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THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

MIM Notes 94

November 1994

Electronic Edition

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Get MIM Notes 94 from the Maoist Internationalist 
Movement (MIM), and get the latest in Maoist news 
and analysis - put a revolutionary weapon in your 
hands.

This issue exposes the destruction brought upon 
the people of the Philippines by President Fidel 
Ramos - a tried and true U.S. lackey who fought 
for Amerika in the Korean and Vietnam wars. It 
also calls out the destructive role of 
nongovernmental organizations in Peru, the U.S. 
imposition of its will in Haiti, the psychiatric 
medication of millions, prison brutality, and 
more. Throughout, Maoist news and analysis always 
brings you back to the role of revolutionaries in 
overthrowing this rotten system and finding a 
better way - socialism and communism.

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.

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MIM Notes 94 includes:

CONTENTS

 1. NEW PEOPLE'S ARMY FIGHTS U.S. IMPERIALISM
 2. DON'T VOTE: BUILD THIS MAOIST PARTY
 3. ACTIVISTS PROTEST MICHIGAN NUKE PLANT
 4. PSYCHO-IMPERIALISTS MEDICATE MILLIONS
 5. IMPLANTING "DEMOCRACY" IN HAITI - U.S. STYLE
 6. IMF AND NGOS: FALSE ALTERNATIVES FOR PERU
 7. PAPER TIGERS
 8. FILM REVIEWS: QUIZ SHOW, TIME COP
 9. NORTH AMERIKAN YOUTH AND WOMEN MAKE PLEDGE
10. UNDER LOCK & KEY
11. LETTERS TO MIM


REVOLUTIONARY LINE IS DECISIVE:
NEW PEOPLE'S ARMY FIGHTS U.S. IMPERIALISM

The President of the Republic of the Philippines, 
General Fidel Ramos, recently completed a tour of 
Europe in support of his Medium Term Development 
Plan (MTDP). Although Ramos touts the MTDP as the 
magic formula which will eliminate poverty from 
the Philippines and industrialize the country by 
the turn of the century, the MTDP will actually 
only bolster the exploitation of the Filipino 
people by U.S. and other imperialists.

The U.S.-Ramos regime has also intensified its 
military attacks on the Filipino people. The 
numbers of reported massacres and forced 
evacuations by the Armed Forces of the Philippines 
(AFP) more than doubled in the two years of the 
Ramos presidency. The AFP continues to pursue its 
strategy of "total war" - striking at the Maoist-
led New People's Army (NPA) by eliminating the 
people who support it.(5)

PHILIPPINES 2000

The MTDP - also known as the "Philippines 2000" 
plan - calls for removal of nationality 
restrictions on ownership, unlimited profit 
repatriation, unabated foreign borrowing, and the 
suppression of workers' rights in order to 
maintain the "industrial peace". The idea is that 
with the right incentives imperialists will build 
"regional growth centers" and bring 
industrialization to the Philippines.

"Philippines 2000" is really the continuation of 
the semi-colonial policies of Ramos' predecessors, 
Corazon Aquino and Ferdinand Marcos. These 
policies created the illusion of development by 
using huge foreign loans to finance unproductive 
industries like the tourist industry or 
unnecessarily increase the capacity of raw-
material processing mills. But industries 
producing basic metals, chemicals and capital 
goods remain conspicuously absent from the 
Philippines, and light industry remains completely 
dependent on imported components.

Unlike Marcos and Aquino, though, Ramos has shed 
all pretensions of agrarian reform. His policies 
protect big landlords and industry and emphasize 
export crops over food crops. Under the MTDP over 
118,000 hectares of irrigated land are slated to 
be converted into "industrial corridors" - 
displacing 130,000 families. The amount of land 
planted with rice and corn has shrunk from 5 
million hectares to 1.9 million. These crops have 
been replaced by export crops like rubber, mango, 
cassava and cotton.(3)

Ramos' plan has done nothing to relieve poverty in 
the Philippines. Accumulated unemployment (which 
takes underemployment into account) remains at at 
least 40% of the labor force. Seventy-five percent 
of the population lives below the (government 
determined) poverty line; 40% cannot afford to eat 
three meals a day, and 78% of children below 
school age suffer from malnutrition.(3)

U.S. ECONOMIC INTERESTS IN THE PHILIPPINES

The Philippines has long been a dependable semi-
colony for U.S. imperialism, providing raw 
materials, cheap labor and a market for U.S. 
goods.

U.S. imperialists directly control enterprises in 
the Philippines worth over $1.66 billion and 
account for more than half of the foreign capital 
invested in the Philippines. U.S. companies 
regularly repatriate more than 80% of their 
earnings.(2)

The U.S. gave the Philippines $557 million worth 
of loans and grants in 1990.(1) The Philippines 
also receives large loans from U.S. front groups 
like the International Monetary fund (IMF), the 
World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. The 
total accumulated foreign debt of the Republic of 
the Philippines is $34.4 billion. Annual debt 
service alone amounts to $4.4 billion - 8.8% of 
the Philippines $52.6 billion GDP. In effect, 
every Filipino is mortgaged for $529 in order to 
prop up an economy which does not serve them.(3)

These loans come with strings attached, of course. 
The IMF recently asked Ramos to raise the price of 
oil products and transport fares in order to 
transfer the costs of restructuring the 
Philippines' debt onto the impoverished people. 
Ramos complied, but was forced to back down in the 
face of a nationwide *welgang bayan* (people's 
strike) protesting the price increases (5)

THE UNITED STATES AND THE AFP

The United States has had a large military 
presence in the Philippines protecting its 
interests there and throughout Southeast Asia for 
more than 100 years. Until recently, when a 
nationwide mass movement forced the Philippine 
Senate to evict them, 15,000 U.S. troops had been 
permanently stationed at the Clark and Subic Bay 
military bases. During the Vietnam war, these 
bases served as the staging ground for the sorties 
which dropped 25 million tons of explosives on 
Southeast Asia.(2)

Although the official closing of the bases means 
direct U.S. intervention in the Philippines has 
declined somewhat, indirect intervention remains 
high. The United States continues to support the 
AFP as the main force implementing the U.S. 
strategy of "total war" against the Communist 
Party of the Philippines and the NPA.

"Total war" targets the peasants and farm workers 
who support the NPA and its serve-the-people 
programs. As one NPA member put it, "Because the 
people's army were like fish and the masses like 
the water they could swim in, the ... regime aims 
to drain off the water and to kill the fish."(6) 
The Ramos government has carried out more village 
bombings and forced evacuations in Ramos' first 
two years in office than occurred during the 
entire Marcos dictatorship. Over two million 
peasants have been displaced by the AFP since the 
"total war" was launched.(5)

>From 1987 to 1990 the United States gave the 
Republic of the Philippines $1.3 billion in 
military aid.(1) U.S. aid accounts for 83% of the 
AFP's budget, and the AFP depends almost 
completely on the United States for its heavy 
equipment.(2)

Virtually every high-ranking officer in the AFP 
has undergone advanced training in the United 
States. The Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group 
(JUSMAG) trains Filipino officers in the use of 
the U.S. supplied machinery and also in counter-
insurgency tactics. JUSMAG also recruits Filipino 
allies for the U.S. in the armed forces. As one 
JUSMAG officer put it, "We're building 
relationships, making friends that will last a 
lifetime. And these are the people that will be 
running the AFP for many years to come."

In 1986 the U.S. spent $2.2 million on such 
programs for 460 officers.(2)

THE PEOPLE'S RESISTANCE IS RESOLUTE AND VIGOROUS

But Amerika and the Ramos regime remain paper 
tigers. They cannot relieve the economic and 
political crisis in the Philippines because they 
are the source of the crisis. 

The oppressive conditions in the Philippines 
combined with the CPP's application of the Maoist 
theory of protracted people's war combining armed 
struggle, agrarian revolution, and mass-base 
building allowed the NPA to grow from nine rifles 
to 8000 rifles and the CPP's mass base to reach 11 
million people.

Subjective errors have cost the revolutionary 
movement the most. Deviations from the Maoist 
theory of people's war led to a weakening of the 
CPP's influence among the mass movement, a 
reduction in the CPP's mass base and the death or 
imprisonment of many comrades. But the CPP has 
publicly named its errors and begun an intensive 
rectification campaign.(7)

United behind the correct line, the revolutionary 
movement outlasted Marcos. United behind the 
correct line, the revolutionary movement will 
outlast Ramos and eventually defeat U.S. 
Imperialism.

LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE'S WAR IN THE PHILIPPINES!
FORWARD TO VICTORY!

NOTES:
1. The Statistical Abstract of the United States,
   1992.
2. James Goodno, "The Philippines: Land of Broken
   Promises," London: Zed Books, 1991.
3. BAYAN International - Philippine Institute for
   Global Liaison, Advocacy and Solidarity
   (PIGLAS), "The Truth About the Ramos Regime,"
   1994.
4. Jose Maria Sison, "The Continuing Struggle in
   the Philippines," New Progressive Review, 1988.
5. Liberation International, Jan-Feb 1994, p. 11.
6. Liberation International, Sep-Dec 1993, p. 20.
7. See MIM Notes, 1/94, 2/94.


FIDEL RAMOS IS A FASCIST AND AN AMERIKAN BOY

The current President of the Republic of the 
Philippines, General Fidel Ramos, has served the 
United States interests in the Philippines since 
he graduated from West Point in 1950. He is 
popularly referred to as an "American boy" or 
"Amboy."

Ramos fought for the United States in both the 
Korean and Vietnam wars.

Ramos was one of the "Rolex 12" - one of the 12 
with whom Ferdinand Marcos planned the imposition 
of martial law in 1972 (Marcos gave each of the 12 
a Rolex watch, hence the name). He commanded 
Marcos' abusive and corrupt national police force, 
the Philippine Constabulary (PC). 

Ramos was the chief proponent and implementor of 
the U.S. designed "total war" policy. He created 
the Barrio Self Defense Unit (BSDU), a para-
military vigilante group which attacked democratic 
and nationalist organizers. The BSDU became so 
infamous that it continually had to change its 
name: it became the Civilian Home Defense Forces 
and then the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical 
Unit.

Ramos donned the cloak of an anti-Marcos hero when 
it became clear that the United States wanted to 
dump the dictator. He was chief of staff of the 
AFP under Corazon Aquino and responsible for 
wrecking peace talks between the National 
Democratic Front and the U.S.-Aquino regime.

Ramos received U.S. endorsement and funding in the 
1992 elections. Still, he only got 23.5% of the 
vote.

Ramos has allowed the U.S. to continue to use its 
former military bases against the will of the 
people and the Senate of the Philippines.

And Ramos has made it clear that a renewed 
declaration of martial law would suit him just 
fine. Much of the rhetoric around Ramos' Medium 
Term Development Plan has emphasized the need for 
a strong, military state. After Ramos raised the 
prices of oil products last January, he secured 
"special powers" for himself from the Philippine 
Congress to deal with the self-created "energy 
crisis", paving the way for the imposition of 
martial rule.

NOTES: BAYAN International - Philippine Institute 
for Global Liaison, Advocacy and Solidarity 
(PIGLAS), "The Truth About the Ramos Regime," 
1994. Liberation International, Jan-Feb 1994, p. 
11.

* * *

DON'T VOTE, BUILD THIS MAOIST PARTY!

You may have noticed that MIM does not waste a lot 
of space talking about Amerikan elections. 
Oppressed people everywhere and the 
revolutionaries who work in their interest are not 
distracted by the billion-dollar, smoke-and-mirror 
campaigns of imperialism.

One cannot simultaneously be a revolutionary 
working to end oppression and vote to uphold the 
reactionary Amerikan system. The internal 
oppressed nations of Amerika know this - hundreds 
of years of history show that no matter who's in 
power under capitalist patriarchy, Blacks, Latinos 
and indigenous peoples are denied any real change.

