Under Lock and Key and the Paper Tigers are not available 
for this issue.--mim5@mim.org

I N T E R N E T ' S  M A O I S T M O N T H L Y

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         THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT
  MIM Notes 71                   DECEMBER, 1992 

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. support it, struggle 
with it and write for it.

IN THIS ISSUE:
1. EL SALVADOR: MASSES RESIST SURRENDER
2. LETTERS 	     
3. ERITREA, A VICTORIOUS PEOPLES REVOLUTION     
4. D.C. STATEHOOD IS NOT ENOUGH       
5. CANADA REFERENDUM POSES MEANINGLESS QUESTION
6. REVIEW: SNEAKERS REFLECTS HACKER LIBERALISM
7. REMEMBER THE FILLMORE!
8. WHITE TRUCKERS TRASH PUBLIC HOUSING; COPS SUPPORT THE ACTION
9. RACISTS REWARDED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS



The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a revolutionary 
communist party that upholds Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, comprising 
the collection of existing or emerging Maoist internationalist 
parties in the English-speaking imperialist countries and their 
English-speaking internal semi-colonies, as well as the existing 
or emerging Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties of 
Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.S. Empire. MIM 
Notes is the newspaper of MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the 
Spanish-speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM.

MIM is an internationalist organization that works from the 
vantage point of the Third World proletariat; thus, its members 
are not Amerikans, but world citizens.  MIM struggles to end the 
oppression of all groups over other groups: classes, genders, 
nations.  MIM knows this is only possible by building public 
opinion to seize power through armed struggle.

Revolution is a reality for North America as the military becomes 
over-extended in the government's attempts to maintain world 
hegemony.

MIM differs from other communist parties on three main questions: 

(1) MIM holds that after the proletariat seizes power in socialist 
revolution, the potential exists for capitalist restoration under 
the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within the communist party 
itself. In the case of the USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power 
after the death of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's 
death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in 1976. 

(2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural Revolution as the farthest 
advance of communism in human history. 

(3) MIM believes the North American white-working-class is 
primarily a non-revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it 
is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in this country.
MIM accepts people as members who agree on these basic principles 
and accept democratic centralism, the system of majority rule, on 
other questions of party line.

"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is universally 
applicable. We should regard it not as dogma, but as a guide to 
action. Studying it is not merely a matter of learning terms and 
phrases, but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of 
revolution."
-- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208


* * *

EL SALVADOR: MASSES RESIST SURRENDER 

Despite the efforts of the Farabundo Mart’ National Liberation 
Front (FMLN) to surrender, pressure from above and below is 
holding up the process. The people are reluctant to give up their 
arms with nothing to show for it, and the military is poised to 
massacre disarmed combatants.

FMLN leaders say they are "full of optimism" at the prospect of 
surrender followed by bourgeois elections under military rule, but 
one guerilla sums up a popular feeling as he is told to surrender 
his gun: "I do not have any land, and the army is still full of 
people who want to kill me."

Meanwhile, the demoralized Amerikan solidarity movement, which 
watched helplessly as Soviet-backed movements failed in Nicaragua 
and El Salvador, clings to the U.N.'s absurd claim that "this is 
the closest that any process has ever come to a negotiated 
revolution."

Well, if this is as close as it gets, then we're not interested. 
The people of El Salvador have shed enough blood to deserve 
victory.

FMLN NEGOTIATES SURRENDER

by MC251

In late October, negotiators rushed back to El Salvador to save 
the U.N.-sponsored peace agreement agreement between the Farabundo 
Mart’ National Liberation Front (FMLN) and the Salvadoran 
government, pushing back the final date for compliance with 
the accords from the previous October 31 to December 15. Due to 
the Salvadoran military's refusal to comply with the agreements 
and reform itself, the FMLN refused to totally disarm by the end 
of October.

The "peace" agreement went into effect in February, ending El 
Salvador's 12-year civil war. In an attempt to portray the accords 
as a victory for the FMLN and the people of El Salvador, 
supporters of the FMLN have repeated U.N. mediator Alvaro de 
Soto's twisted refrain: "this is the closest that any process has 
ever come to a negotiated revolution."(1)

October was very tense in El Salvador. The agreements had called 
for purging notorious human rights abusers in the Salvadoran 
military, cutting the military in half, dismantling the U.S.-
trained elite battalions responsible for the largest massacres in 
the war, forming a new civilian police force containing both ex-
military and ex-FMLN combatants, as well as some Constitutional 
reforms, human rights agreements, and legalizing the FMLN as a 
political party to run in elections.(2)

This is the same fascist military which has ruthlessly dominated 
the country-in the interests of the 14-family oligarchy which owns 
almost all the land in El Salvador-since drowning a peasant 
uprising in blood in 1932, and the same military which is 
responsible for the vast majority of the 75,000 deaths in the last 
12 years. Reforms don't come easy.

Rumors of a military coup to replace President Alfredo Cristiani, 
who has been instrumental in the negotiations, with the more 
obedient Vice President Francisco Medino began to surface in 
October,(3) along with a sharp rise in death threats and attempted 
assassinations of FMLN and popular organization leaders from right 
wing death squads.(4) Advertisements have appeared daily in El 
Salvador's newspapers threatening the lives of FMLN fighters. At 
least four death-squad-style assassination attempts against FMLN 
members have been reported since mid-October, as well as numerous 
threats against union leaders.(4) MIM shudders to think of the 
killing spree that the military and death squads may launch 
against the people once the FMLN is fully disarmed.

In return for very limited reforms of the government and military, 
and in the face of heightened death squad activity, the FMLN has 
agreed to completely dismantle its own military structure, give up 
its weapons, and join the bourgeois political process as an 
electoral party. Far from a "negotiated revolution," this is a 
simple negotiated surrender by FMLN leaders.

While FMLN General Command member Shafik Handal says, "We're full 
of optimism that things will turn out well,"(5) FMLN members don't 
all agree. "I do not have any land, and the army is still full of 
people who want to kill me," said Miguel Angel, a 26-year-old 
guerrilla scheduled to turn in his machine gun on October 
30.(6)

It appears that Angel's uncertainty is not isolated either. On the 
contrary, "Angel, who was wounded fighting in San Salvador during 
the FMLN's spectacular 1989 offensive there, is typical of the 
many guerrilla combatants who do not trust the fragile peace 
agreements. They believe their leaders may not have gotten enough 
in return for the only thing they have to offer under the U.N.-
backed accord-disarmament."(6)

"In this hamlet [Guarjila], an FMLN stronghold throughout the war, 
the rebels turned in their guns with little sense of triumph or 
emotion." Commander Douglas Santamaria, who spent more than 20 
years fighting, said "The people understand what we are doing, 
but of course they are scared."(6)

While FMLN leaders seem, at least since the mid-1980s, to have 
viewed their military power mainly as a bargaining chip to be 
negotiated away for some reforms at the first opportunity, the 
rank-and-file FMLN comrades were fighting to win military victory 
and overthrow capitalist rule in El Salvador.

