I N T E R N E T ' S M A O I S T BI-M O N T H L Y = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = XX XX XXX XX XX X X XXX XXX XXX XXX X X X X X X X XX X X X X X X X V X X X V X X X X X X X XX XXX X X X X X X XX X X X X X X X XXX X X X V XXX X XXX XXX = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT MIM Notes 154 JANUARY 15, 1998 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. FREE OUR COMRADES IN AMERIKAN GULAGS ORGANIZE TO END THE AMERIKAN LOCKDOWN 2. ALL PRISONERS ARE POLITICAL PRISONERS: IS THIS A DIVIDING LINE QUESTION IN 1998? 3. MISSOURI PIG CLEARED IN MURDER OF UNARMED INNOCENT MAN 4. LETTERS 5. HONDURANS FIGHT DEPORTATION FROM U.$. 6. HONDURAN WORKERS TAKE OVER FACTORY 7. ACTIVIST FORCED TO PLEA BARGAIN BECAUSE PIGS LIE 8. WHITE YOUTH DRUG USE RISES -- OPPRESSED NATION YOUTH ARRESTS INCREASE 9. PIGS ADMIT THEY HARASS AND LIE TO IMPRISON OPPRESSED NATIONALS 10. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNAL FINDS MUMIA'S OPPRESSORS GUILTY 11. AMISTAD REVIEW: SOME GOOD HISTORY AMIDST SETTLER MYTH 12. MANDELA STEPS DOWN AS ANC LEADER: ANC CONTINUES TO SELL OUT THE PEOPLE 13. KIM DAE JUNG KISSES IMPERIALIST ASS 14. KIM DAE JUNG KISSES MILITARIST ASS 15. POLITICAL REPRESSION OF BASQUE IN SPAIN 16. ADVANCES AND RETREATS FOR MIM'S BOOKS FOR PRISONERS PROGRAM 17. MURDER STATISTICS IN DOUBT AS DEATHS ARE CALLED 'UNDETERMINED' 18. MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCES PROMOTE NATIONAL OPPRESSION 19. IMPERIALISM KILLS: LIFE EXPECTANCY LOW FOR OPPRESSED NATIONALS 20. UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS * * * FREE OUR COMRADES IN AMERIKAN GULAGS ORGANIZE TO END THE AMERIKAN LOCKDOWN Jericho'98 is a march on Washington, D.C. on March 27th, 1998. The march, primarily organized by various nationalist and progressive groups, is aimed at exposing the incarceration of leaders and activists who are imprisoned because of their political beliefs and actions. Jericho'98 calls attention to the demand for amnesty for these prisoners and is part of broader campaigns to build support for these prisoners. MIM urges all supporters of prisoners and opponents of oppression to build Jericho'98 and other educational events which expose the crimes of the Amerikan bourgeoisie against the people. Amerika has imprisoned political leaders and continues to steadily build the Amerikan police forces and prison system as tools of social control and national oppression. Through education and mass practice, the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) builds support for all struggles against oppression. This includes supporting the release of those incarcerated because of their political beliefs and actions. RAIL is organizing contingents from various locations to attend the Jericho'98 march on Washington, D.C. and is also hosting a teach-in the following day in D.C. The teach-in will include information on specific prisoners' cases and on the Amerikan INjustice system in general. We will also discuss tactics for activism. There is still room for organizations and individuals to participate in the teach-in. So write to the address on page two to donate time or money or to talk with us about facilitating a discussion on a particular topic. WHY THE CALL FOR AMNESTY? Organizers of Jericho '98 wrote: "There are over 150 political prisoners in US jails. They are in jail because they are committed to taking action for social justice. They are Black, Puerto Rican, Native American and progressive white people who have dedicated their lives to fighting against racism, colonialism and exploitation. Some of them have been in jail for over 26 years. This makes them some of the longest held political prisoners in the world. "Through history, whenever the dispossessed have risen up, they have come under attack. They are assassinated, imprisoned, and harassed. The last few decades in this country have been no exception. "Many of the political prisoners are locked up as a result of the FBI's Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). During the 1960s and 1970s the FBI developed COINTELPRO to attack, frame, assassinate, and imprison participants and leaders of the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement and other powerful social movements. Others have received excessively long sentences because of the political nature of their actions." Communists, pacifists, anarchists and nationalists should support the call for amnesty and release of political leaders and activists. We can wage winnable reformist battles to free some of the people's leaders and activists. Even if you disagree with the political or ideological stance of these prisoners, you can see that they are imprisoned because of these beliefs and that this is undemocratic. Amerika's so-called democracy is a hypocrisy. It frames and imprisons people for working to reform or eliminate capitalistic exploitation. Anyone who says these prisoners should remain locked up for their political beliefs and actions is saying that it should be illegal to struggle against oppression. STRUGGLES AGAINST OPPRESSION ARE CRIMES IN AMERIKA Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa have been imprisoned for over 26 years because of their political involvement in the National Committee to Combat Fascism (an off-shoot of the BPP.) These comrades were framed to serve the settler nation's interest in breaking up and slowing down the struggle for oppressed nation self-determination. In 1971, they were convicted of killing an Omaha cop despite the great deal of evidence which proves otherwise. The cop was killed after he accidentally triggered a suitcase and it exploded. The primary evidence against the comrades came from Duane Peak who was himself a suspect in the case. Peak allegedly confessed (after being threatened with the possibility of facing the electric chair) that he, Poindexter and Langa were responsible for leaving the suitcase for the pigs to discover. When Peak took the stand, he denied planting the bomb with Langa and Poindexter. The prosecutor immediately called for a recess and when that was over, Peak returned with clear signs of physical abuse. Despite the obvious coercion and lack of credible evidence in the case, Langa and Poindexter received life sentences. Their kangaroo court trials and imprisonment demonstrate what happens when even the legacies reminiscent of the BPP are perceived as a threat to white Amerika. Another case of a Black male leader is Kojo Bomani Sababu who has been imprisoned since 1975 after the state attacked and destroyed his Black Liberation Army unit. His sentence of multiple life terms was handed down because he fought for self- determination of the Black nation. His unit engaged in bank expropriation and liquidated dealers bringing drugs into the Black community. These are political activities intended to strengthen the Black nation (though MIM argues that engaging in such political activities at this time is incorrect inside Amerika.) This is the real reason that he is imprisoned though the state would deny it. If you disagree that these are political actions, ask yourself why Amerika considers his actions a crime and why it allows MNCs to extract super-profits from workers in oppressed nations and why it allows pig units to receive kickbacks from drug dealers throughout the United Snakes. Another leader of the Black nation, Albert 'Nuh' Washington has spent over 16 years in prison, seven of them in solitary confinement to deny him the ability to conduct political education among the prison masses. He stated, "As a former member of the Black Panther Party and a member of the Black Liberation Army, it is my position to struggle for the right of self-determination for Black people in the United States. Historically, our political rights have been determined not by our own national will, but by the needs of the political system that enslaved us. Therefore, as any other colonized people, Black people must be free to decide their own national, political, economic and social destiny." It is because of his work to build self- determination that he was sent to prison for the trumped up charge of killing two New York City pigs. "The district attorney, by his own admission, stated he couldn't say or prove what part Nuh allegedly played in the killings, but asked a jury to convict him based on his beliefs, which they did." Hanif Shabazz Bey has been subjected to continued confinement in the Behavior Modification Program at Marion federal penitentiary. He was told by an in- house shrink that his chances of leaving Marion would be better if he toned down his political views. He said, "what I see as the main factor as to why I am persistently being held at Marion is the fact that I was convicted in a Virgin Islands court in 1973 for the armed attack on the Nelson Rockefeller-owned golf course on the island of St. Croix in 1972, and the Bureau of Prisons now finds it convenient to keep me here so they can point to my case in their media interviews to show what type [of prisoners] is being housed at Marion. This way they can justify spending the tax payers' dollar on this high security operation whose sole purpose is to impose terror tactics on the rest of the BOP as well as the state prisoner population." First Nation leader of the American Indian Movement, Leonard Peltier has been in prison since 1975 after false evidence justified his extradition from Kanada. There still has been no evidence which shows that Peltier killed the two FBI agents who Oglala land. In fact, the so-called evidence was obtained through force and coercion and later denied when the witness was allowed to tell the truth. And the rest of the so-called evidence only reveals what a contrived frame-up the case against Peltier is because it is contradictory to basic facts. The above are only a few of the people's leaders locked up because of political action to end oppression. Several Puerto Rican leaders have been sentenced to outrageously disproportionate sentences, tortured while in prison and denied very basic needs. The reason? Amerika says that they committed seditious conspiracy. What this means is that they were sentenced because they organized the people to expose and stop the domination of the Puerto Rican nation by Amerika. MIM continues the struggles to stop Amerika's control over the Black, Latino and First nations. But the battle to eventually have the power in the hands of the people will be more quickly achieved if we are able to press the Amerikan bourgeois to stick to its own terms of war which appear on paper. PROLIFERATION OF PRISONS EQUALS MASS REPRESSION MIM and RAIL see that it is the entire prison system in Amerika that is a tool of oppression. It is not only the tactics of COINTELPRO and the imprisonment of political leaders and revolutionaries which have been tools to perpetuate oppression. We are committed to building support for prisoners incarcerated specifically for political beliefs and actions, but the majority of our work more broadly builds support for all struggles against oppression. And in this, we see that the disproportionate imprisonment rate of oppressed nationals alone necessitates a broad struggle against the current Amerikan prison system in its totality. The rate of imprisonment in the united $tates increased more than fourfold from 1972 to 1990, from 100 per 100,000 to 455 per 100,000. Currently the u.$. imprisons people at a higher rate than any other country. Black men are imprisoned at a rate seven times that of white men, and one in three Black men is either in prison, on parole, or on probation. Private prisons are a growth industry. And politicians try to out-do each other with their proposals for more cops, more arrests, tougher sentencing, and more prisons allegedly to combat crime. But a closer look shows that more cops, more arrests, and more people in prison does not deter crime. Using u.$. government definitions and statistics, the violent crime rate in the u.$. has remained about the same since the 70s, despite a 600% increase in the budget for cops, courts, and prisons. Furthermore, the very definition of crime and the application of anti-crime laws are used selectively. Why is it a crime to possess a small amount of crack cocaine, while it is business as usual for the CIA to import cocaine by the ton? Why are sentences for powder cocaine mostly affecting whites lighter than the sentences for crack cocaine possession which almost entirely affect Blacks? The answer is that the prison system in the u.$. is designed to maintain the systems of capitalist and national oppression. That is why oppressed nationals and poor people are disproportionately represented in prison. The Amerikan settler nation does not consider it a crime for the bourgeoisie to exploit the labor of the masses. Nor is it a crime in Amerika to be a white paper or button pushing labor aristocrat who produces no value but lives on the land and off the sweat of the masses. But it is considered the crime of a poor womyn to steal piddly amounts to supplement her inadequate income she uses to support her family. It is considered a crime for oppressed nationals to sell drugs to make money when they live in areas which offer no productive job opportunities, but it is not a crime for rich white college students to use drugs or rape wimmin when they are drunk and at parties. Many prisoners write to MIM explaining that their actions were taken out of desperation or self- defense -- of themselves or their peoples. Many more explain that their sentences are particularly long under abusive conditions because they become politically active while in prison. Other prison comrades have been murdered outright by pigs while serving sentences for white nation defined crimes. The Amerikan prison system is a targeted attack against the oppressed and serves absolutely no goal of eradicating crime against the people. The trend towards harsher and broader imprisonment and repression continues. MIM's recent projections based on u.