For oppressed people, voting in a bourgeois 
democratic capitalist society is nothing more than 
a sport - choosing the face of your oppressor. For 
white women, the labor aristocracy, and of course, 
white men, the choice between a Democrat and a 
Republican does make a difference. 

People do vote in their best interests (when they 
vote) and progressives who try to register people 
of oppressed nations are wasting everybody's time. 
The majority of white Amerikans support or 
participate in the electoral system. The system 
overall represents their interests, though it 
favors the rich among them. Still, their choices 
are limited and they are constantly grumbling and 
protesting by not voting.

If some candidate throws Amerikans a bone - a 
tough crime bill with lots of new prisons, some 
protectionism against foreigners, or war or two - 
then they may get temporarily excited and go pull 
some levers. But their elections are not what 
changes the direction of the country. They 
rubberstamp the decisions made by international 
patriarchal capital, and they get paid to do it.

Revolutionaries act on the belief that people are 
bigger than individual votes, and that 
improvements within the Amerikan system are made 
at the cost of increased exploitation of the 
oppressed. Every day wasted on these elections 
means millions more death sentences for the 
oppressed.

* * *

ACTIVISTS PROTEST MICHIGAN NUKE PLANT

At the gates of Fermi II, police brutally arrested 
over twenty activists on October 2 that were 
protesting the re-opening of the nuclear power 
plant in Monroe, Michigan. The facility was shut 
down last December when a blade from the turbine 
system snapped, breaking four other blades and 
gouging a hole in the housing. The result of this 
accident was a fire and subsequent flooding. 
Detroit Edison, the owners of the plant, released 
1.5 million gallons of radioactive water into Lake 
Erie.(1)

Like all nuclear power plants, the dangers of 
operation come from mismanagement, outdated 
equipment and accidents. In addition, the spent 
fuel rods and radioactive waste must be stored 
indefinitely. This poses a catastrophic threat to 
the communities that have to deal with the dangers 
of leaks through weakened storage caskets or from 
accidents during transportation, or total 
abandonment by the storage company. 

ANOTHER FERMI

In 1966 Fermi I had a partial core meltdown. The 
facility was built not only to create energy, but 
to produce weapons grade enriched plutonium for 
building atomic weapons.(2) Fermi I was then 
sealed shut for future generations to deal with 
and Fermi II was built.

Fermi II began operating in 1986. Before that 
accident Edison ignored warnings of shaky turbine 
quality because of the expense of the repairs.(2) 
It hasn't generated electricity since the accident 
and repairs cost $35-50 million. Now the plant has 
been repaired somewhat, the nuclear fuel rods are 
being put into the plant and they are planning to 
start up at low power with several turbine blades 
missing.(1)

REPRESSION IN AMERIKA

The weekend's rallies, benefit concert, speeches 
that culminated in the direct action at Fermi II 
were organized by a coalition of Earth First! 
activists, The Student Environmental Action 
Coalition, the Zebra Mussel Alliance, Greenpeace 
and Citizens Resistance Against Fermi II (CRAFT). 
Over twenty activists were arrested on Sunday.

Standing on the shoulder of the road, barely on 
the road itself, a woman was told to move by a 
cop. The pig pushed and she started to move, 
turned around and barely bumped the cop who then 
grabbed her tried to drag her away. She sat down 
in protest. A man from across the street headed 
toward the scene, but a cop intercepted him. Then 
the cop pushed him down, more cops joined and 
dragged him back to the other side of the street 
where they forced this guy to stay down and 
repeatedly beat him. A woman ran across to help 
him and was dragged back. After five or six pigs 
beat him, he was taken off to jail. His wife got 
in the car. She started to make a U-turn to head 
toward the jail, and a cop stopped her. Then her 
car was surrounded by cops. Apparently, they 
thought that she was breaking the law and dragged 
her out of her car and arrested her.

The faulty premise with demonstrations against 
corporations in general is that the protesters 
believe that pressure on the capitalists will 
deter them from continuing with degradation of the 
environment. This reliance on the owners of 
production to reform their ways will not bring 
about policy that serves the people.

At the rally, the cops were there to protect the 
interests of the people that pay government 
representatives large amounts of money. While MIM 
sees that the contradiction between capitalism and 
the planet's health growing steadily, MIM believes 
that we must have control of development. We 
cannot expect capitalists to act in any other 
interest than to protect their profit margin. This 
is why the most effective strategy cannot be civil 
disobedience. Pleas to the government or big 
business to altruistically change their actions 
have never resulted in change. 

In order to protect the environment, the 
government must be representative of the people - 
the people who are not driven by individual 
profit. 

NOTES:
1. The Metro Times (Detroit) 9/29-10/4/94, p. 6.
2. Jam Rag - The Fifth Estate "Anti-Nuclear Power
   Special Edition".

* * *

PSYCHO-IMPERIALISTS SAY "DON'T AGITATE, MEDICATE!"

by MC17 & MC44

October 6 was National Depression Screening Day. 
Fliers entitled "Depression is a disease, not a 
weakness," hanging all over Boston's Chinatown 
listed the symptoms of this latest, highly 
profitable psychiatric disease: "poor sleep, 
depressed mood, loss of energy, change in 
appetite...."

(Not missing an opportunity to peddle psychotropic 
drugs in non-English speaking communities, the 
flier was also translated into Chinese.)

On Oct. 3, TV's Lifeline News program featured a 
story about depression. Citing figures that 
millions of Amerikans suffer from depression and 
only about 40% get treatment, this show urged its 
viewers to call the 1-800 number on their screen 
if they thought they needed help for this 
"disorder."

Don't worry, the program assured, it's not the 
fault of capitalism, or this fucked up society, 
there is something wrong with *you.* A chemical 
imbalance is leading to your strange emotions of 
despair, and you can be cured. The latest craze, 
Prozac, is an increasingly popular drug touted as 
a miracle cure for depression. If Prozac doesn't 
work, some prescribe the more potent (and more 
dangerous) Lithium. With enough drugs anyone could 
be fooled into believing that capitalism is great, 
destruction of the earth is no big deal, and all 
problems come from within.

And medicating everyone seems to be the goal of 
the psychiatric establishment. In one sense the 
treatment is individual - as in the dosage and the 
particular medication - but in a more profound 
sense the project is social. The greater the 
social ills, the more people who will need 
medication to function. The question becomes, 
then, function as what?

DRUGS AS SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE OPPRESSED...

According to Peter Breggin, founder of the Center 
for the Study of Psychiatry and an activist 
against the use of drugs in psychiatric treatment, 
"more than a million children in America are being 
drugged with Ritalin to make them more docile in 
school and at home. ... Inner-city schools already 
play a major role in pushing and sometimes 
coercing families to take Ritalin, a drug 
pharmacologically related to amphetamines and 
cocaine."(1)

In the same statement to the Congressional Black 
Caucus in 1992, Breggin argued that the rise of 
psychiatric medication for children amounted to 
"blaming little black children for the problems of 
society, such as racism, poverty, hunger, 
inadequate or absent health care, the decline of 
the schools, unemployment, police brutality, a 
destructive welfare system, and despair over the 
future."(2)

Since "hyperactivity" seems to occur 
disproportionately in oppressed populations, the 
cause can only be social. The humane cure then, 
must be to change the material conditions which 
make oppressed nation children's live unbearable. 
The imperialist cure is to medicate them into 
submission.

Foisted upon the oppressed nations at school 
(Ritalin) or on the street (crack), drugs numb the 
mind against legitimate feelings of anger and 
persecution, and the desire for revolution.

...AND OF THE OPPRESSOR

Among the millions of masses of the white nation 
who take Prozac for depression, social control 
takes a different form. The parasitism of living 
off the super-exploited labor of the Third World 
is indeed alienating and depressing. But the goals 
of mass medication - profit-making and social 
efficiency - mean making an oppressive society 
more palatable to both the oppressed and the 
oppressor.

Revolutionaries say no to drugs as a cure for 
capitalism. Revolutionaries say no to capitalists 
and psycho-fascists. You're not crazy, you live in 
the heart of imperialist Amerika, the biggest 
murderer in the history of humanity. If that 
depresses you, and it should, work and struggle 
with MIM. Subordinate yourself to the will of 
international proletariat - not the psychiatric 
establishment.

NOTES:
1. Peter Breggin, quoted in Pat Shipman, *The
   Evolution of Racism: Human Differences and the
   Use and Abuse of Science*. Simon and Schuster:
   New York, 1994. p. 244.
2. Ibid.

* * *

"IMPLANTING DEMOCRACY" THE U.S. WAY:
AMERIKAN OCCUPATION COMES TO HAITI

by MC12

OCTOBER 10--Last time the United States held an 
election in Haiti, under President Woodrow Wilson, 
5% of the people voted, and 99.9% of them approved 
the U.S.-drafted constitution.(1) This time, while 
the goals are no different, the mechanisms have 
changed - and a lot of people can't get it out of 
their heads that the United States is there to 
"restore democracy."

To hear these people tell it, Amerika has been 
trying to do that all along, but the Haitians just 
can't get it together. The Washington Post 
represented this idea well on October 9, when they 
listed the "chronic obstacles to democratic rule" 
as "Haiti's overwhelming poverty, its recurrent 
violence, its political instability."(2) The 
United States is not part of that list, somehow.

When Amerikan troops came upon a jail full of 
political prisoners who had not even gotten a 
trial under the military dictatorship, they left 
them in jail, worried that letting them out might 
complicate the task of "maintaining order."(3) 
See, the Amerikans try and try, but there is only 
so much they can do to further the "implantation 
of democracy."(2)

TOUGH TEST FOR "DEMOCRACY"

Now the U.S.-Haitian rulers are in a tough spot. 
They have to install a new government (referred to 
as "restoring" the Aristide government), but make 
sure their old friends stay in control. U.S. 
officials, like Alexander Watson, the assistant 
secretary of state for Inter-American Affairs, are 
worried. He said: "Still unproven is [Aristide's] 
ability to work in a democratic process that is 
based on striking compromises and gaining a broad 
base of support. He isn't the kind of guy who 
likes to make deals."(2)

Broad base? Aristide got two-thirds of the vote, 
Watson can't mean majority support. The definition 
of "broad base," like the definition of 
"democracy," is dependent upon agreement with 
military and business leaders who control the 
Haitian population and provide labor to their 
bosses in the Amerikan corporations. That's what 
he means by "make deals."

