This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
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THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT
MIM Notes 108 January 1996
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.
For a free issue mailed to your Internet address (a
large text file), send a message explaining your
interest to: mim@mim.org.
MIM Notes 108 includes:
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. STUDENTS PROTEST NATIONAL OPPRESSION,
POLICE BRUTALITY ON A MICHIGAN CAMPUS
2. LETTERS TO MIM AND RAIL
3. MULTI-NATIONAL ORGANIZING DEBATED: A LETTER TO
UNION DEL BARRIO
4. MEXICAN MILITARY RAPES WOMEN: ZAPATISTAS FIGHT
BACK
5. IMPERIALISTS WIN WAR IN BOSNIA
6. A FRENCH PROLETARIAT? NOT WITH THESE DEMANDS
7. AMERIKA ADMITS TO CONTROLLING HAITIAN DICTATORS
8. JAPANESE BANKS: THE FAILURE OF IMPERIALISM
9. PRISON GROWTH DEMONSTRATES NATIONAL OPPRESSION
10. PIGS PROFIT FROM PRISONS AT EVERY TURN
11. AMERIKAN PRISONS: OPEN SLAVE LABOR CAMPS
12. WANT TO END RAPE? SEIZE PROLETARIAN POWER
13. AMERIKAN MILITARY STILL CONTROL THE NET
14. NEW TREATY GRANTS U.S. MILITARY GREATER
DOMINANCE IN THE PHILIPPINES
15. SHELL-BACKED NIGERIA EXECUTES OGONI ACTIVISTS
16. UPDATE ON DETROIT NEWSPAPER STRIKE: THE
AMERIKAN "PROLETARIAT"?
17. PEOPLE'S WAR IN PERU
18. UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISON AND
PRISONERS
19. SAGE/UAW DEMANDS SHARE OF BLOOD MONEY
20. INTERVIEW WITH SCOTTISH COMRADE
21. FILM DOCUMENTS INDONESIAN BRUTALITY IN EAST
TIMOR
STUDENTS PROTEST NATIONAL OPPRESSION,
POLICE BRUTALITY ON A MICHIGAN CAMPUS
Black Eastern Michigan University (EMU) student
Aaron Johnson was arrested on November 7 while
trying to break up a fight between two other
students in a University residence hall. EMU
Department of Public Safety (DPS) pig Kenneth
Hardesty used pepper spray to break up the fight.
According to student witnesses, Hardesty punched,
kicked and spat on Johnson. Hardesty then lost his
pepper spray, and arrested Johnson on the felony
charge of disarming a police officer.(1)
Johnson was also charged with aggravated assault
and obstruction of justice. The charge of disarming
a police officer was dropped at a District Court
hearing. MIM agrees with the many Black students
who believe that the hearing should have resulted
in dropping the entire case, but we know that there
is no justice for Blacks in Amerika so we are not
surprised that the case lives on.(2) During the
fight, Hardesty pulled out his gun. Although he did
not fire the weapon, Hardesty is now on paid
administrative leave pending an investigation of
the incident.(1)
DPS has regulations for when officers are permitted
to pull their guns but is refusing to release those
rules to students protesting Johnson's arrest. The
University administration is working with DPS to
attempt to erase students' memories of the arrest
and protests; and to minimize the significance of
racism and national oppression in this case and on
the campus in general. The administration has also
supported DPS tactics of intimidation and
manipulation in the investigation.
STUDENTS PROTEST JOHNSON'S ARREST,
DPS TREATMENT OF BLACK STUDENTS
On December 4, 20 EMU students broke up the EMU-San
Francisco State basketball game by taking over the
court at half-time. The students peacefully
expressed outrage at Johnson's arrest and at the
University administration's complicity with the DPS
brutality and cover-up. The students' initial
demands were: 1) DPS pig Hardesty must be fired; 2)
There must be a student advisory committee involved
in the selection process for his replacement; 3)
All charges against Aaron Johnson must be dropped.
The first 20 protesters gathered supporters as they
chanted things like "We're fired up, we're fired
up, we ain't gonna take it no more" and "Who's my
brother, you my brother" and "No Justice no peace."
The lights on the basketball court went out and the
loudspeaker announced that the game had been
suspended. After everyone but the players and some
of their family members had left, the doors were
locked and the game resumed.
Following the protest, the EMU administration
announced that students who had participated would
be expelled. MIM was told that the administration
threw out the rules of its own hierarchy of
discipline. Students with no records are supposed
to receive less severe punishments. In this case,
the administration wanted a blanket punishment for
everyone involved.
The administration was pressured into reconsidering
the expulsions and following University policy. The
majority of the students involved in the protest
had no previous records and were given one year
probation and 40 hours community service. But since
the incident, pigs and the administration have
closely monitored Black students who were involved
in the protest in an attempt to catch them on other
charges. Another count or infraction in addition to
having participated in the protest would mean that
these students get kicked out of school. MIM sees
this as the administration using its power over
students to silence protest and stop the exposure
of national oppression on campus.
While the EMU administration attempts to stifle
protest campaigns around Johnson's case Black
students continue to organize and educate. The
students have demanded an investigation and just
resolution to the case. They packed the December
5th student government meeting and called on
representatives to support Johnson and the rest of
the students who were involved in the protests
stemming from the controversy at EMU's basketball
game. Students urged the representatives to speak
out against the administration and pushed the
student government to pass a bill demanding amnesty
for all students involved in the protest. The
student government passed a resolution in support
of the three demands brought out at the basketball
game. Students also rallied the Black faculty and
staff to pass a resolution endorsing the second and
third demands as well as amnesty for the
protesters.
DPS RACISM AGAINST BLACK STUDENTS
AND ADMINISTRATION COMPLICITY
The DPS investigation was a classic demonstration
of pig priorities: DPS tried to make itself look
clean at Aaron Johnson's expense. EMU students said
that the police chief manipulated their statements
after the incident, asking repeatedly if the
witnesses were "sure that this or that happened."