$. government statistics show that if current trends in imprisonment continue, there will be almost 10 million prisoners in the u.s. by 2020. Blacks would be imprisoned at a rate of 9,517 per 100,000 if current trends continue that means almost 1 Black person out of every 10 would be in prison, not to mention on parole or on probation. This bleak future in not inevitable, but it will take the consistent efforts of activists in and out of prisons to prevent it. PHYSICAL REPRESSION IN PRISONS Amerika's prisoners report to MIM that gulag conditions are dangerous and inhumane. Unsanitary conditions, inadequate medical care, exposure to toxins and inadequate heating are among the many forms of physical torture and repression that Amerika's prisoners face daily. Late in 1996, the Michigan state legislature passed a law requiring prisoners to pay a $3.00 charge for all non-emergency medical care. Now, Michigan prisoners are forced to pay $3.00 (more money than the state pays most of its prisoner employees for a week of work) every time they see a doctor. The $3.00 does not include getting prescriptions filled or any care beyond the visit. Forcing prisoners to pay for health care is a form of economic repression and is a fundamental part of the Amerikan bourgeoisie's war against the oppressed nations. The state of Michigan already follows U.$. policy in imprisoning Black men eight times as much as it does whites. With this new prisoner co-payment for health care policy the state is further legitimizing the attitude that oppressed nationals are a drain on state resources and not a productive part of society. Making prisoners pay for sub-standard health care is equivalent to saying that prisoners who did not pay for this service were mooching off the rest of the state. This is a cover for the fact that prisoners are denied the opportunity to earn any money while in prison, and that they are being discriminated against by being scapegoated for the problems of capitalism. The reactionaries who make prison policy and run the prisons promote the idea that prisoners deserve to be treated as less than citizens. In one example, prisoners who are of an age to collect their social security benefits are denied these benefits for the time that they are imprisoned. The logic to this law is that while people are in prison their basic needs are paid for by one arm of the state so they do not need to receive payment from its other arm. The reality to this law in combination with the payment for non-emergency medical care regulations is that prisoners who would receive social security payments if they were not in prison are being made to pay money to the state for care, and this care is at the same time being used as the rationale for denying them money which they would have gotten were they not in prison. Another form of physical and mental control over prisoners is the recent rash in massive transfers of prisoners between states. The transfers allow the state to perpetuate the lie that the state needs more money to build prisons because of alleged overcrowding. The facilities hosting the transferred prisoners are then allowed to make a profit off of the labor of those prisoners or simply off of the contract from the state sending the prisoners half way across the United Snakes. In September, MIM reported on the one incident in which transferred prisoners from Missouri had been beaten repeatedly. Capital Correctional Resources Inc. had a $6 million dollar contract with Missouri -- 415 prisoners had been transferred to Texas under this contract. Transferred prisoners were beaten by pigs and attacked by the pigs' dogs. Conditions in prisons across the country are literally a threat to the lives of the prisoners. But since Texas started to sell space to detain prisoners from other states, many prisoners have written to MIM explaining that the conditions in Texas are worse than in their own states. Texas has about tripled the size of its prison system since 1991, spending $3 billion on nearly 100,000 new beds which is uses to profit from the imprisonment of more and more people. Massachusetts RAIL has been fighting the deportation of prisoners from that state since 1995 when over 300 prisoners were transferred in the middle of the night to Texas far from their families. Massachusetts continues to send prisoners to Texas to support the political argument of the oppressor that there needs to be more money spent on prison construction. Many other states engage in this disgusting slave trade. And now, RAIL and MIM are taking up the struggle to stop the transfer of prisoners from Michigan to West Virginia which started during this last week. PRISONER LABOR EXPLOITED TO FILL OPPRESSOR'S POCKETS As if the state couldn't generate enough false propaganda against prisoners just by exaggerating the dangers "criminals" pose to society, RAIL and MIM have recently discovered the first hints that that the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) is baldly lying about how much money it pays its prisoner laborers. In May of 1997, RAIL put out a factsheet, based on DOC statistical reports, about how little prisoner laborers get paid in Michigan. RAIL knew when it did this that most prisoners are not even lucky enough to have jobs and most do not even have the low level of income the state says it provides. What RAIL and MIM did not know is that the state lies about the wages it publishes. As so many comrades in prison have pointed out to MIM over the years, slavery remains legal in Amerikan prisons under the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.$. Konstitution. The amendment states in part that slavery and involuntary servitude are both acceptable as a form of punishment for crime "whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." So if a jury agrees to convict someone for committing a crime, that person can be enslaved to the state. But where is the blind justice in this law? How is it that the oppressed manage to fall disproportionately prey to the fate of "slavery and involuntary servitude" even into 1998? It is nothing short of political repression and imprisonment when forced labor is extracted from poor people who have passed a bad check, or been convicted of doing this; while the heads of state who invade other countries and kill their people go free. According to the MDOC Statistical Report for 1992, prisoner factory workers were paid $.24/hour for unskilled labor and $.70/hour for skilled labor. For unskilled and skilled farm labor respectively, prisoners were supposed to have earned $1.62 and $4.94 per hour. Yet one prisoner wrote us recently saying that the going rate at his low-security prison is $.71 per eight-hour day for unskilled labor -- this is less than half what the state claims to be paying prisoners. The same prisoner reports that prisoners working the MDOC farms make no more than $5 per eight-to-ten-hour day -- again less than half of the minimum the DOC claims to be paying. Another Michigan prisoner writes that the average prisoner with a job earns between $20 and $30 per month. If we take the lowest rate the DOC claims to pay prisoners and assume 8 hour work days and five- day weeks (most prisoners with jobs work more), prisoners would be earning a minimum of $38.40. This particular prisoner works much more than 40 hours per week and is still earning less than $40 per month. In 1995, government agency prison industries had sales of $1.2 billion and private prison industries had sales of $83 million. The actual amount that prisoners are forced to produce and paid little or nothing for is hard to determine because the government sales are undervalued. In 1994, 44% of state and federal prisoners were in prison work programs and another 6% were in work release programs. Prisoners are paid nothing in some states and in the rest are paid very little. Then in places like Kentucky, prisoners do the work which otherwise the state would have to pay someone else to do. Because of the ability of companies and the state to make incarceration more affordable through growing prison industries, there is no impetus for the Amerikan settler nation to decrease the number of oppressed nationals it imprisons. MIM believes it is desperately important for pro- prisoner activists to bring attention to these types of repression suffered by prisoners. As we work to bring attention to the plights of those imprisoned explicitly for their political activity, we also heed the words of Geronimo Pratt on his release from prison: "you have political prisoners on top of political prisoners" in Amerika's so- called correctional facilities. We must continue to point to the political repression of ordinary Blacks, Latinos and First Nationals who are bound up in U.$. custody for the crimes of being minority nationalities and/or being poor. We see that the primary struggle is to fight for self-determination of oppressed nations. The struggle against the political use of prisons as a tool in war against oppressed nations continues and will be strengthen by Jericho'98 and RAIL's teach-in the following day. Join us. * * * ALL PRISONERS ARE POLITICAL PRISONERS: IS THIS A DIVIDING LINE QUESTION IN 1998? MIM has long worked around the principle that under imperialism all prisoners are political prisoners. This is an important aspect of our line and of the work we do in support of all prisoners. Yet we urge organizations doing genuine work around prisons issues not to make this a dividing line question. MIM founded the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) to mobilize anti-imperialist activists who do not agree with MIM on all things. Many RAIL members will not agree that all prisoners are political prisoners. These activists will be quite welcome to work in RAIL to expose the imprisonment of specific political prisoners. RAIL's contingent at the Jerichoš98 march will fully support the release of those prisoners who are broadly recognized as being political prisoners. RAIL is also a revolutionary mass organization and as such its efforts will be focused both on the release of individual prisoners and on general education about imprisonment in the United Snakes. MIM recognizes that some organizers of the Jericho'98 march focus specifically on the freedom of prisoners incarcerated for their political actions or beliefs. Others emphasize the link between these prisoners' battles and the overall struggle against oppression. MIM urges both camps not to let this question block unity between separate organizations in our preparations for Jerichoš98 or in other pro-prisoner work. MIM argues that all prisoners are political prisoners because not one of the over 1.6 million people incarcerated in Amerika's gulags was arrested, tried and convicted by representatives of the people. Even the laws under which prisoners have been convicted support the material interests of the oppressor. The intensely disproportionate imprisonment rate of oppressed nationals further shows that the prison system perpetuates the white nation's domination of its internal colonies. Inadequate education and job opportunities are social and economic conditions imposed upon the oppressed. The state, which runs its prisons with one hand, uses the other hand to commit murder in the form of militarist aggression and theft in the form of imperialist expansion. This state is responsible for the poor living conditions of the oppressed and so cannot fairly judge the oppressed for any so-called crimes. MIM struggles to build a new revolutionary society under which the state and the people will answer to the same law under the same standard of proletarian justice. Current prisoners will be retried and imperialist criminals will be brought for judgment before the same people's courts. The masses are responsible only for building such a revolutionary society, not for subservience to the laws of the oppressors. Mao wrote: "The contradictions between ourselves and the enemy are antagonistic contradictions. In ordinary circumstances, contradictions among the people are not antagonistic. But if they are not handled properly, or if we relax our vigilance and lower our guard, antagonism may arise." MIM has deep respect for the contradictions which may arise among the progressive forces. Disagreements among the people should be expected, and it is our responsibility to ensure that these disagreements do not turn into deeper divisions among the friends of the oppressed. For this reason, we seek unity in all our work against oppression with all those who will work with us for justice. While MIM seeks unity with all who can be united around specific progressive political struggles, we do believe in having strict dividing line questions for the Party. For this reason we are clear on our line about political prisoners. Clarity in our own line keeps the Party from swinging right and left with the wind. We assert our independence in developing a revolutionary Party -- this independence is the basis for our straightforward leadership of the masses. But one party's dividing line questions should not be used to divide it from other organizations which genuinely share some goals in common. This is why you will see MIM working with organizations which may criticize our general use of the term political prisoners. MIM's stance is clear. We will continue our work and join together with others to expose the imprisonment of comrades locked up for their political beliefs and actions. We will not work with organizations which insist that we water down our political line or mass work, and we will not work with organizations which are infiltrated or led by cops or revisionists. We will struggle with individuals and organizations to build support for all prisoners' struggles against oppression. We will even struggle with individuals and organizations to study Marx, Lenin and Mao and to support armed liberation struggles internationally. But we know that support at such a high level is not inherent at birth. So we will continue to pursue political struggle and mass work to develop deeper support for all struggles against oppression. The Jericho march, its preparation and follow-up are great opportunities for genuine progressives to educate one another, the masses and community members about the various tactics of oppression. Some attending or even organizing sections of the teach-in may be focusing on specific prisoners' cases. The principal contradiction in the world and in Amerika today is the fact that oppressed nations are controlled by the imperialists. We need the people to fight against various aspects of this control as we build deeper unity necessary for genuine liberation. We look forward to working with all activists who are steadfastly pursuing any aspect of the struggle against oppression. * * * MISSOURI PIG CLEARED IN MURDER OF UNARMED INNOCENT MAN While 25-year old Ravone Thompson rode as a passenger with his friends on the afternoon of December 1, 1997, he had no idea that his life would end on that