, the Peruvian State resorted to more repression to "win" the bogus referendum. Revolutionaries must support the Maoist PCP, who currently lead the world's most advanced revolution, by combating all attempts to justify the Peruvian reactionary bourgeois state. FUJIMORI LOSES "PLEBISCITE" Fujimori proclaimed the referendum to be a "plebiscite" - a measure of support for his rule. Analysis of the voting statistics shows that while Fujimori may have won the bogus referendum, he lost the plebiscite. In Peru, voting was mandatory, punishable by severe fines and even arrest, but 38% of eligible voters abstained. Of those voting, 7% spoiled their ballots. If you include those who refused to register, spoiled their ballots or abstained, Fujimori got only 22.71%.(1) Support for the referendum was strongest in the capital Lima where turnout was 75%. The PCP - which opposes all electoral frauds against the masses - is strongest in the countryside. MILITARY USED AGAINST "NO" FACTION The weeks leading up to the referendum saw widespread government repression against any dissent whatsoever. Teodulo Hernandez, secretary-general of the Peruvian General Workers Confederation, said that army troops were caught ripping down posters calling for a "no" vote. Hernandez also said military officials in the capital denied permission for opponents of the new constitution to hold a campaign closing rally, arguing that Lima is in a state of emergency because of guerrilla activity. "We cannot express ourselves in the street, they stop us from holding meetings, they destroy our few posters and arrest propagandists for a 'no' vote, while the government and its supporters are carrying out abundant and expensive propaganda in the media, with posters, flyers and pennants that are flooding the cities." Hernandez said a number of opponents of the new constitution have been arrested while putting up posters, although all were released.(2) On the day of the referendum, army troop carriers patrolled Lima's principal streets while helicopters circled overhead supposedly as part of efforts to prevent PCP attacks against polling stations. This massive military deployment also served to intimidate those opposed to the referendum from even demonstrating peacefully.(3) PCP FIGHTS FUJIMORI AND REFERENDUM The members and supporters of the Communist Party of Peru boycotted the referendum, making Fujimori's victory even more unrepresentative of the people's will. The government claims increasing successes against the PCP, but the two weeks prior to the referendum brought increasing attacks by the PCP against the reactionary State. In the early morning of October 31, PCP members conducted armed actions blocking and dynamiting the streets of Canto Grande and Villa el Salvador, among others. PCP leaflets and posters were distributed in the shanty towns of Conos Este and Sur de Lima urging people to boycott the bogus referendum.(4) PCP also took their propaganda against the electoral farce to the State in a form that it could understand with attacks against the voting stations in Palca and Vila Vila.(4) Just days before the referendum, Fujimori announced he was "going to have a little Vietnam" against a 7,720 square mile central Andean region that is under PCP control.(5) Perhaps Fujimori forgot, but Vietnamese communists led that heroic nation to glorious triumph over imperialism. It is people's war that will decide the fate of Peru, not some petty referendum. The Peruvian masses have already voted for revolution. They have been fighting for thirteen long years, and they will not relinquish their shining communist future to a sham referendum. Notes: 1. Emergency Bulletin #41 11/28/93 from the International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Dr Abimael Guzman. 2. United Press International 10/24/93. 3. Latin American Institute, University of New Mexico, Notisur - Latin American Political Affairs 11/5/93. 4. Sol Peru December 1993, p. 13. 5. Reuters 10/25/93. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - MIM SELF-CRITICISM FOR NOVEMBER PERU ARTICLE MIM Notes 82 (November 1993) took a position on the letters that Peruvian President Fujimori said he had received from Communist Party of Peru (PCP) leader Chairperson Gonzalo about peace negotiations. MIM said the Gonzalo letters were not Marxist, and that "Nobody in their right mind gives any credibility to government propagation of supposed statements from incarcerated, tortured and coerced political prisoners!" MIM took this position in the absence of any real information from the PCP itself about the letters; it was based entirely on what we had learned from the bourgeois media. Although lack of access to information in the imperialist countries is certainly a problem we have to live with, this is not an excuse for MIM to speculate about what the PCP and their leaders have done or should do. On questions relating to the revolution in Peru, MIM stands firmly behind the PCP, working under the leadership of Chairperson Gonzalo, in their correct Maoist political orientation. Because of this, we take leadership from the PCP about strategy and tactics in the revolution in Peru. Interpreting letters and their application in Peru was the job of the PCP, not MIM. We take this to be an ultraleft error. It was dogmatic on conditions because we assumed any negotiations with the Peruvian government would be a mistake. And we pitted leaders against the masses by casting doubts on the capacity or line of the leaders. Through internal struggle we have rectified our position. It is only with constant vigilance against errors of both "leftist" and rightist types that revolution will be able to advance. MIM judges movements based on their political line, and regrets the implication in that article that we might consider it our place to try to exert leadership over what the PCP does in Peru. This error was made worse because we did not have any real information on which to base our analysis. Just as MIM, as a First World vanguard Party, leads globally on the question of the labor aristocracy in the imperialist countries, MIM takes its leadership from the vanguard in Peru on questions of practice in Peru. MIM will continue to keep its readers informed of PCP strategy as we learn more; but MIM will not speculate on the PCP's strategic and tactical decisions. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - FIRE & WATER: GENEVA TOWERS MASSES AREN'T FOOLED On November 19, the San Francisco Department of Public Health and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that the tap water flowing into the 576 apartments at the HUD-owned Geneva Towers in San Francisco is poisoned by lead. Both agencies have known for years that the water at Geneva Towers is contaminated. Their solution to the contamination has been to shut off running water to the residents of the towers. HUD's managers summoned trucks of drinking water and gave each family a one gallon plastic jug. Residents were ordered to use only this container to lug water from truck to dwelling unit. Since 1991, the Geneva Towers Tenant's Association (GTTA) has delivered reams of documents to a peanut gallery of federal, state and city officials and district attorneys proving that: 1) friable asbestos floats freely in the ventilation ducts; 2) contaminated water infects the plumbing; 3) fire and building code violations have caused death and injury; 4) HUD bureaucrats have conspired with developers to embezzle federal funds. Each time, the pencil-stabbing devils in the local government apparatus have magically ignored their own laws and ruled that their departments have no jurisdiction over HUD-owned property. GTTA asked why this one health hazard, which has been systematically ignored for years - out of the dozens of health hazards permeating HUD's urban penitentiary - has been singled out for attention? Whose interests are being served when the slumlord seems to stumble? GTTA immediately declared that HUD's motives in shutting down the water supply were to avoid lawsuits resulting from decades of landlord genocide and a recent lethal fire in the Towers;(1,2) drive the 200 families who have so far escaped HUD's forced evictions out of their homes; and provide the government with an "emergency" excuse to clear the buildings of inhabitants. In 1991 HUD and its managing agents began extra-legally evicting the 3,000 (primarily Black) people living in the Towers. The fall of Geneva Towers is vital to white settlement of the outskirts of San Francisco, into which the majority of the City's Blacks have been squeezed. HUD intends to funnel at least $70 million in "reconstruction" funds through the Towers and into the hands of private "non-profit" developers as the Towers are gutted. The units will be transformed into "free-market" housing for whites and a smattering of upper-class Blacks, as the poor Black Nation in San Francisco continues to be "ethnically cleansed" from the City at the rate of over one percent per year.