To help with the difficult task of "implanting 
democracy," the U.S. will keep its 20,000 or so 
troops in Haiti through the installation of 
Aristide and the new parliamentary election, just 
to make sure things don't get out of hand - like 
they did when Aristide got elected. Then a smaller 
force will stay there for at least 16 months, 
until Aristide's term is safely over.(2) By then 
the CIA will have spent at least $1 million on 
"political actions" to influence the "democratic" 
process, so that process may be trusted to produce 
the desired result.(4)

And during the "transition" period before the 
"honorable retirement" of Cedras and two other 
leaders, paramilitary forces continued to 
terrorize and kill popular activists, sometimes by 
the blunt method of driving trucks or buses 
directly into crowds. U.S. troops showed up to 
help clean up the mess.(5)

CIA TRIES AND TRIES

Things were never supposed to get to the point of 
U.S. military occupation. U.S. aid went to both 
Duvalier dictatorships - from Kennedy to Reagan - 
including money to help build U.S. assembly plants 
in the 1970s. That new economic development helped 
wages decline 56% during the 1980s. U.S. support 
continued right through the post-Duvalier 
government, which got $2.8 million in military aid 
while gunning down demonstrators in the streets. 
Then U.S. planners thought they could get a former 
World Bank official elected, so they allowed an 
election, but repression failed and two-thirds of 
the voters courageously chose Aristide.(1)

Even then, the U.S. wanted military leaders to cut 
a deal with Aristide and settle. They helped 
create FRAPH, a right-wing death-squad 
organization directly responsible for hundreds of 
deaths, to help bring "balance" to the political 
process. The money going to FRAPH leader Emmanuel 
Constant was - like all CIA money - supposedly for 
"information," and now everyone acts as if the CIA 
had no influence over its actions.(6)

In defending supporting FRAPH, U.S. officials said 
it was, in the Times' phrase, "part of a 
continuing effort to gather information from all 
ends of the Haitian political spectrum." Just more 
evidence of how deeply infected the Haitian system 
is with the CIA virus.(7)

This was not isolated or accidental support. In a 
show of balance, the New York Times stuck a 
reminder into one of its stories: "The New York 
Times reported last year that leading figures in 
the Haitian military and police were on the CIA 
payroll, and Government officials acknowledged 
then that the Haitian intelligence service, which 
had been trained by the agency [CIA], had turned 
to drug running and political violence."(7) They 
didn't remind readers that one of those military 
leaders on the CIA payroll was Cedras himself.(8)

The Nation reported that the CIA wanted more than 
information. Constant said that the U.S. military 
encouraged him to form FRAPH in the first place, 
and that CIA and military officers were present in 
the military headquarters during the anti-Aristide 
coup.(7) Before Constant suddenly retired from 
FRAPH, he was "burning up the wire to his friends 
in Washington," according to a Latin American 
diplomat.(9)

The official story is sometimes so obviously bogus 
that the bourgeois media just looks stupid 
upholding it. For example, the New York Times 
reported that, "The CIA ... poured money into the 
[Haitian] army hierarchy for an antinarcotics 
intelligence program, despite the fact that high-
ranking officers went into the drug business 
themselves."(9) So, if the money from an 
"antinarcotics" effort is being used to build the 
narcotics trade, what makes it an "antinarcotics" 
effort? Nothing except the constant repetition of 
the name by the bourgeois press and its willfully 
ignorant followers.

Before the scandal broke - and was buried - over 
the FRAPH funding, the New York Times reported 
that, "One Aristide advisor said asking Haiti's 
police to disarm attaches is like asking one fox 
to guard another."(10) If that's true, than what 
is it for the U.S. to claim to disarm, reorganize 
or "professionalize" the military and police - 
which they created and trained?

In some ways not much has changed since Woodrow 
Wilson's time in Haiti. One Amerikan official 
recently said: "The rules are we're there to 
supplement the efforts of Haitian authorities, but 
if they prove incapable, we're ready to do it 
ourselves."(10) The question is, what is it that 
the Haitian authorities were "incapable" of doing?

At press time it appeared that Aristide would come 
back to "rule" under conditions imposed by the 
U.S. military. While MIM has supported Aristide as 
the democratic choice of the Haitian people, we 
can't support a puppet regime of the United States 
- in other words, Aristide's government under 
these conditions.

Democracy in imperialist colonies can't be 
achieved without real independence, and so far 
history demonstrates that real independence only 
follows from socialist-led national liberation 
struggles. That is the task before the proud 
Haitian people today - and it's the greatest task, 
against the greatest enemy, that they have faced 
in more than 200 years of struggle.

NOTES:
 1. Paul Farmer, *The Uses of Haiti*. Common
    Courage Press: Monroe, ME, 1994, pp. 19-23.
    With introduction by Noam Chomsky. This is a
    good book of background on U.S. domination of
    Haiti through then end of 1993. 
 2. Washington Post 10/9/94, p. A36.
 3. ABC News 10/3/94.
 4. New York Times 10/2/94, Sec.4, p. 16.
 5. NYT 10/10/94, p. A1.
 6. This story was broken by The Nation in its
    10/24/94 edition, then confirmed by government
    sources to the Washington Post (10/7/94) and
    New York Times (10/8/94).
 7. NYT 10/8/94, p. A1.
 8. NYT 11/14/93, p. A1.
 9. NYT 10/6/94, p. A8.
10. NYT 10/2/94, p. A1.

* * *

HEAD OF IMF VISITS PERU

On August 25, the prominent bloodsucker of the 
International Monetary Fund (IMF) was back in 
Peru. Heavily protected by army personnel, 
Mitchell Camdensus visited Ayacucho accompanied by 
the tyrant of Peru. They observed the developments 
of the IMF financed counter-insurgency plans and 
programs. Camdensus described the exploitation and 
oppression of the people who do not earn even 
subsistence wages in those projects as "government 
successes." He also labeled as a success the 
repayment of Peru's six billion dollar debt to 
foreign banks, at the expense of the hunger and 
misery of Peruvians. What are these "successes"?

# The deep recession, decline and destruction of
  national production.
# Unemployment and reduction of the real standard
  of living.
# Exorbitant taxes to raise funds and pay the
  foreign debt.
# Total neglect of people's health and education.
# Destruction of the peasant agrarian economy.
# Widespread torture, disappearances and killings
  of civilians and prisoners of war being
  committed with impunity by police and armed
  forces.
  
DOWN WITH THE IMPERIALIST TOOL IMF!
FOR LAND, SALARY AND NATIONAL PRODUCTION!
FOR PEOPLE'S RIGHTS AND PEOPLE'S WAR!
FOR THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF PERU!

Reprinted from La Nueva Bandera, Vol. 1, Number 3 
September/October 
1994. 30-08 Broadway #159, Queens NY 11106.
E-mail: lquispe@nyxfer.blythe.org.


NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS (NGOS): BUFFERS OF 
THE OLD ORDER AND TRAFFICKERS WITH THE NEEDS OF 
THE PEOPLE

Reprinted from El Diario, Lima (source: La Nueva 
Bandera, Vol 1, Number 3)

MIM is reprinting this article on NGOs from El 
Diario because this is an important way that the 
United States is involved in imperialist ventures 
in Peru and throughout the world. Many leftists 
believe that NGOs are potential progressive 
alternatives to revolutionary work. This article 
begins the work of debunking this myth about NGOs. 
MIM hopes to do future articles about NGOs in 
other countries: If you have any information about 
NGOs anywhere, please send it to us for use in 
these future articles.

CLASS CHARACTER OF THE NGOS

NGOs within the framework of the old state, are 
associations, centers or private institutions 
which carry out "non-profit" activities. As such, 
the economic base of the NGOs are part of the 
superstructure of our society.

As institutions created and protected by the 
decadent state, the NGOs serve only to defend the 
existing system of economic relations. It is a 
fact that virtually all NGOs collaborate with the 
dominant class through the government in place. 
NGOs contain and placate sectors of the population 
with the specific goal of winning them over to 
reformism and counterrevolution, and thus trying 
to contain and stop the advance of the People's 
War.

Our assessment is based on a document published by 
Peru's National Association of NGOs. It reads, "we 
are working at regional levels, supporting 
macroeconomic programs." They collaborate directly 
with the old State, unconditionally serving the 
government in its plans to reinvigorate 
bureaucratic capitalism. The same document states: 
"It is necessary to determine where the role of 
the State ends and where the NGOs work begins. The 
NGOs cannot and should not do it all. Nor should 
the State. The equitable distribution of tasks is 
not a simple thing. No doubt it is indispensable." 
Despite these admissions, NGOs pretend to be the 
promoters of development. These above statements 
expose the reactionary class character of the NGOs 
before the people. The fact of the matter is that 
NGOs squander the foreign technical cooperation 
and aid with the support of the State in exchange 
for trying to put the population to sleep and 
attempting to isolate the people (too late) from 
the path of People's War led by their political 
vanguard, the PCP; which in perspective is 
advancing the conquest of power countrywide and is 
currently evolving in the level of strategic 
equilibrium.

INTERNATIONAL FUNDING IN EXCHANGE
FOR REACTIONARY TASKS

The influx of funds to the NGOs in Peru comes from 
other NGOs in the U.S., European social democracy, 
revisionism, and the World Bank among other 
financial sources. But these "grants" do not come 
without defined objectives. Quite to the contrary, 
they seek a direct economic benefit from these 
donations (to obtain new profits or to maintain 
their investments), at the same time to maintain 
and/or to change a political situation in 
accordance with their interests.

In Peru, the promoters and managers of these NGOs 
are in their majority the big wheels of the 
reactionary parties (Libertad, PPC, AP, APRA, 
SODE, CAMBIO 90, Nueva Mayoria, Perez de Cuellar, 
etc), the reformists and revisionists of all 
stripes (UDP, PUM, Unidad, PSR, Trotskyites, MDI, 
MAS, Patria Roja, Bolsheviks, etc.) to which must 
be added the sellers of happiness after life 
(Evangelicals, Catholics, Lutherans, Mormons, 
etc.). These politicians and clergy have been 
using funds provided by the International 
Technical Cooperation, ensured by the landowning-
bureaucratic State through its inefficient and 
incapable National Planning Institute, which is 
the state organism charged with registering these 
private beneficiary institutions with external 
resources.

In exchange for contributing to the decadent 
State, NGOs have a green light in the distribution 
of funds in the manner that suits them best. This 
is how their executives, advisors, and their 
associates are the highest paid in the country, 
including constant pleasure trips abroad under the 
pretext of attending international events, thus 
selling information, begging for more "aid' or 
seeking funding of some desktop investigation.

Are all NGOs' activities "non-profit"? No. In 
reality, they act like any commercial enterprises, 
obtaining fat profits and earnings which are 
wasted and enjoyed by a few bosses and big wheels 
of the NGOs, leaving a minimal "utility" or "loss" 
which then becomes the liability of the 
institution.

Such is the level of corruption in the NGOs, and 
the notoriety with which they act with the funds 
they receive. For example, the pro-government 
daily El Comercio (page 2, Suplemento Dominical, 
10/27/91) states with regard to the allocation of 
$10 million dollars destined to Peru by the U.S. 
AID: "Four million for the state, and the 
remaining 6 million dollars shall be for one 
single NGO. Then follows the manner in which it 
will use this money, which for us is not a small 
sum." It also states: "Therefore, they agree that 
these organizations don't impair their objectives 
and [they] become simple instruments for a few to 
be able to receive high remunerations, much higher 
than they would normally receive in the public 
sector as well as in the private sector." This 
confirms how these resources are managed, and how 
funds are distributed in the payment of salaries, 
criticism that comes from their own lips.

Another daily on October 13, 1991, states that AP 
congressman Ruiz "...has officially requested that 
an investigative commission be formed to examine 
in depth the manner in which the hundreds of 
thousands of dollars which are annually received 
by the NGOs are used, every time they come working 
in areas which need help." "In some of these NGOs, 
their main goal is to pay elevated salaries to 
their members, which are based on the need for 
investigation, attention or study of national 
problems; they worry more about obtaining 
extremely high remunerations. It is said that 
there are currently salaries which surpass five 
thousand dollars a month."

For the masses, the fundamental problem is not in 
the management of the funds. It is to unmask their 
counterrevolutionary role, since they work for the 
international monopolies and the old reactionary 
state. They work against the future of the class 
and the people who are building the New State in 
Peru.

THE NGOS AND THE LIBERAL CURRENT

The leaders of the NGOs, like good charlatans, 
adjust their "analysis of categories" and their 
work according to the situation. Following their 
chameleon-like policy, they adapt themselves to 
the needs of their masters: The European Social 
Democracy, The U.S. and Canadian NGOs, the 
revisionists, AID, International Development Bank, 
IMF, The World Bank, etc. The businessmen of the 
NGOs have been worried because the liberal current 
is marking time for the imperialist powers, 
revisionists and European countries, who fear 
seeing cutbacks in their ample budgets originating 
in these countries. However, they have easily 
found new ways to stay afloat and to obtain 
financing from other sources as well as to finance 
themselves....