No significant strides have been made around what most agree is 
the main cause of the war-the struggle over land. As one pro-FMLN 
source states, "Land ownership in formerly conflictive zones has 
become the most disputed and volatile issue of the cease-fire 
period."(7) No significant land reform agreements were included in 
the accords. Of course, any "land reform" agreement that leaves 
the land under control of the oligarchy to be used to grow cash 
crops primarily for export will not solve El Salvador's problems.
Rather than championing the peasants' struggle for land, the 
leaders of the FMLN and the Democratic Campesino Alliance (ADC), 
have promised the government to cease land takeovers in the 
countryside, in an attempt to induce the National Association of 
Private Enterprise (ANEP) to join them in the peace process!

Peasants in El Salvador's countryside see more clearly than their 
so-called leaders who their enemies are; they don't need this 
dead-end road of talking peace with exploitative landlord 
capitalists. "Despite government threats, denunciations by 
landowners, and commitments made by the FMLN and the ADC, the 
takeovers have continued to occur. In an interview with 
Rosario Acosta published in the July 14 issue of Envio, she said 
'the land takeovers are not being promoted by the ADC, but have 
rather escaped its control.' The campesino rank-and-file of the 
popular movement has shown a high level of mobilization and a 
great ability to take actions in support of its demands, and to do 
so somewhat independently of the movement's leadership."(8)

The objectives of U.S. imperialism have still been achieved in El 
Salvador, due to blatant accommodation to imperialism by the FMLN. 
"Senior rebel officials say they now want the United States 
Embassy, and especially American military advisors, to remain in 
El Salvador. 'Our attitude has changed,' admits Ana Guadalupe 
Martinez, a rebel official. 'We think the U.S. military group can 
help in the transition to peace."(9) The FMLN is also 
joining in the call for "humanitarian aid" from imperialist 
lending institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and the U.N.
Many now predict that the FMLN, in coalition with other Social 
Democratic electoral parties, will be victorious in the 1994 
elections. But MIM has learned from history that winning bourgeois 
elections, while the military is still the strongest institution 
in country, is not going to fundamentally change El Salvador. This 
is what the five groups comprising the FMLN said during the 1970s 
and early 1980s. MIM wonders, what is different now, other than 
FMLN accommodation to imperialism spurred by the collapse of the 
state-capitalist the USSR?

Even if the FMLN gains power through elections, they are sure to 
face military coup attempts backed by the CIA, such as those that 
occurred to elected leftist governments in Chile in 1973 and in 
Haiti in 1991. While the FMLN leaders celebrate the peace accords 
and look forward to their seats in the government, the people of 
El Salvador only have before them more misery caused by 
capitalism. While MIM celebrates the 12-year heroic struggle of 
the Salvadoran people, we are saddened that the current phase of 
struggle is ending in capitulation rather than victory.

Notes:
1. Alert! January 1992, p. 1.
2. El Rescate Human Rights Report January 1-13, 1992.
3. UPI 11/6/92.
4. Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador 
10/23/92.
5. El Rescate Human Rights Report October 26-November 2, 1992. 
6. Washington Post 11/1/92.
7. Voices on the Border Update Spring 1992, p. 5.
8. N.Y. Transfer News Service 10/92.
9. New York Times Magazine 2/9/92, p. 27.

* * *

LETTERS

"THIS IS BULLSHIT! FASCISTS GET OUT!" AND "FASCIST PROPAGANDA!"

Two of MIM's fliers received the previous responses at an East 
Coast college.

For the record, MIM strongly opposes fascism. In fact, we believe 
that history shows Maoism to be the ideology best capable of 
relegating fascism to the dustbin of history. 

Since its inception in Italy, fascism has been a reaction against 
socialism. Whether you look at Fascist Italy's occupation of 
Ethiopia, or Nazi Germany's expansion in Europe, you will find 
that fascists pursue a policy of imperialism, the highest stage of 
capitalism.

Communists have been decisive in defeating fascism. Stalinism, 
which MIM upholds, was a policy of building socialism in the USSR. 
Thanks to Stalinism, the USSR quickly moved from feudal 
backwardness to become the world's second-largest industrial 
power. 

With its new strength, the USSR was able to play the most decisive 
role in defeating Hitler's army. This success was also partly due 
to Stalin's purges of reactionary Party members, which ensured the 
USSR's role as the only Allied power with no pro-Hitler Fifth 
Column. It is the anti-Stalinists who fail to defend successful 
struggle against fascism.



A BRIEF ON U.S. EVIL &  GRANDPAPA AFRICA FROM 1492-1992

We, the 466 innocent families at Geneva Towers, were all found to 
be guilty of letting the previous management company let the 
Towers become uninhabitable. For our neglect we were all stripped 
of our Constitutional rights by the new owner of Geneva Towers: 
the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development 
(HUD).

There has been no consideration of our citizenship; although we 
all are American citizens and as such we thought that the 
Constitution of the United States of America extended to us 466 
American families who reside in the Towers.

How wrong we were. We've been treated in the same heinous fashion 
as were our rightless ancestors when they stepped proudly in 
chains with their noble heads held high even though they were 
whipped with bullwhips as they marched down the gangplank of 
the U.S. Slave Ship Mayflower some 500 years ago.

Five hundred years later we are locked in a continuous war for 
space in these 22-story complexes run by today's slave-runner John 
Stewart, an official Reservation-Keeper for the U.S. government.
The slum conglomerates are making billions of dollars a year in 
profits off of us, the descendants of those noble African Kings, 
Queens, Princes and Princesses. We, like they, are the 90s biggest 
Black gold fields ever!