(2) The Towers would be empty today if it were not for the determined resistance of GTTA - which has organized numerous anti-HUD demonstrations, and allied with a wide variety of what GTTA calls "Free World Forces" - in a war to seize legal control of the Towers. FIRE After a firestorm in Geneva Towers killed Black fireman Jerry Butler last August, the steel fence around Geneva Towers became a subject of public controversy. As MIM Notes reported in September, the locked fence prohibited fire- fighting machines from entering the complex to extinguish the inferno. The San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD) report on the internal investigation of the Geneva Towers fire states that: "The access to the rear of the building was very limited for laddering, ventilating, and other fire fighting operations ... the aerial truck was prevented from gaining access to the rear of the building [by three planter boxes]."(5) The planter boxes are spaced 100 feet apart. The only real obstacle was the fence connecting them. Lieutenant Butler's death was the result of dozens of pre-existing fire code violations, including the fence. The SFFD's in its conclusion states: "At this incident, the fence and gates did not hamper SFFD operations."(3) The SFFD refused to interview a single tenant in the preparation of this whitewash.(4) Nevertheless, the SFFD's presentation of the facts contradicts its obvious intention to control political fallout - while undermining evidence for negligence, lawsuits, and charges of manslaughter against the authorities themselves. Even as the SFFD report sacrifices a Black firefighter to HUD's slum-profits, it admits that the "partial" sprinkler system failed to operate.(10) Furthermore, video tapes from the hall cameras were recording the scenes in the burning hallway during the fire. After the fire, building security erased the tapes.(11) When the hook and ladders could not be positioned to drown the fire from the venting rear windows, firefighters in front of the flames were forced to lug hoses 200 feet out of their way in order to enter the building, thereby losing the hose-length necessary to reach the flames.(12) Finally, an "SFFD arson investigation was delayed" past the point that meaningful evidence could be gathered.(13) HUD VOMITS TRUTH Faced with press inquiries, HUD quickly generated a document entitled "Myths and Facts about Geneva Towers." HUD crows that: "Since June 1991, HUD has expended over $3.8 million in improving security at Geneva Towers ... through increasing guards, controlled access to the building, improved lighting (see picture), security cameras and communications, and gang and youth intervention efforts."(17) In other words, HUD admits it spent nearly four million dollars to lock-down the Towers, force out the people, and arrest the youth - while trying to incinerate and poison any souls brave enough to resist expulsion. These are ordinary crimes in a capitalist system. They are so ordinary and unremarkable in imperialism's eyes that they can be openly confessed. They are so mundane and acceptable to the majority of settler Amerikans that the pigs figure nobody in power will take the time to read such self- indictments - much less complain about living conditions of the oppressed. The State may have made a mistake this time. What HUD didn't figure on was the ability of GTTA to create public opinion and temporarily unify its interests with the economic and political interests of several Black nation and white nation law firms and a small section of the Black national bourgeoisie - represented by nearly bankrupt Black contractors.(See MIM Notes 83.) GTTA has mounted injunctions and lawsuits against HUD. The embattled tenants are beginning to throw off the mental shackles of colonialism and join their voices to the shouts of GTTA. For a lot of people trapped in the Towers - poisoned drinking water is the last straw. The Towers are not doomed to fall - when once the people rise. Notes: 1. GTTA press release 11/19/93. 2. 1990 Census, SF Dept. of Planning Chart; MIM Notes Dec. 1993, p. 6. 3. Geneva Towers Fire - August 14, 1993 Investigative Report, Incident 2412, SFFD, p. 17. 4. Ibid, p. 22. 5. Ibid, p. 4. 6. Ibid, p. 5. 7. Ibid, p. 4. 8. Ibid, p. 6. 9. Ibid, pp. 6, 7. 10. Ibid, p. 3. 11. Ibid, pp. 3, 6. 12. Ibid, p. 8. 13. Ibid, p. 20. MIM has published the only known pictures of the fire's aftermath. 14. Ibid, p. 4. 15. Ibid, p. 20. 16. "Myths and Fact about Geneva Towers" 11/16/93, HUD, p. 5. 17. Ibid, p. 2. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - LETTERS TO MIM: MIM BIASED I just stopped reading in the middle of this crap from you guys. Especially, the cheap imitation of the word 'America' in Russian, which is 'Amerika', it just made me so sick! What's more, it's ironic to imitate the Russians when you claim to be 'The Maoist Internationalist Movement.' I mean, isn't the word Maoist rooted in the last name of the Chinese communist leader Mao Tse Tung? If it is so, shouldn't you be imitating the Chinese word for America, then? But, hey! what prevents you from imitating the Russians? It's good to denounce [the Peruvian] government's crimes, as you guys did. And I have no objection against it. But, please do it objectively! In your text, you pointed out the mass graves, mass killing of innocent people, government's repression to the people and so on, and on, and on. But, have you ever stopped and think of what you have been doing to the Peruvian people is also almost the same as what the Peruvian's Government has been doing (as you claim)? Isn't it a little bit shameless from your part in doing so? If I'm wrong, please shed some light to my path. - Internet reader MC12 responds: MIM is not imitating anyone when it spells Amerika with a "k". Our intention is much less complex. We are trying to de-legitimize Amerika, which is not a legitimate nation, but a settler colony built on stolen land by stolen labor. If the origin of this spelling is Russian, that is not our intent. MIM does not think that the violence used by the people of Peru and their party, the Communist Party of Peru (PCP), against the state and its supporters is the same as the violence used by the state to stop the people. Both result in death, but they are different processes representing different politics and in search of different ends. And at the same time, the government has been responsible for many more deaths and much more arbitrary violence than has the PCP, as any "objective" source will tell you. Further, the government is responsible for the death and suffering of millions of people through such supposedly "non-violent" causes as cholera, starvation, and other preventable ills. MIM is not ashamed to