The pigs continually hounded the students to get
them to change their statements two weeks after the
incident. The chief also used hypotheticals in
questioning the witnesses to lead them to answers
he would rather hear. For example, "Put yourself in
Aaron's shoes, in such a situation can you say that
x situation might have resulted."
Students told MIM that the pigs have always had a
bad relationship with Blacks on campus. For
example, the Walton-Putnam dorm is more than 80
percent Black. It was the first place that the DPS
installed video cameras to watch the students and
the first place they stationed a DPS pig to watch
the students.
EMU students told MIM they believe the EMU
administration's alliance with the cops is an
extension of COINTELPRO--the FBI's Counter-
Intelligence Program designed and implemented to
monitor, infiltrate and destroy revolutionary
nationalist organizations. The administration has
singled out Black student leaders and is targeting
them with punitive measures following the protests
and organizing efforts after Aaron's arrest. This
is nothing new in Amerika, and cases like these
will not be solved in the courtroom. Justice for
Aaron Johnson and the protesting students will only
be won through strong protests and actions by the
students and community who oppose national
oppression, the pigs and administrations that
uphold this unfair and unequal system.
MIM agrees with these students who see the EMU
pigs' actions as a part of a larger picture of
national oppression. And we take the struggle
further into the national and international arena
to fight the pigs on their own level. Struggles
like this one at EMU are important for exposing the
daily oppression that goes on and fighting for some
measure of freedom, but we can never lose sight of
the bigger battles that have to be fought against
the imperialist system that lives off of national
oppression.
NOTES:
1. The Ann Arbor News Nov. 9, 1995, p. C1, 2.
2. The Michigan Daily Dec. 6, 1995, p. A1-2.
* * *
LETTERS TO MIM AND RAIL
DOWN WITH SENTIMENTALITY FOR ASSASSINS IN BLUE
I received my MIM Notes 105, October, 1995 issue
today and was glad I received it.
In reading [the letter] on page 2 under the heading
"'Righteous' killing?" by some Internet Reader,
dated September 1995, I have something I want to
say to this person:
Your heart quivered because a comrade stated in his
writing that a cop (pig) who got blown away
(regarding the Mumia incident) was a "righteous"
killing, tells me that you (Mr. Internet) cannot
and would not ever be a true and devoted
revolutionary for the cause. Your display of
outrage made me want to punk on your sentimental
head. Where in the hell do you think we're at? And
what do you see taking place by these assassins in
blue? Have you forgotten about what the pigs don to
brother George Jackson? Well what about the SLA,
the Black Panther Party, the Chicago Seven, Angela
Davis, MOVE, Waco, and Randy Weaver and his family
(though I don't go along with his "racist"
philosophy), and the countless other citizens you
and I never hear about who are victimized and
murdered by these filthy cop pigs?
You, with your weak heart, need to stay away from
the struggle, because I know of people like you.
I'm in prison (NOW) because of a faint hearted
person like you. You're the type of person who
wannabe in the crowd but when it gets thick and
action has to be taken, you'd bust someone. You'd
rat on your brethren. In other words, "you're a
gotdam sellout and agent!" You are the same type of
sentimental fool who could see a cop pig bashing a
young boy's brains out, or a pregnant woman, or an
elderly person, in the dark of the night (and with
no one around) by one of those stinking pigs and
you would run like a wet rat. And you'd probably
fart from being so gotdam scared.
My advice to you, stay clear of this revolution
because this is not for the faint hearted or the
sentimental yuppie/passive-ass you have displayed
yourself to be. And in closing, before you check
one of my comrades over what they wrote you better
check yourself.
--Political Prisoners of War Vanguard Coalition
MIM REPLIES: Thank you for a sharp response. MIM
often calls people to task for tolerating violence
perpetrated by pigs against the masses, and you
have expressed that well. One note, however, is
that MIM does not write off people as you do above.
We are willing to struggle with all those who are
willing to struggle with us. This is because we
reject the ideology propped up by the psychological
establishment that maintains that there are types
of people: immutably faint hearted or brave.
Instead, we call on those people whose actions are
not strongly on the side of the proletariat, those
who waver and might be labeled "faint-hearted," to
reform their ideology. Individuals are not born
strong friends of the people--they develop their
strength through struggle and through service.
READER WANTS PRISONER AWARENESS MONTH
Your latest issue has lots of news about Prison
Awareness Week. This is a great idea but I suggest
we should now have a Prison Awareness Month in
1996. Since February is set as Black History Month,
perhaps March could be set as Prison Awareness
Month? I will be willing to promote the idea in my
area. How about other readers?
--A reader in Pittsburgh
MIM REPLIES: It is excellent that you are working
on ways to organize in your area. One reason that
news of the activities going on around the country
is important is that it gives other readers ideas
of how to apply a revolutionary analysis to their
own conditions.
If you decide that a Prisoner Awareness Month is a
good way to organize activism in your area, that is
a great advance over no time. MIM does not
generally recognize the various designated Months
because, for example, every month should be Black
History Month. The Under Lock and Key section of
the paper demonstrates the ongoing commitment to
prisoner awareness.
That said, however, we see great importance in
organizing around specific campaigns. Prisoner
Awareness Week was only part of a larger campaign
focused on repression in Massachusetts prisons,
predicated by study and organization and followed
by rallying. The struggle continues. We encourage
people to follow this reader's example and use MN's
pages for organizing. We invite our readers to use
our newspaper to plan their anti-imperialist and
Maoist work. We will gladly support and participate
in activities in March--as well as call on people
to oppose prisons now!
TRAVELER FINDS MIM
Dear MIM:
Hello, I would like to get some information on your
organization. I recently was on a trip to the state
of Massachusetts and went to two events the local
chapter held and found them to be very interesting.
That is how I heard of your organization, if you
would like to know. Well, I look forward to the
info.
Thank you,
A Friend in the South
November 1995
AN RC REPLIES: Revolutionary Greetings! I am a
member of the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League
(RAIL) which is a multi-issue group with a wide
range of anti-imperialist politics represented.
RAIL works with and is led by the Maoist
Internationalist Movement (MIM). Your letter asking
for more information about MIM was passed on by MIM
to me, so I could explain what RAIL is all about.