day. Pine Lawn, MO pig Bryan Hubbard pulled their car over while looking for suspects who had robbed a nearby beauty supply and fashion shop. When Hubbard began questioning Thompson, he ran. Hubbard chased him into nearby St. Louis where he shot Thompson in the back in cowardly fashion. Thompson was wanted by St. Louis County pigs for narcotics trafficking. Black people know that Amerika's criminal injustice system is designed to victimize them, so it is not too unusual to run when you know you won't be dealt with fairly. Pigs later admitted that Thompson was not involved in the armed robbery and was unarmed when he was shot. But that didn't matter to St. Louis Circuit Attorney Dee Joyce-Hayes. She plays judge and jury when the pigs commit murder. Eleven days after Hubbard fatally shot Thompson, she said it was an act of self-defense! This is not the first time Joyce-Hayes has exonerated a kop for shooting an unarmed Black youth in the back (Garland Carter, 1994). As Thompson's 22 year old spouse and their three and five year old daughters mourn the loss of their loved one, pig Hubbard is given a psychiatric review which determined that he is fit to return to "duty," that duty being keeping the streets safe for the capitalists and the white settler community. Hubbard is also Black, which verifies the old slogan of the Black Panther Party - "A pig is a pig is a pig." There have always been traitors and sellouts among oppressed peoples. This makes it much easier for the oppressors to rule. It makes things "look good" when they use the oppressed as pawns against their own people. A lot of so-called radicals and nationalists still fall for this one. They demand that under the present capitalist- imperialist system "we need Black police officers to police the Black community." That can only work when the Black nation is truly independent and is able to exercise self-determination. After Dee Joyce-Hayes cleared pig Hubbard of any wrongdoing, Thompson's spouse and relatives organized a protest march and rally. More than 100 people gathered near the site of the shooting and marched spiritedly for several blocks shouting "No Justice, No Peace!" The march took them past the Pine Lawn city hall where RAIL explained that the role of the police, no matter what nationality, is to keep white supremacist and capitalist rule intact. When marchers returned to their starting point, they vowed to continue their struggle against police terrorism. A relative of 17 year old Garland Carter, who was murdered by pigs three years ago, told marchers not to leave without making plans to continue the struggle. Another speaker, formerly of the Black Liberators and now a minister, addressed the youth: "Don't be on the streets when you don't need to be. It only makes you an open target for the police - the enemy. When you organize against the police you have to do it away from the eyes and the ears of the enemy." Led by RAIL, the crowd shouted "The people, united, will never be defeated." A day and time was given to meet again. RAIL will continue to organize against police brutality as we put these acts in the larger picture of the criminal injustice system and the need for revolution to overthrow imperialism before police brutality will be stopped. * * * LETTERS TO MIM THE USE OF "LATINO" REVOLUTIONARY GREETINGS!... I was wondering what was up with the word "LATINO" that MIM uses to refer to Spanish speaking people. This bothers me b-cuz Latinos are people or white people from "Latin Europe". A lot of people living in spanish speaking countries are of pure First Nation blood and don't even speak Latin languages. Personally to me it's just a tool to separate the Indigenous peoples of the Americas; like the illegitimate borders and their conquistador languages. Chicano is a better word.... -- An Arizona Prisoner, 16 Oct 1997 MIM RESPONDS: We use the term Latino to refer to people from Latin America. The word Chicano is generally used to refer to people of Mexican descent in both Mexico and the Southwestern u.s. When we use the term Latino we are not just talking about Mexicans. So while MIM does use Chicano, the word does not serve the purpose of a general term to refer to all Latinos. Of course, there are significant national differences between Latino nations, but within the u.s., these nations share certain characteristics of national oppression, and frequently information is only collected on "Hispanics" as a group so that we can only speak in generalizations. This comrade is correct to raise the question of the politics of language and the importance of revolutionaries using the most progressive language possible. In this way we use language to expose reactionary culture while beginning to build revolutionary culture. For more on MIM's line on language order a copy of MIM Theory #13 "Culture in Revolution", available for $7.50. MAOIST SOJOURNER AND BUSINESSES OF THE OPPRESSED DEAR MIM, I am in receipt of the October 15, 1997 issue [and will distribute the papers MIM sent in my area --ed.] I have mailed you funds for MIM theory and MIM Notes for distribution. I am interested in "catching up" with what I have missed in previous years. So, please send me info on the Philippine revolution. (Rebolusyon, Philippine Society and Revolution and Liberation International.) ... About a year ago I obtained a copy of Maoist Sojourner. I do not understand what this paper is about. Could you perhaps send me a copy, plus an explanation of its purpose. As I recall, it was "about" Maoists who were not at "home" (their natural homelands), but who wanted an organ/journal? Can you please explain further what you mean on page 5, issue 148, in the boxed article on unleashing businesses of the oppressed. I do not know if this is something I should get involved in, but I am interested. ... Thank you, -- a friend in the South MIM RESPONDS: The goal of Maoist Sojourner is to disseminate news and news analyses from Maoists in the Third World, in their own words whenever possible. It also includes MIM's analysis of international news. One difference between this publication and MIM Notes is that it focuses on societies where the labor aristocracy does not play as big a role as it does in the imperialist countries like the United States, England and Japan. Hence, the labor aristocracy is not a dividing line question for the Maoist parties in the Third World that are published in Maoist Sojourner. The Maoist Sojourner is needed in the imperialist countries to serve the population of both the imperialist countries and the population that migrates to the imperialist countries. A sojourner is someone who leaves a country with the expectation of returning. In many cases, sojourners leave, because they have to escape U.S. imperialist-backed puppet regimes and they hope to return after collapse of the imperialist-lackey regime. If anyone wants a sample copy they can write to MIM and send 55 cents to cover the postage. If you are interested in distributing copies of MS in your city, let us know and we can start sending you copies. In response to the question about unleashing businesses of the oppressed: MIM is developing financial institutions that can fund our work and our workers. We need people willing to invest in these institutions and also people willing to help out with the work of setting up and working for these institutions. As this is a new project for MIM, we welcome ideas about financial institutions that others think might be worth our investment. One such project involves setting up housing and work for released prisoners. We also welcome ideas about smaller scale projects. If you have any thoughts or if you are interested in helping out with this work let us know. WHERE CAN I GET MIM NOTES? DEAR MIM: I'm glad that you do freedropping on my campus, but why are the papers always old ones (sometimes months old)? Is there anywhere I can find more recent issues? I know, I know, I could subscribe, but I'm living on scholarship money and it's been getting tight. --a friend in the east MIM RESPONDS: We don't have any corporate sponsors and it is only possible for us to give papers away for free by raising the money somewhere else. If you want to ensure that you get copies of current MIM Notes every two weeks you could become a distributor of the paper on your campus. We will send you a bundle of papers every issue and you are welcome to keep one for yourself and distribute the rest in places they'd be picked up on campus. We do ask that our distributors make a contribution towards the cost of mailing them the papers but for those who can not afford it, we still welcome the distribution help. CORRECTION: In the last issue of MIM Notes and in the many letters that were sent to all Michigan prisoners in touch with MIM, we printed a letter titled "The Political Prisoner/POW Issue." We printed this because of its correct analysis of the thoroughly political nature of imprisonment and the line that all prisoners are political prisons. We incorrectly credited this to "a Michigan prisoner." The article represents the political stance of the Political Prisoners of War Coalition [PPWC] and should have been credited to this organization which fights for genuine justice and liberation of the people and consistently exposes the corrupt nature of the Amerikan prison system. * * * HONDURANS FIGHT DEPORTATION FROM U.$. On December 16, so-called illegal Honduran residents in the United Snakes announced a hunger strike to begin December 22 to pressure the northamerican government to stop deportations and grant them legal residency. The hunger strike took place in front of the offices of immigration in Miami and included the participation of nine Hondurans who are coordinators of the group confraternidad hondurena. On December 15 approximately 4000 Hondurans held a protest in front of the offices of immigration in Miami demanding to receive the same treatment as other centroamericanos in this country who have been given amnesty from the deportation laws and are being allowed to remain in the country legally. The Amerikan government has no right to be telling people from anywhere in the world that they do not deserve to live legally within u.s. borders and receive the benefits that come from living in this wealthy country. The people from Honduras who are being kept out labor for a few dollars a day in their own country so that North Amerikan corporations can make huge profits to bring back to the u.s. This country was built on stolen land and made wealthy by the exploitation of people around the world. MIM calls for open borders as one of the first steps to be taken after the revolution as we begin the long process of returning the stolen wealth to the hands of the people in the Third World. NOTES: La Prensa Honduras 17 December 1997. * * * HONDURAN WORKERS TAKE OVER FACTORY More than 800 workers of the Korean business American Transpacific took over the plant the Zona Libre de Puerto Cortes to protest the business not complying with the collective contract. The workers have the support of four thousand workers in other factories. Like American Transpacific, they are large foreign businesses. One womyn who had worked for American Transpacific for five years denounced the sexual accosting that the wimmin face from the bosses of the factory. When the wimmin refuse to accept the propositions of their superiors they are sanctioned with long work hours without overtime pay. In addition, the factories don't allow for maternity leave or even time off for medical problems. And the workers are obligated to work on the weekends as well as the week days. A number of other workers organizations have expressed support for the protesting wimmin and the Confederation of Workers of Honduras sent a group of their leaders to help. These conditions are typical of maquiladoras across Latin America and many of which are run by Amerikan corporations making products to bring back home to sell for a nice profit at a still-very- cheap price. It is important that we support the struggles of these workers and expose imperialism as we fight to overthrow the system that is based on the exploitation and oppression of the majority of the world's people. NOTES: Rebelion Internacional 17 December 1997 (www.eurosur.org/rebelion). * * * ACTIVIST FORCED TO PLEA BARGAIN BECAUSE PIGS LIE Richard Picariello, a long time political activist, was forced to plea bargain at his trial in mid- December after the cops came up with a number of "witnesses" who were willing to say that they saw exactly what the cops wanted them to see. Picariello was arrested in July for the crime of being in the student center at MIT and not being a student. The student center has stores that are open to the public, and Picariello was sitting in a chair outside the stores, apparently a crime if you don't look like a student. A cop out of uniform approached him, initiated a physical confrontation, and then when Picariello tried to defend himself, called for backup so that a gang of pigs could beat up Picariello. They charged Picariello with assault with a deadly weapon (the deadly weapon was Picariello's foot). In spite of efforts by RAIL and other activists to help Picariello come up with witnesses who would testify about what really happened during the police assault, in the end the cops came up with many more witnesses (almost all of whom were police officers) willing to say whatever they needed to say to put Picariello in prison. This case came to court just days after a big expose in the Boston Globe about police unwillingness to tell the truth when it might mean implicating one of their own. The Globe story focused on an undercover cop who was seriously beat up by another cop who mistook him for the bad guys (the undercover cop was Black.) After several years of investigation no one has been able to get the pigs to tell the truth about even this case where the person who was hospitalized was another cop. Instead every cop's story is filled with lies and contradictions and no one cares. In fact, this practice of "testilying" is common. The Mollen Commission studied the problem of pigs lying on the stand in New York and concluded that many police officers "commit falsifications to serve what they perceive to be 'legitimate' law enforcement ends. In their view, regardless of the legality of the arrest, the defendant is in fact guilty and ought to be arrested. Officers reported a litany of manufactured tales." The Christopher Commission, which studied the LA Police Department, found the same problem.