support the revolutionary violence of people's war against a fascist dictator (Fujimori) and his state. Without the revolutionary violence of the people, the daily violence of poverty, disease and other oppression would rule unchecked forever. Thanks for asking. BLACK YOUTH, PREPARE FOR REBELLION! The Rebellion in L.A. in 1992 lit the spark to the powder keg that is going off all over the world. More than 23 cities across the Amerikan empire and several cities around the world rebelled in solidarity with the injustice in the police beating of Rodney King. What does this mean for Black people in the u.s. and Black youths in particular? It means the Black nation is rising. It means our youths are the spark and are leading the way to revolution. Led by Raptivists such as Sister SoulJah, Ice Cube, Ice T, and groups like KRS-One, Arrested development, X-Clan and others, are bringing the message of revolution forward in the spirit of revolutionaries of the past. In an FBI memo ... J. Edgar Hoover stated that the Black Panther Party was to be "neutralized by all means necessary!" The BPP was THE NUMBER ONE SECURITY THREAT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY of the u.s. What does this mean to our youth today? Youths must overstand what went down during the revolutionary period of the 1960s, especially as it relates to the Black Panther Party. You MUST study this period. You MUST go beyond the personalities of the leaders of the various movements, learn from their mistakes, pick up where they left off and expand on their ideas to move revolution forward. If you do not overstand this period, you will not overstand what you must do today. You must develop a revolutionary consciousness through the STUDY of our history and the living of our culture. To prepare for the revolution you must arm yourselves with the right knowledge. First is the knowledge of self. This is indispensable. Once you know who you are, you will be armed with the right knowledge of what must be done. Overstand your spiritual nature. One of the most effective tools our enemy used to enslave us was religion, his version - white supremacy christianity. GO TO THE LIBRARY and check out a book on that man named Jesus. You will be surprised who he really was. One thing is for sure, he is not that white dude who be up there on that cross! Our experience born out of the brutality of slavery is your only authority and supreme law outside of knowing your true self which is the same as to know God. SEEK WISDOM AND TRUTH. Make overstanding your goal. This is strength and power. SEEK POWER! SEEK TO CONTROL YOUR OWN DESTINY which is to build a NATION OF YOUR OWN! STOP working for the enemy and start working for yourself. Drug dealers, stop SELLING TO YOUR PEOPLE! To sell to your people means you don't give a damn about yourself. Love yourself. Respect yourself! Use the money you have to START YOUR OWN LEGITIMATE BUSINESS! The only salvation is to build THE BLACK NATION: The Republic of New Afrika! Those of you who want to remain on the plantation serving your corporate masters, IBM, AT&T, GENERAL ELECTRIC, GENERAL MOTORS, COCA COLA etc., instead of building a business for yourselves and for the NATION will suffer the consequences when Amerika falls. The NATION is moving forward. Our culture is your ticket to ride. You will not get there no other way. Love your culture. To love your culture is to love yourself. Let it be your shield, for without it you have no cover and no POWER! It's time to cultivate your mind, spirit, body, and the LAND. Learn to grow FOOD. We need to start stockpiling food, water, weapons, sleeping bags, gas masks, tents, candles, flashlights, walkie talkies, radios. You need to find farms, forests, caves or mountain hide-aways for yourself and your family. The time for WAR is closer than you think. BE CREATIVE. We are the most creative people on the planet. Though destruction is coming to Amerika, this is the best opportunity to CREATE for yourself, family and NATION, your own livelihood... GET PREPARED - it's goin' down! Friend in the East October 1993 MIM responds: We like the author's line on revolutionary personalities. For leadership we look to correct politics and historical analysis, not image. MIM agrees that the L.A. Rebellion showed the anger and strength of the masses. The fact that people acted spontaneously and collectively demonstrates a practical feel for who their enemies are - the media, liberal politicians and cops. We support the letter writer's call to study the plans and organizations of past revolutionaries - specifically those of the Black Panther Party (BPP). The masses will be strong in the long run, but this strength comes from correct education and organization. Our enemies' tactical strength demands that we fight the battle for public opinion before armed struggle. So MIM tells people to study past revolutionary theory alongside current political conditions. The Panthers thought pride in the national culture was an important starting point, but it was no substitute for revolution; MIM agrees with that perspective. As they said, "We have no culture but a culture born out of our resistance to oppression."(1) The author should carefully define what they mean by "legitimate business." Capitalism is an inherently exploitative system; Black capitalism will not liberate the Black masses. The Panthers were up front about this, they advocated socialist modes of organization in the Black community.(2) On the other hand, MIM recognizes that revolutionaries need to support themselves and their organizations; businesses are one way of doing that. (Seale and Huey Newton raised money by selling Quotations from Chairman Mao, the "little red book," to college students, for example). Finally, MIM does not call on people to stockpile arms etc. at this point. We would rather have them go among the masses to develop their political consciousness and build a Maoist party (like the BPP). Without the masses' support even the deepest underground organization will be crushed; with their support, an armed campaign could be quickly assembled and successfully carried out. Notes: 1. "On cultural nationalism," The Black Panthers Speak, Philip Foner, ed. 1970. p. 151 MIM distributes this book for $10, postpaid. 2. "Why the Free Breakfast," Liberation Schools," "The Ten- Point Platform and Program of the Black Panther Party," in Foner. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - LOCKING DOWN THE BERLIN WALL OF THE WEST At midnight on September 19, under the codename "Operation Blockade," the Border Patrol shut down the high-traffic El Paso/Jaures section of the border, with five times the usual deployment of Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) officers.(1) The military connotations of the term "blockade" are obvious and intentional. Operation Blockade is a continuation of the brutal history of Amerikan imperialism in occupied Mexico. The blockade consists of 450 agents spread out along a twenty-mile stretch of the border, with every available vehicle being deployed. Silvestre Reyes, the El Paso-based INS chief, received $250,000 in overtime funds from Washington for an initial two-week trial of the blockade anti-immigrant strategy.(2) As less Mexicans attempt to cross the border and less agents are needed, Operation Blockade has been continued to the present. The idea behind Reyes' blockade strategy is to maximize deterrence over arrests. The imposing concentration of officers along the border has reduced the number of arrests by more than 80%, from about 1,000 per day to around 150.(1) At the most dense points, armed sentries are stationed every 150 feet.(2) Before the blockade, an estimated 10,000 Mexican day- laborers crossed daily at the El Paso/Jaurez section. Martin Sanchez of the Border Rights Coalition said that their "'hotline has been ringing off the hook' with calls from Jaurez workers pleading that their employers be called and asked that jobs not be terminated."