The reason for this is that RAIL is the best place
for people to start who are interested in doing
work around various anti-imperialist issues and
want to learn more about revolutionary communist
politics, but aren't necessarily ideologically
prepared or experienced enough to make the
commitments necessary for working in MIM.
RAIL has a national newspapers for different areas,
and we can send you a free copy if you want; just
write to let us know. The paper talks about what
RAIL is doing in different areas and also has
articles by RAIL members and others about anti-
imperialist issues. Other things that RAIL members
can do is put up posters about events or about
issues like feminism, revolutionary nationalism,
local political issues, capitalist atrocities, etc.
Also, distributing these free newspapers and
talking to people on the street or on college
campuses is a good way to develop political
consciousness in your area.
RAIL or MIM can help connect you to other RAIL
members in your area, or sometimes there are RAIL
members kind of working alone in their area at
first, but then as they do some projects -- they
bring in more interested people. If you have an
idea for a project, RAIL can help you set it up, or
if you want to be given a project to do, RAIL can
provide that as well. Please send your questions
and ideas to RAIL/MIM. I look forward to working
with you.
PRISON RALLY FLYER CRITICISM
Dear RAIL coordinators: I am concerned by your
flyer advertising the rally against Massachusetts
prisoner relocation. Your use of the term 'prisoner
oppression' is particularly annoying and slyly
misleading.
Yes, rehabilitation is an important function of
prison. But, sadly enough, so is punishment. It is
ridiculous dogma to envision a society where
everybody is rehabilitated and nobody is punished.
Both ideas are essential in a fair criminal justice
system, particularly with respect to violent crime.
This is a fact you really should come to grips
with.
Punishment does not involve revoking a person's
basic human rights. With this we must be careful,
but there will always be partisan argument
regarding the line between 'abuse' and
'punishment.' There are clear abuses that should be
dealt with, but your approach doesn't address them,
it simply indicts the entire system. If this isn't
your intention, then please rewrite your flyers.
Meanwhile if you're that anxious to do some good,
some victim-advocacy activism, among other things,
might be a more noble cause. Even better, why don't
you work toward elimination of mandatory sentencing
laws, and drug laws in general, if you really want
prison reform?
Inmates in Massachusetts jails are not, much as
you'd like to believe, political prisoners or
prisoners of consciousness. The tone and graphics
of your call-to-arms flyer suggests otherwise. I
suppose this is a reflection of the underlying
motivations of your socialist organizations, but it
is way off course.
--a critic in Massachusetts
November, 1995
RAIL RESPONDS: In response to your letter
commenting about our flyers for the prisons rally
there are several points that you make that should
be addressed.
In Massachusetts prisons, what was proposed as
rehabilitation is being eliminated, leaving only
increasing punishments.
There has been a society in which most people can
be rehabilitated. Revolutionary China was able to
successfully rehabilitate prisoners and make them
productive members of society by a process of
criticism and self-criticism. This process and its
success in helping an American spy be rehabilitated
and reeducated is detailed in Prisoners of
Liberation, by Allyn and Adele Rickett, Americans
imprisoned in China in the 1950s.
Punishment does not help the punished, it creates
resentment anger and further rage when it doesn't
destroy the person. Punishment's main goal is to
make the victims and the state feel better by
inflicting pain.
Our approach does indict the entire system, the
prison system as well as U.S. Imperialism must be
destroyed. While RAIL supports efforts to help
prisoners, RAIL does not wish to reform prisons,
but to eliminate them
RAIL does believe that all prisoners are political,
as the Amerikan Criminal Injustice System is a tool
of repression by the state which is directed at
non-whites, for the purpose of maintaining control
of these groups.
* * *
MULTI-NATIONAL ORGANIZING DEBATED:
A LETTER TO UNION DEL BARRIO
Union del Barrio
P.O. Box 620095
San Diego, CA 92162
August 30, 1995
Dear Comrades,
Congratulations are in order for your role in
building a large, militant commemoration of the
Chicano Moratorium on its 25th anniversary. The
August 26 event in East L.A. was a powerful display
of the progressive and revolutionary nationalist
sentiments of the Chicano masses. We are writing,
however, to express our disagreement with your
organization's representative's actions at this
event, and with the political line behind his
actions.
After a MIM literature distributor had passed out
MIM literature for a while, a brother working
security for the event told the distributor that
s/he needed to wait while the security person got a
second brother to "approve" the literature for
distribution. The second brother identified himself
as a representative of both the National Chicano
Moratorium Committee (the coalition sponsoring the
event) and the Union del Barrio. He told the MIM
literature distributor that s/he had to stop
distributing MIM literature or risk being thrown
out of the event. (It turned out that the shutdown
was not total, as once the march reached its
destination and the rally began, the security folks
allowed MIM to distribute literature, albeit only
in a small area penned by security folks and
removed from the crowd.)
The Union del Barrio comrade justified his decision
to censor MIM on the grounds that MIM is a multi-
national organization and that distribution of MIM
literature was therefore an act of "ideological
imperialism." In a related incident at the event, a
Union del Barrio comrade told another MIM
distributor that distribution of MIM literature was
prohibited because MIM is part of "the white left."
We disagree with your comrade's actions for the
following reasons:
1. While we are aware that Union del Barrio and
others who compose the National Chicano Moratorium
Committee put a lot of work into this event, we
consider such events to be the property of the
masses, not of the organizers. And it was not the
masses who shut us down. Quite the contrary: while
MIM literature was being distributed, the masses
were snapping it up very quickly.
2. While we understand the desire of organizers to
make sure their views dominate--MIM works to ensure
that it gets at least equal time with competing
ideas at events it sponsors--we do not believe it
is necessary to censor competing ideas. For
example, MIM had no interest in speaking from the
stage. Your organization's influence over who
controlled the stage and over the literature
connected to the event (such as the official
program) should have been enough to ensure that
your ideas had more than equal time.
3. We believe that allowing competing ideas to
circulate at one's events or anywhere one exerts
power is a matter of strategic confidence in one's
ideas. MIM allows competing ideas to circulate
where we have the power to shut them down. This is
because we are confident that our ideas are
correct. We believe that our ideas will win out
over competing ideas without us having to shut down
our ideological opposition. We have seen this to be
true.