(1) Picariello was in prison for many years for the political crime of attempting to overthrow the u.s. government. He never harmed another person, and he served his entire term, but the pigs are convinced that he is a criminal who must be put away for the safety of society. RAIL considers it a great asset to the revolutionary movement that people like Picariello continue to be activists and serve the people of the world even after so many years of torture by the criminal injustice system. But the pigs are correct that it is a threat to the safety of society to have revolutionaries outside of prison, because even though we are not waging an armed struggle right now, we are fighting to overthrow the very system that props up this decadent, patriarchal imperialist society. Fortunately, because of the weakness of the pigs case and the clear contradictions, excessive use of force, and strong public pressure, the lawyers for the cops accepted a plea that did not put Picariello in prison. Although he was forced to plead guilty to a crime he did not commit, Picariello was given a 90 day suspended sentence with a year probation during which time the only stipulation is that he not be arrested. Picariello sees it as a "rape of my dignity" to have to admit to a crime he did not commit, but when we fight on the turf of the criminal injustice system the battle will never be fair. We have to continue to build public opinion around cases such as this one to expose the crimes of the system. NOTES: Boston Globe 11 December 1997, p.A27. * * * WHITE YOUTH DRUG USE RISES -- OPPRESSED NATION YOUTH ARRESTS INCREASE In December, the Washington Post ran a two part series on white suburban youth drug use in Fairfax, Virginia. The articles served both to vilify and demonize the oppressed nation population of the "inner city" where these drugs are bought and sold, and to advance the fiction that youth who do drugs are rarely caught or prosecuted. While this may be true for white youth -- who when they are caught are less likely to end up the criminal system than in the psychiatrist-school counselor-parent system -- it is not true for youth of oppressed nations, who are being arrested at higher rates than ever. The Post investigation found that marijuana use especially was very prevalent among the white teenagers in Fairfax Country, in suburban Washington. Contrary to most media images of the drug problem, it was good to see research showing the use of drugs is not limited to oppressed-nation youth. On the other hand, the point of the article -- with its focus on how little suburban youths are prosecuted -- was to increased the repression of white suburban youth, rather than address the repression of oppressed nation youth or the alienation of white nation youth. In addition to dealing and using illegal drugs in the suburbs, the Post interviewed high school students who said they routinely went to D.C. to buy drugs. The Post reporter described a Washington neighborhood in Southwest as a "reliable" but "menacing" place for white youth to buy drugs. According to D.C. police Sgt. Donald Yates, suburbanites "are not familiar with these areas ... They are just a pigeon ready to be plucked."(1) These same pigs are the ones that complain about measures that protect juveniles from things like having their names publicized or their parents notified by health clinics if drugs are detected. Their paternalistic concern that youth will be "menaced" in the city is part of the movement to erode these measures. The Post got much of its evidence that youth are getting away with rampant drug use (mostly marijuana) from one undercover pig at a northern Virginia high school, who during his few months posing as a teenage drug user gathered enough evidence for only four arrests -- resulting in no jail time for the arrestees. "The most serious punishment any of the teenagers got -- and that was for selling drugs inside a school -- was a year's probation and temporary loss of his driver's license," the undercover pig said.(2) The article blamed a supposedly lenient judicial system which does not punish first time juvenile drug offenders and sentences repeat offenders to probation or drug treatment rather than jail time.(2) "We are dealing with an absolutely massive problem in this country, and at the lowest level, no one really has time to concentrate on it," said Pete Grudin, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Washington field office.(2) Don't believe the hype -- pigs target juveniles at higher rates. According to a report recently released by the U.$. Department of Justice, "between 1992 and 1996, juvenile arrests for drug abuse violations increased 120%."(3) "Juvenile arrests for drug abuse increased 90% between 1980 and 1996."(4) And the report acknowledged that oppressed nations are disproportionately in the injustice system at large, and specifically account for a greater than their population share of drug arrests. While Black youth constituted 15% of the total youth population in 1996, in that year "roughly equal numbers of arrests for violent crimes involved white and black youth." Since the FBI counts most Latinos as "white," we don't know how many of the 62% of drug arrests of juveniles in 1996 were of settler nation whites.(5) Finally, in contrast to the picture the Post painted of a criminal justice system soft on youth, the Justice Department report stated that "the proportion of juvenile arrests sent directly to criminal court in 1996 (6%) was the highest in the last two decades."(6) Drug use is a "crime" like speeding -- millions more people do it than get caught. Power to enforce the law is arbitrarily wielded by the pigs on the street -- and up the chain of command to prosecutors and judges. These Post articles demonstrate some of this arbitrary enforcement, and reveal the agenda of national oppression behind it. NOTES: 1. Washington Post 15 December 1997. 2. Washington Post 16 December 1997. 3. "Juvenile Arrests 1996," Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, p. 1. 4. IBID, p. 8. 5. IBID, p. 5. 6. IBID, p. 6. * * * PIGS ADMIT THEY HARASS AND LIE TO IMPRISON OPPRESSED NATIONALS An article published in the December 15 Time magazine shows once more how Amerikan criminal injustice system fails to live up to its own standards of due process. The article tells the story of two Philadelphia cops, "Ryan and Blondie," who routinely fabricated probable cause and harassed residents of the poor, Black neighborhood where they worked. They were eventually exposed and confessed to "more crimes than anybody suspected." Usually, when some cops get caught brutalizing the people the bourgeois media will argue something like this: "The vast majority of cops are good. There are a few bad cops who do things which are sort of wrong. But the courts and the police themselves can spot these bad cops and punish them." This article in Time refutes that argument. For starters, Ryan and Blondie implicated more than 50 other cops in their crimes. Furthermore, every police expert and every police officer interviewed for the story say that Ryan and Blondie's methods are the norm, not the exception. MIM reprints excerpts from the article here in order expose the pigs' daily crimes using their own words. BRUTALITY & "TESTILYING" Ryan and Blondie took a young Black man who was lost and had asked them for directions to an abandoned house and beat him with fists, nightsticks, and long-handled flashlights. Blondie placed his revolver against the young man's head and said, "If you don't tell us what we want to know, I'm going to blow your head off." To this day, Blondie defends the tactic. "I viewed it as kind of a humane alternative. It was less hurtful than beating [of course, they had already beaten this man -MIM], and it usually got us the information we wanted." This young man's testimony later started the investigation which led to the conviction of Ryan and Blondie. Another cop in the Time article said, "Folks get whacked around a lot. You get used to hearing about that." Blondie had this to say about the police academy. "They taught a bit about things like probable cause - just to say they had taught it - but the message was clear: What you really do as a cop you learn on the streets from the veterans, and you could be sure, as they said, that it was nothing like what you learned at the academy." The Time article describes Blondie's first arrest. "'Nothing fit,' Blondie recalls now. 'The clothes description over the radio wasn't like what our guy had on, and he wasn't sweating. He said he was just standing outside his home, which turned out to be true. But the victim ID'd him, so we took him anyway. She was so hysterical; she would have identified anyone.' When Blondie vociferously questioned the arrest, he was told to 'shut up, listen, and learn.' He then watched as the original description was altered to fit the suspect, who was held for eight months until the victim recanted her identification." MIM has reported earlier on studies which show that 21% of the time an eyewitness will pick someone from a lineup when the actual criminal was not in the lineup. The Time article continues: "'Basically, the first thing you really learn as a cop is how to lie' says Blondie... 'Now say you see some guy driving who you think is wrong [i.e. Black -MIM]... You stop him on no basis that could stand up in court. So you lie if you have to. You say he ran a stop sign or didn't signal or had a broken taillight that you had to break after you've determined he's bad. That makes the initial stop legal.'" Of course, cops can't do this to everybody, Blondie explains. Only people from oppressed nations. "The first [rule] is, keep it in the ghetto. In the good areas, you don't go stopping people without cause." Another cop describes how they fabricate grounds for a raid. "[Y]ou drop a dime, which means you call in a 'shots fired' alarm to 911. Sometimes you even fire your own gun. Then you wait for the shots-fired call to come over the radio, and you respond to your own call. It's all made up, but that makes it legal." Blondie adds, "[S]ometimes we'd laugh and say, 'Gee, which story should we use today? How about No. 23?'" Ryan and Blondie's supervisor admits that "almost all of our [2,233] arrests were bad." Time again: "'Prosecutors and judges know a lot of testimony by cops is false,' says Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor and criminal defense attorney who has popularized the term testilying. 'But they only know it generically, rather than in any particular case. So in a battle of conflicting testimony, cops are given the benefit of the doubt.'" Bourgeois reality refutes bourgeois ideals. The judge who convicted Ryan and Blondie told them, "You've squashed the Bill of Rights in the mud." Indeed, given that the cops admit they regularly beat innocent people, harass oppressed nationalities, ignore the bourgeoisie's own due process, and lie to get convictions, the sentiments expressed in the Amerikan Bill of Rights aren't worth the paper they're printed on. That's the beginning of the Marxist-Leninist analysis of the bourgeois state. Whatever ideals it may cloak itself in, the bourgeois state is an instrument of rule by force: The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie over the oppressed masses. In Amerika, this dictatorship is principally aimed at the oppressed nations. That's why Black males are imprisoned at a rate nine times that of white males, for example. That's also why cops like Ryan and Blondie will be the norm until the political and economic system which creates them is overturned. * * * PEOPLE'S TRIBUNAL FINDS MUMIA'S OPPRESSORS GUILTY On December 6 in Philadelphia, a People's Tribunal found "those charged are guilty of criminal conspiracy to deny Mumia Abu-Jamal's Human Rights and we call for his immediate release, with exoneration and compensation." Those charged included Gov Ridge, the PA Supreme Court, the PA Department of Corrections, Philadelphia Mayor Rendell, the Fraternal Order of Police, Philadelphia Police Department, Judge Albert Sabo, the Philadelphia District Attorney, the FBI and Janet Reno. The accused were also found guilty of "criminal conspiracy to deny justice and take the life of Mumia Abu Jamal". The people's tribunal was an important event because it was the first public forum to air the evidence gathered that proves Mumia's innocence and government misconduct in the case. A significant portion of Mumia's appeal of his verdict centers around the bias of the presiding judge, Judge Sabo. Sabo is also the same judge was has been overseeing Mumia's appeals. From June 26 through July 1st, Judge Sabo presided over a remand hearing for a higher court reviewing Mumia's appeals. At this hearing, Sabo denied the majority of the defense's motions and objection and halted all potentially important witnesses. MIM sees this case as symbolic of the political repression that used against the Black Nation in general and its revolutionary leadership in particular. The People's Tribunal brought the information on Mumia's frame-up to the masses, and the people spoke: Mumia must be set free! NOTES: For coverage of the June/July remand hearing, see MIM Notes 142, August 1 1997. * * * HISTORICAL DATES FOR CONTEXT: #1839: Amistad uprising #1841: U$ slaves seize slave ship Creole -- Amerika badgers England for their return to their "rightful owners." #1857: Same Supreme Court justices who freed Amistad uprisers wrote Dred Scott decision, declaring that Blacks had "no rights which a white man is bound to respect." #1861: Civil War breaks out, NOT as a result of Amistad AMISTAD REVIEW: SOME GOOD HISTORY AMIDST SETTLER MYTH by MC17 and MCB52 This three hour historical account of the Amistad slave story gives a glimpse of how captivating history can be when removed from dry textbooks and memorization of names and dates. Unfortunately, the story is not all historical fact. It was taken from the written accounts of white men involved in the case and then embellished (further) presumably to make it more entertaining and palatable to Amerikan audiences. But in spite of the historical problems and the clearly white perspective, this movie provides some valuable insights into history. The most important contribution of the movie ultimately will be its depiction of the horrors of the slave trade and the passage from Africa to the Americas in particular. The movie shows slave traders who brutally chain rows of Africans