(2) OPERATION BLOCKADE SPREADS California politicians have duly noted the "success" of Reyes' El Paso Operation Blockade. San Diego county supervisors have voted to ask Attorney General Janet Reno to duplicate the El Paso blockade along the San Diego-Tijuana section of the border (5) where the Border Guard made 250,000 apprehensions in 1992.(1) Senator Barbara Boxer (R-California) convinced the Senate to include an extra $2 million in their defense bill to provide funds for National Guard troops to back up the Border Guard. Her plan is to have 4,000 California Guard troops spend their 15 days of annual training on the border. Though they would not be involved in actual apprehensions, the National Guard would provide office support, prisoner transport, and surveillance work, which would free up INS agents to do more "hunting." The ultimate effect of such a deployment would be to create an Operation Blockade in southern California that would be many times the size of the one in El Paso. "This would be the first time in history that the National Guard is used to help bolster the border," says Boxer, who evidently forgot that the National Guard is already helping to construct fences along the border in California.(10) NAFTA'S ROLE The border patrol is putting the squeeze on Mexican workers during a time when cutting labor costs is the mantra of the business world. With First World wages and benefits so inflated, it's easy to see why the bourgeoisie was pushing so hard for NAFTA. Through NAFTA's elimination of tariffs on the billions of dollars worth of goods that Amerikan companies ship to Mexico for assembly, and from Mexico to the United States for marketing, U.S. firms gain a major incentive to move operations to Mexico. This means that Operation Blockade may well be a dress rehearsal for the near future, when industrial expansion in Mexico will require the largest possible domestic labor pool there. This large labor pool will drive down the cost of Mexican labor- power, making U.S. multinational ventures there even more profitable. RACIST OPPOSITION TO IMMIGRATION Reactionaries argue that saturation of the Amerikan border areas with immigrants puts a strain on the social services there. In California, an estimated 100,000 undocumented immigrants annually cross the border to stay in the United States, reportedly costing the state around $3 billion in health care and education.(4) Fifty-one percent of Californians favor cutting off health benefits and public education to immigrants and their children.(8) What this figure of $3 billion neglects to mention is that these immigrants produce significantly more than $3 billion worth of surplus-value by working in textile sweatshops, seasonal agriculture, etc. These superexploited workers give a strong boost to the Amerikan standard of living. The total surplus value exploited from undocumented workers is tremendous, with 3.2 million illegal immigrants in the United States and 2-300,000 arriving each year, according to INS figures.(9) However, as profits continue to grow with the implementation of NAFTA, the United States will be able to close off the border and expand U.S. super-exploitation of Mexicans without having to pay any benefits at all. In any case, these petty social services expenditures amount to little in comparison with the tens of billions in expropriated superprofits. A HISTORY OF COLONIZATION What is occurring now is an escalating military deployment in a war with Mexico over the border zone that has been raging on and off for almost 150 years. In 1845, President Polk ordered troops to march over the acknowledged border between the United States and Mexico, the Neuces river, and to build a fort on the banks of the Rio Grande. This brazen provocation, a blatant attempt at annexing part of Northern Mexico, eventually brought violent revenge from the Mexicans, which was what Polk was waiting for to justify his plan for an all-out war of colonization. The Mexican War's brutal military campaign of rape and pillage carried out by Amerikan soldiers was legendary. The war concluded with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, in which Mexico ceded all of what today is called California, New Mexico, Arizona, and the Texan region between the Rio Grande and Neuces Rivers. (6) This means that both El Paso and San Diego are on the occupied national territory of Mexico! Neither the U.S. Border Guard nor the National Guard belongs on that border, which one day will be swept away by the revolutionary tide. Notes: 1. L.A. Times 10/2/93, p. A1, A19. 2. National Catholic Observer 10/8/93, p. 3. 3. New York Times 9/29/93, p. A13. 4. El Paso Herald-Post 10/8/93, p. 1. 5. Dallas Morning News 10/10/93, p. 56A. 6. Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States (Harper Colophon Books: New York, 1980), pp. 147-166 7. 8. Time Magazine Special Issue Fall 1993, p. 12. 9. Ibid, p. 16. 10. L.A. Times 10/19/93, p. A3, A24. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - MIM TALKS TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ABOUT PERU In November, MIM made a presentation about Peru to three high school classes in Massachusetts. This is something MIM has done in the past in other schools, and this article is intended to encourage other comrades and teachers to make use of elementary, middle and high schools to encourage students to think about the world in a way not presented in most textbooks. MIM was given this opportunity by a history teacher who had two classes studying Peru and wanted his classes to hear more than just the Amerikan government's perspective. The information about the oppressive nature of Peru's government, and the support the U.S. government gives to this oppression, was mostly new to them. This is a good indication of what people in the United States learn about Peru if they rely on the mainstream media. Not only did they learn that the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) is a terrorist band of thugs, but they also did not get the information about what the Peruvian government does to terrorize its people every day. Of the three classes MIM talked to, one was a U.S. history class, generally reserved for the "non-honors," and often non-college bound, students. The other two were advanced classes for the honors and college-bound students. In a testimonial to the lack of validity to this kind of tracking, the U.S. history class was the quickest to pick up on some important concepts of oppression of the world's people, and from that class came some of the most interesting questions and discussion about how to resolve the problems in Peru. It was the honors students who spent the most time questioning the intellectual definition of violence in the face of information about people being murdered by the Peruvian government, and questioning the correctness of the PCP in the face of information about one enemy of the people that the PCP killed. In fairness to all of the students, all three classes were impressive in their quickness to pick up on contradictions, and their desire to question and search for a deeper understanding of the issues presented. It is these youth who need to be offered information about how the world really works and the role of Amerikan imperialism in this international system of oppression. The hope for the future lies in the hands of the oppressed, 80% of the world, and their allies, particularly the youth, among the other 20% who have not yet been bought into supporting the oppressors. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - CIA IS THE BIGGEST COCAINE DEALER More than any ghetto crack dealer, the United States government and its allies are feeding the flames of drug addiction in Amerika, then turning around and imprisoning street-level dealers and consumers, and pretending to oppose drugs. A squabble between the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency has revealed that the CIA shipped 1,000 kilos of cocaine to the United States in 1990, where it entered the cocaine market and was sold.(1) Now that it has been revealed, the government calls it a "serious accident," not a conspiracy. The New York Times, citing a 60 Minutes story, said the cocaine was supposedly shipped to gain information about drug-dealing operations. In order to protect the cover of their infiltrators, the CIA claims it had to let the cocaine go all the way into the U.S. market for sale. The story is a sorry cover for the deliberate importation of enough cocaine to ruin thousands of lives - in the process providing justification for police repression of the oppressed internal nations. One Venezuelan general may be made to take the fall, now that the story is out. But the CIA rolls on unimpeded. On June 28, 1964, Malcolm X spoke on the question of drugs in the Black nation. What he said is more true now than ever: "When a person is a drug addict, he's not the criminal; he's a victim of the criminal. The criminal is the man downtown who brings this drug into the country. Negroes can't bring drugs into this country. You don't have any boats. You don't have any airplanes. You don't have any diplomatic immunity. It is not you who is responsible for bringing in drugs. You're just a tool that is used by the man downtown. The man that controls the drug traffic sits in city hall or he sits in the state house."(2) - MC12 Notes: 1. New York Times 11/20/93, p. A1. 2. Malcolm X, By Any Means Necessary. New York: Pathfinder, 1970. pp. 51-52. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - LOOKING AHEAD TO THE NEXT WAR The United States is always looking ahead to the next war. In the post-Soviet era, now more than ever that means the oil-rich Middle East and especially the Persian Gulf. With Iraq taken care of for now, Amerika is turning its focus back to Iran. The United States calls Iran an "outlaw state," and is trying to get the European allies of the United States to stop dealing with the country.(1) At the same time, Amerika is making new claims to the Persian Gulf as its territory. Frank Wisner, undersecretary of the Defense Department says "the United States has important national security interests" in the Gulf region, and "the Clinton administration takes those interests seriously and will maintain the commitment of the United States to the undertakings we have entered into under previous administrations here."(2) In other words, Amerika is just as willing to make war on the people of the Middle East for its own gain now as it was when it attacked Iraq. - MC12 Notes: 1. UPI 12/1/93. 2. UPI 12/2/93. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - THIRD WORLD IN THE FIRST WORLD A recent United Nations statistical report - how the imperialists keep track of their successes - compared living standards according to a compilation of statistics added together to form a "human development" index. They reported: "Ninety percent of the world's people lack control over their own lives. ... Minorities get only the small pieces of the pie, even in the richest country. Dividing the USA by ethnic populations, the white USA would come first in human development [in the world], but the black USA would rank 31st and Hispanic USA 35th." Notes: Human Development Report 5/16/93, United Nations Development Programme, p. 18. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - AMERIKA LEAVES ARISTIDE AND HAITI HANGING In early December, an internal Pentagon document was released showing that at least 10 Haitian officers continued to receive training in the United States after the Sept. 30, 1991 military coup against President Aristide. This training took place despite continued statements from Washington to the contrary.(1) While Clinton sanctimoniously preaches "democracy," earning votes and P.R. points, Haiti's military, created, trained and supported by the United States, remains firmly in control, stepping up its terror campaign to further consolidate control over the Haitian people. As Congress debates sanctions, they receive "intelligence" reports portraying Aristide as an incompetent maniac from the Haitian generals, via the CIA. At best, Washington has been pushing Aristide to make a deal with Haiti's bourgeois elite for joint rule, which would force him to abandon Haiti's constitution and the people's mandate which he won in his electoral victory in 1990. Washington hopes only to restore some stability to Haiti in order to stem the refugee tide which began again after the military coup, with it's ensuing slaughter, without sacrificing Amerikan interests in Haiti. Such a deal would put Haiti on the same road now being traveled by Nicaragua or El Salvador, in which the people gain a temporary peace, accompanied by continued economic stagnation and social divisions which must eventually lead to renewed conflict. Only a correct strategy of self-reliance and armed resistance will free the Haitians from centuries of exploitation and foreign domination. This is the lesson we must learn from Haiti and from El Salvador, and from Nicaragua, and Chile, and all the other elected or negotiated "victories" that turned into failures and led to massacres and terrible conditions for the people. - MA343 Note: Boston Globe 12/6/93, p. A1. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - PATRIA ROJA STILL FOR UNITED LEFT Patria Roja, an organization in Peru claiming to be Maoist and appearing to be so in many ways, continues to support a political organization called the United Left (I.U., from the Spanish initials) after it supported President Alberto Fujimori in elections and then accepted positions in Fujimori's cabinet. What is even more stunning is that this support for the United Left continued after Fujimori declared open martial law and dissolved his legal opposition. Page 5 of the May 1993 issue of Patria Roja's newspaper says "En la lucha por la unidad de la izquierda, la IU sigue siendo uno de los factores para impulsar esa unidad. [In the struggle for unity of the left, the IU continues to be one of the factors pushing forward this unity.]" MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - MINE WORKERS TO WORK? It appears that members of the United Mine Workers Union (UMW) in Appalachian and mid-west states soon may be ending a strike that began May 10, 1993.(1) The initial walkout involved about 2,000 miners and expanded to include as many as 18,000 miners. The UMW represents 60-70% of the 100,000 miners working in the United States.(2) UMW-organized mines account for about 30% of the national coal output.(3) The strike was not about getting higher wages; the average miner earns $10-17 per hour plus benefits. Nor was it to improve working conditions. Instead miners hoped to improve job security. In other words, to allow union workers to keep what they already have and keep non-union labor out. The mining companies, represented by the Bituminous Coal Operators Association (BOCA), agreed in 1989 to hire union workers for every three out of five new jobs.(3) The UMW says that the companies are getting around the agreement by creating new subsidiaries and affiliates and claiming that the new companies are not bound by the agreement.