In the same manner, these institutions, like good 
defenders of the current system of exploitative 
relations, are adapting their strategies and 
actions to the reactionary policies which are 
being implemented by the genocidal Fujimori, such 
as the marches for peace in the poor neighborhoods 
(e.g., Villa El Salvador), marches for peace in 
the wealthy Miraflores barrio, the organization of 
counterrevolutionary urban patrols and the 
collaboration with information to the National 
Police and the Armed Forces.

THE NGO'S MAIN FIELDS OF ACTION

... It is estimated that there are more than three 
thousand organizations working throughout the 
country. Nevertheless, the problems of the old 
state have increased: hunger and unemployment 
gallop through the streets and factories, 
epidemics menace the population through the three 
regions and 23 departments, children are dying of 
malnutrition, education has become elitist, 
factory production has declined (factories and 
workshops continue to close), the judiciary is 
more corrupt each day, the police and armed forces 
are more demoralized each day, the tyrants CCD 
"parliamentarians" cannot even maintain their role 
as buffoons (nothing that they do can awaken the 
people's interest); Fujimori and his lackeys of 
executive power (ministers) have been exposed 
(even by the same wife of Fujimori) as bribe-
takers and servile stocking suckers of 
imperialism, principally the U.S., without 
national dignity, deflowered by the Yankees. Faced 
with this panorama of injustice, the New State in 
construction rises up clean and shining, in whose 
Bases of Support life is crystaline, without 
pestilence, selfishness and most importantly 
without corruption. The glorious PCP leads the 
People's Republic of Peru in formation and its 
Central Committee is the center of its leadership. 
No NGOs or reactionary thesis or "investigation" 
will prevent the triumph of the revolution which 
is the only solution to all the ills that today 
plague the Peruvian people.

* * *

PAPER TIGERS

WASHINGTON D.C. POVERTY BOOMS

Household income fell about 13% in the last year 
in Washington, D.C., according to the Census 
Bureau. During that single year, the proportion of 
people living below the official poverty line 
jumped from 20.3% to 26.4%. The poverty rate is 
the highest since the Bureau started keeping 
figures on the city, 14 years ago.

To be considered "poor" by this measure, a family 
of four must have a total income of less than 
$14,763. Compared to most places, D.C. has a high 
cost of living.

The dramatic change reflects rich and middle class 
people leaving the city, but also a worsening of 
conditions for the people remaining in the city.

Some 40,000 people have left the city in the last 
four years, most of them earning more than $30,000 
per year. That decrease in well-off people by 
itself would drop the average income in the city.

But the absolute numbers of poor people increased, 
too. In the last year 22,000 more people began 
receiving food stamps, and 800 more people started 
getting Aid to Families with Dependent Children 
(AFDC). Since 1989 the number of people on AFDC 
increased from about 18,000 to more than 27,000.

Almost all the poor people in the District are 
members of oppressed nations - mostly Black and 
Latino.

 - MC12

Notes: Washington Post 10/8/94, p. B1.


PIGS STEP ON NEW IDEAS

UMass, Amherst - At the new student Convocation 
Ceremony on September 10, security guards at the 
student-funded Mullins Center hassled activists 
distributing literature, assaulting one. The 
Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) was 
distributing MIM Notes, the Alliance for Student 
Power (ASP) was distributing The Liberator, and 
the Cannabis Reform Coalition (CRC) was 
distributing flyers in support of their 
organization and marijuana legalization. These 
three separate organizations each wanted to 
introduce the new students to politics at UMass as 
quickly as possible, hence Convocation. The 
enthusiasm new students expressed towards MIM, the 
ASP and the CRC was likely a factor encouraging 
the pigs to act.

At first, the activists distributed literature 
where the students were congregating, outside the 
doors, waiting to get in. The ease with which we 
distributed literature spurred the Mullins pigs to 
order us back across the street. But the bulk of 
the students were already on the Mullins side of 
the street. So we protested and tried to move 
back. One Mullins guard told a CRC activist that 
the Mullins Center was not public property, 
because they lease it from the state. Therefore 
the first amendment didn't apply.

A Mullins pig attempted to seize a stack of 
temporarily unattended Cannabis Reform Coalition 
literature and bring it into the building. 
Luckily, a CRC activist was able to liberate the 
lit from the guard. A CRC activist was also 
physically assaulted by a Mullins Center pig who 
pushed him all the way from the doors to across 
the street.

When students starting to walk to Convocation 
along the Mullins side of the street, the 
activists returned to that side of the street, but 
further up the street, not on the Mullins 
"property". The Mullins guards returned, pushing 
the activists further and further up the street. 
When one CRC activist starting yelling about the 
Mullins Center, a real kop took his ID and called 
it in.

The three organizations were able to distribute a 
good amount of literature, but we would have been 
more successful closer to Mullins. But the bigger 
question remains: Is the Mullins Center trying to 
set a precedent for restricting the flow of 
information at their events?

The Mullins Center example is a more proof of 
MIM's point that there are no rights, only power 
struggles. The Mullins pigs repressed these three 
groups *because they could*. Sometimes we can win 
a victory by getting the enemy to follow their own 
rules, like the First Amendment. But this is just 
a short term, or tactical, victory.

We must base our strategy on building our own, 
independent power of the oppressed. We will use 
this power to destroy that of the old order as we 
replace it with the new. Building our own media 
and our own distribution network to serve the 
people is building independent power. So defending 
our ability to distribute is an important battle.


NO "FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION" IN SOUTH KOREA

For years, South Korean university students have 
admired Kim Il Sung, the leader of their 
compatriots in the North. When the sorrow 
following his death sparked riots, calls for 
repression began coming from all sides. There is a 
fear that "leftist radicalism" is "taking over the 
student movement." Major Seoul dailies that had 
once supported the students' freedom of expression 
now condemn them. The independent paper Hankuk 
Ilbo declares: "No society tolerates an internal 
enemy that seeks to destroy its institutions from 
within." 

The moral of the story is: bourgeois democracies 
can afford some freedom of expression as long as 
people are expressing the right things. Once the 
progressive elements start having influence, 
repression is in order.

Notes: World Press Review 10/94, p. 24.


SPARTS SIDE WITH MILLIONAIRES

The September 16 issue of the Spartacist League 
newspaper Workers Vanguard demonstrates the 
Sparts' potential as a vanguard of imperialist 
nation unity. Masquerading as Marxists, the Sparts 
devote a full page of their newspaper to 
championing the baseball players' strike. The 
Workers Vanguard begins by arguing that the 
players are exploited, and mixes this coverage 
with reporting on the struggles of Azanian workers 
in South Africa. This inane comparison belittles 
the struggles of genuinely oppressed Third World 
peoples by equating them with the struggles of 
property-owning sports heroes.

The Spartacist League goes beyond many social-
democrats and revisionists by attempting to 
organize the oppressed and exploited for the 
interests of the imperialist nation petty-
bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie. The Sparts pose left 
by making the ridiculous call for baseball players 
to defend "the incredibly oppressed Haitian women 
who stitch baseballs for a dime an hour." In 
practice, the Sparts have one goal: greater 
imperialist unity and greater oppression.

The Spartacist League is a vehicle of class 
collaboration. The imperialist nation labor 
aristocracy, petty-bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie, 
are all renamed exploited workers by the 
Spartacist League. According to the Spartacist 
League, anyone hired must be exploited, or they 
wouldn't have been hired. The Sparts hope to unite 
doctors (supposedly hired and exploited by 
hospitals), baseball players (supposedly hired and 
exploited by club owners), accountants (supposedly 
hired and exploited by banks), chief executive 
officers of public corporations (CEOs like Lee 
Iacocca, hired by boards of directors and 
salaried) and everyone else who can claim to be 
hired by someone else. By counting almost 
everybody in the imperialist countries as a 
"worker," the Spartacist League is an excellent 
vehicle for imperialist nation unity. 

The Sparts report that "much is made of the 
average player's salary of nearly $1.2 million, 
but the majority of players get barely a third of 
that during their brief (five-year) 'career' in 
the 'bigs.'" The Sparts want oppressed people to 
feel sympathy for baseball players who have such a 
rough life being paid as well as or better than 
most lawyers for engaging in a leisure time 
activity. 

The Sparts are far removed from a correct analysis 
of class struggle: "what the baseball bosses 
really want is a return to the days of the reserve 
clause, when ball players were semi-slaves to be 
exchanged like bubble gum cards. The current 
strike, which has really stuck it to these 
aspiring slave-owners, is a good thing for the 
working class." These assholes don't even know 
what slavery is.

Reading the Sparts' demagogic bologna, one would 
think there is no petty-bourgeoisie, no labor 
aristocracy and almost no bourgeoisie for that 
matter, when in fact these classes constitute a 
majority of the population within U.S. borders. 
The Spartacist League, like all Trotskyist 
organizations, is far removed from the interests 
of the international proletariat. This is why no 
one has ever made a revolution through Trotskyism.

 - MC5

Notes: Workers Vanguard 9/16/94, p. 3, 11.


ROOSEVELT'S "ROUGH RIDERS" RAGE AGAIN

Our tears go out to George Bachrach, the self-
described "liberal" who lost the Democratic Party 
primary election for Governor of Massachusetts to 
Mark Roosevelt, the "New Democrat," who supports 
the death penalty and "three strikes you're out" 
as the answer to crime, just like Governor Weld. 
With the Republican Weld facing Democrat 
Roosevelt, as usual the bourgeois elections will 
be boring, dominated by slight perceptions 
regarding differences of approaches, all 
historically proven to fail with regard to crime. 
MIM has pointed out already [MIM Notes 93, October 
1994] that even Bachrach, the supposed candidate 
of the left, jumped on the bandwagon to "fight 
crime" by putting more people in prison, more than 
Amerika's leading status as prison-state of the 
world would indicate. 

Since Roosevelt would like to stress his 
similarities to Weld on crime, except for 
"domestic violence," where like Bachrach, he 
thinks Weld is not "tough enough," he is stressing 
his differences over the planned casino desired by 
the Wampanoag nation. According to Roosevelt, his 
opposition to the potentially billion-dollar 
annual revenue casino is the central issue 
separating him from Weld, who Roosevelt paints as 
a corrupt politician with no ethical strength to 
resist the lobbying of "special interests" with 
great money. 

Hence, the Democratic Party candidate for governor 
has made opposition to Wampanoag self-
determination a centerpiece of his campaign. 
Currently, the United States government does not 
even recognize the Wampanoag as a "tribe" entitled 
to that level of negotiating status by law. 

MIM believes the Wampanoag are entitled to the 
status of nationhood and to the land they are 
claiming within Massachusetts borders. If they 
want to have a casino within their territory and 
invite in white foreigners and others, that is 
their business. Roosevelt's campaign is 
inappropriate because it ignores that the 
Wampanoag are compromising with Massachusetts 
government just to discuss the issue. It is not 
appropriate for Roosevelt to oppose the casino 
flat-out and instead, he should be discussing 
relations between the people of Massachusetts and 
the Wampanoag. 

During his campaign to defeat two bourgeois 
opponents for the nomination of the Democratic 
Party, Roosevelt ran television ads bragging that 
he is a great-grandson of President Theodore 
Roosevelt. What better proof of the minority 
nature of the ruling class could there be? The old 
president's great-grandson is a contender for an 
important political office. What is even better is 
that Roosevelt's opponent went to the same college 
and graduate school - Harvard College and then 
Harvard Law School. To top it all off, Weld is 
married to a great-granddaughter of the same 
Theodore Roosevelt, graduate of Harvard and 26th 
president. 