to the lower decks of their ships, where they are left for weeks or months of the trip. Then, when the slave traders realize they were running short on food they start denying food to the Africans who are less healthy-looking. Finally, they chain 50 Africans to a net full of rocks and throw them all overboard, while the rest of the Africans watch. In response, the movie also correctly shows some slaves throwing themselves into the ocean to avoid slavery. The filmmakers decided to use subtitles for some parts of the Africans' dialogue, and this was used to show that they were intelligent and aware of their surroundings (such as commenting on the ridiculousness of the abolitionist carolers who came to their cell window.) However, most of the Africans' dialogue was not subtitled, so most viewers have no idea what they were saying. This was used to create emotional effect, such as when they were all shouting and upset about their oppression, but it also made sure that viewers had the English-speaking perspective at all times, primarily the white perspective. This is in the tradition of "noble savage" literature, in which select Africans are shown to have powerful and noble emotional reactions but are not accorded human complexity and intelligence by imperialist- nation writers. Despite token attempts to break with this tradition, in the main Spielberg stuck to it. The film's hero is Cinque, who emerges as leader of a group of forty Mende people (from the English colony of Sierra Leone West Africa) who were captured for slavery and transported through Cuba for the now illegal slave trade. After leading a violent rebellion on the ship, leaving two white folks alive to navigate back to Africa, the ship is captured by British soldiers who bring it to New Haven, CT. There, Cinque and all the other Africans are the subject of legal proceedings weighing the claims of the British finders, the Spanish sailors, and through an upstart lawyer funded by abolitionists, themselves. The white lawyer who defended the Africans, Baldwin, was a good character who understood that dealing with cases like this, pragmatism in the courts is the best approach. If we expect to win battles on enemy turf, we may have to play by the enemies rules. Baldwin used those rules to force the court to decide in his favor. This was contrary to the white idealist abolitionist who stood his moral ground and repeatedly argued that the case should only be tried on moral issues. This white man was quite happy to sacrifice the lives of the Africans if it meant he would have some good martyrs for his cause. This position is typical of the white pacifist left who say that the morally superior position of no violence at all will win in the end without thinking that they are telling the oppressed that they must be slaughtered in the name of morality. This position is only taken by those comfortable enough in their lives that they won't be slaughtered themselves. Amistad distorts the history of the truest abolitionists -- Blacks themselves -- by creating just one composite character from many involved in the case. Where we see subtleties of white perspectives, we hardly see any Black perspective. The composite character does call the Amerikan pacifist on saying that matyrdom for these Africans might be a good thing, but cannot get the focus on correct Black ideas. Cinque is often wiser than the lawyers and abolitionists who sought to defend the Africans. We get a good picture of how jailhouse lawyers quickly develop skills and knowledge out of necessity. His analysis of leaders was better than the white perspective. Cinque correctly said, contrary to the constant individualistic assertions of the white folks, that it was circumstances that had made him a hero and led him to slay the lions in his path but that he was not superior to any other man who would attempt to do the same in similar situations. He did not see himself as a hero but he did understand the importance of leadership. The treatment of religion in the movie was mostly added fiction and from MIM's perspective this did not add much to the story. The lawyer was very cynical about religion saying that he would need to do better than Christ's lawyer in order to save the Africans from the same senseless death. Throughout the scenes in Amerika we see a small crowd of religious people praying over the Africans, apparently trying to save their souls. One African takes a copy of the bible and reads the story by looking at the pictures. He gets pretty close to the main story in the bible and concludes that when people in Amerika die their souls go to heaven so being killed in Amerika would not be such a bad thing. Most of the major historical figures of the time were portrayed as either heroes or idiots. President Van Buren came off as a man who didn't do much until political pressures forced him to act. Queen Isabella II of Spain was shown as a stupid little girl (she was only 11 at the time) and it was implied that she didn't grow up much as she got older. Of course the movie does recognize that she was acting in the interests of her country who would have done well to have the Amerikan court system serve Spain. John Quincy Adams was one of the main heroes of the story, as he eventually stood up and defended the Africans in front of the supreme court. Overall Adams was a libertarian abolitionist who, for some reason, was inspired to action on this specific case. In one scene of refined northerners in the Amerikan government we see their hypocrisy as the Black servants bring them dinner. Overall the movie does a good job of showing how the executive and judicial branches of the government in Amerika are far from separate. First, the judge on the case is removed when it looks like he will rule in favor of the Africans. Then, when the President's hand picked judge still rules in favor of the Africans, the President appeals the case to the supreme court. And there we learn that 7 of the 9 justices are slave owners themselves. The fact that the case was ultimately won is not a testimony to the workings of our criminal justice system. It is just the opposite, a demonstration of how these cases can sometimes be won but only on loopholes and pragmatic arguments. In this case the supreme court did not rule that slavery is wrong, instead they ruled that the treaty governing these particular Africans was not applicable in this particular case. Viewers should take from the movie the message that while we should fight legal battles when we can, the real battle against oppression is going to take place in the streets. And on this message another of the failings of the white perspective in this movie is found. The liberation of slaves is shown as an act of white people saving Africans. The final scenes of the destruction of an African slave trading fortress by English soldiers and of white northerners fighting the civil war in Amerika are presented as the final word on slavery. While there were certainly acts like that of the English liberating the fortress that contributed significantly to the battle against slavery, the fights against injustice have always ultimately been won by the oppressed themselves, not by superior saviors running to their rescue. The English in the movie are shown to oppose slavery. And the U.$. government at that time officially opposed the slave trade and banned it, although it clearly continued. The fact that the English and U.$. governments did not oppose slavery primarily on moral grounds is made clear by the fact that they banned the slave trade at first without banning slavery itself. The whole point of the Amistad court case was that if the Africans were born in Africa they would not be considered slaves because the slave trade was banned, whereas if they were born in Cuba they could be considered legal slaves. In fact, the Amerikan and the English governments opposed the slave trade as a way to get the upper hand over the Spanish. In the liberation scene, in which the English free the slaves from a fortress and then destroy it, viewers are led to believe the English morally opposed slavery, when in fact the act had more to do with the imperialist rivalry with Spain. There were moral political currents among some whites opposed to slavery, but they never dominated the mainstream political scene. * * * MANDELA STEPS DOWN AS ANC LEADER: ANC CONTINUES TO SELL OUT THE PEOPLE The African National Congress (ANC) week long convention that began December 16th marked the end of Nelson Mandela's leadership as president of the ANC. Mandela opened the convention with a speech that attacked a wide range of South African individuals and organizations for impeding the country's progress towards democratic majority rule. While there is truth in the criticisms he made of various groups and individuals, this attack ignored the fact that the main responsibility for South Africa's stalled progress towards greater equality for all its people lies at the feet of Nelson Mandela and the ANC. It is the people who must overthrow reactionary rule and put in place a government of the people, the ANC claimed to represent the people but it failed to overthrow the apartheid government, instead compromising and leaving them with significant power (both inside and outside the government) and wealth. Mandela criticized the white reactionaries who are resisting the move towards majority rule, in particular naming the reactionary National Party under whose rule apartheid was maintained for many years: "This counterrevolutionary network -- which is already active and bases itself on those in the public administration and others in other sectors of our society who have not accepted the reality of majority rule -- is capable of carrying out very disruptive actions," he said. "It measures its own success by the extent to which it manages to weaken the democratic order."(1) This is quite true and demonstrates why it is necessary to have a dictatorship of the proletariat OVER the bourgeoisie if we wish to keep them from fighting (through illegal and violent means) to return to power. Mandela also attacked nongovernmental organizations dependent on international subsidies, stating that some NGOs had become instruments of foreign governments and institutions trying to influence South African politics.(1) This criticism is hypocritical considering the negotiations between South African and the World Bank which would give South Africa a significant amount of aid in return for enacting very restrictive economic and political policies. Thabo Mbeki, Mandela's successor as head of the ANC has stated that he would sign these agreements with the World Bank without delay. Mandela, will remain president of the country until the 1999 vote but has turned over the day-to-day business of running the government to Mbeki, his deputy president.(2) It is generally accepted that Mbeki will succeed Mandela as President in the next election. Mbeki has been a guiding force of "market-friendly economic policies," encouraging foreign investment and selling off state assets.(3) Clearly he is a friend of the imperialists in the u.s. and elsewhere who welcome the opportunity to continue to exploit the South African people with the pretty face of the ANC to tell people that all the evils of apartheid have been eliminated. Although the overthrow of Apartheid in South African represents progress, this is progress towards a more liberal free market capitalism, not progress towards a system of equality and justice for all people. As MIM Notes pointed out in June of 1997: "The retreats from the not-so-radical positions of the ANC Freedom Charter have been clear. First the Freedom Charter was dropped in favor of the Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP) which was a retreat from nationalization demands made in the pragmatist interest of keeping support of foreign investors. And now even the RDP has been abandoned in favor of the Growth, Employment and Reconstruction Program (GEAR), an even milder program. As a result, homelessness is a growing problem, Mandela has failed to deliver on the promised 1 million houses for the homeless, instead so far providing less than 100,000. And the wealthy white property owners continue to retain their wealth that was stolen from the Blacks of the country. "An even more blatant sign of the selling out of the South African government is their moves towards accepting loans from the IMF and World Bank. These two organizations only grant loans with conditionalities which allow them to determine the economic and political agenda of a country. They require no limit or floor to wages (no minimum wage) and a guarantee that there will be no labor unrest or demands for increased wages. These conditions allow corporations to maximize profits and lower production costs. In South Africa they are also demanding privatization of all state owned companies, and an agreement to sell off the electricity system and telecom system. South African Airways is currently a state owned company which is producing revenues for the government: by forcing privatization, the World Bank forces the government into greater dependency on these loans. "The results of World Bank loans are devastating. Of the 35 African countries that have taken World Bank loans, 33 are bankrupt. In Zambia the government is paying 30% of the GNP on interest on their loan and they are not even touching the capital. [The] government of South Africa is trying to placate corporations and foreign investors and as a result they have retreated on helping the people, the homeless, jobless and workers." NOTES: 1. Los Angeles Times 17 December 1997. 2. AP 17 December 1997. 3. AP 15 December 1997. * * * KIM DAE JUNG KISSES IMPERIALIST ASS On December 18, Kim Dae Jung was narrowly elected as the new president of south Korea. There has been much hooplah in the Amerikan press about Kim Dae Jung's history as strong critic of the militarist regimes in Korea in the 70s and 80s and what it might mean for his presidency. Here MIM sums up Kim's stances on issues we think are essential to revolutionaries and anti-militarists: (a) Amerikan troops on Korean soil "Kim supports the continuation of u.$. military presence in Korea, where 37,000 u.$. troops are now stationed."(1) There has also been some talk that Kim will be more open to peace talks with north Korea, but there can be no meaningful resolution to the Korean war until there are no Amerikan soldiers on the Korean peninsula. Some analysts have suggested that the u.