4. Distribution of MIM fliers and newspapers is not
"ideological imperialism." This argument sounds
like a nationalist equivalent to anarchist-
feminism. Anarchist-feminism treats revolutionary
men as being either as bad as or worse than the men
in power who control the imperialist patriarchy.
(For more detail on anarchist-feminism, see "What
is MIM?", a $1 pamphlet available from MIM). Your
comrade likewise erred in treating MIM as an enemy
equal to the imperialists. It is not as if MIM's
distributors were holding guns to the masses' heads
and making them take MIM literature.
5. Your comrade in fact went beyond equating us
with the enemy. He treated us worse than the enemy.
As we said above, we would not shut down any
competing ideas. But if we did, the first to go
would be the U.S. flags brought by a handful of
liberals. Next to go would be the pro-Amerikan
flier from the United Steelworkers of America,
headlined, "Bridgestone/Firestone's Yoichiro
Kaizaki: Running over American working
families...Bringing dishonor upon Japan." Third to
go would be the various images championing the UFW,
which, while popular in the Chicano/Mexicano
nation, is nonetheless a pro-imperialist union
whose deadly strategic alliance with the
reactionary Euro-Amerikan working class can only
serve to obstruct the liberation of Aztlan. All of
these pro-imperialist items remained visible
throughout the event.
6. While we agree with your organization that the
liberation of Aztlan is necessary, and that this
will ultimately require a single-national vanguard
party, we do not agree that single-national
organizing should be treated as a cardinal
question, certainly not above
the question of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. As
Marxist-Leninist-Maoists, and unlike phony
"Marxist-Leninists" and phony "Maoists" in North
America, we uphold the right of oppressed nations
to self-determination.
Our distributor told your comrade that Maoism is
necessary for genuine national liberation. His
response was that maybe what was necessary was for
Chicanos/Mexicanos to adopt Maoism, just not in a
multi-national form. MIM thinks that the formation
of a Maoist Internationalist Party (MIP) of Aztlan
would be an excellent development. If you wish to
form one on your own, MIM will support it and will
allow our own Raza members self-determination as to
whether to stay with MIM or whether to join the new
MIP.
In the meantime, MIM considers a period of multi-
national organizing to be necessary to consolidate
and strengthen the Maoist forces in North America,
which have not yet fully recovered from the state's
destruction of the Maoist Black Panther Party in
1970. In the 1970s, a group called the
Revolutionary Wing liquidated itself by splitting
itself into single-national formations before these
formations were theoretically prepared to stand on
their own. We do want to see the formation of
single-national parties (and in the case of the
First Nations, possibly a pan-indigenous party),
but we also do not wish to repeat the Revolutionary
Wing's error.
We see Notas Rojas (our quarterly Spanish-language
newspaper) and our Spanish-language work generally
as a tool for the development of first a pan-Raza
Maoist party, then ultimately separate parties for
the liberation of Aztlan, Puerto Rico, and possibly
other territories such as Spanish Harlem. If the
Raza masses or the masses of these individual
nations beat us to it, great! Either way, this
process can only be impeded when a Union del Barrio
comrade works to keep MIM literature out of the
hands of La Raza.
7. Finally, we agree that the settler-"left" has a
sordid history of parasitic relations with the
masses of Aztlan and other oppressed nations.
Perhaps we should praise your instincts in treating
organizations which allow settlers as members with
some suspicion. Nonetheless, we think it is
imperative that you recognize ideological and
political line, not social composition, as
decisive. In this regard, when your comrade learned
that MIM supports the liberation of Aztlan through
national liberation struggle, that should have been
enough to get our literature "approved," and to end
the accusation of "ideological imperialism."
8. The Maoist Internationalist Movement is not part
of the "white left". We devote many of our
resources to the task of exposing the settler-
"left". You will see in our literature that we deem
revisionist and white chauvinist those "Marxist"
organizations that refuse to admit that oppressed
Black, Raza and indigenous nations exist within the
borders of the U.S. and those who refuse to admit
that a white oppressor nation also exists.
Strategically, MIM also works to split the white
oppressor nation, Amerika. We think the biggest
contradiction in that nation is between youth and
the old, not class antagonism. On these grounds
alone, MIM must never be equated with revisionists
such as the SWP, the RCP, and other integrationist
organizations.
In struggle,
MIM
P.S. Enclosed is a copy of MIM Theory #7 on
Revolutionary Nationalism. It explains in more
detail why we say true national liberation requires
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist leadership and why MIM is
multi-national in this stage of struggle. This
normally goes for $5. We hope you will pay for it,
but either way, it is yours to study and criticize,
because we think it is imperative for you to engage
with these ideas and we do not want a price tag to
prevent you from doing so.
We hope to hear from you soon, and hope that we can
continue to engage in criticism-unity-criticism
without a repeat of your actions of August 26.
* * *
MEXICAN MILITARY RAPES WOMEN:
ZAPATISTAS FIGHT BACK
Cecilia Rodriguez, representative of the Zapatista
National Liberation Army (EZLN) within U.S.
borders, was recently raped in Chiapas by masked
men she believes were members of the Mexican
military. Rodriguez was in Chiapas to attend peace
talks between the EZLN and the Mexican government
and was attacked the day before she was scheduled
to meet with the EZLN's Subcomandante Marcos.
This is not the first time women have been attacked
by the military in Chiapas, nor is it the first
time north Amerikan supporters of the people of
Chiapas have been attacked. A local women's group
recorded at least 50 rapes in the San Cristobal
area since the military occupied the region
eighteen months ago. Three Tzeltal indians were
raped by Mexican soldiers at a checkpoint in June;
the military refused to allow outside investigation
of the rapes. In March, the military organized a
terrorist attack on a caravan of people traveling
with Pastors for Peace.