Note: Boston Globe 9/2194, p. 25.


APACHE NATION ATTACKED WITH NUCLEAR WASTE

The Northern States Power Company has targeted the 
Mesclaro Apache Nation (in the US state of New 
Mexico) as the "temporary" storage site for the 
radioactive waste produced by the company.(1) 
"Apache people, as a group have been diabolically 
and deliberately excluded [from the decision]... 
Many tribal members are opposed to siting nuclear 
waste storage on our homeland, for they believe it 
will be a violation of our sacred lands and sacred 
mountain, Sierra Blanca."(1) 

The Apache government is bought off by the company 
and its illusionary promise that the storage site 
will help develop the nation and bring economic 
prosperity. Whether the leadership receives direct 
kickbacks from industrial capitalists or whether 
leadership sees no alternative development option, 
the ultimate control lies in the hands of the 
oppressor nation developers and the Amerikan 
government. There has been no direct consultation 
of the people and the proposal has happened 
without the general consensus of its enrolled 
members.(1)

Apache activist, Rufina Laws said, "I believe that 
the Bureau of Indian Affairs is unconditionally 
cooperating and is in collusion through the 
continued use of an incredibly unjust document, 
the Tribal Election Code, upon which the Chino 
Administration operates..."(1) Wendell Chino, the 
tribal president for three decades, appoints the 
Election Board which oversees the tribal 
elections, as well as the future (rubber stamping) 
vote on the issue of the site. Chino defends the 
election process by saying that it is in 
accordance with Amerikan democracy.(2) 

Chino advocates the dump: "The storage of spent 
fuel is a 21st century industry with the attendant 
complement of high-tech, high-wage jobs not often 
available to Indian tribes."(2) However, high-paid 
waste dump operators are imported from the 
company. They are not people from the oppressed 
nations where the sites are placed.

Oppressed nations attempting to develop within the 
confines of imperialist capitalism must first 
choose the path to take. Two-line struggle between 
Mao and Liu Shao-ch'i was in part between swift 
development without an underlying political and 
ideological base or development with a dialectical 
materialist analysis. Efficient modernization 
alone did not lead to progress in China and 
economic prosperity for a few within the First 
Nations will not lead to self-determination.

With the international division of labor the way 
that it is, oppressed nations are repressed from 
developing into a competitive force. Mao argued 
that development without the consideration of 
politics would only lead back to a semi-colonial, 
semi-feudal status for China. Without 
consideration for the long term ecologically sound 
and non-economically exploitative development 
pattern, the status of the First Nations will not 
be one of self-sufficiency or independence from 
the domination of the white nation. Dependency 
upon capitalist political or economic kickbacks or 
promises of prosperity does not equal self-
determination. The Mescalero Apache Nation must 
not rely on the economic development promises of 
radioactive imperialist pigs. 

NOTES:
1. Albuquerque Journal 5/2/94, p. A9. 
2. Albuquerque Journal 5/10/94.

* * *

FILM REVIEW: QUIZ SHOW

This movie details a story of the 1950s through 
which many Amerikans gained some of the cynicism 
necessary to view mainstream TV. Based on the true 
story about a fixed TV game show, Twenty One, the 
moral to the story is one that revolutionaries are 
familiar with: you can't trust big business and 
you can't beat big business through the legal 
system.

This is a movie for well-off Amerikans to learn 
from, but for the oppressed peoples of the world, 
corruption in a game show is tame compared to the 
murder and destruction big corporations engage in 
on a global scale. The logical conclusion to the 
lesson that you can't beat the big corporate 
owners at the small time fixing of a game show is 
that you certainly can't beat them in the 
legal/electoral arena on questions of 
environmental destruction, exploitation, and 
murder.

The best part of this movie was the conclusion 
that a Harvard law student with his good 
intentions and prestigious position, can't defeat 
corporate Amerika with it's money and power. If 
you want to change the world, revolutionary 
science is the only way to do it.

 - MC17


FILM REVIEW: TIME COP

Jean Claude VanDamme played the good cop in this 
movie about time travel and political corruption. 
A good picture of the willingness of politicians 
to go to any length to achieve their goals, this 
film fell far short of a thumbs up rating on a MIM 
scale of revolutionary politics. 

The bad senator tries to use time travel to make 
himself wealthy enough to buy the presidency. He 
is willing to murder and steal to achieve his 
ends, and he succeeds in buying off much of the 
time police force to help him out. But he is the 
only corrupt politician in the movie. When he is 
eliminated, everyone can live happily ever after.

A far cry from the reality of capitalist politics, 
this movie preaches the typical liberal dogma that 
we just need to get rid of a few bad politicians 
and then things will be ok. Revolutionaries know 
better and are clear that it is the system that 
breeds the bad politician, not the genetic makeup 
of their parents.

Go see this movie for the action and adventure, 
not for the politics.

* * *

NORTH AMERIKAN YOUTH AND WOMEN MAKE PLEDGE

by MC5

The conclusion of the 1994 MIM Congress in August 
brought to light that North American youth have 
made a remarkable pledge to the international 
proletariat: to make up the ground lost by the 
older generation's revisionism.

The CPUSA is now well-known to have frittered away 
the lives of many one-time revolutionaries by 
falling into absolutely decrepit revisionism. 
Thanks to the collapse of the Soviet Union, now 
the CPUSA's descendants - the Committees of 
Correspondence - sit around debating if Leninism 
(not Maoism of course) has any relevance at all. 

Of the 1960s generation, the Black Panthers were 
smashed and the descendants of SDS often seem 
half-baked when SDS managed to leave anything 
behind at all. Today, MIM celebrates the 
generation of punk, grunge and rap, not the 
generation of the original Woodstock and we pledge 
that this generation of youth will make the 
difference, and succeed where our predecessors did 
not stay the course or failed to have a realistic 
approach. MIM will do this where a commitment of a 
whole life time to mundane tasks may be necessary 
without even seeing socialism.

With grim and ceaseless dedication, a new 
generation seeks to put the Maoist parties of 
North America on the map - with little help from 
anyone over 40. While the Third World proletariat 
has heard of the "collapse of communism" and the 
supposed invincibility of "the American way," let 
it also hear that the youth of North America 
already know better.

MIM does not wish to overestimate our 
accomplishments or brag at the expense of the 
international communist movement. Nonetheless, MIM 
is proud of some things we believe to be 
unprecedented in the international communist 
movement. 

One is our ten year success in recruiting youth 
and putting youth in responsible positions. In 
many parties throughout the world, the tradition 
is not to recruit a comrade until properly 
seasoned and beyond age 25. Prior to that time, 
youth take roles in youth leagues, where among 
other things, they do not observe democratic 
centralism. MIM means no disrespect to those 
parties with this tradition, but North American 
youth have decided to dedicate themselves to MIM 
and take up responsible posts in order to make 
good on the ground lost to revisionism and 
counter-revolution. 

MIM and its predecessors have always had teenagers 
for editors and people in their twenties as 
ambassadors to foreign communist parties - in 
addition to other highly honorable youth who do 
not join the party but take up a practice as MIM 
Associates.

Where Amerikan culture is summed up by "What does 
the billboard say? Play, play and forget the 
movement" some North American youth have given up 
their play time to live under strenuous rules of 
democratic centralism. Yet, when we look at our 
young Third World comrades giving their lives in 
armed struggle against U.S. imperialism, how can 
we deny that North American youth should also make 
sacrifices?

Something else we are proud of at MIM is that we 
have managed the leadership transition problem. 
History shows in all the major communist parties 
in the world, the death or imprisonment of 
communist leaders is a great moment for the 
revisionists to make their move and kill the 
communist movement from within. Meanwhile, MIM has 
had teens and twenty-somethings move in and 
through the leadership again and again. It is not 
accomplished without difficulty, but it is 
something we are gaining ever greater experience 
in.

To accomplish these great things would be enough, 
but MIM has also managed without a personality 
cult. Admittedly in our first years we were too 
anarchist in not crediting individual leaders at 
all - so comrades did not even have pseudonyms, 
because there was complete anonymity. Yet, now we 
do hold comrades responsible and give them credit 
for their lines.

In China, where individualism was never popular, 
the personality cult of Mao was almost a good 
thing opposing Confucianism. In comparison with 
the situation in North America where Anglo-Saxon 
individualism is so rampant, we have had to stress 
processes affecting the whole party and the need 
to follow leaders. 

The MIM youth know that they must study and train 
even more arduously than their counterparts in 
China and the old Soviet Union, because of the 
failure of their elders. For some comrades so 
young, it is unreasonable to ask that they have 
already read "a dozen or so" or "a few dozen" 
Marxist classics as Mao advised even when he 
opposed book-worship. Yet, the MIM youth take 
responsible positions and pledge to make up the 
ground. When questions of theory come up, they do 
not shirk them, because it is only with science 
that it is possible to stand one's ground firmly 
as a communist and answer the many challenges that 
arise, especially for communists in North America. 

For this reason, the vast majority of youth in MIM 
were able to rebuke the anarchist wind raised by 
several comrades at the 1994 Congress. For all 
youth in the party, the anarchist wind raised anew 
the issue of how to defend MIM's cardinal 
principles without fail both in recruiting and in 
internal struggle against revisionism when that 
becomes necessary.

In short, it is a great burden to shoulder for the 
youth and the whole party seeking to play catch-up 
so that we can join our comrades in Peru and the 
Philippines in a more equal way. Walking into MIM 
is to walk into arduous struggle. It can be hell, 
but we know it is the hell bequeathed to us and we 
cannot wish it away. The hellfires we walk through 
are still as yet nothing compared with the gunfire 
liberation struggles in the Third World face. 
Without the benefit of enemy gunfire, we must 
temper ourselves even more through criticism and 
self-criticism or we will surely wilt under real 
fire if we don't fall into reformism first.

As for youth, the same applies for the people who 
happen to have a female biology in MIM. The 
bourgeoisie says that women and youth cannot rule, 
but MIM disproves it on a daily basis. For some 
time, MIM has had a leadership composed of at 
least two-thirds women, not by quota, but thanks 
to arduous struggle. 

We did not get here by taking classes with social 
workers or by studying Gloria Steinem on self-
esteem. Instead, as fierce as the struggle against 
revisionism, there is a struggle against pseudo-
feminism. Again, in the battle against pseudo-
feminism, we have learned that there are rewards 
of struggle. The biological women of MIM have 
countered both the decadent ideology of leisure 
time in North America and the related notion that 
women should sit back and enjoy patriarchy. In 
this struggle, the MIM comrades have not forgotten 
for a single minute that they lead a relatively 
privileged life - a male life - compared with the 
women of the Third World.

The MIM youth and women have pledged to go through 
hell's fires - leadership transitions, obeying 
democratic-centralism, criticism and self-
criticism, fighting pseudo-feminism and steeling 
themselves in theoretical study. When they are 
done with the devil, they will be ready like Mao 
said "to storm Heaven itself."

* * *

UNDER LOCK & KEY

AFRIKAN NAMES SPARK STRUGGLE

GREETINGS OF LIBERATION!

I was moved like everybody else this Thursday 
morning 8/18/94, so my little study group was 
split up. There's only one person on this set that 
studies ndugu (brother) Hannibal! Who is breathing 
on me with that New Afrikan Independence Movement. 
I'm writing to let you know that they've placed 
metal stripes on the doors' sides and bottoms. 
This is done to stop us from assisting each other 
in legal matters and political studies. This may 
have stopped us for now from passing literature 
and other things, but they haven't stopped the 
"poor righteous teachers" from putting the light 
on young ndugus like myself.