(3) The coal industry claimed that it would bring jobs and prosperity to the rural poor in Appalachia as long ago as the 1870s. Instead, workers in the coal mines lived in terrible conditions while the owners of the coal mines prospered. Coal miners in Appalachia and elsewhere faced intolerable working conditions, including low pay, dangerous jobs, and economic bondage to their jobs. Many companies paid workers in "scrip" which they could only exchange at the company store. They lacked health care, and suffered the destruction of their living environment. Many of these conditions still exist. While the owners of coal mines have certainly sucked their profits out of the very life-blood of these people, this is only part of the story. Coal companies earned millions of dollars while leaving the miners and their families in poor conditions. But these workers, like most people in the United States and especially white workers, still benefit from U.S. imperialism and align themselves with it politically. White workers in this country have a standard of living far beyond Third World workers, and this standard of living is maintained by the exploitation of Third World workers. In June, 1,000 miners in Australia walked off their jobs in support of the Amerikan strikers; the Australian miners work at mines owned by a related company.(5) The President of the UMW, Richard Trumka, stated that "we hope Peabody and the other BOCA companies will take to heart this powerful statement of international solidarity."(5) While the unions are calling for international unity among miner's unions, most of the world's workers are not unionized. The union's goal, to ensure union members jobs over non-union members, reflects the split between the interests of the unionized Amerikan workers and the majority of the world's workers, including miners. If the unions wanted true international solidarity, they would be working for an end to the U.S. imperialism that is oppressing and exploiting Third World workers, and they would not be seeking to improve their position at the expense of non-union workers in Amerika and abroad. Today, coal miners who have fairly steady jobs can earn as much as $30,000 or more a year. They are less likely to wage all-out struggle against the mine owners or the capitalist system. This also pits them against the much larger group of people who live on the margins, are unemployed or scramble for a few low paying jobs, and against the interests of the international proletariat. They are struggling to get job security while selling out non-union and Third World workers, instead of struggling to build revolutionary consciousness and bring an end to Amerikan imperialist aggression. - MC255 Notes: 1. Chicago Tribune 11/23/93, p. 3. 2. Agence France Presse 11/19/93. 3. The Guardian 11/4/93, p.12. 4. New York Times 6/8/93, p.16. 5. Energy Report 6/7/93. 6. Courier-Journal 10/3/93, p. A1. 7. Financial Times 9/8/93, p. 30. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - PALESTINIANS: JERUSALEM FIRST! Israel is using the time it bought with its bogus "peace" deal to carry out a campaign of assassination and repression, and Palestinian revolutionaries are gaining ground in the battle for public opinion in the occupied lands of Palestine. On Nov. 28, Israel announced it had no intention of sticking to the timetable for military withdrawal from the Gaza Strip set in the PLO-Israel deal. The same day, Israeli undercover pigs assassinated Ahmed Abu Reish, a 23-year-old leader of the PLO's Fatah wing military organization. The killing, which followed the murder of prominent leaders of the Islamic revolutionary group Hamas, including military leader Imad Akel, led to a joint Fatah-Hamas call for a general strike. Local young Fatah leaders (Young Hawks) joined Hamas in a call for renewed attacks on Israelis, in violation of the PLO bosses' deal. A coalition of groups opposing the deal won elections at Bir Zeit University, a West Bank center of Palestinian resistance. The coalition included Islamic and secular nationalists, and called itself "Jerusalem First," in a play off the name of Israel-PLO deal. Organized opponents of the deal have demanded a referendum on the accord. Showing the gap between street-level and U.N.-level PLO leaders, the Young Hawks in Gaza said they would "escalate intensive military actions against Israel, and any Zionist will be the target at all times and places," while the shuffle-and-smile leaders expressed "surprise" that Israel continued its killing, complained only mildly, and insisted that negotiations are still on. Violent resistance and repression followed. Palestinians were enraged to learn that Abu Reish was assassinated after surrendering his weapon in an Israeli amnesty program; their response was the most intense in months. Rioting Zionist settlers then pelted Palestinians with dirty diapers, among other things. Israel blamed PLO leaders for failing to stop the violence. The violence Israel causes is now the excuse for keeping troops in the territories. Fatah leaders met with Israeli army commanders to strategize about how to quell the new uprising. - MC12 Notes: Published UPI reports 11/28-12/2/93. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - FILM REVIEW: FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE REVISIONIST HISTORY AT ITS BEST This film chronicles the lives of two young boys (who become men) from 1925-1977. As children, the boys are forced to become theater actors in a boarding school which resembles a boot camp. They are in training to join the so-called high culture of the Peking opera, which the film lauds as beautiful. There is a current of homosexual tension in the relationship between the two men. Douzi, the man who plays the female role in their rendition of "Concubine," falls in love with his partner, Shitou. Shitou does not return his feelings, and later marries a prostitute (played by Gong Li from Raise the Red Lantern) whom Douzi deeply resents. It is in part because of the gay love that this movie was initially banned in China.(1) Further reasons for the initial (and current) censorship of Farewell My Concubine include the portrayals of suicide and political dissent.(2) But the most interesting part of the movie is its portrayal of gender - exploring the way that gender is constructed and privileged. Douzi is not simply a man in love with another man. As the line between his opera character and his real life is blurred, he is also at the same time a woman (the concubine) in love with a man (the king). On the more reactionary side, the movie includes scenes from the Cultural Revolution, in which the masses randomly denounce their friends, wives, and family, but do not engage in political struggle to try to reform the rich actors or ex-prostitutes. The only scenes of the Cultural Revolution are chaotic and destructive. There is no indication that any positive change occurred during that time period at all. The director, Chen Kaige, was 14 in 1966 when he "wrongly" denounced his father. He later regretted his "betrayal" and when he became a big movie director, he let his father work for him on the movie sets.(3) Director Chen Kaige, on his American tour promoting the movie, denounces Communism and the Cultural Revolution as evil.(3) "When I was a junior in high school, we believed in a very beautiful world ... we heard a lot of good things about communism... I didn't realize that was the wrong thing to do."(3) While MIM has publicly accepted responsibility for its support of Mao and the Chinese Communist Party, even with what did go wrong during the Cultural Revolution, Concubine does no justice to the positive steps taken at that time, including the steps taken to erase the distinction between high and low culture. Chen Kaige's self-interest in promoting his movie, as well as passing it by the reactionary Deng-regime censors, means that he "forgets" to show his viewers the real political struggle of the Cultural Revolution. - MC31 & MC255 Notes: 1. The Montreal Gazette 11/6/93, p. E5. 2. MacLean's 11/8/93, p. 62. 3. Chicago Tribune 10/31/93, p. 32. MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring to this material. Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: mim@blythe.org * * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * * - MIM Notes 84, January 1993 - UNDER LOCK & KEY LUCASVILLE UPDATE: "OUR STRUGGLE HAS JUST BEGUN" Greetings from the "Southern Ohio Concentration Facility" in Lucasville, Ohio. I have been meaning to write, but due to my present circumstances, I have been somewhat paranoid. The pigs here have been reading our incoming and outgoing mail. Even our legal mail is being read. Actually, I could care less what these pigs think or do. But right at this moment, I am being investigated for my role in the riot, and for gang activity. I at least want to get out of trouble before I get into anymore. I enjoy MIM Notes a great deal. I pass it along to my brothers once I finish reading it. I am surprised that the institution is letting it in. These assholes have a habit of censoring anything that isn't politically correct. As many of you may know, we had a revolutionary struggle here between April 11 and April 21, 1993. My comrades and I refused to accept the oppressive conditions here any longer, and rebelled against the system. Many people were shocked by the brutality of the uprising: nine prisoners and one guard killed, plus millions of dollars in damage. Should it come as any surprise that people trapped like animals in cages are going to, sooner or later, explode into a violent rage? Why should we value human life when society judges our lives to be meaningless? It has often been said that the humanity of a society can be determined by the way it treats its prisoners. As I sit here in my cell awaiting the outcome of numerous investigations, I am often reminded of the inscription on the gates of hell in Dante's Inferno: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." However, unlike Dante, unless we organize and raise the consciousness of the masses, it will be years before we leave the "underworld," and enter into paradise. If ever! After most prison riots, the institution usually gets a new warden and new privileges, but nothing is done to resolve the larger issues. The legacy of the riot is one everybody must share. It has its roots in the social, political and economic framework of our country. We need to raise the level of individual consciousness, to educate and inform the masses and, more importantly, to refuse to accept the legitimacy of the system that continues to oppress and exploit millions of people. For eleven days, my comrades and I made our struggle known to the masses. We raised our voices and told the masses that we refused to be oppressed any longer. We are political prisoners, and as political prisoners, we refuse to accept and cooperate with this concentration camp. We showed our oppressors that they are not insulated from the brutality and destruction they heap upon us day after day. We will respond in kind. Since our surrender to authorities on April 21, 1993, we have remained in isolation, with most of our privileges taken. We are awaiting the outcome of the State Police investigation - and you can be sure that indictments will follow. Yet, my brothers and I continue to stay strong. Our struggle isn't over - it has just begun. In struggle, - an Ohio prisoner, 11/14/93 BLACK OR WHITE, A PIG IS A PIG IS A PIG We are forced here to live under extremely tense conditions... It is presupposed that prisoners who, for whatever reason, are placed within these doors are branded subhuman in a sense and treated like punks. The turncoat lackey Toms here have apparently been thoroughly trained against us and made to think that we are their sole enemies. And consequently, they carry out their abominable flagrant oppression of the prisoners. There are even those who hate us and don't understand why or for what reasons they do so. And this is perhaps one of the reasons that brothers like myself have assumed a freedom or death composure. I understand that the present oppressive set-up here can be directly linked to the historical oppression of minorities in general as well as to the aftermath of the slave trade era - an era which ravished the Black minds. Nonetheless, this set-up is totally unacceptable. I believe that each one of our oppressive keepers here is to be held totally responsible for his or her unjust and unrighteous role in the physical and mental attacks jointly impressed upon the people. The personality difference is amazing. While 95% of the pig Toms and prisoners are non-white, they act as though the commonality of our ethnicity means nothing in the least. To me, this is alarming in itself, because it signifies the prevailing of the white power structure scheme to divide and conquer the people. I said once and I'll say it again: Capitalism needs and must have these prisons to hold the monsters they it has created. This is to say that those of us African and other minorities imprisoned who don't submit to the indignities placed upon us will undoubtedly emerge stronger and more determined than ever from our subjugation. And we will do so with an inclination toward vengeance against those who have protractedly wronged us. Super-Maximum Security Units have taken the infamous title of "rehabilitation" to new heights. Those of us more conscious men know that the true definition actually signifies "debilitation." As opposed to rehabilitation, "debilitation" means to tear down, erode or cause to wane and debase. This is the real objective of a Super Max: To destroy the minds of those who enter its belly.... Oppression breeds violent resistance, and within the realm of sacrifice, it is perfectly understood that sometimes one must cut off a finger to save a hand. All in all, the proliferation of Super Maximum Security Units must be curtailed at once, and the doors of those already erected closed down. There is no doubt that the billions of dollars allocated towards the building of such warehouses can be better used for the salvation of humanity against its so-called criminal rehabilitation policy. Thus, wherever we see the proliferation of such institutions, we automatically realize that its subjects will be the minorities and underclass, as we always seem to bear the brunt of life's hardships and pitfalls. I, for one, refuse to sit idly by while all around us, African brothers and sisters are perishing and being imprisoned in droves. There's no doubt that we have reached the point of do or die. All that bars our way will simply pay the consequences. As our beloved Comrade George L. Jackson once said, "By the time I am done here, I am not going to be a very nice person." - a Maryland prisoner, 10/17/93 GUARDS BEAT ONE ATTICA PRISONER, PACIFY OTHERS WITH T.V. Please pardon the slight delay in my not writing to you sooner. I have to be careful about what I say in letters, because the reactionary armed forces at this killer kamp do censor the mail that leaves here. And not long ago I was the victim of a ruthless racial attack by a sick, demented, ill- natured beast (pig). The attack against me occurred on 11/12/93, and I just was allowed to see medical employees today, 11/16/93. Enough time for the bruises to heal, dig? My letters to you must be unsealed when they reach the correspondence department. If not, they will send it back to me. I am one of the few prisoners left who has not been pacified by the television sets that this 'psychophysiology diagnostic center' sells in the commissary. I have been doing serious observation and analyzing of the used-to-be 'rebellious brothers' of the system. You know, the teachers, the fighters, the prison vanguard, the ones who would die to rid injustice....The only thing they'll die for now is channel 7. The television sets have taken something 'huge' away from the men here at Attica Prison. The reactionary forces have successfully worked and achieved their goal in stripping our brothers of their manhood. The beatings, the sexual assaults and the incidents of sexual harassment have not changed here