Rodriguez said that during the assault on her one
of the attackers shouted: "You already know how
things are in Chiapas, right? Shut up, then, shut
up, do you understand, or you know what will happen
to you." In a press conference, Rodriguez
responded: "I will not shut up. This has not
traumatized me to the point of paralysis. I will
follow the example of thousands of Mexican men and
women who continue to work for a true democracy in
spite of the dangers to themselves and their loved
ones." The Zapatistas have vowed to fight back and
investigate and punish these crimes against the
people outside of the corrupt legal and military
system in Mexico.
The reactionary Amerikan government is directly
involved in the war against the people of Chiapas.
It has openly sold the Mexican military $250
million worth of military equipment in the last
four years. Furthermore, the EZLN suspects that
Amerikan military advisors are present in Chiapas
along with the CIA intelligence gathering and
covert operations forces. Amerikan imperialists
have a history of sending in the CIA and other
thugs whenever the peoples' struggles threaten
Amerikan economic hegemony: from Iran to Guatemala,
Vietnam, Chile, El Salvador, and now Peru and the
Philippines.
The attacks on Rodriguez and other women in Chiapas
show that the Amerikan government is an enemy of
the vast majority of the world's women. It turns a
blind eye to the rapes its hired goons commit for
sport, often encouraging these rapes as political
terrorism, and supports an economic system that
condemns Third World women to terrible poverty. But
Amerikan imperialism exposes itself through its
crimes, and the oppressed women and men of the
world will overthrow it through united and resolute
political struggle.
NOTES: Los Angeles View, Nov. 17 1995.
EXCERPTS FROM EZLN COMMUNIQUE
The cowardly aggression against the Zapatista
Cecilia Rodriguez makes up a part of a campaign of
intimidation and threats against women who struggle
for democracy in Mexico and which includes crimes
against indigenous and non-indigenous women in
Chiapas.
The evil government is incapable of guaranteeing
the safety of any person in Chiapas despite
maintaining dozens of thousands of soldiers, whose
only goal is to assure the impunity of the
powerful.
In view of the fact that the laws of the evil
government do not do anything to address these
situations, the EZLN has initiated the work of
finding and taking prisoner those responsible for
this and other similar aggression committed against
the women of Chiapas in order to judge them
according to Zapatista law.
The EZLN adds its voice and action to that of the
thousands of human beings who carry forward the
demand for justice in all cases of aggression
against women. We call upon the men and women who
in Mexico and the world struggle for democracy,
liberty, and justice in order that we mobilize with
regard to this fundamental demand for all human
beings: respect for women.
EXCERPTS FROM CECILIA RODRIGUEZ' PUBLIC STATEMENT
On Thursday October 26, in what was supposedly a
simple excursion in broad daylight I was raped and
sodomized by three armed men in what was supposedly
a tourist attraction, the Lakes of Montebello in
the State of Chiapas, Mexico...
The United States likes to say it is a defender of
democracy and justice. I am an American citizen,
and I will be interested to see whether any
American authority will see fit to challenge the
state of impunity in Mexico since the only thing
they seem to care about is a "stable" environment
able to protect high-powered investors...
Mine is not the first sexual crime committed in
that area and unless the low-intensity war being
conducted against the people of Chiapas ends, there
is little hope that it will be the last. I know
there were three Tzeltal women raped at a military
checkpoint, and three nurses raped and almost
killed at the site of the peace talks, San Andres
Larrainzar. How many other women whose stories we
do not know have suffered through this hell? Women
who have never said anything publicly because they
fear for their lives? ...
I ask for justice, not from the governments of the
United States and Mexico because they are complicit
in this war, but from the people of Mexico and the
United States. Look into my suffering and multiply
that by the hundreds of women, men, and children
whose voices you do not seem to hear, who suffer on
a daily basis the humiliation and terror of a
military presence which intends to suffocate the
very human aspirations for democracy, liberty, and
justice.
I am a casualty of a low-intensity war sanctioned
and more than likely facilitated by the government
of the United States. I am a victim of a state of
social deterioration in which journalists,
opposition party members, and any unarmed civilian
no longer enjoy safety and tranquillity, even in
broad daylight and in which those in power have no
recourse than to use assassination, terror, and
conspiracy even in the settling of their own
differences. As citizens of the United States, we
cannot be complicit in this war. We cannot abandon
the indigenous communities trapped behind a
military barricade.
I ask you always to remember the women of Mexico,
to fight for their right to be safe and secure and
to live in a country where the Zapatista demands
for democracy, liberty, and justice are a
reality...
* * *
IMPERIALISTS WIN WAR IN BOSNIA
by MC17 & MC12
The people in Bosnia have already lost this chapter
in World War III, and the Amerikan and other
European imperialists are rushing their militaries
in to take the spoils of victory. The new deal
carving up Bosnia and parceling it out to
imperialist powers completes the Amerikan and
European imperialists' takeover of most of
Yugoslavia, the former Soviet satellite.
The imperialists (who profited off the sale of arms
to all sides) will now go in and take control of
the people, their political and economic systems.
The division solidifies the dividing lines between
European/Amerikan imperialists in the west, and
Russian imperialists in the east. Russia comes out
of the war with Serbia, while the western
imperialists get Slovenia, Croatia, and most of
Bosnia. At the same time, the U.S. military
presence in the current stage represents the
reassertion of Amerikan hegemony among western
imperialist powers. That's what Clinton means when
he says Europe is always important, and that's why
Republicans will go along with it despite a show of
opposition. The U.S. military move is meant as a
check on German power in particular, which already
has its hooks deep into Slovenia, the most
developed area in the former Yugoslavia.
The Amerikan military is sending 20,000 troops into
Bosnia which will add to troops from other
countries for a total force of 60,000 soldiers
there to "keep the peace." The imperialist military
forces have been there all along even though
Amerikan troops were not actually on the ground for
the most part. The NATO bombings are a good example
of this constant threat of imperialist military
fire power. The big difference now is that Amerika
has a formal agreement that it can use force
whenever it decides it is necessary.