On August 9th, the goons ran in on one of my 
Muslim ndugus and a European, who showed support 
for my ndugu! The pigs came in and asked X if he 
wanted rec. There's a catch to it: they called him 
by his slave name (S/N). So he didn't answer them. 
Later that day, about two hours later, he asked 
one of the pigs what's up with his rec. The pig in 
reply said X had refused his rec. Note: he never 
refused; he just didn't answer that S/N. So he 
kicked on the door and they ran in on him.

In the process of this, the other prisoner kicked 
on his door telling the pigs, "If you're going to 
roll on him, you have to roll on me." So they 
ended up stripping both of them down in four-way 
restraints. X was also put in a bodystrap to 
prevent him from moving, with a hockey mask on his 
face. They are brutalizing us at this camp.

All of this was done just because my ndugu won't 
answer to a S/N. Here at this camp, even if you 
change your name "legally," as they call it, they 
will not recognize it. Myself and many of my 
ndugus have liberated ourselves from these 
colonized names, but they are not recognizing them 
just so they can keep beating us physically and 
mentally. I say mentally because several ndugus 
have deteriorated since entering MCC.

POMAJA SISI SIMAMA NGUVU KU VITA WA WATI!
TOGETHER WE STAND; POWER TO THE PEOPLE'S WAR!

 - In struggle,
   an Indiana prisoner, 8/19/94

P.S. I also received the MIM Notes. As always, I 
enjoyed it. Keep it coming!


D.C.-AREA GUARDS RAPE WOMEN PRISONERS

...[I]n a class-action suit filed against the 
Corrections Department,... 10 anonymous female 
inmates and former inmates...allege that they were 
regularly subjected to abuse and mistreated 
because they are women....[A] 21-year-old 
testified that she was in jail for a kidnapping 
conviction and in the infirmary because she was 
vomiting, when a lieutenant tried to make her 
perform oral sex and then ordered her into the 
bathroom and forced her to have sexual 
intercourse.

When she complained, jail officials "acted like 
they didn't want to talk to me," the 21-year-old 
said. She said she was not taken to D.C. General 
Hospital for medical care and testing until almost 
24 hours after the assault....

A current inmate in the Correctional Treatment 
Facility, a women's prison at Lorton [Virginia], 
testified that a corrections sergeant touched her 
breasts and vagina and asked her to kiss him.

She said she complained to several authorities, 
but he continued to be assigned occasionally to 
her part of the prison.

The inmate, who is in prison for assault with a 
deadly weapon, also testified that when she went 
into labor during her pregnancy she was taken to 
D.C. General in handcuffs. After her baby was 
born, she said, both her legs and one of her arms 
were chained to her hospital bed.

A third inmate, who is in prison for armed robbery 
and assault, said she felt coerced to have sex 
with a guard in exchange for rides to her aunt's 
house during four monthly furloughs....

 - Washington Post, 6/13/94. Clipping provided by
   Claustrophobia, the newsletter of the Anarchist
   Black Cross-D.C., P.O. Box 77432, Washington,
   D.C. 20013.


D.C.'S WOMEN PRISONERS ABUSED WITH INADEQUATE 
MEDICAL CARE

The District provides "deficient and "inadequate" 
obstetric and gynecological care to female 
prisoners, a California expert on prison health 
care testified yesterday, as women continued to 
present their case in a class-action suit against 
the D.C. Department of Corrections.

Benjamin Major's assessment followed two days of 
testimony by inmates, including a woman who said 
she gave birth in her cell last July before 
medical personnel arrived and another who said she 
waited 18 months for a biopsy after complaining of 
a painful, leaky breast.

The suit, filed in the name of 10 inmates and 
former inmates, says female prisoners' civil and 
constitutional rights are being violated by 
conditions in the D.C. jail, the Correctional 
Treatment Facility and the Lorton Correctional 
Complex. The plaintiffs allege that women are 
sexually harassed and assaulted, denied 
appropriate medical care, kept in unsanitary 
conditions and allowed to participate in fewer 
educational and recreational programs than men....

The suit asks U.S. District Judge June L. Green to 
impose 53 pages worth of requirements on the 
department. The plaintiffs say that would remedy 
problems of discrimination and reduce sexual 
misconduct.

Since testimony began Monday, five inmates and 
former inmates and two experts have testified 
about conditions in the D.C. penal system. All of 
the inmates are testifying anonymously because 
they fear reprisals.

Major, an obstetrician and gynecologist who is in 
charge of prenatal care for women in the 
Sacramento County jails, testified that Pap smears 
- which test for abnormal cervical cells - were 
not done in nine of the 70 D.C. cases he reviewed, 
although department policy requires such tests 
within a month after an inmate is admitted.

Major said some pregnant inmates were not given 
proper food, vitamins and classes, and he faulted 
the lack of counseling for the deaths of two 
inmates' babies shortly after birth. Major said he 
also found that the prison staff recorded women's 
symptoms on charts with drawings of men with the 
genitals crossed out....

Earlier, an inmate testified that she gave birth 
in her cell at the Correctional Treatment Facility 
after being in labor for more than 12 hours.


The inmate, who is serving two to six years for 
cocaine possession, said corrections officials 
sent her - in handcuffs and leg irons - to D.C. 
General Hospital when she first went into labor on 
the night of July 14, but a hospital doctor said 
she was not yet ready and sent her back to prison.

The next morning, she was taken to a court 
appearance, but the labor pains were so intense 
she could not walk, she said. Court officials sent 
her back to the prison facility, where she asked 
for medical care. By the time a prison physician's 
assistant arrived, the baby had been born.

"[I was] mad. I know I could have stayed at D.C. 
General," she said. "They should have kept me 
there." Amato said the baby was born only a half-
hour after the inmate returned from court.

The inmate with breast problems said she missed 
two appointments with a specialist because she and 
her jailers were late leaving Lorton. She said she 
waited four more months for a breast biopsy 
because the medical staff made four scheduling 
mistakes.

The inmate, who is serving 14 years to life for 
second-degree murder and two other charges, also 
said she is HIV-positive and has lost 70 pounds 
since 1992. When Amato asked why she did not ask 
for care during prison officials' daily medical 
rounds, the inmate replied that she was afraid 
other inmates would see her records because they 
are kept in an open cart during the rounds.

 - Washington Post, 6/16/94. Clipping provided by
   Claustrophobia.


VIRGINIA ABOLISHES PAROLE,
DECLARES WAR AGAINST OPPRESSED

The Virginia legislature passed a new crime bill 
on September 30, abolishing parole and increasing 
sentences for "violent offenders" by 500%. The 
construction costs for the 27 new prisons and more 
guards to control the soon to be increased prison 
population are upwards of $1 billion, but the 
lawmakers forgot to stick around to figure out how 
to pay for the increased fascist police state.

After some initial stalling tactics by the 
Virginia Democrats, the bill passed with flying 
colors through the Virginia House and Senate with 
little opposition. The opposition that did exist 
was mostly from the Black lawmakers who rightly 
declared the law to be racist. Democrats patted 
themselves on the back for helping to pass a 
slightly less costly bill that only increased the 
sentences for violent offenders by 500% rather 
than the 700% that Governor George Allen had 
originally proposed. 

Democratic lawmakers were also so proud that they 
included provisions for less costly "alternative 
incarceration" as well as allowing elderly 
prisoners the possibility of early release! This 
valiant bipartisan effort at locking up more 
oppressed nation youth in Virginia than ever 
before is just one more example of how there is no 
difference between Democrats and Republicans; both 
are equally promoting the interests of the 
oppressor and mowing down the oppressed on their 
way to their re-election campaigns.

George Allen had the laughable gall to claim that 
now as a result of this bill "Virginia has ... 
restored integrity and honesty and accountability 
to our criminal justice system."(1)

The opponents of this bill had little opportunity 
to publicize their views at the town meetings and 
fora organized by Governor Allen, who even got the 
Department of Motor Vehicles workers to work 
overtime stuffing envelopes inviting Virginians to 
a pro-bill rally. At the rally, Allen lied to the 
public about the real effects of his bill, 
claiming that some well-known victims would have 
benefited from the bill, when actually those 
crimes would not have been covered. Allen later 
apologized for the "misinformation."(2)

James Austin, the executive vice president of the 
National Council on Crime and Delinquency, said 
about the crime bill: "All it is is a theory. 
There's no evidence in the world that shows this 
is going to reduce crime even as much as [Allen] 
says it will."(1)

In the weeks before the "abolish parole" crime 
bill was passed in Virginia there was an uprising 
at Greensville Correctional Center in Jarrett, 
Virginia, where small fires erupted and 170 of the 
2,440 prisoners were evacuated for several hours. 
But the whole incident was over in a matter of 
hours, with all the prisoners "safely" returned to 
lockdown. Most of Virginia's prisoners have been 
on lockdown since that time, and officials were 
concerned about the climate in prisons with the 
impending crime bill in the Virginia legislature. 
Officials were not sure whether the disturbance 
had anything to do with the proposal to toughen 
sentences and abolish parole, "they acknowledged 
that tensions have been running high." 

Opponents of the crime package called the plan 
"Allen's Attica." It remains to be seen if there 
will be another full-scale prison uprising on the 
level of the Attica rebellion where prisoner 
demands were well worked out and collectively 
presented. In any case, slamming the bars behind 
more and more oppressed nation youth for "violent 
crimes" (imperialist rape and plunder are not 
included in the definition of violent crime for 
this new bill) will only increase the rage of the 
oppressed, and kindle new revolutionary fires.

 - MC31

Notes:
1. The Washington Post 10/1/94, p. C1.
2. The Washington Post 9/20/94, p. B1.


AMERIKA: PRISONS FOR THE PEOPLE

The United States is putting the people under lock 
and key at an ever-increasing rate. New statistics 
compiled by the Sentencing Project show that the 
rate of incarceration in Amerika increased 
dramatically from 1989 to 1992-93.(1) At the same 
time, the U.S. Justice Department has released 
figures showing that a majority of federal 
prisoners (58%) are doing time for drug charges, 
and 18% of federal inmates are non-U.S. citizens.

Combining the most recent numbers - 1993 for 
prisons and 1992 for jails - the Sentencing 
Project calculated that the United States has 1.3 
million people behind bars, more than 600,000 of 
them Black. The overall rate of incarceration for 
Black men was 3,822 per 100,000, or 3.8%. For 
whites the rate was 306 per 100,000, or 0.3%.

The United States had a 22% increase in the 
incarceration rate between 1989 and 1992-93.

The overall rate for the United States in 1992-93 
was 519 per 100,000. The United States spends 
about $26.8 billion on incarceration per year - 
$11.6 billion to incarcerate Black men.

Selected incarceration rates:

U.S. Black men:   3,822
Russia:             558
South Africa:       368
U.S. whites:        306
Singapore:          229
Hong Kong:          179
Poland:             160
Canada:             116
England/Wales:       93
France:              84
Germany:             80
Japan:               36
India:               23

While still much lower than the United States, 
prison rates in many European countries have 
increased in the last decade. For example, the 
Netherlands' incarceration rate doubled in the 
1980s.

The study refutes common assumption that great 
increases in imprisonment result from increased 
violence. From 1980 to 1992 there was a 155% 
increase in new court commitments to state prison. 
Drug, property and public order convictions 
accounted for 84% of that increase; the other 16% 
of the increase was attributed to increased 
"violent" crime convictions.

At the same time, a new Justice Department report 
shows how much the increase in federal prisoners 
is connected to drug charges. The percentage of 
federal prisoners who are behind bars for drug 
charges rose from 38% in 1986, to 58% in 1991, to 
62% now.(2)

About 70% of first-time convictions, 85% of non-
citizens, and 66% of women in federal prison are 
in for drug charges. Twenty-one percent of state 
prisoners are in for drug charges.

The Justice Department also said 18% of federal 
prisoners are non-citizens.