$. state department prefers Kim's stance to the current regime's harsh stance towards north Korea, because it thinks that now is the time to cut a deal with north Korea.(2) Kim Dae Jung may end up playing good cop after the current regime's bad cop, but he will still be serving the same master. (b) The IMF Kim Dae Jung said that he would "faithfully implement the agreement with the IMF [International Monetary Fund]"(1) which south Korea just made. In return for a $57 billion loan, south Korea will follow IMF dictates, many of which require south Korea to dismantle its independent industrial capacity. "Reform without pain is not possible," said Kim. Businesses which could not compete in the international market economy "shall surely perish because that is the cold, harsh reality of globalization."(1) Of course, in general, Korean businesses will not be able to compete with the monopoly capitalists in Amerika, Japan, and Europe. The IMF dictates will increase the imperialists' control over the Korean economy. MIM's assessment: Thumbs down on both counts. NOTES: 1. Los Angeles Times, 20 Dec 97. 2. National Public Radio, 19 Dec 97. * * * KIM DAE JUNG KISSES MILITARIST ASS As MIM Notes went to press, president Kim Young Sam of south Korea and president-elect Kim Dae Jung granted amnesty to former dictator Chun Doo Hwan and former president Roh Tae Woo. Both Chun and Roh were recently convicted by bourgeois courts for leading the Kwangju massacre of 1980, which killed over one thousand civilians. Chun was originally sentenced to death for his crimes. Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung also granted amnesty to 23 other former politicians who were convicted of corruption.(1) Korean activists swiftly condemned the amnesty, pointing out that many militant opponents of Chun's military regime still languish in prison. "Why should laws exist if they fail to punish the most ugly criminals." said Lim Ki-ran, a spokeswoman for human rights group Mingahyup. "The amnesty is a backward step in our history and will not help heal national wounds inflicted by Chun and Roh. So many people were imprisoned, tortured and murdered under Chun and Roh's military regimes. How dare the government think about freeing the two former presidents."(2) Kim Dae Jung spent most of the 70s and 80s in exile or under arrest for his vocal opposition to the military regime in Korea. The Amerikan bourgeois media is already hailing Kim as "the Korean Begnino Aquino" or "the Korean Nelson Mandela" for conceding to the militarists. MIM finds these analogies correct. Just like Aquino and Mandela, Kim turned his back on any meaningful opposition to militarism and anti-people dictatorship in order to play the bourgeois political game.(3) Upon his election, Kim Dae Jung said, "I respect and love all regions and all classes in this nation." But pardoning the most reactionary representatives of the Korean bourgeoisie and the Amerikan imperialists does not show respect or love for the working class or those regions neglected by the so-called economic miracle. Bourgeois commentators in Korea and in the u.$. have praised Kim Dae Jung for his willingness to "reconcile" with the militarists he formerly opposed. One Kim supporter said, "In the past, when people who sided with the oppressors talked about Chun and Roh, we were angry. But now the victim wants to pardon them, so we will go along with the idea." This kind of talk is based in the idea that with the election of Kim, the oppressed in Korea have actually robbed the militarists of their power. This, however, is not true. The militarist clique which Chun and Roh represent still controls the army, and there are still more than 30,000 u.$. troops on Korean soil. Kim's formal election will do little to stop the military from seizing power again if he steps too far out of line. Pardoning these creeps gives the militarists concrete aid and sends a clear signal that Kim Dae Jung will treat them with kid gloves. NOTES: 1. Los Angeles Times, 20 Dec 97. 2. Kim Myong-hwan for Reuters, 21 Dec 97. 3. National Public Radio, 20 Dec 97 * * * POLITICAL REPRESSION OF BASQUE IN SPAIN In a strike against the legal organizing of political activists around the world, at the beginning of December a three-judge panel in Spain sentenced 23 Basque politicians to seven years in prison for airing a video of armed ETA [Basque] guerillas in an election broadcast. French President Jacques Chirac, Spain's partner in crimes against Basque self-determination, praised the sentences as "good for all." Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, "echoing the reaction of most mainstream Spanish politicians, welcomed the verdict, saying it showed 'everyone is equal under the law.'" But the verdict, against members of the Herri Batasuna party, which had recently won 15% of the popular vote in the Basque "region," is clearly a verdict of political repression against legal struggle of the Basque people. The lie of the capitalist government -- from the United Snakes to Spain -- is supposed equal justice under the law. MIM does not have enough information on the Basque struggle to say whether or not this is a true fight for self- determination against national oppression. We would need further information about the Basque economy as well as the economy of Spain. We encourage our readers who support the Basque struggle to send us more information. NOTES: CNN Interactive, December 2, 1997. (http://www.cnn.com) * * * ADVANCES AND RETREATS FOR MIM'S BOOKS FOR PRISONERS PROGRAM MIM's Books for Prisoners program sends in copies of MIM Notes, MIM Theory and a wide variety of political theory and history books to prisoners. The demand is tremendous and we are unable to keep up with money or books. The end of the semester on college campuses meant some sizable donations of books and finances to our program this year. We took advantage of the semester's end at Boston University by setting up a collection point in front of the main book store. Because this was public sidewalk, the bookstore could do nothing to stop us from asking students to donate their books rather than return them for the few dollars the store will give. At BU we collected over 400 books. Many of these were textbooks and fiction books that we were able to sell to raise money to send in the political books we collected. This book collection caught the attention of several students who donated their time to help staff the collection point. And at BU and other campuses across Boston people also donated money in addition to the books they dropped off. A lot of the political books that have been donated are not revolutionary and some are not even progressive. But these books are also useful for people to read and we have began a book review program where prisoners are invited to write reviews of these books for publication in MIM Theory, giving readers an overview of the useful information in the book and the points of political agreement and disagreement. Response to this program has been very good and we've already received a number of reviews back from prisoners excited to do more. Unfortunately, our Books for Prisoners program is also faced with a tremendous amount of censorship that means many prisoners are unable to receive any literature. The following is one example of a typical letter from the prison administration, this one was sent in response to a book we sent in for the prisoner to review. ***From the Texas department of criminal justice programs and services division Director's review committee decision form for incoming enclosures*** The Director's Review Committee has rendered the following decision regarding your appeal: The unit decision not to allow you to receive the following item(s) received in contradiction to the rules: Book not from vendor of paperback books (correspondence to offender) from MIM. Upheld. You will not be allowed to receive the above referenced enclosure(s). MIM needs more donations: finances as well as books. The books most in demand are Marx, Lenin, Mao, and political history of the Black Panther Party, Latino revolutionary struggles and revolutionary struggles around the world. We also need help fighting the censorship. Any lawyers willing to help out with this struggle should contact us. This is a battle we can win but we need your help. * * * MURDER STATISTICS IN DOUBT AS DEATHS ARE CALLED 'UNDETERMINED' by MC12 New revelations about the Washington, D.C. government's recording of hundreds of deaths calls into question the definition of murder and the official statistics for murders in the U.$. capital city. In the past MIM has said we think murder statistics are the most accurate crime statistics because the crime is most likely to be reported and accurately counted by the government -- unlike more subjective crimes like rape or underreported crimes like bribery. Many deaths that the international proletariat would consider murders are not counted as murder in the legal sense -- just like the bourgeoisie doesn't call exploiting labor "theft" or sex under patriarchy "rape." But we have argued that the legal murder rate does measure something important: by looking at trends in the murder rate, for example, we know that incarcerating hundreds of thousands of people doesn't "work" to reduce murder (See MIM Theory 11). However, the Washington Post has reported that "an average of three people a month ages 15 to 44 have died in Washington since 1990 under circumstances that have never been fully determined by the medical examiner's office or the police department." Many of these deaths may have been murders in the legal sense, and there were many more in the 1980s. The scandal came to light when it emerged that as many as five Black wimmin had been killed in one neighborhood -- possibly by the same killer -- but their deaths were not ruled homicides because the government didn't determine the exact manner of death. In one case, only the torso of a woman was found, and they still didn't call it a homicide. Residents are enraged that the medical examiner's office didn't call the deaths homicides and the police department didn't care to pursue the cases until there was a scandal. The wimmin were Black and poor. The D.C. department of health reported to the federal government that from 1984 to 1994 at least 1,800 deaths of people ages 15-44, which are most likely to be homicides, resulted in "negative autopsies," meaning the circumstances of their deaths were not determined (or reported). Since 1990, the government says 276 more deaths have been labeled "undetermined." Experts from around the country said the rates of inconclusive results were extremely high. Medical examiners from other cities blamed the D.C. medical examiner's office as well as D.C. police for not coming up with the information the doctors would need to determine what led to the deaths. It appears to MIM that the medical examiners and the police cooperate to keep homicide rates down: the doctors don't come up with conclusive results, and then the police don't have to pursue murder cases they wouldn't be able to solve; and the police help by covering up or not providing evidence to the doctors. A similar scandal broke in 1995 when two young wimmin were found strangled near each other within three weeks in Black Southeast Washington. At the time police admitted that there were 42 similar unsolved homicides in that part of town, and 46 more deaths that were "undetermined." For a while the FBI was involved, as they said they might link the murders to 17 similar cases in Florida, in which wimmin were raped and strangled. Then, the Post reported: "Last year, police and FBI agents who were examining the cases in Southeast Washington abandoned the joint effort because of the city's fiscal restraints and because 'concerns shifted somewhere else,' said Susan Lloyd, the spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington field office." MIM does not join the critics who demand more police action to catch murderers. But we do think it is important to expose the police and the government when they blatantly apply double standards in the treatment of deaths depending on the basis of the nation, class, and gender of the people who died. In Washington, hundreds of deaths, especially of Black wimmin, are being misreported, "undetermined," or -- quite possibly -- covered up through a combination of factors that may or may not be accidental. We conclude from this, first, that the state and the police cannot be counted on to protect the lives of oppressed nation wimmin, and, second, that we must again remind ourselves that even when we use official statistics because they are the best we have, there are many ways that these statistics also distort or conceal the truth. NOTES: Washington Post 22 December 1997, page A01; http://www.washingtonpost.com * * * MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCES PROMOTE NATIONAL OPPRESSION by an RC Recent research on the United Snakes policy on mandatory minimum sentencing has shown that it promotes national oppression. This is nothing new for those of us who are familiar with the Amerikan legal system, but it is a good sign that this kind of unjust policy is being revealed as such to the general public. Harvard medical school researcher William N. Brownsberger is extremely critical of the mandatory minimum sentence policy. He points out that those who can afford the best lawyers don't go to prison. MIM knows that this phenomenon is not only a characteristic in mandatory minimum sentencing, but the exposure of the bias in our legal system is a move in the right direction. This Harvard researcher found further evidence of national oppression from the disproportionate use of mandatory minimums on oppressed nationals. Mandatory minimum sentencing is a policy which requires a set length of sentence for certain crimes. This means that no matter what the circumstances, even first time offenders will be given the mandatory minimum sentence on conviction. In many states a third conviction for a minor offense can put a person away for life because of this relatively new policy. This policy which requires longer prison terms is a result of the tough on crime hype that has surfaced more and more since the Reagan administration in the 1980s. The associated press quotes the Harvard researcher saying: "mandatory sentencing laws are wasting prison resources on non-violent, low-level offenders and reducing resources available to lock up violent