The Drug Enforcement Agency's most perfect, heinous scam yet! Just think how 
many tons of drugs are pumped into the pens nationwide ... Look at just Slumlord 
John Stewart's 35 slum pens in the Bay Area. Now lock them all down 24 hours a 
day. Let the perverted, terrorist off-duty police moonlighting as "guards" beat 
the hell out of the population. Let them fill us full of fear of eviction by 
evicting as many as they need to instill that fear. Let them scatter HOPE II 
funds and watch John Stewart refuse to make repairs and steal and salt away the 
millions.  Now call on those greedy politicians that had their campaign coffers 
stuffed with our blood-stained Money. Call out those human leeches from the Sun 
Reporter newspaper and all the other beggar-groups that paint pictures to fool 
the people as they plunder the truth.  Our hard-fought battle began in 1977 when 
the First Great African Queen of Geneva Towers Tenant's Association (GTTA) 
discovered a plot to install the Bay Area Urban League as drivers on the 
plantation. Our Queen was backstabbed and then rewarded with a management 
position.

After I was nominated Acting Chair of GTTA in 1980, I spent days and nights in 
constant communication with our wounded Queen as she outlined to me what to 
watch out for and where I had to take GTTA if we were to gain an 
advantageous position.

The Queen told me, "Create the best set of Bylaws that the mind can put together 
by law. Make them so strict that even you may not think that you can work under 
them. Do the same thing with your Articles of Incorporation and the 501C(3) 
tax-exempt status."

Thirteen months later GTTA had carried out First Great Queen's orders. GTTA did 
this by selling cupcakes, aluminum cans, newspapers and other bake sale goods. 
By the time management figured out what GTTA was doing-and banned the sale of 
food stuff-GTTA had reached its goals. We had our own constitution.

"Close down shop, GTTA, if you have to. Resign Africa, Jr. if you must, BUT DO 
NOT LET MANAGEMENT DIVIDE YOU WITH THEIR OWN CONTROLLED GROUP OF BLIND FOOLS," 
said Grandpapa Africa.

The group of fools came along in 1981. They stabbed us in the back. I hastily 
planted a group of African leadership seeds that Grandpapa Africa had given 
to me as he was led away in chains. He whispered to me then, "Plant these seeds 
down by the River of Hope just as soon as you can, boy. They's got to be fully 
grown by October 12, 1992."

That was on October 6, 1492, the last time I heard or saw Grandpapa Africa from 
a visual or bodily point of view. He was on a soulful plane-taking his walking 
trip through eternity.

-Africa, Jr. the 391st
October 1992


MIM replies: Grandpapa Africa, you did not struggle in vain. It has been a long 
fight. It will yet be a long fight. The seeds you passed on are flourishing 
from the mountains of Geneva Towers to the mountains of Peru.

Grandpapa Africa is the spirit of the world resistance. When the people slaving 
inside Amerika look outside this dead culture and witness the consciously 
donated blood flowing in the Peruvian Andes for the liberation of us all, you, 
Africa, will finally rest in peace.


NEED PERU PAMPHLET

Dear MIM,
Please rush me 10 copies of the new 40-page pamphlet, "Support the People's War 
in Peru." I've sent this via Express mail because I will be speaking at a public 
meeting [soon]. 

Although Peru is not the topic, I want to have this literature available to 
combat the disinformation of imperialism and the revisionist left.  The topic is 
elections '92. I am in complete agreement with MIM's assessment: Don't 
Vote-Build This Revolutionary (Maoist) Party. The meeting is sponsored by 
Friends of the People's Weekly World which recently ran a negative article in 
their paper about the PCP. I've enclosed that article along with a response 
which I faxed. Hope they print it.

-Long Live Proletarian Revolution
September, 1992


CRITIQUE OF THE PEOPLE'S WEEKLY WORLD

William Pomeroy's article, "The Distorted Path of the Ultra-Left," 
vilifies the Communist Party of Peru because they have chosen armed struggle 
over the opiate of capitalist electoral politics. In other Latin American 
countries, communist and workers' parties participate in bourgeois politics only 
to find that they have been led into the marsh of opportunism.

When the FMLN in El Salvador opposed U.S. orchestrated elections, they too were 
compared to Pol Pot by reactionaries throughout the world. The Communist Party 
of Peru is serious about socialist revolution. "Sharing power" with capitalists 
is not their idea of a government of workers and peasants. For this they are 
shunned and lied about. But no amount of imperialist slander will defeat a 
people's revolution.

Instead of reinforcing imperialist propaganda against the vanguard of Peru's 
workers and peasants, it is better to support the revolution and direct our 
attacks at the cause of Peru's crisis: the Fujimori dictatorship and its puppet 
master, U.S. imperialism.

* * *
ERITREA, A VICTORIOUS PEOPLES REVOLUTION

by a comrade

On September 29 Dan Connell, a freelance journalist and professor 
of journalism, gave a talk entitled "Eritrea: The Challenge of 
Peace" in Cambridge, Mass. He presented some of the most up-to-
date information on the Eritrean struggle MIM can find, mostly 
from first hand travels to the area. This article is based on 
information presented in this talk. Connell has a book forthcoming 
from Red Sea Press about Eritrea. 

Eritrea is a small country of about 3.5 million people in the Horn 
of Africa. The Eritrean people fought a 30-year war for 
independence from an Ethiopia government that was backed 
alternately by the United States and the Soviet Union with 
additional aid from Cuba and Israel, among others. In May of 1991, 
the Eritreans emerged victorious, liberating not only Eritrea, but 
also Ethiopia from foreign domination. According to Connell, 
Eritrea is now the only tranquil spot in the Horn of Africa.

Eritrea is a modern day example of the power of people, in spite 
of lack of technological resources, lack of funding, and lack of 
formal training and education, to fight and win a war against a 
country far more wealthy in resources, training, arms, and 
funding. Even before victory the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front 
(EPLF) was organizing health care and education in the liberated 
areas, so people could begin to fight famine and create a more 
advanced society than the backwards structure that was bred by 
forced colonization.

Formed in the 1960s, the EPLF was trained and educated in Maoist 
warfare and political theory, and many of the original members 
studied in China (see MIM Notes 54). The EPLF never openly 
supported Maoism or claimed to be a Maoist revolutionary party 
but they clearly retain many of the lessons of Maoism, from their 
method of guerrilla warfare, to their use of "barefoot doctors" in 
the countryside.In colonized Eritrea women were bought and sold 
into marriage. They needed permission from a man to go to the 
market. Genital mutilation was commonplace.In the liberated areas 
the EPLF organized women and men around the need for change 
through education of both men and women and the political 
motivation of women. They carried out a major education campaign 
around marriage laws and other backwards laws regarding women. 
These reforms were implemented at the village level when the 
village people were convinced of the need for change: none of the 
changes were legislated by the EPLF.