Noting that many countries report higher rates of 
certain crimes than the United States, the 
Sentencing Project concludes: "While it remains 
possible that crime rates account for part of the 
difference in rates of incarceration, the 
magnitude of the difference between the U.S. and 
other nations is so great that overall crime rates 
cannot account for the disparity."

MIM concludes: The United States pursues massive 
incarceration in a systematic policy of repression 
and exploitation aimed chiefly at Blacks, Latinos 
and poor immigrants. "Crime" is at most a 
secondary consideration in the overall purpose of 
this oppression - and stopping violence is 
completely irrelevant - although it is a very 
important ideological justification in the 
dominant culture.

MIM says the real criminals are those who exploit 
billions of people at the barrel of a gun, destroy 
their land and attempt to rob them of their 
humanity. Locking up millions of people is but one 
brutal aspect of this great crime against 
humanity.

 - MC12

Notes:
1. The Sentencing Project, "Americans Behind Bars:
   The International Use of Incarceration, 1992
   1993." 918 F. St., N.W., Suite 501, Washington,
   D.C. 20004.
2. Washington Post 10/3/94, p. A18.


NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS

The Connecticut Department of Corrections has a 
history of playing catch-up, and is slowly moving 
toward the twenty-first century with a quickening 
pace of brutality and policies of chaining men to 
their beds.

The practice of chaining men to their beds is part 
of the new wave terror tactics being used to 
maintain total control through fear. Men are being 
chained down for periods of up to 24 hours. I was 
chained to my bed for 27 hours for attempting to 
snatch the badge off one of the pigs. Others have 
been chained down for only kicking their steel 
doors. Just a few days ago, another prisoner was 
left chained with handcuffs behind his back and 
leg irons, solely because he refused to take the 
paper off his window. He was left like this for 
most of the day, without being fed. I was again 
chained down for refusing to return a Styrofoam 
food tray.

With the building of the super-max, which was 
modeled after the infamous Marion Control Unit, 
the violence against prisoners has escalated. The 
use of chemical mace is on a steady rise. Incident 
after incident has been documented since the 
opening of the Special Management Unit (SMU), 
which is the training grounds for the super-max.

The pigs have become more and more brutal. The 
guards intentionally broke a prisoner's arm about 
ten days ago, after he was alleged to have broken 
the arm of a medic. The medic had reportedly been 
badgering him through the food slot in the door. 
We could clearly hear his screams after the Goon 
Squad entered his cell.

Statements by the pigs could be clearly heard 
asking him, "How does it feel?" as they purposely 
bent his wrist until they broke it. I have in 
recent months written to the civil rights 
division, to demand an investigation into the 
racist brutality taking place.

The administration is singling out Latinos and 
Black Nubians for their brutal attacks. White 
prisoners have thrown liquid substances on 
officers, which automatically subjects you to 
being chained down, but not for whites. Understand 
that I am not advocating that any prisoner be 
chained; my issue is stopping the racist violence 
and brutality being committed against my New 
Afrikan brothers.

We must struggle to understand the necessity for a 
United Prisoners' Front to wage our war against 
these oppressors who hold us captive. Conditions 
will have to worsen before many will reach the 
point when they realize they have absolutely 
nothing to lose but the chains of oppression. 
There can be no change without struggle.

 - In solidarity,
   a Connecticut prisoner, 9/13/94


EIGHTEEN YEARS FOR A GRAM OF CRACK

With all respect, my comrade brothers and sisters, 
I want to thank you for the reading material I 
have been longing for. The material will be used 
and read. I am a 28 year-old African American 
doing time for having in my possession less than a 
gram of "crack." I am serving a prison term of 18 
years and four months. I was sentenced as a career 
criminal by a racist court system. My standing is 
for the oppressed. I hate to see or hear about our 
people being cast down as an inhuman race. I 
believe that no one should be in any kind of 
poverty....

 - an Indiana prisoner, 8/19/94


PRISONERS DIE, PIGS BECOME HEROES

I have received the June '94 copy of MIM Notes, 
please keep me on the mailing list to receive 
future copies.

The environment here at (Comstock) Great Meadows 
C.F. is the same as Attica. The pigs brutalize, 
terrorize, torture and murder their victims 
without a worry in the world. Commissioner Thomas 
A. Coughlin III is a sick monster, he gets off on 
all the lawsuits and civil complaints that flood 
his headquarters in "Albany N.Y.", the cap*city. 
He hasn't done shit in response to what crimes a 
senseless pig can do to a man when that pig is out 
of control. There are make-shift investigations 
that always come up empty, prisoners die and pigs 
become heroes.

I'm beginning to not blame the pigs so much for 
their "Go get em and smoke em" attitude. Because 
if I allow a pig to continuously shit on my 
carpet, and not do anything to stop him then I 
don't deserve the carpet.

The victims (us) must now come to grips with our 
own selves. We must dig deep into our souls and 
release the Guerrillas and Dragons that are housed 
within, and start using these strengths to correct 
our situations. As a Black slave, I've felt the 
whip, the floggings, burning at the stake, the 
hangin's, only to come out of it a little more 
stronger and a lot more deadlier. I'm trying my 
best to turn the oppressive future of slaves 
around. But I can't do it by myself.

Comrades "ATTENTION" Please prepare for War!!

The Day of the Dragon is near.

Please print this letter in a future issue of MIM 
Notes.

The study group has got together and put up the 
enclosed stamps so that we can receive the 
following books if they are available: *Soledad 
Brothers - Prison Letters of George Jackson, Soul 
on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver, Agents of Repression,* 
and *MIM Theory - Diet for a Small Red Planet*

We would appreciate it very much.
Power to the People!

 - New York Prisoner


PRISON AWARENESS WEEK
UMASS AMHERST, NOVEMBER 14-19

Monday, Nov. 14, Political prisoners in the U.S. 
today.

Tuesday, Nov. 15, Panel discussion: Racism and 
criminal justice.

Wednesday, Nov. 16, Films and lecture: The Attica 
prison rebellion.

Thursday, Nov. 17, Leonard Peltier. Film and 
lecture: *Incident at Oglala.*

Friday, Nov. 18, 4pm. Supermax Control Units. Film 
and discussion: *Beyond the Wire.* Discussion led 
by MIM.

Friday, Nov. 18, Multicultural Performances and 
Dance, a benefit for projects that support 
prisoners. Performers to be announced.

Saturday, Nov. 19, Conference. Keynote speaker: 
Ward Churchill.

Conference includes:

Panel discussion on the effects of the "War on 
Drugs" on prison policy and the rates of 
incarceration.

Presentations by Families Against Mandatory 
Minimums, Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, 
American Friends Service Committee, Arise for 
Social Justice and other organizations.

Sponsors of the week: Alliance for Student Power, 
Cannabis Reform Coalition, Maoist Internationalist 
Movement (MIM), Office of Third World Affairs, 
Anti-Racism Coalition and other organizations.

All events in the Campus Center or Student Union 
at UMass. Ask at the information desk for the room 
numbers. All times, dates and events are 
tentative. For more information or an updated 
schedule, write to MIM, PO Box 712, Amherst MA 
01004-712

* * *

LETTERS TO MIM

FORMER PANTHER WRITES IN

Greetings Comrades,

I received a copy of the latest issue of the MIM 
Notes. Thanks! Sending it to me is like preaching 
to the choir but some times the choir goes to 
sleep and needs to be woken up (smile). I am 
particularly pleased to read the writings of the 
youth as I am a former member of the Black Panther 
Party and the Red Book of Mao was our basic 
political text.

Anti-imperialism is more important today than it 
ever was before as imperialism causes the great 
migration of working class people from the over-
exploited countries. If the wealth had been more 
evenly distributed in those countries instead of 
being grabbed by the imperialist countries that 
subdue them in the historical wars, they would not 
be immigrating to the industrial countries of 
Europe and the USA.

Again we see how the monopoly sugar companies of 
the USA have choked off Cuba from the open markets 
of the world. They don't want Castro deposed per 
se, they want to keep Cuban sugar off the world 
market. Anti-imperialists must stand against the 
economic embargo and allow the workers of Cuba to 
share equally in the distribution of the world's 
wealth.

The invasion of Haiti will only result in the 
extended colonization of the Haitian workers who 
will be subjected to new neo-colonial leaders 
appointed by the USA. They will be paid to bolster 
up an army to keep the workers of Haiti from 
forming free workers groups to struggle for their 
rightful share of the wealth of the world. They 
will be colonized on the island and forbidden to 
follow the wealth that was stolen from their 
labor. They will be forbidden to compete fairly 
within the world market even if they stay in their 
own country because it will compete with the elite 
workers of the imperialist/capitalist countries.

Forgive me for preaching to the choir. But be sure 
that my voice is to be counted to support the 
workers of the world and to damn colonialism, the 
product of imperialism/capitalism. I am 58 years 
of age and have more than 18 years in the prison 
camps of this country for struggling against 
colonialism. Let the youth know that I haven't 
been broken and they must stand firm in our 
struggle against colonialism - it is the cause of 
the beast we know as racism. Power to the People!!

 - In love and struggle,
   Washington State prisoner

MIM Responds: Thank you for writing; we are 
certainly excited to hear from you as a former 
Black Panther Party member who hasn't relented in 
the struggle against Amerikan imperialism, even 
after 18 years in the Amerikan gulags. We are 
honored you have written to us to express your 
thoughts. 

It's true that because of imperialist 
exploitation, people of Third World countries (the 
majority of the world's population) are suffering 
daily hardship and some of them attempt to escape 
exploitation by immigrating to industrialized 
imperialist countries. In addition, many exploited 
peasants of Third World countries attempt to 
escape by moving to urban centers within their 
country. In a real way, we can see this 
development with the massive border patrol 
campaign against Latino immigrants, as well as 
witnessing the huge shantytowns that have 
developed in numerous Third World cities, such as 
Lima, Sao Paulo and Bombay. 

Under capitalism, there can be no such thing as 
fair competition in the world market. The nature 
of "competition" under capitalism leads to the 
formation of monopolies that dominate whole 
industries and nations. These capitalists extract 
surplus value from the masses of people and that 
creates vast differences between the imperialist 
countries and the Third World. These differences 
are so great that the principal contradiction in 
the world today is between imperialist nations and 
oppressed nations. The only way that "wealth [can 
be] more evenly distributed" is through socialism, 
and to establish socialism, we must destroy 
imperialism, principally Amerika. 

Historically, the Amerikan sugar companies 
extracted sugar from Cuba and kept the country in 
semi-feudal, semi-colonial status. When Castro 
overthrew the Batista regime in 1959, many thought 
this exploitation would end. Yet, because of their 
dependence on Soviet social-imperialism, Cuba 
developed a sugar-based export economy. This has 
stymied Cuba's development. If Cuba had been 
building socialist self-reliance, the Amerikan 
economic embargo would not be a critical factor, 
as it is today.


STUDENTS FOR A FREE SOUTH AFRICA
LAUNCH NEW CAMPAIGN

The 1994/95 academic year has been declared the 
year of "From Political Freedom in South Africa to 
Global Economic Resistance" by the Students for a 
Free South Africa (SFSA), University of 
Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The SFSA was founded in 1984/85 under the 
inspiration of professor Dr. Dennis Brutus, a 
native of Southern Africa, former Robben Island 
political prisoner with Nelson Mandela, current 
president of South Africa, and an internationalist 
organizer against racism, sexism, class oppression 
and champion of human rights.

With the achievement of bourgeois political 
reformist democracy and subsequent African 
National Congress (ANC) dominated government under 
the leadership of Dr. Nelson Mandela, SFSA has 
shifted its primary focus on a global working 
class struggle.