offenders." MIM believes that locking anyone up in the Amerikan gulags is a waste of resources because of the horrible conditions and treatment within the prisons and the unjust practices of the legal system. The structure of Amerikan society as a whole perpetuates and creates crime through its oppressive conditions. Add this to a criminal injustice system devoted to social control and it is not hard to understand why the United Snakes has more people in prison per capita than any other country in the world. Another study by the RAND corporation shows that the mandatory minimum sentencing policy has not been proven to reduce crime in any way. Research shows that people convicted under the old-order sentencing of shorter term lengths are two to three times less likely to re-offend after release. This is just another piece of evidence which shows that prisons in the u.s. are not for rehabilitation and therefore cannot effectively reduce crime. In fact, research results from the RAND corporation show that rehabilitation centers are seven times more effective in convictions where substance abuse is a factor. An independent English researcher released information which shows that rehabilitation programs within prisons are much less effective than those in the community. Research also shows the federal sentencing laws blatant discrimination through its differential sentencing for equal amounts of crack and powder cocaine. This discrimination shows the disproportionate targeting of oppressed nations as opposed to the white nation. Powder cocaine is more popular with the white nation but it is too expensive for oppressed nationals. This research also shows that there is no evidence that substance abuse is encountered more frequently among lower- income groups. This means that the disproportionate amount of low- income, oppressed nationals in prison for drug offenses is a direct result of discrimination by the Amerikan legal system. It is important that we take this opportunity to point out that this kind of discrimination is used throughout the u.s. prisons system. Mandatory minimum sentencing is one method to control internal colonies within u.s. borders, but it is definitely not the only oppressive policy in the system. The findings of this recent research are useful in showing the bias of this policy and could prove to be helpful in putting an end to the use of this particular oppressive policy of mandatory minimum sentences. However, it is not possible to reform the criminal injustice system into a just system. Only by overthrowing imperialism can we establish a justice system that serves all the people. * * * IMPERIALISM KILLS: LIFE EXPECTANCY LOW FOR OPPRESSED NATIONALS Results released in December from a study conducted by Harvard University professor Chris Murray bolsters MIM's argument that national oppression leads to death within u.s. borders. While the Amerikan government and its propaganda machine are quick to jump on individual cases of murder or so- called terrorism as tragic for prematurely taking someone's life, rarely does the government or even academics mention the premature preventable deaths that are a direct result of imperialism. Murray's study looked at life expectancies in counties across the united states and found tremendous variation, much of which can be explained by the nationality of the county. Life expectancy was lowest in South Dakota among First Nation men, who can expect to live only 56.5 years. Black men living in Washington D.C. have a life expectancy of 57.9 years. This is contrasted with the highest life expectancy for men in the u.s. of 77 years in Stearns County, Minn., a relatively wealthy county. Overall, the ten unhealthiest areas were in inner cities and in the South and in areas which settlers have relegated First nations. This is no surprise for anyone who recognizes that national oppression has been leading to the death of indigenous people and Blacks ever since settlers invaded the First Nations and brought Africans over as slaves. Dr. Murray found that high income whites lived only about two years longer than poor whites and income made little difference among Blacks. This demonstrates what MIM has been saying for years: within u.s. borders national oppression is the principal contradiction. The united states has a bigger spread in life expectancies than any other "high income" (a.k.a. imperialist) country. The life expectancies of Black and indigenous men are comparable to those in Third World countries like India or parts of Africa. These years of lost life should be easily preventable all over the world where simple and cheap preventive and curative health measures could save many lives. And MIM holds the imperialists responsible for all these premature deaths happening while they refuse health care and create unsanitary conditions in the name of profits. These findings within u.s. borders should make clear to even the white nation chauvinists that national oppression kills. For all those living comfortably within u.s. borders claiming to oppose injustice but opposing the violence of revolutionary change, MIM hopes statistics like these will make it clear that imperialism is violent and murderous, whereas armed revolutionary struggle seeks to install a system of equality and justice. NOTES: The New York Times 4 December 1997, p.A24. * * * UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS WAGES END IN SOUTH CAROLINA'S GULAGS ... I am going to end this short note by informing you of yet another one of SCDC's [South Carolina's Department of Corruptions] schemes to hoard more and more capital. As of January 20, 1998, if you are in lock-up or unemployed, you will not be paid for the rest of your sentence. Any new prisoner entering the South Carolina Department of Corruptions after January 19, 1998 will not be paid. If you are found guilty of a major disciplinary or criminal offense within SCDC, you will lose all of your pay for the remainder of your sentence. Even though it costs more money to keep someone incarcerated than to send them to Harvard University, still yet they find it necessary to cut costs by cutting our pay. Business as usual! I guess the privatization of South Carolina's prisons is next (like in Texas). -- A South Carolina Prisoner, 18 November 1997 EXPOSING THE WAR ON URBAN COMMITTEES I am a Black revolutionary being held political prisoner in a concentration camp called Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown, Conn. I've been placed in what they call close monitoring (gang units). I was taken out of population and placed in this gang unit. Not for fighting, not for stabbing another prisoner, or taking of other prisoners' property. But for pictures; pictures I took in another state, not Conn. And because my pictures have a very expressive body language, that makes me a gang member [in the eyes of the state]. The only hand sign in my pictures is the peace sign. That's right! The peace sign. When white people used it at Woodstock, it meant "peace and love." But when young African-Americans use it, it means gangs. Many of my young comrades are also here for the same thing. The state of Connecticut's law enforcement along with correctional institutions have declared war on all of Connecticut's urban communities and have said that these low income areas are to be considered gang territories. Let me explain this skillfully designed, corrupt Security Risk Group (SRG) system. SRGs are considered to be gang members who pose a so-called threat to the Connecticut Department of Corrections. Information will be gathered on an individual, whether it's true or not. Most information is provided by institutional snitches and is not accurate. An individual will be given a hearing to inform him that he will be removed from general population and placed in a Close Custody Unit where this individual will be locked up 23 hours a day, whereas in population, he's out most of the day working or in school, learning a vocational skill, taking college classes, or trying to better himself by going to Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings. It should be mentioned that once this individual is placed in these concentration camps called Close Custody, none of the above-mentioned programs are available to said individual. However, he is forced into these group gang programs, and maneuvered into spilling out his feelings as to why he would join an organization (which they call a gang). They are using us; dissecting our minds in these experimental, psychological, genocidal labs; having us give them more information they can use against us. This information is then turned over to the office of the Governor of Connecticut, John Rowland, who will address concerned taxpayers as to why the state needs more money to build high- security prisons. You see, there's big money at stake for local police and correctional departments that target gangs. Law enforcement along with prison systems are using gangs as a means of keeping their financial stability. Connecticut's prison system has become industrial business. Prisons with 1,158 beds are worth $25 million a year and 350 jobs to the community. Some officials sent out for color brochures promoting prison economics. And these gang units are one of their most brilliant. I've been in these units for two years. I have not yet eaten a hot meal. All the meals here at Garner are as cold as the outside. We are served very small portions of food. And this is only to bring the commissary sales up. They overcharge us for generic products. Officers in these units are constantly showing aggressive behavior towards my comrades and me in these units. We are not receiving proper medical attention. Some of the brothers go weeks sick. Brothers like myself who speak out about this corruption are sent to segregation (the hole) on bogus prison charges. In these units, we are not allowed to talk with one another. We go to recreation with only eight brothers for one hour a day. The program is supposedly for one year. But if a prisoner receives an infraction, he must begin all over. The conditions here at Garner are at times intolerable. My brothers and sisters of MIM, I write to you in the faith that you will support your brothers who are being held political prisoner in these concentration camps called gang units.... Power to the people! Your brother, -- A Connecticut Prisoner, 27 October 1997 NEW CONCENTRATION CAMP IN MISSOURI ... This library is poorly equipped. This is a new concentration camp that has only been open for only seven months and the book selection is extremely week and watered down. These modern day slave ships called correctional facilities will never make available the literature that is needed to open ones eyes to the injustices that are committed everyday against the oppressed nations of the world. That is why it is so imperative that MIM and other organizations of liberation like it, continue to pour the waters of revolution over the walls, gates, and electric fences of the slave labor camps. Camps that have been set up by this very wicked government to subdue and brake those who cannot and will not adapt to America's racist, sexist and oppressive rules that govern this illegally founded country. As of now, I am in the administrative segregation unit for an assault on an inmate. Although I am for the people and I believe in uniting together in struggle against the pigs, sometimes there are situations where one has to defend themselves by going on the offensive. Under these savage conditions prisoners are constantly exposed to the old divide and conquer scheme of the settler nation. One group of prisoners is pitted against the other. Inmate informants are constantly observing the militant minded soldiers and reporting everything that they see and hear to the pigs. The pigs spread false propaganda to disorient and stagnate political and religious groups in the institutions. Anyone who stands up and speaks out against the wrongful treatment of the inmate body is instantly locked up in the ad-seg unit. For instance there was a minor rebellion that took place three months ago, where two pigs were hospitalized in critical condition. After the camp was locked down the pigs locked up an estimated ninety prisoners and transferred an estimated forty inmates to other concentration camps. These inmates who were locked up and transferred had nothing to do with the rebellion. In fact most of them were in their housing units when the rebellion happened. The institution was locked down for the mandatory count. After the count, housing unit four was released for mainline and that is when the rebellion sparked. All of the inmates involved in the rebellion were from housing unit four and none of the other housing units had been released for mainline yet. So why did the pigs kidnap inmates from housing units three, five and six, if they were not even on the yard when the rebellion kicked off? I believe it is because any and all individuals who are perceived as a threat to the pigs and this uncivilized government are marked and targeted for termination or ostracization. As long as we have radical free thinkers who believe in the empowerment of the people we will have federal and state establishment whose sole purpose of existence is to destroy, persecute and imprison those who dare to challenge this monster called the system. The administration's lame excuse for locking up the inmates who were in their housing units during the uprising was because they had so-called aggressive institutional records. The inmates who had the so- called aggressive institutional records ... had committed no infraction to warrant their lockup for the rebellion. They did not even participate in the uprising. This only show that whether active or non-active all revolutionaries will meet the same dreadful fate if we do not stand together in solidarity and overthrow this terroristic regime that we are under in this beast of a country. In Revolutionary Love, -- A Missouri Prisoner, 21 November 1997 TIGHTENING THE CHAINS IN WISCONSIN I am writing to you regarding the corruption of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections system. I have sent tickets for which I have been falsely accused, and Inmate Complaints in which I have been mistreated -- all go unresolved. I am referring to the Jackson Correctional Institution in particular. The Institution is a breeding ground for a riot. I am a white man who associates with the Black people for the most part. I am