While carrying out this education the EPLF itself was setting an 
example by enacting progressive policies in the armed forces that 
included abolishing marriage laws and abolishing laws banning 
women from owning property. Women and men were trained separately 
for the army, but after training they were joined together to 
fight. These pre-victory practices have been carried over into 
post- revolutionary society as the elected governments in the 
communities are now 25-30% women. Everyday life in Eritrea 
evidences women in a far better position than before the 
revolutionary struggle began.

When Connell visited, he found that the police of the provisional 
government in Eritrea did not carry guns. The area was very safe 
without the need for armed force. There were no longer 
restrictions on people's movement. And for the first time in many 
years of war there was no curfew and people were not afraid to 
walk around in daylight.As a result of the long war and the 
Ethiopian attacks backed up by 10 to 12 billion dollars in arms 
from the Soviet Union, almost all of the cities in Eritrea were 
decimated with the noted exception of Asmara. The major port in 
Eritrea, Masawa, was destroyed. 

There are still many land mines in some of the most fertile fields 
and people are injured on a daily basis as these continue to go 
off. In addition, a 12-year drought has left Eritrea with very 
little livestock, compounding the problems from lack of irrigation 
and a ravished countryside.

But in spite of these difficulties, the Eritrean people are 
beginning to build a new society. Eighty to 85% of the population 
is living off of donated relief (a small amount from some major 
governments and most from independent sources), but they are also 
constructing a society that can be self-sufficient. And unlike the 
many corrupt programs of relief distribution prevalent in colonies 
experiencing famine, Eritrea has created a very efficient system 
of distribution that gets food to all the people. Every village 
has a committee in charge of making sure that everyone receives 
grain, according to need, and Connell could find no evidence of 
corruption in the relief effort.

The EPRDF has been working without pay for reconstruction for the 
past year since the end of the war, reflecting the dedication of 
the government and the commitment of the people to build a better 
society.

The Eritrean people are beginning to build basins and irrigation. 
The provisional government uses the relief as food for work, and 
provides the population with jobs rebuilding society. All over 
there are reconstruction projects underway: people work on 
constructing roads, terracing hillsides and building houses among 
other necessary tasks. Eritrea's land does have the potential to 
provide enough food to sustain its people, and as these projects 
advance, and with the help of the recent rains, they will be able 
to move closer to this goal.

The provisional government has also expanded the education and 
health care programs that were first implemented in the liberated 
areas. And very shortly after the end of the war the provisional 
government opened new schools in four different languages. Eritrea 
is made up of nine nationalities, and the new schools reflect the 
provisional government's desire to allow each nationality to 
retain its distinct heritage.The Transitional government of 
Ethiopia-run by the EPRDF-has an agreement with Eritrea to hold a 
referendum in April on the question of Eritrea's independence, in 
which the Eritrean people will almost certainly choose to continue 
along the path of independence.The struggle in Eritrea should hold 
several lessons for anti-imperialists. It demonstrates the ability 
of the masses, when properly organized, to fight seemingly 
insurmountable odds and win: liberation struggles are not a thing 
of the past. People often ask how any country could hope to fight 
the enormous might of a superpower like the United States, anti-
imperialists should point to Eritrea as an example of this hope 
becoming a reality.

The Eritrean people appear to be pursuing a path of integrated 
economy: some socialism and some capitalism. While MIM does not 
have much information right now as to exactly how they will carry 
out the task of rebuilding their society and economy, we learn 
from the history of the Nicaraguan revolution where capitalism was 
never eliminated, and the Cuban revolution where independence was 
sacrificed for dependency on the Soviet Union's aid. Without an 
independent self-sufficient socialist economic system, Eritrea may 
soon find itself unable to defend against foreign domination as 
was the case with Nicaragua and Cuba.

In spite of potential differences over the direction post-
revolutionary construction should take, MIM stands firmly behind 
the Eritrean people and applauds their revolutionary 
success. Struggles like this one, widely ignored by mainstream as 
well as "left" media, are the reason why we need an independent 
revolutionary press.

     For further reading on the history of Eritrea MIM recommends 
Never Kneel Down by 
James Firebrace. Send $9 to MIM for a copy postpaid. 

* * *

D.C. STATEHOOD IS NOT ENOUGH

by a comrade

One month before the elections Congress forced the most expansive, 
racist death penalty initiative seen yet onto the ballot. A white 
Senator from Alabama proposed the initiative, outraged when his 
white aide was killed recently on Capitol Hill. The tough-on-
crime measure was markedly not a response to the deaths of 
hundreds of Blacks in the city every year.

Studies have shown that the death penalty used as a tool for 
nation and class oppression. This particular measure went further, 
expanding the crimes for which the death penalty could be imposed. 
It also would have the executions performed in the District, but 
rather in the home states of the white guys who proposed this in 
the first place! The methods of execution were not specified on 
the ballot, and therefore could have included electrocution in 
Alabama, lethal injection in Texas, or gassing in North 
Carolina.(2)

The referendum was overwhelmingly defeated, by a 2-to-1 vote. The 
loudest opposition came from church leaders and local politicians, 
including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt 
Kelly. But the strongest vote against the initiative came from the 
city's poorest, most crime-ridden areas. The media expressed shock 
at this, expecting poor Black people who are sick of crime to vote 
to kill other poor Black people who are sick of being 
oppressed.(3) The masses from the poorest neighborhoods know 
that the death penalty doesn't deter killings, and neither does 
increased police "protection."

"Thou Shalt Not Kill" signs went up all over the city. Ministers 
opposed the measure on moral and religious grounds rather than 
political, but noted the disproportionate impact on young Black 
men, especially when the victim of the killing is white.(4) The 
problem is, some who voted against this initiative would vote for 
the death penalty if put on the ballot by D.C. residents.

Statehood 

The death penalty measure was politically tied to the idea of 
statehood for the District of Columbia. And now that Clinton and 
more Democratic Congressional representatives have been elected, 
the statehood furor is moving at greater speeds, with continued 
begging of Congress for a statute that would create the 51st 
state. Statehood supporters are calling for voting representation 
in Congress and two Senators like every other state.

Many believed that if D.C. residents accepted an initiative from 
Congress, all hopes of attaining statehood would be lost. Further, 
area politicians are now celebrating Clinton's victory, hoping it 
will mean increased autonomy and eventual statehood for the 
District.(5) (Remember, Clinton is the one who wants to put 
100,000 more pigs on the streets and who brags about executions in 
Arkansas during his governorship.) One person noted that D.C. 
needs "more funding for education, recreation and after-
school programs."(6) While an improvement over cops and 
executions, government-run educational programs will not stop 
"crime." The only thing that can possibly stop crime is a 
revolutionary reallocation of resources to the masses, which will 
not be accomplished through D.C. statehood.