at Attica. It still continues, it's just overlooked. Let me thank you for providing me with the Five Essays on Philosophy by Mao....So far our study group has been reading and discussing Bobby Seale's Seize the Time, George Jackson's Soledad Brothers and Philip Foner's The Black Panthers Speak....At this time, we are sorry that we are unable to provide you with stamps or money for the material you have already sent, or the literature that we seek, but whenever we run across something, you will remain in our minds and hearts.... Without the cold and desolation of winter, there could not be the warmth and splendor of spring! Power to the people. Peace! - a New York prisoner, 11/16/93 TEXAS PRISONER REPORTS ON LOCKDOWN Dear MIM, I am sending out this notice to our comrades abroad to let it be known that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice- Institutional Division (TDCJ-ID) is holding all inmates of the Coffield Unit hostage. We were given notice on 12/2/93 that the entire Unit (save for a select few collaborators) has been placed in a lockdown situation for the next four weeks. After these four weeks, if all concerned show signs of passiveness to our oppressors, the lockdown situation will be lifted and things will go "back to normal." I wish to let this be known that this lockdown situation will possibly encompass the Christmas holiday. We will not be allowed to visit with our respective families nor allowed commissary privileges. This should really alleviate the unrest within! I want to relate to my comrades abroad to pay attention to the progress of the Texas prison system. After the recent approval of Proposition 14 in the November ballot, Texas will surpass the California DOC within four years, according to a report I was sent. By the year 1997, Texas is expected to have a population of 120,000 inmates. Be aware that the Texas system is another Lucasville just waiting to happen. Unrest within the system is now taking its toll. With the recent decree signed that allowed the TDCJ-ID to operate the system without the federal court monitor in place, and the tough laws sentencing Texas youth to serve outrageously long stacked sentences, a convicted felon doesn't have much left to lose. And now you can see where the future of things will lead. Stay updated on the events here in Texas as they unfold and demonstrate yet another imperialistic system collapsing before your very eyes. In solidarity, - a Texas prisoner, 12/3/93 The Texas prisoner enclosed the following: NOTICE TO INMATES You have been placed in a lockdown status because of disruptive behavior. This status has been imposed and will continue until such a time as this behavior stops. Because of this and to insure that you will understand, you will be returned to normal activities based on a progressive schedule of release. First week: You will receive showers 3 times weekly; no dayroom privileges; no commissary privileges; you will receive only sack lunches; and you will not be permitted to have visitation. If your behavior is acceptable, you will progress to the second week. Second week: You will receive showers 3 times weekly; receive commissary privileges 1 time weekly; be fed hot lunches 1 time weekly. With your behavior continuing to improve, you will progress to the third week. Third week: You will receive showers 3 times weekly; allowed limited dayroom privileges; receive commissary privileges 1 day; receive hot lunch and supper 3 days; visitation privileges will be reinstated. With your continuing good behavior, progression to the fourth week will occur. Fourth week: you will receive showers 3 times weekly; dayroom privileges will return on a limited basis; receive commissary privileges for 1 day; daily hot lunch and supper privileges will be returned; visitation privileges are returned. Subsequently, the lockdown will be lifted. If at any period during these 4 weeks you begin to behave in a disruptive manner, you will be returned to the first week's schedule. Effective 12-2-93 NO EDUCATION FOR THE OPPRESSED I am indigent and incarcerated at Iowa State Penitentiary (warehouse). I need to further my education in college through correspondence courses, which takes funds that I don't have. As it is, this concentration camp does not provide any courses or classes of higher learning. They say we don't have a right to be educated, but in reality, they don't want us to be educated. That way, they can keep us down, hoping that we don't rise up against our oppressors. What I need from you - comrades out there in the free world and prisoners alike - is to write this certain U.S. Senator (oppressor) and ask why I'm not being allowed a proper education (which should be allowed to all) and to bring the issue of the excessive lock-up (see MIM Notes #76, May 1993, "Locking them up won't keep them quiet). Thanks, comrades. In struggle, - an Iowa prisoner, 11/10/93 Please write to: Tom Harkin U.S. Senator of Iowa 531 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 NORTH CAROLINA COMRADES FACE THE SYSTEM'S SPIES Dear comrades, I have been so tied up with my legal work that I set many things aside. I never left the struggle, and I continue to speak out against injustice. Here in North Carolina, it is truly a struggle, having been down only two and a half years. I've noticed that there aren't many united prisoners here. It's a pitiful sight here. The system is in complete control of things. They have so many spies and snitches among the prison population that it's difficult to group together and speak against the injustice without being locked up for planning a riot! I've been on lockdown for one year and I've observed that many of my fellow prisoners toy around with the oppressors, only to later regret it. What makes it absurd is that these prisoners repeat their mistakes over and over. The power of structural, systematic programming is very evident here. At the present, my voice is heard like a dog with a muzzle on. Thanks to your newsletter, I keep in touch with a stronger struggle. This newsletter, along with other publications I receive, is shared with those that remain interested in seeing what true struggling looks like. Thank you, and keep up the fight! - a North Carolina prisoner, 10/31/93 PRISONERS COMPELLED TO BUILD PRISONS AND WORSE I received the copy of MIM Notes - thank you! The perspective it offers seems interesting. I would be interested to continue receiving it, and chances are, I might write you something regarding the new death row being built here. Not only does the government lock us up here, often for arbitrary "crimes," but they also compel some of us here to do their dirty work for them, such as the construction of death row and execution facility. Again, thank you! - an Indiana prisoner, 10/19/93 HELP THE NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD HELP JAILHOUSE LAWYERS The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is in the process of re- forming its prison law project....It is important for our work that we be in contact with prisoners who can inform us of what is actually occurring inside. The NLG receives volumes of letters. We can't possibly answer them all. We hope to put out the ROP (Rite of Passage) Legal Journal on a regular basis, and hopefully, it will answer many of the questions you have asked in your letters. In addition, we're seeking funding for updating and reprinting The Jailhouse Lawyers Manual, which many of you have requested. It costs a lot, but we're going to try to raise the money. If you know of family or friends on the outside who might want to help us, please send us their names. Community supporters are very important....Contact: Prison Law Project of the National Lawyers Guild, 558 Capp St., San Francisco CA 94104. - The National Lawyers Guild, reprinted from the Coalition for Prisoners' Rights Newsletter, 11/93