"Unlike the U.N. troops in Bosnia, the Amerikans
will have broad authority to use whatever force is
needed to protect themselves."(1). The United
Snakes is learning from situations like the one in
Somalia and from the former situation in Bosnia and
admitting that Amerika needs to stop pretending to
be neutral and go in with free reign to slaughter
as they enforce their interests. This is not a
question of keeping peace between foolish and
backwards warring nations; Amerika is staking its
claim in the newly imposed order.
Amerikan and European imperialism have benefited
from this war. When the oppressed people are
divided and fighting one another they can not turn
their energies on their real enemy: imperialism. In
the division of the former Yugoslavia, everyone has
ended up subordinated to imperialism. Only a
revolutionary internationalist struggle that
recognizes imperialism as its principal enemy can
win true peace for the people of the former
Yugoslavia.
NOTES: New York Times 11/22/95 p.A11.
* * *
A FRENCH PROLETARIAT? NOT WITH THESE DEMANDS
by MC17
December 12--For weeks a general strike and huge
protests have disrupted business and shut down much
of France. Workers and students are indignant and
outraged at the potential loss of income and social
welfare precipitated by proposed austerity measures
to eliminate the $50 billion deficit in the social
welfare system. Public transportation workers have
been on strike for 19 days and other public sector
workers have joined in the strike to protect their
own interests. Students and university teachers
have joined because they are threatened with the
loss of funds for schooling. Private sector
workers, whose direct material interests are not
threatened by the proposed cuts, are not yet
involved.
This strike is not a revolutionary struggle of the
exploited masses. MIM does not support the strike
because these workers' wages and social services
are already artificially inflated at the expense of
the international proletariat. The French workers
constitute a labor aristocracy and the University
students are on their way to labor aristocrat or
petit bourgeois class positions. (Order MIM Theory
1, available for $3, for more on the theory and
calculations behind this analysis).(1)
JUST BECAUSE IT'S MILITANT, DOESN'T MAKE IT A
PROLETARIAT
The workers and students of France cannot
righteously protest unless they look beyond their
own incomes and benefits to the conditions of the
world's proletariat. Protests during the French war
in Vietnam were righteous; citizens should protest
murder and oppression, not just a cut in relatively
high income or benefits. The workers and students
of France are currently acting in their material
interests and ignoring the exploitation and
oppression of the world's people.
If the workers and students of France got more
money at the expense of the French bourgeoisie that
would be okay, but it wouldn't be capitalism. The
labor aristocracy is rewarded by taking some of the
booty extracted from the proletariat.
We must follow Lenin and avoid tailing the
privileged workers' economism. Lenin said this
about the English proletariat and it is true of
imperialist country labor aristocracies today: note
the "numerous references by Marx and Engels to the
example of the British labour movement, showing how
industrial 'prosperity' leads to attempts 'to buy
the proletariat.' to divert them from the struggle;
how this prosperity in general 'demoralises the
workers;' how the British proletariat becomes
'bourgeoisified'--'this most bourgeois of all
nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the
possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a
bourgeois proletariat alongside the
bourgeoisie'..."(2)
Striking for ones own material interests does not
make someone a revolutionary, and it certainly does
not disprove Engels' observation about the
bourgeoisification of the English proletariat.
There were strikes in England when Engels made this
observation, just as there are strikes in France
now when MIM applies Engels' analysis to France.
The French workers and students suffer from narrow
nationalism purchased by their own bourgeoisie for
the price of some superprofits. MIM calls on
revolutionary internationalists to avoid the lures
of economism and narrow nationalism, and to work
against imperialism in the interests of the
international proletariat.
NOTES:
1. NYT Dec. 5, 1995 p. A3
2. Selected Works of V.I. Lenin, Volume 1, New
World Paperbacks, 1967, p.30.
* * *
AMERIKA ADMITS TO CONTROLLING HAITIAN DICTATORS
by MC12
Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide wants the
U.S. government to hand over thousands of pages of
documents the U.S. military seized in its invasion
of Haiti last year. In an implicit admission of its
role in the dictatorship that ousted Aristide, the
U.S. government claims that the documents are
Amerikan property and can only be released subject
to U.S. government security concerns. The documents
most likely implicate the U.S. government in the
coup, refusing to turn them over weakens Amerikan
denial.(1)
The dispute over the documents reflects Haitian
resistance to the Amerikan plan for domination. It
comes on the heels of Aristide's refusal to carry
out the privatization plan Amerika imposed in
response Amerika is holding up financial aid. (1)
AMERIKA SEEKS ASSURANCE OF COMPRADOR-MILITARIST
DOMINANCE IN HAITI
The U.S. government also complains that Aristide is
not grateful enough for Amerikan intervention,
saying that all of a sudden "we were faced with a
different Haiti" after Aristide criticized Amerika
for not doing enough to disarm former army
troops.(2) The U.S. military presence in Haiti will
not end with the scheduled February inauguration of
a new president, which was supposed to represent
the final step in the legitimization of Amerikan
neocolonial domination.
At the same time, U.S. intelligence agencies have
been exposed maintaining their network among the
supposedly-ousted dictatorship. On November 7,
hours before Haitian police went to arrest Prosper
Avril, one of the coup's dictators, a U.S. Embassy
representative visited him, and he immediately
sought asylum in the Colombian embassy. The U.S.
Embassy says the timing of the visit was a
coincidence, and part of its effort to maintain
contact with a "broad spectrum" of Haiti.(2) That
is the same euphemism the U.S. government used when
it was worried that the dictators would not be
represented in Aristide's government.
Avril was the subject of a cable from U.S.
Secretary of State Warren Christopher to the
embassy in Haiti, warning that Avril might be
plotting against Aristide supporters. The embassy
did not give the information to Haitian officials,
and 11 days later one of Aristide's top supporters
and his cousin, Jean-Hubert Feuille, was
assassinated; Haitian police suspect a connection
with Avril. Haitian officials have good reason to
suspect that the U.S. has many other covert ties to
Aristide's enemies.(2)
The "restoration of democracy" in Haiti means
reassertion of Amerikan imperialist control,
preferably under the guise of a legitimate
government. This recent involvement with various
militarists makes it clear that this preference for
a legitimate facade is of secondary concern.