People fighting for statehood focus on the issue of taxation 
without representation-D.C. pays highest federal taxes per 
capita-and some liken the situation to that in Azania.(7) But what 
about those oppressed nations that do live in states that have 
"representation"?

In 1973 Congress passed the Home Rule Act, which gave the District 
limited dominion over local affairs, but the federal government 
still retained veto power over all acts. Since 1979 the D.C. 
Statehood Party has been campaigning for a statehood initiative to 
bring more autonomy and self-determination to D.C. The name of the 
proposed state is New Columbia, a tribute to the colonialist 
monster Columbus.The proposed constitution and Bill of Rights 
sounds much like any other, including "freedom from 
discrimination" and laws against violence against people because 
of nationality, poverty, race, citizenship, sex, sexual 
orientation, etc.(1) These ideas sound great, but Amerikans have 
yet to see them put into practice by this white imperialist 
patriarchy.

The call for statehood ignores the fact that Blacks, Latinos, and 
Indigenous peoples are oppressed even when they live in states 
with federal representation in Congress. The call for statehood is 
a liberal one, focussing on the racism of the status of D.C. 
today. But if we want real change and not just the kind of change 
promised by Clinton and the Democrats, then we need revolutionary 
calls for an overthrow of the entire Amerikan system, not a call 
to include more Blacks in the ranks of Congress and the Senate.

Notes:
1. "The Statehood Option" in Facts & Issues, League of Women 
Voters of D.C. 
Education Fund, 1985.
2. Flier of Equal Justice, USA; A Project of the Quixote Center, 
Hyattsville, MD.
3. Washington Post 11/5/92, p. C1.
4. Flier of "Committee Against All Killing."
5. W.P. 11/5/92, p. C10.
6. W.P. 11/5/92, p. C14.
7. Community News, Howard University 6/7/90.

* * *


CANADA REFERENDUM POSES MEANINGLESS QUESTION

[MIM Notes 72 ran the following correction about this story:

CORRECTION ON CANADA

Last month MIM Notes incorrectly reported that the Canadian 
fraternal organization to the Workers League favored the 
referendum. The Trotskyist organization that supported the 
referendum was the Canadian fraternal organization to the 
International Socialist Organization. Mobilisation should 
not have been described as a Marxist-Leninist organization; 
although they lean in this direction, they are in their 
formative stage and are a self- described independent 
communist collective.

From the results of the referendum, it appears that the 
Spoil Your Ballot campaign reached a significant number of 
people. In Quebec, where the campaign focused much of their 
work, 2.64% of the ballots cast were spoiled. This is over 
90,000 ballots, and in Ontario 28,000 ballots were spoiled. 
Of all ballots counted, 2.24% were spoiled.

Notes: The Montreal Gazette 11/27/92]

CANADA REFERENDUM POSES MEANINGLESS QUESTION

[This is the original article.--mim5@mim.org]

by a comrade

While Amerikans were gearing up to go to the polls to choose 
between imperialist candidates, Canadians cast their ballots in a 
choice between reactionary nationalism and chauvinism. On October 
26, this choice was presented in the form of a yes/no referendum 
on a new Canadian constitution that represented a carefully 
constructed compromise between the various capitalist interests in 
Canada.

The referendum failed 54-46%, losing in six of 10 provinces and 
the Yukon. It lost decisively in Quebec and barely won in Ontario; 
every province had to approve for the changes to take effect.(2)
The new constitution would have made cursory changes in various 
government bodies, turning the Senate into a representative upper 
house of the Parliament and giving each province a veto over 
further constitutional amendments. Many saw the referendum as a 
way to settle the Quebec autonomy fight that has been waging for 
more than 125 years. It offered greater than proportional 
representation to Quebec but would have maintained unity 
between Canadian provinces.(1)

This left some on the No side opposing the constitution because it 
would give Quebec too much power, and others against the 
referendum because they want complete separation for Quebec. Also 
against the constitution were those who thought it gave native 
people too much autonomy as well as those who thought it did not 
give them enough. This made for an odd coalition that included the 
National Action Committee on the Status of Women, which opposed 
the accord because women were not represented separately as a 
group in the negotiations.

Those in favor of the referendum basically supported the status 
quo in relations between Canadian provinces and a united Canada: 
many, including the Canadian fraternal organization to the Workers 
League, equated a Yes vote with patriotism. Those on the No 
side, whatever their reasons, were basically campaigning against 
something they did not like in the new accord, just as many 
Amerikans campaigned against Bush, assuming that the alternative 
could not be as bad. Most of the Trotskyists of Canada, with the 
exception of the Bolshevik Tendency, voted No for these reasons.
It is unclear how this No victory on the referendum will affect 
Canada, but many suggest that it will further strain an already 
weak economy and united country.

Yes or No is no choice

Taking the Yes or No side in this referendum, just like taking the 
Bush or Clinton or Perot side in the elections, is not really a 
choice at all. Neither side offered any change to the imperialist 
status quo, just a bit of inter-imperialist power rivalry. It is 
interesting that so many organizations in Canada that call 
themselves revolutionary bowed to this imperialist bickering and 
took sides.Just as MIM denounces any progressive groups that 
legitimized the Amerikan elections by telling people to vote for 
Clinton or any independent candidates, MIM denounces these 
opportunist Trotskyists who actively campaigned on the part of the 
government to convince the people they really could make a 
difference through the ballots controlled by the imperialists.
The only groups that MIM is aware of who actively campaigned 
against the entire ballot referendum-Groupe Action Socialiste, 
Mobilisation, and the Bolshevik Tendency-joined in a coalition 
calling for Canadians to spoil their ballots. (The first two are 
Marxist-Leninist organizations opposed to Trotskyism, but without 
a worked out line on Maoism, the latter is a Trotskyist split from 
the Spartacist League.)

In a statement issued by Groupe Action Socialist, they explain 
some of their reasons for opposing this referendum:
"The YES side does not want to really change the relations between 
nations that form this country. As for the NO side in Quebec, they 
want everything to become Quebecois rather than half Canadian and 
half Quebecois; but they also promise us that, for the rest, 
everything will stay the same.