The South African political reforms have not 
touched or addressed the primary contradictions 
that led to the National Democratic and Socialist 
Transformation in South Africa. That is the 
indigenous people's right to their national land 
and the non-racial working class-oriented 
socialist transformation.

The progressive nature of the historic acquiring 
of political power (sic) and authority by the 
Black petty-bourgeois nationalist (i.e. 
"Africans", "Coloureds" and "Indians") and their 
subordination to international monopoly finance 
capitalists led by the Anglo-American corporation 
and De Beers Diamond multi-industrial 
transnational conglomerate, has made the class 
question in South Africa a concrete and component 
part of the struggle against the International 
Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, etc.

The IMF and World Bank, dominated by the US are 
aiming at "neocolonization" of Africa through the 
"Anglo Nationalist Collaborative" (ANC) of South 
Africa.

The apartheid regime had supplied arms to factions 
in Rwanda and the Mandela-led bourgeois reformist 
government has made it clear that South Africa is 
still going to export arms to African and other 
countries that want them.

Hence on January 26, 1994, the Campaign Against 
Global Oppression (CAGO) was formed as a 
subcommittee of SFSA. It is a working class-
oriented entity that is aimed at political, 
economic, cultural and social education of 
students and their community grassroots allies 
against racism, sexism, cultural and religious 
bigotry in general, and capitalism, imperialism 
and neocolonialism in particular.

In the Pittsburgh, western Pennsylvania region we 
aim at campaigning against World Bank/IMF as part 
of the IMF & World Bank "50 Years is Enough - US 
Campaign". 

The anti-IMF and World Bank struggle is part of 
the global political agenda for a comprehensive 
working class-oriented and thus anti-imperialist 
in substance. The emergence of the Anglo-National 
Congress of South Africa (ANC) as the dominant 
political tendency within the neocolonial regime 
of post-colonial South Africa necessitates an 
intensified ideological organization of students, 
ecumenical activist and internationalist 
organization along class lines - International 
Proletariat Agenda from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 
to Johannesburg, Azania; from Capetown to Cairo in 
Africa; from Kampala, Uganda to Kingston, Jamaica, 
etc.

The SFSA has its 1994/95 theme: "From Political 
Freedom in South Africa to Global Resistance: A 
Revolutionary Working Class Agenda into the 21st 
Century".

Student and youth alliances are being formed in 
Pittsburgh, PA, Capetown, South Africa, Gaborone, 
Botswana, etc. to raise a revolutionary working 
class organizational consciousness among the Black 
Masses: employed, unemployed and unemployable.

We are doing this without jeopardizing the 
alliance of progressive democrats and 
revolutionary socialists here and in Southern 
Africa.

 - Please contact the following for further
   information: Mongezi Sefika Nkoma and professor
   Dennis Brutus....

Mongezi Sefika waNkomo
Coordinator
Campaign Against Global Oppression (CAGO)
Students for a Free South Africa (SFSA)
Africana Studies Department
3T Forbes Quad
University of Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Telephone: (412) 648-7556/40
Fax: (412) 648-7214
email: brutus@ums.cis.pitt.edu


OVERPOPULATION DEBATED

MIM's analysis of imperialist population designs 
provoked the following exchange among Internet 
readers:

READER 1: Ah, at least one critic has realized 
that overpopulation is not just about numbers. We 
can now understand why Japan has lots of people 
but is not overpopulated. It is on the right side 
of the power dynamic, can buy the raw materials it 
needs for nothing and sell its products back at a 
grotesque profit. We can also see why Punjab, 
which has a higher yield per acre than Iowa cannot 
provide enough. Its labor power is exploited and 
debt forces export. This is only a vague sketch of 
the problem, but the point is clear: it's 
exploitation, not babies, that makes the Third 
World poor.

READER 2: Unfortunately, this is malarkey. Of 
course Japan is overpopulated. If you look into 
the externalities of the cost of Japanese 
population size, you will see that the depleted 
fishing industry, deforestation, pollution, and 
lowered quality of life for many in the world are 
*directly* attributable to Japanese financial 
imperialism. In any reasonable books, that means 
that Japan is overpopulated.

MIM responds: We agree with Reader 1. Reader 2 
simply assumes the Japanese demand for more 
material goods is a result of overpopulation. 
Instead, it is the wealth that Japan possesses, as 
a *result* of imperialism that causes its vast 
levels of consumption. This is also true of the 
United States.


OPPOSE DRUG BUSTS

Dear MIM,

I just read the article from September 94 MIM 
Notes about Woodstock II. When I visited 
Revolution Books, and got the "It was right 
then..." flyer, I too wondered about the RCP's 
grip on reality. But, hey, I'm neither a Maoist 
nor am I particularly interested in Woodstock, so 
let the RCP get it jollies however it wants.

What got me about your article was its ("Third 
World?") stance on the war on drugs: you claim 
that the main victims are in the Third World, and 
that the cops tolerate drug use among "Amerikans." 
There is, obviously a (large) grain of truth to 
this, and of course, white upper class 
suburbanites often treated with more respect than 
Latin Americans, or Blacks in the U.S. (for 
instance, look at the difference in crack and coke 
laws).

But MIM's statement that the cops leave 
concertgoers at many concerts, including Grateful 
Dead concerts, alone, is patently false: true we 
are not napalmed and invaded like Latin Americans, 
but Grateful Dead "heads" have often been 
subjected to numerous DEA infiltration and 
harassment. Most heads also know someone (or two, 
or three) who is in jail for god knows how long 
(often 99+ years) for LSD possession/sale. In 
fact, it appears that the DEA, and other 
government agencies are especially targeting 
Grateful Dead concerts. Maybe MIM likes this, 
since the Dead haven't done anything political 
since they gave a benefit concert for Black 
Panther Party prisoners in 1979, and most heads 
are white middle-class Amerikkkans, but it is a 
well known fact. 

Have a nice day,

 - St. Stephen

MC12 responds: MIM does not like the repression of 
whites by drug laws. Many potentially progressive 
or subversive people are busted under these laws. 
And, like speeding, these selectively-enforced 
laws are just opportunities for the pigs waiting 
to happen. Our main emphasis is on the repression 
of the victims of imperialism, but St. Stephen is 
correct to point out that the police state has 
victims among white youth as well. The October 
issue of MIM Notes featured "Hemp Rally in 
Boston," which explained this position further.


WHY LINE?

Dear MIM:

I have heard you say again (and again) that a 
communist group's power is in its *line*. You even 
published a pamphlet called "What's Your Line," 
where you critique other left groups' lines. But - 
and I am a little ashamed to admit this - the 
issue of line confuses me:

1. What *is* line and what does it comprise? Does 
MIM's line encompass, say, scientific issues? Is 
there a Maoist form of biochemistry? (I know that 
sounds stupid, but didn't Zhadnov and Lysenko 
argue something of this nature - no pun intended?) 
Assuming that line just deals with *social* and 
*historical* issues, to what extent must MIM have 
a line on these issues: again, MIM probably should 
have a line on post-Stalin USSR, but about the 
transition from feudalism to capitalism? Or are 
only modern issues touched on?

2. *Why* is line important? Why does the fact 
that, say, Trotskyites support Trotsky now and 
you, Stalin, make a difference *now* ? Should not 
the real issue be what each group is doing *now*? 
I mean, the Socialist Workers Party and the 
Communist Party-USA and the Democratic Socialists 
of America are obviously not revolutionary, but is 
this because of some poor objective view of 
reality, or because of their quantifiable mistakes 
*today*? Couldn't MIM's emphasis on *line* and 
*ideological purity* be construed as a way for 
RADical ACADemicS to abstain from current 
struggles and battles and retire to the ivory 
tower and merely talk about these struggles with 
other RADACADS?(1) Doesn't this contradict Marx's 
"Theses on Feuerbach," and the "German Ideology" - 
as well as place MIM in the camp of the *idealist* 
you are always harping about (contemplative 
materialism is what I think Marx labels it)?

I don't ask these questions to be hostile; indeed, 
I am genuinely interested. Thank you,

 - Theoretical critic

MC12 responds: Thanks for writing.

Marx called "contemplative materialism" that which 
"does not understand sensuousness as practical 
activity." In other words, Marx, in his "Theses On 
Feuerbach," argued that the process of thinking 
was itself a practical process, so there was no 
such thing as abstraction divorced from social 
reality. He concluded: "The philosophers have only 
*interpreted* the world, in various ways; the 
point, however, is to *change* it."(2)

The writer believes that MIM's repetition of the 
phrase "line is decisive," from Mao, puts us in 
the camp of these philosophers whom Marx 
condemned. In the argument, however, the writer 
begs the question: if these non-revolutionary 
political groups you mention are making 
"quantifiable mistakes today," then what is the 
cause and origin of those mistakes?

MIM agrees with Mao that "line is decisive" 
because it is the line of these groups that has 
caused them to adopt a nonrevolutionary political 
practice. There is a material reality underlying 
these practices - the superprofits flowing into 
imperialist society - but it is their political 
line that directly determines the political 
outcome. In other words, the international 
proletariat demonstrates a resounding disinterest 
in Trotskyism *because* Trotskyist *line* does not 
hold any promise for ending their oppression.

A party's line on Trotsky or Stalin is not 
important in isolation: they are both dead, and 
the social reality in which they struggled has 
changed forever. But a line on the struggles 
within the Soviet Union does *not exist* in 
isolation; it exists only in the social reality of 
today's struggles. MIM has never seen a party that 
sided with Trotsky against Stalin in historical 
analysis, and yet they had a correct political 
practice now. How could they? Trotsky liquidated 
the national liberation struggles of the oppressed 
nations, rejected the necessity of the United 
Front as "class collaboration", and advanced a 
productivity-first analysis of imperialism and 
revolution. All of these questions remain at the 
heart of today's revolutionary practice.

MIM could decide never to talk about the lines of 
other parties on these historical questions, and 
instead only criticize their current practices, 
but that would be to abandon political leadership: 
to keep our underlying analysis to ourselves, 
thereby retarding the political development of 
those with whom we struggle.

To clarify, MIM would not say that "a communist 
group's power is in its line." That is different 
from "line is decisive." The power of any 
communist movement resides in the oppressed masses 
themselves. The correct line flows from this power 
source and, when organized and concentrated with 
the mass line, it serves the oppressed in their 
struggle for liberation.

As for scientific areas such as biochemistry, 
these are not irrelevant either. All ideas have a 
class foundation, and all ideas exist within 
social reality. For example, Darwinism - the 
scientific idea of species evolution - was crucial 
for reducing the social power of Christianity and 
paving the way for capitalist development. Science 
laid a foundation for the bourgeois era: it was 
the basis for Nazi eugenics and nuclear weapons; 
it also led to the scientific study of society and 
scientific socialism.

MIM does not devote itself to daily examination of 
scientific discoveries, falsities and debates. But 
we do know that science in general reflects the 
class nature of the society in which it develops. 
In a socialist system, humanity will benefit from 
a lot of the scientific development that took 
place under capitalism, but we will also have a 
lot of bogus ideas to debunk as we forge a new 
science for the people.

Finally, the day you see MIM "abstain from current 
struggles and battles and retire to the ivory 
tower and merely talk about these struggles" with 
academics - that day you should start a new Maoist 
party. Instead, we jump into every current 
struggle we can, and our efforts - which are at 
present ideological and political - in turn 
*change* the social reality in which we live. We 
don't write and lobby for laws in Congress, but we 
do build public opinion in support of the 
international proletariat - and prepare the ground 
for the seizure of power by the oppressed.

NOTES:
1. This is a reference to RADACADS, the
   organization in Boston from which MIM developed
   in the 1980s.
2. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, *Selected Works
   In One Volume*. International Publishers: New
   York, 1968 (1845), pp. 28-30.
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