NOTES:
1. New York Times Nov. 28, 1995, p. A1.
2. Washington Post Nov. 29, 1995, p. A1
* * *
JAPANESE BANKS: THE FAILURE OF IMPERIALISM
The New York Times is running occasional articles
on the size and political realities of Japanese
banks. Now we learn that the United States
Government has plans to bail out the Japanese banks
in the event of a crisis.
Japanese banks are the largest in the world.
However, they have some of the same problems as
Amerikan banks. Currently they have $500 billion in
bad real estate loans. While the imperialist banks
make huge profits from their Third World loans,
they are quick to subsidize real estate speculators
in the imperialist countries.
As MIM reported in MIM Theory 1 ("A White
Proletariat?"), Amerikan taxpayers have subsidized
banks to engage in real estate speculation. Now it
is the Japanese labor aristocracy carrying a major
burden of holding together the banking system that
serves its interests.
The Central Bank of Japan loans money to banks at
0.5 percent interest. That means Japanese taxpayers
are subsidizing the Japanese banks, because
inflation is never below 0.5 percent. The Japanese
taxpayer allows the banks to pay them back in yen
worth less than they loaned out.
Another means of propping up the banks used in
Japan is the practice of making government deposits
in the banks. For banks strapped for cash to loan
out or borrow, such is a helpful practice.
How long can taxpayer-subsidized capitalism go on,
one might wonder. It appears that there are no very
short-term limits. The labor aristocracies of the
imperialist countries are willing to turn a blind
eye to government subsidies of their imperialists,
while at the same time they complain about much
smaller subsidies for welfare, social security and
health insurance.
In Japan the system has the added advantage that
capitalists do not attempt the flashy,
individualist style of inequality seen in the
United Snakes, where the gap between capitalists
and labor aristocrats is larger.
One irony of the U.S. Government plan to bail out
Japanese banks is that it is already Japanese banks
that have bailed out the U.S. government on a daily
basis by buying U.S. Treasury notes and loaning the
U.S. Government money. The New York Times has
already warned against Japanese banks' trying to
solve their problems by selling off their Treasury
notes. If all the Japanese banks did this to solve
their problems, the U.S. Government would have to
pay higher interest on the national debt.
Despite rhetoric about capitalism and rugged
individualism, for some time now, the imperialist
system has survived only because of government
subsidies to capitalists. These subsidies will make
some people wonder why not just go to socialism if
the capitalists can not make it on their own. On
the other hand, the labor aristocracies of the
imperialist countries are willing to tolerate the
situation without a peep, because they know finance
capital and the imperialist system generally is
what enables them to appropriate the labor of Third
World workers.
* * *
PRISON GROWTH DEMONSTRATES NATIONAL OPPRESSION
"Nearly 7 percent of all black male adults
nationwide were in jail or prison last year,
compared with less than 1 percent of white male
adults, the Justice Department said in a report
released today. . . .
"The report found that the incarceration rate for
whites had remained little changed in the last 10
years while the level for blacks had climbed
steadily."
The total number of Blacks in prison and jail
surpassed the number of whites in prison and jail
for the first time in 1994. This is further
confirmation of MIM's line that the supposed anti-
crime movement led by the bourgeois politicians is
not an anti-crime movement but a thinly disguised
attack on oppressed nations.
The politicians give the appearance of "doing
something about crime," but the crime rate stays
the same. They aren't addressing the cause of
crime, just the politics of pleasing the
imperialists and labor aristocracy.
NOTES: New York Times Dec. 4, 1995.
* * *
PIGS PROFIT FROM PRISONS AT EVERY TURN
Former Massachusetts commissioner of the Department
of Corrections, Michael V. Fair, is profiting off
his own legacy of employment in the state injustice
system. Fair is making $175 an hour plus expenses
as a consultant to solve the manufactured
overcrowding problem in Massachusetts prisons.(1)
Fair's income is generated from the spoils of
national oppression. Prisons are a form of social
control used against Blacks and other national
minorities. The entire criminal justice system is
designed to perpetuate inequality as it serves the
interests of the white nation, while working to
further terrorize the oppressed nations. Everything
from how crime is defined, to who is stopped and
arrested by the pigs, shows that national
minorities are disproportionately victimized by the
criminal justice system.
Officials in Massachusetts like to cry overcrowding
because it gives them a reason to build more
prisons and incarcerate more national minorities.
The House and Senate passed a measure in November
granting between $400-500 million dollars for
prison expansion. The exact amount will be decided
when the legislative session reopens in January.
The measure passed falls short of Governor Weld's
request for $700 million to create 5,000 new prison
beds.(2) Massachusetts has over 10,000 prisoners.
Despite the fact the crime rate fell in 1991-92 the
imprisonment rate increased during this period
almost 7%.(3)
High salaries are worth it for the prison industry
and the state which need to justify prison
expansion. We know building more prisons doesn't
stop crime. The growth does generate a profit for
individuals, private industry and the state. It
also ensures increased oppression for national
minorities. By locking down a huge percentage of
the population with an interest in social change,
the status quo is protected.
NOTES:
1. Boston Globe Nov. 28, 1995, p. 35.
2. Boston Globe Nov. 11, 1995, p. 38.
3. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1994
p. 199, 216.
* * *
AMERIKAN PRISONS: OPEN SLAVE LABOR CAMPS
"Following the lead of Alabama and Arizona, the
state Department of Corrections (DOC) sent chained
inmates into fields surrounding prisons in north,
central and south Florida to clean up roadways,
clear brush and repair roads and fences. "The chain
gangs--known officially in this state as
'restricted labor squads'--were made up of about 30
inmates each and were guarded by three-member teams
of corrections officers armed with shotguns and
pistols."(1)
Chain gangs have been used or not according to
contemporary social sensibilities, but their
presence or absence says nothing about the state of
the Amerikan criminal injustice system. This system
predicated on the punishment of isolating people
from society is a sick response from a society
which rejects full participation from national
minorities. MIM points to Maoist China for examples
of a healthy prisons system at work. Prisoners in
China were assisted in making self criticism and
reforming whatever problems had led them to prison
in the first place.(2)
NO LONGER A THREAT TO BLOATED WHITE LABOR
A throwback to the slave era, chain gangs fell out
of favor in the 1940s. But in 1995, the middle-
class is ready to see prisoners used to do the
manual work it doesn't want to do. In the past,
organized labor opposed prison labor because it
undercut union wages. Now the white working class
eliminates its competition by putting it in prison
and making it do its manual labor.