"The new constitutional deal offers no democratic solution to the 
divisions and national oppressions. Native people have been 
offered the possibility of being denied the right to government 
autonomy in five years from now. After intense backroom 
maneuvering, the Premiers took back with one hand what they had 
given with the other and have kept the First Nations under the 
trusteeship of federal and provincial laws.

"We must manifest our opposition to the reactionary chauvinists in 
English Canada who denounce the deal because they think it is the 
best way to impose setbacks to Quebec as well as Native Nations. 
We must oppose the PQ and the Bloc Quebecois who are trying to 
scare French speaking workers by telling them the deal is 
threatening their basic rights and at the same time are attacking 
Native demands. We must oppose the capitalists and the 
politicians that support the deal only to protect their own 
interests and maintain their domination over us by making sure 
that workers in St. John, Newfoundland, Montreal or Whitehorse do 
not really have the same rights.

"On October 26, spoil your ballot. Say No to that kind of politics 
and join us in fighting for real changes."

MIM applauds the hard work of these comrades to expose the 
bankruptcy of the system in which a small group of bourgeois 
politicians put before the people only dead end choices. As the 
people will quickly learn, neither the No-to-Bush, nor the No-to-
the-referendum side will result in any change from imperialist 
practices of either the Amerikan or the Canadian government.

Notes:
1. Boston Globe 10/22/92, p. A1.
2. Economist 10/31/92, p. 41.

* * *

SNEAKERS REFLECTS HACKER LIBERALISM

by a comrade

Sneakers
Directed by Phil Alden Robinson

SNEAKERS is a deliberate acronym for "NSA reeks." The National 
Security Agency, one of Amerika's agencies of repression, is 
correctly depicted as a bad guy in this movie, but for the wrong 
reasons. The message, underscored by post-Cold War references to 
the Commonwealth of Independent States, is that now that the Cold 
War is over, Amerika's surveillance capacities serve only to 
invade Amerikans' "privacy rights." One of this movie's catch-
phrases is that there are "too many secrets."

This analysis totally misses the principal contradiction in the 
world before and after the USSR's collapse: the contradiction 
between imperialism and oppressed nations. Anybody want to guess 
how many NSA satellites are being used to watch and listen to PCP 
cadres in Peru? How about Iraq? Libya? Panama? Grenada? Nicaragua? 
We won't know the details until a People's Army busts the doors 
open, but we can be sure that the collapse of a rival imperialist 
power won't stop Amerika from spying on, jailing, bombing and 
starving the world's oppressed people.

Sneakers reflects the liberal individualism of the computer hacker 
underground. The movie starts in 1969, with college kids Marty 
Bryce (Robert Redford) and Cosmo (Ben Kingsley) hacking into the 
Republican Party coffers to transfer money to the Black Panther 
Party and to a marijuana reform lobby. The hackers' selection of 
donation recipients symbolizes the best (Maoism) and worst (self-
gratification) sides of the 1960s settler-left. The individualism 
of both the hacker world and the settler-left is evident: when the 
pigs bust Cosmo, Marty chooses to cover his own ass by going 
underground alone for 20 years rather than mobilizing the masses 
in Cosmo's defense.

Furthermore, like many individualist leftists of the 1960s, Marty 
did not join a party (except maybe the Demokrats), and his already 
mushy politics have therefore degenerated to the point where, in 
1992, he is using his hacking skills and contacts as a security 
expert for banks.

Marty only has principles when he can afford them. When men 
purporting to be NSA agents threaten Marty with prosecution for 
his past hacking activities, he agrees to obtain a valuable 
microchip for the imperialist agency.

Still, Marty seems to have learned since the 60s that 
organizations are more powerful than individuals. He is now part 
of a quasi-criminal collective with characters played by Sidney 
Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix, and David Strathairn. Mary 
McDonnell is recruited into the collective, sort of. She uses her 
sex appeal to obtain an ID card and voiceprint for the collective, 
and is helpful in other ways, but her role is marginal. This is 
reflective of the marginal role of women in the hacker 
underground. Under patriarchy, women are taught not to want power, 
and Sneakers correctly illustrates that seizing technology is 
seizing power.

The collective shows itself to be a powerful force. Together they 
are able to rob a bank, to reconstruct Marty's journey in a car 
trunk, escape hostile situations, make a difficult-to-trace call 
to the NSA's Director of Operations (James Earl Jones). In one 
scene, a blind member of the collective (Strathairn), is even able 
to drive-poorly but sufficiently-thanks to cooperation with his 
comrade. Cooperation, discipline, and security all make for an 
effective organization, and Sneakers is correct to illustrate 
this.

The collective shows by its practice that technology, including 
the Amerikan government's technology, can be defeated by people-if 
they are properly organized. After using their collective skills 
to steal the microchip for what they presume to be the NSA, they 
test the chip and find that as one of them says, "It's the 
codebreaker-no more secrets." Their decoder is a hacker's dream: 
they quickly break into the databanks of the Federal Reserve, the 
National Power Grid, and the Air Traffic Control System. Here one 
of the characters demonstrates their interest in power for its own 
sake: "Anybody want to crash a couple of passenger jets?"

Marty's old settler-leftist hacking buddy Cosmo resurfaces as a 
bad guy. It's hard to tell who Cosmo is working for, if in fact he 
is working for anyone besides himself. He says he helped the Mob 
while in prison, and that they sprung him from jail and employed 
him. If he is lying, he's still not working for anyone more 
palatable than the Cosa Nostra. So regardless, he can be chalked 
up as another sixties settler-leftist who didn't join a party and 
ended up selling out his already mushy principles.

Perhaps as a defense mechanism against his conscience, Cosmo has a 
"left" cover for his role as a capitalist parasite: "We were gonna 
change the world, Marty," he says. He explains that he plans to 
singlehandedly seize world power, then change the world. "Who else 
is going to change the world? Greenpeace?" Cosmo is correct in 
understanding that Greenpeace reformism is a dead-end road. He is 
also correct in understanding the relationship of power to change. 
Where he fails is in believing that individuals make history. It 
is the masses who make history. An individual who is isolated from 
the masses will inevitably fail to act in the interests of the 
masses.

Marty, too, fails to act in the masses' interests. He recognizes 
the importance of power (as symbolized by the microchip), but 
basically sees it as a tool for his petty-bourgeois liberal ends. 
The collective gains leverage over the NSA when they realize that 
the chip has no use other than spying on rival Amerikan government 
agencies of repression. So they all get to blackmail whatever they 
want out of the NSA. What do they want? Marty wants his criminal 
record erased so he can enjoy a relaxing, bourgeois lifestyle 
without fear. Aykroyd wants a Winnebago. Poitier wants a trip to 
Europe with his wife. For good measure, Strathairn asks for "Peace 
on Earth and good will toward men," and Phoenix gets a lover 
(which incidentally serves to remind audiences that women are 
property).