called racial things as well as others by a group that calls themselves the Aryan Nation. The group's leaders were beaten up for calling my cellmate a "nigger-lover". The leaders were released into General Population status but my cellmate was given an eight-day adjustment and 360 program segregation. The guards themselves are liars and racists. I have seen swastikas on their arms and I have heard them direct racist comments at my friends. Something needs to be done. We are also Tommy Thompson's political prisoners. He is trying to ban any nudity from the prisons. I do not look at pornography. However, it is our right and it soothes the prisoners. I am a Christian and that is why I do not look at pornography, but I am not the one to judge, God is. If Tommy Thompson takes our pornography, what's next? Our electronics, clothing, our only real contacts with life? He only wants to be re- elected, not help us. I agree that people that have any sex crimes should be banned from pornography and segregated to a different prison, but to take it away from everyone is wrong. The man needs to be stopped. He has already overcrowded the Wisconsin prison system and wants to start a "truth in sentencing" law which would cost taxpayers $14 billion more. That much money could be used to house the homeless population and create jobs for people, but no, Tommy Thompson wants to stick the inmates in prison and build more prisons. What's going to happen when roads and schools, etc., need replacement ten years from now? Obviously, the state will lie, but the truth is they spent all their money on prisons. I want to put a stop to Thompson's charade. I am rated medium security and am in a maximum security institution which is against Wisconsin DOC policy, but they don't care. Inmates need to help one another before it's too late. Tommy needs to be put on a leash.... -- A Wisconsin Prisoner, 17 August 1997 MIM ADDS: We agree with your assessment that Tommy Thompson is not banning pornography to improve the morals of prisoners, but to further punish them. We like you do not condone pornography. Pornography is a tool of patriarchy in which wimmin are viewed as sexual objects and not equal human beings. Porn distracts potential revolutionaries from the important anti-imperialist work at hand. As Maoist revolutionaries we work towards the destruction imperialist patriarchy. Instead of just banning porn a revolutionary society through struggle and thought reform would demonstrate the harm and destruction of pornography. We disagree that people convicted of sex offenses should be banned from viewing pornography and segregated in a different facility. The state is not capable of judging who is a sex offender. This nation has a history of lynching Black men for just looking at a white womyn. So one cannot assume that a person convicted of sex crimes is any different from any other prisoner. It is the imperialists who are the real criminals here. EXPOSING BRUTALITY IN TEXAS ... The James V. Allred Unit opened up back in 1995 at which time the guards under Warden L. W. Woods saw fit to use verbally abusive language to create physical altercations by several guards' aggressiveness to use force on inmates while they were still handcuffed on the floor. The current excessive force rate is usually 200 to 400 cases a year throughout the Texas prison system. Guards' family members and friends working at the TDCJ-ID Medical Departments cover up most of these incidents. There are prison guards who come to work with an authority problem. These guards take their job overboard when they yell or spit in an inmate's face. In thanks, these inmates will not lose control to zero- tolerance by physical force. We as prisoners seek to return to our family and friends and do our time. We didn't come here to be abused like animals, but to be rehabilitated and not relapse into recidivism. The Texas prison system needs to be given an independent investigation by the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union. On May 22, 1995, Lieutenant James McCormick assaulted me with major excessive force while on the Eastham Unit. This Lieutenant has a history of excessive force, but the state prison Internal Affairs Department says that it was an accident. I am one of many prisoners who fight the system for change in a struggle for humane conditions, a struggle to be free from force, spit, and yelling and abusive name-calling by TDCJ-ID guards. I will name a few that has total immunity from policy disciplinary by General Rules of Conduct PD-21. The guards listed below have a history of excessive force or verbal assault toward prisoners when they are handcuffed by security guards before the yelling assault takes place. These assaults are mostly done on minority prisoners who don't have legal or family support. These guards will maliciously, sadistically, and wantonly violate contemporary standards of decency with verbal or physical force to cause harm: Captain Clyde Hargrove; Major Cary A. Cook; Belinda Gentry, Admin Tech; Wade King, Lt.; Brenda Wilkinson, Law Librarian; Ronald Stephens, Correctional Officer; Carl Spencer, Correctional Officer; James Sutton, Sgt.; Marty D. Carlock, Correctional Officer; Johnny Mabe, Correctional Officer; Sandra Campos, Correctional Officer; Keith Surney, Correctional official; Terry Torbert, Correctional Officer; A. Kalmanov, M.D.; Kent Fullerton, Correctional Officer; James Anthony, Correctional Officer; and Sgt. Douglas McCaffery. There are more of them, but they cover up their nametags with tape to hide their names from inmates so they won't be filed on through the grievance system, which doesn't work for any inmates. I ask people of Houston, Texas and all other cities and counties to write letters to Warden Leslie W. Woods at James V. Allred Unit, P.O. Box 1860, Iowa Park, TX 76367-6568 and let him know that you have knowledge of the incidents that are occurring in this prison unit. I truly appreciate all the support the people of Houston have given to the care, custody, and control of the human condition of prisoners rehabilitated support. -- A Texas Prisoner, 10 October, 1997 REVOLUTIONARY POLITICIZATION Greetings from within the belly of the beast. After years and years of studies and consideration, I've come to the point in my life where I want to jump 100% into the struggle/movement to some great benefit for myself and my people/comrades. I'm an ex-gang member. For years, I have committed my life and my efforts towards uplifting and representing the set I am from. Suddenly, it has become apparent to me that I am wasting my valuable ideas, work, and life for something that leads to the grave or to being locked-down forever. The gang I am from represents no political stand and has no positive future goals besides harming and self-destructing my own people. I have arrived at the point where I have been made conscious of what is more important than drive-bys, dope trafficking and gang-banging. I have always had a militant, revolutionary, rebellious side to me, and I've always wanted to represent something big, powerful and strong, something to help my people, something right and something needed. I've spent ten years here, ... I've read Black Panther material, Revolutionary Workers, MIM Notes, The Militant, books by and on Lenin, Marx, Stalin, Mao, etc. And I always felt a strong relation and identity with this material in some way or another, as if finding my cue. I am in Texas prison. Texas has no truly significant prison organization that represents 100% and gonna bring all prisoners together to stop this prison brutality and undercover genocide, racism, and extreme discrimination. There are gangs here, groups, etc.: Texas Syndicate, Mandingo Warriors, Crips, Bloods, Pirus, Latin Kings, 5%ers, Mexican Mafia, Aryan Nations, Aryan Circle, TAB, Texas Bad Boys, Pistoleros, Raza Unida, Self Defense Family, African Nation. And the list goes on. The only problem is it seems that we fight prisoner against prisoner and no one has come up with the idea to fight the system that has us fighting and killing each other. Fight the system legally, collectively and fearlessly like we do one another. This Texas system seems to be full of snitches, perpetrators and phonies. But this is one thing that I have seen here and Texas, and this is my main reason for writing: There are thousands of comrades here in prison with a true heart of warriors for a cause, but because there is nothing real here, they like myself are hooking up with things that serve no real political stand and are no benefit to our people in the way we need. And until we get something, we're never going to be able to conquer this system. I've been studying the history and platform of the Black Panthers hard, so hard that I've been dreaming of it. Now I've been hearing that there are some BPP groups about, but none of them true to the party's Maoist roots. Here in Texas prisons, we have none. No BPP. But we want it. Me and some of my comrades want to start a Black Panther Party true to the original Maoist principles, for us here inside, because you have an army of brothers here just waiting to have a chance to represent something true, real and no-nonsense. I personally am putting forth the initiative to found this program's start, for which I will commit my life and every effort. I want to offer my comrades something stronger and deeper and more meaningful than having to join a gang and gangbang against one another. There is something far better that you can represent. And I want to make it available to every comrade in Texas prisons ASAP. Can you hook me up with someone who can give me the permission, the guidelines, the material and whatever it takes to set up our own Texas internal Black Panther Party? I have some comrades that will be working with me on this. We want to make it official and correct, because it's time for some real leaders to step up and lead with something that's gonna be respected by these people as no joke. So I would appreciate your response to this letter, and if any outside comrades would, please contact me in reference to this letter and what we're seeking. We just want to legally set it up, so we can set it off. Unity, love, honor, respect, -- A Texas prisoner, 16 October 1997 MIM RESPONDS: We commend your call to unify Texas prisoners in a progressive and political way. The Maoist vanguard of the late 1960s, the Black Panther Party is certainly one of the best sources for building revolution in an imperialist nation. Though there are some groups claiming the name of the BPP, MIM knows of none which have continued the Maoist revolutionary legacy of the original Panthers to put you in touch with. We suggest that you work with us to form a Maoist Revolutionary group in Texas prisons. We would be more than happy to help you create an organization true to the legacy of the Black Panther Party. HIGH SECURITY HELL ... The pigs here are also out of control. I'm on a High Security Unit ... and that is the name of this unit -- no bullshit. They have cameras on the outside of the cells so I can't pass nothing to the other brothers, including the reading materials I got from you all, but I'll keep trying. This unit just open up, so later on there will be ways to overcome the pigs. Also did you know that the state of Texas is now going to start charging us for every time we go and see the medical staff (Doctor, dentist, nurse, etc.). Man, on the first of January 1998, they are going to start charging $3.00 for each visit. We gotta go to work for free and now pay for the doctor too. Man, they are out of control. Can they do this? Also this unit is brand new and we don't have no heat. They have the A.C. [air conditioning] on all day. Right now I'm wrapped up in my blanket as I write this. I'm telling you. ... -- A Texas Prisoner, 17 November 1997 * * * MIM ON PRISONS AND PRISONERS MIM seeks to build public opinion against Amerika's criminal injustice system, and to eventually replace the bourgeois injustice system with proletarian justice. The bourgeois injustice system imprisons and executes a disproportionately large and growing number of oppressed people while letting the biggest mass murderers - the imperialists and their lackeys - roam free. Imperialism is not opposed to murder or theft, it only insists that these crimes be committed in the interests of the bourgeoisie. MIM does not advocate that all prisoners go free today; we have a more effective program for fighting crime as was demonstrated in China prior to the restoration of capitalism there in 1976. We say that all prisoners are political prisoners because under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, all imprisonment is substantively political. It is our responsibility to exert revolutionary leadership and conduct political agitation and organization among prisoners -- whose material conditions make them an overwhelmingly revolutionary group. Some prisoners should and will work on self-criticism under a future dictatorship of the proletariat in those cases in which prisoners really did do something wrong by proletarian standards. ***WHAT NON-PRISONERS CAN DO TO SUPPORT PRISONERS*** *1. Struggle with, work with, finance and join MIM. The best way to support prisoners is to overthrow the system under which capitalists profit from the exploitation of prisoners. History shows that the best way to do this is to build a Marxist-Leninist- Maoist party. The oppressors will not give up their power without a fight. *2. Finance MIM's prison work. Our biggest bill each month is postage. Most of the prison comrades who read MIM Notes have no way of paying for it. So if you have money, send what you can afford. Every cent helps, and stamps are as good as cash to us. *3. Distribute MIM Notes and Notas Rojas. Bring the voices of prisoners and their supporters to as large and wide an audience of people as possible. Contact MIM for bulk rates and distribution tips. *4. Start or join a prison support group. MIM can provide advice and resources to help you build public opinion for prisoners and their struggles. *5. Fight censorship, beatings, torture and other fascist outrages. Under Lock and Key often features the addresses of prisoners' friends and enemies. Work with the friends and let the enemies know you're watching. (Don't expect to win the fascists to the side of humanity, however. See #1 in this list). *6. Stay in touch. Keep us informed of pro-prisoner work you do. Our readers might find it educational or inspirational.