Also, the final scene shows that Marty now has the power to 
assuage some of the liberal guilt he feels on the two occasions in 
the film when he sees homeless people. The TV reports that the 
Republican Party is bankrupt; Amnesty International, Greenpeace, 
United Negro College Fund report record earnings. So now the black 
bourgeoisie is larger (at the expense of other third world 
people), white pseudoenvironmentalism can better be used as a club 
against third world people, and Amnesty International can better 
accomplish its anti-communist mission. These reactionary changes 
are what well-intentioned people make when they engage in 
focoism-militant struggle waged by people who are isolated from 
the aspirations of the masses.

* * *

REMEMBER THE FILLMORE!

by a comrade

Three hundred families from San Francisco's Fillmore District were 
murdered in 1977 by cyanide-laced Kool Aid at Jonestown, Guyana. 
They had been brainwashed and relocated to Guyana by white 
preacher Jim Jones. Jones left town after Mayor George Moscone was 
assassinated by supervisor Dan White. Jones was a land-speculator 
with political ties who commanded a bloc of Black votes.

In return for votes to Moscone and traitor Assemblyman Willie 
Brown, Jones had been appointed President of the Board of 
Commissioners of the San Francisco Public Housing Authority. 
Within a year, Jones had resigned and convinced his "flock" to 
sell their homes and lease-rights for pittances to the San 
Francisco Redevelopment Agency and move with him to Guyana.

On November 18, 1978 a visiting Congressman was gunned down at 
Jonestown and 900 women, men and children, including Jones, were 
found rotting in the hot Guyanan sun, dead from cyanide poisoning. 
Nine days later, ex-San Francisco Supervisor Dan White shot and 
killed Mayor Moscone and gay supervisor Harvey Milk in their City 
Hall offices.

Moscone, Willie Brown and Jim Jones represented bourgeois factions 
scrambling for the billions of dollars of land being freed up for 
redevelopment in the Fillmore. Milk was simply homophobic icing on 
the cake of assassination. Brown is a world-class power-broker 
today.

ITALIC The three hundred Black families that were murdered in 
Jonestown had owned and rented property in the Fillmore near in 
the "People's Temple." END They possessed certificates entitling 
them to move back into whatever buildings were erected on the 
sites of their homes at less-than-market values. Today, the 
Fillmore Center, a thousand-unit yuppie pleasure-dome, rises up 
over this boutiqued boneyard.

Still today-Black San Franciscans speak in hushed tones of the 
awesome power required to remove and exterminate an entire 
community and make it look like suicide.

The Oakland poet, Pat Parker, said in her poem about Jonestown: 
"Black people do not, do not commit suicide." Will we wake up one 
day and discover that three million public housing tenants have 
committed suicide?

Not if MIM has anything to do with it. Study this newspaper. Read 
our literature on the true nature of Amerika. Struggle with us 
about Maoism, gender, national liberation, class struggle and 
revolution.

ITALIC Before it is too late. END

Notes: The 1987 suicide rate for Black males was 50% less than for 
white males. The 1987 homicide rate for Black males was 674% 
greater than for white males. Calculated from the Statistical 
Abstract of the United States 1990, p. 85.

* * *

WHITE TRUCKERS TRASH PUBLIC HOUSING; COPS SUPPORT THE ACTION

by a comrade

On the night of October 9, Mr. and Mrs. David Groves, two white 
truckers from Seattle, created a violent incident at 26th & Treat 
Streets near Bernal Dwellings housing project in San Francisco. 
The Groves drove their huge tractor-trailor into the narrow 
intersection and side-swiped several parked cars belonging to 
residents of the neighborhood. People gathered as David Groves, 
who had been riding shotgun, stepped out of the truck and directed 
his wife in backing up. Several more parked vehicles were hit 
by the truck.

When the people asked him to stop destroying their cars, David 
Groves reached into the truck cab, grabbed a baseball bat and 
said, "I'm gonna kill you niggers!" The people defended themselves 
as they disarmed and beat up David Groves. Several crates of his 
cargo of fish were put on the sidewalk as collateral for damage 
done to the vehicles.

Latonia Murdock, President of the Bernal Dwellings Tenant's 
Association, called an ambulance to the scene. Murdock witnessed a 
man break up the punishment of Groves and saw the man pick up and 
give Mrs. Groves a wedding ring she had dropped.When the San 
Francisco Police Department (SFPD) arrived Groves was taken away 
and treated for minor injuries. His truck was towed for safe 
keeping. SFPD officers told bystanders they could take the cartons 
of fish home since, otherwise, the fish would spoil. Rich and poor 
alike carted off the fish. But on  October 10, the SFPD swooped 
down on Bernal Dwellings and forcibly entered apartments without 
search warrants. The contents of many apartments were ripped 
apart and anybody with fish in their refrigerator was held for 
interrogation. A number of men were arrested and later released 
without charges. Police also towed tenants' cars from legal 
parking spaces.

Over the next several days the project was repeatedly attacked by 
police motorcycle and tac squads in riot gear.  A 13 year-old girl 
playing "Hide The Belt" in the courtyard was handcuffed and patted 
down by male police who accused her of hiding drugs in the 
sandbox. A young boy was thrown to the ground and handcuffed with 
police guns aimed at his head. Both were later released.
The San Francisco Public Housing Authority then commenced an 
illegal campaign to evict a women and her two infants as a show of 
administrative power and as a warning to the people to keep their 
mouths shut about the real deal at Bernal Dwellings. As if having 
her belongings destroyed by police was not enough, Housing has 
also illegally tampered with the woman's AFDC payments.

Television and print media from all over Northern California 
descended on Bernal Dwellings like hungry vultures. The media 
claimed that the Groves were only trying to turn their truck 
around when a "gang" of Black men pulled them from the truck, beat 
them, took Mrs. Grove's wedding ring and stole boxes of crab, 
lobster and fish. Actually, there were no crabs or lobsters-only 
frozen fish. Truckers following the Grove's route have any number 
of turn-arounds available to them without threading their way into 
a narrow intersection next to the only housing project in the 
area. But truckers have been known to visit the intersection 
attempting to buy contraband. The November elections Reporters and 
the City government used this pre-election incident to divide the 
residents of Bernal Dwellings from their more affluent neighbors 
and to set white against Black. The racist media claimed that a 
doll and a pair of tennis shoes that some kids tossed up on a 
project telephone wire several years ago are a "warning to whites" 
not to enter the area.

The City rewarded the Groves with a large sum of money, and the 
truckers were allowed to leave San Francisco immediately without 
being charged for reckless driving or assault. The police gave the 
abandoned fish to the people and then used possession of the fish 
as an excuse to terrorize and arrest the people-and their 
children-in their homes. 

During another recent election, the SFPD landed a helicopter on 
the roof of a building at Bernal Dwellings to raid the project 
from the sky.A powerful publicity campaign was mounted to 
duplicate the lies and hysteria manufactured around the punishment 
of trucker Reginald Denny during the May rebellion in Los Angeles. 
On November 3, San Francisco voters approved a reactionary ballot-
measure outlawing "aggressive panhandling." The City is also 
creating public opinion to tear down the project's basketball 
court in retaliation for Groves and to further demoralize the 
residents.

Bernal Dwellings is a tiny place completely surrounded by single-
family homes and market-rate apartments. Its buildings and grounds 
have been allowed to fall into unspeakable disrepair by the 
Housing Authority because the Authority wants the residents 
to vacate their homes. A multi-million dollar "rehabilitation" of 
Bernal Dwellings is planned and the tenants stand in the way of 
neighborhood gentrification and profit-taking for the band of 
thieves, grifters, land speculators and criminal bureaucrats 
calling themselves San Francisco City Hall.

Similar scenes are being played out all across Clinton's Amerika 
as the Department of Housing and Urban Development continues to 
turn "subsidized" land-banked properties over to the control of 
private capitalists-such as Catholic Charities and an army of 
"non-profit community development corporations."

In San Francisco, Black people have been burned out, "relocated" 
and driven from the neighborhoods as the rich seize and "gentrify" 
land that belongs to the Black Nation. The Black population of San 
Francisco has been dropping at a rate of 2.5% every five years 
since 1975.(1)

Notes:
1. "San Francisco Master Plan," SF Dept. of City Planning and 
Association of Bay Area Governments 1989.

* * *

RACISTS REWARDED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS


The University of Massachusetts, known for its attempts at 
"multiculturalism," is rewarding two students involved in a racist 
assault on a Black Resident Assistant. (Resident Assistants are 
University students who, in exchange for free housing and $25 a 
week, are used as rent-a-cops by the administration to enforce, 
among other things, the alcohol policy.) Two RAs have told MIM, 
under conditions of anonymity, that two students who have 
supposedly been expelled from housing are secretly being housed in 
a fancy hotel, care of the Dean of Students Office.

On the night of September 25, in Washington Tower dormitory, Black 
RA Arlens Barosy, while on "rounds" encountered a group of white 
underage men drinking. Barosy told them to pour out their alcohol, 
and one of the white men repeatedly punched Barosy, knocking him 
through a door and bruising his head. The men fled.(1) 

The assailant, Francis Marchant, was later identified as a non-
student and a registered guest of the residents of room 801.(2) 
The UMass Code of Student Conduct states that students are 
responsible for the actions of their guests. These students 
invited Marchant back the next weekend (security did not stop him 
from entering the building). Barosy noticed the man in the 
building and called the police, who did not arrest Marchant until 
several weeks later. That weekend Barosy's door was smeared with 
human shit and the words "NIGRRS SUCK" (sic) were written on the 
wall.(3)

"Due to the incident and the subsequent appearance of racial 
graffiti and feces outside his door and other stress," Barosy was 
forced to quit his RA job and move to another dormitory.(2)

On the night of October 8, about 40 members of the Black Student 
Union occupied the 8th floor of Washington Tower demanding that 
Marchant's hosts (smart enough to be partying elsewhere that 
evening) be expelled from housing. After two hours, the 
administration agreed.(4)

That same evening, 40 white men with sticks prowled the campus 
stalking a Black woman. The Black woman called the police from an 
emergency phone. They told her they were working on it, and hung 
up on her. Rocks were also thrown through the window of Memorial 
Hall, a building occupied by students advocating scholarships for 
low-income women of color. The next afternoon, a white woman was 
attacked and beaten by white men with sticks who called her a 
"Nigger Lover."(5)

The administration's action to house "expelled" racist students in 
a hotel is adding insult to the injury caused by the escalating 
tensions on campus. The University has obviously realized that it 
has skipped its own due process procedures, and is therefore 
avoiding liability by providing these students with free housing. 

By the University's own regulations it should have moved these two 
students to a different building immediately and then started 
disciplinary hearings within days. Secretly housing these students 
is allowing the university to postpone punishment. Countless 
judicial hearings could have been held both before the Washington 
occupation and in the ensuing days. Instead the University is 
pretending to serve both sides.

Instead of punishing these students, the University is telling 
racists who punch their way through the multicultural facade how 
they can expect to be treated: when you punch a Black authority 
figure, you can expect a bigger room, relief from the alcohol 
policy, free cable TV, and a maid to make your bed.

On October 13, the Black Student Union presented a list of demands 
designed to increase minority representation. The BSU set a two 
week deadline and the U.S. Justice Department volunteered to 
mediate. According to the Boston Globe, the Department of Justice 
had recently determined that the nearby city of Holyoke is one of 
the U.S. cities most ripe for riot, which likely increased their 
interest in "racial tensions" at UMass.

On November 9, a compromise was announced. About a third of the 
Black Student Union's demands were met, and the administration has 
graciously volunteered to hire 20 more police officers. The 
student negotiators seem unaware that the University could fund at 
least 80 full scholarships with the salaries of these 20 cops.
To the activists at UMass, I can only commend your efforts. 

Increasing minority representation, especially that of oppressed-
nation women, is a valuable reform. The road to liberation, 
however does not lie in begging the administration for piece-meal 
reforms, but in building independent power. Likewise, the 
administration's attempts to buy minority happiness by hiring 20 
more racist cops (the first thing the University offered when 
confronted with the demands) should be met with resistance, not 
silence.

Remember that the U.S. Justice Department and a campus that 
rewards racist assailants are not on the side of oppressed 
peoples.

Notes:
1. Massachusetts Daily Collegian 11/2/92, p. 1.
2. MDC 11/2/92, p. 6.
3. MDC 10/5/92, p. 1,3.
4. MDC 10/9/92, p. 1.
5. MDC 10/14/92, p. 6.