Particularly in the South, the so-called justice
system has a history of throwing people in prison
just to get free labor out of them on the chain
gangs. Now prison construction companies and prison
guard unions have an interest in throwing people in
prison for arbitrary reasons, including national
oppression. These lobbies are joined by politicians
eager to please the increasingly parasitic workers
who can't remember the days when they were manual
laborers threatened by prison labor. Likewise the
newspapers sell papers and ads by running
sensational stories about the tiny minority of
really sick people in this society, while running
few stories about the majority of prisoners in
prison for non-violent crimes.
MAKING A SPECTACLE OF PUNISHMENT
Hypocrite Clinton and the U.S. media criticize
state-capitalist China for its use of forced labor
when we have the same thing going on here. There is
a prison industry making clothes in California and
Oregon that competes with China.(3)
There have been protests of Arizona's efforts to
turn the oppression of prisoners into a media
spectacle. In June, a prisoner rights activist took
a bull horn to a chain-gang media spectacle and
spent an hour speaking to the prisoners. When the
police tried to arrest her, the prisoners sat down
and refused to work.
Arizona's governor has announced a plan to make the
"state's 121 death row prisoners break rocks and
dig holes." Also in June, a prisoner "work crew
inside the prison ... sat down and refused to break
rocks for the media contingent who arrived to
collect footage of the spectacle."(4)
MIM studies the Maoist path because we will someday
lead in building a society in which people assist
and improve each other. We will rejoice in the end
of this murderous system which punishes the
oppressed in the name of parasitism.
NOTES:
1. Reuters, Nov. 21, 1995
2. Prisoners of Liberation, by Allyn and Adele
Rickett is a memoir of two Amerikans' imprisonment
in China in the early 1950s. Order a copy from MIM
for $13.
3. Prison Legal News, citing a Seattle Times story
of March 18, 1994.
4. PLN October 1995, p. 4
* * *
WANT TO END RAPE? SEIZE PROLETARIAN POWER
Amherst, MA, Nov. 15--Popular pseudo-feminist Katie
Koestner spoke about her date rape to a packed room
of several hundred. In 1990, after she had dated a
man for a week and a half, he raped her in her
college dorm room. The District Attorney wouldn't
prosecute the man. Koestner then asked her college
to take disciplinary action; the man was banned
from Koestner's dorm for the semester.
Now Koestner is on a tour of college campuses,
lecturing about date rape: what it is, and how to
avoid it. Her lectures are a confused but
deliberate attempt to separate rape from sex. MIM
believes that no meaningful distinction between the
two is possible under patriarchy; women never
consented to being born into a system in which men
have more power than they do, so how can women ever
give coercion-free consent to individual sex acts?
While MIM acknowledges that under patriarchy, all
sex is rape, we know that First World women do not
need sexual relationships for survival. We require
forever monogamy of our members and advocate it for
the masses, because a commitment to working through
problems in a relationship is the closest thing to
a guarantee of increasing equality in a
relationship. We work to abolish patriarchy which
is the only way to end rape. Feminists need to
focus on building independent institutions of the
oppressed to overthrow patriarchy, not on how to
distinguish between good sex and bad sex within the
confines of patriarchy.
UNDER PATRIARCHY, ALL SEX IS RAPE
Koestner's approach to men is contradictory. She
stresses that only a minority of men rape and
should be punished severely by the government, yet
she bends over backwards to get all men to hear her
message. Her primary message is: "Women, be
careful. Men be responsible." MIM asserts that care
and responsibility are only serious demands when
people can communicate honestly; this cannot happen
in the context of coercion. In her discussion of
consent, Catharine Mackinnon asks, "If you fear you
might be raped if you say no, what is the value of
a yes?"
Koestner's story is an excellent illustration of
the power dynamics that mask consent, even between
two privileged college students. Koestner said "no"
at least a dozen times during her rape, but her
date had sex with her anyway. But in the period
before the rape, verbal comments and demands that
she drink wine with dinner bothered her. She drank
wine that she didn't want to, tolerated comments
she didn't like and chose not to kick him out of
her room (or leave) when he took his clothes off.
MIM agrees with Koestner that this is rape but we
would also call it rape if Koestner never said
"no", possibly out of fear, possibly out of
socialization that a woman is not supposed to say
no, and possibly because she found having a man
dominate her sexy.
DOWN WITH DATING ADVICE, UP WITH ACCOUNTABILITY
Koestner stressed three factors in dating:
communication, responsibility and respect. MIM
supports these principles in romantic
relationships, but challenges feminists to get
serious about what these things mean under
patriarchy. Women maintain dating relationships
with coercive elements because they understand that
power is part of sex. Sexual relationships will be
coercive until power relations between groups of
people cease to exist. This is why MIM advocates
forever monogamy in which sexual partners are
required to be honest with each other as the best
sexual practice under patriarchy. There is no room
in feminism for sexual games or dishonesty.
Koestner exposed the murkiness of her distinction
between good sex and rape when she said in
reference to partners asking permission to touch:
"if she doesn't answer, maybe you should ask
again." But asking repeatedly fits Koestner's
definition of emotional pressure leading to rape.
PIGS CAN'T STOP RAPE
Koestner is pro-pig, encouraging women to file rape
charges in criminal courts, and to pressure college
judicial systems to give stronger punishments.
Campus judicial systems exist to hide crimes from
the courts and media. Schools discourage criminal
prosecution and empower on-campus judicial boards
to sanction students for violating laws as well as
campus codes of conduct. Most of these judicial
boards operate on a guilty until proven innocent
basis, and turn out more convictions than criminal
courts. But the schools fear law suits and often
give out very meek punishments.
Even a harsh punishment handed down by a
patriarchal institution is not going to end rape.
People who are interested in abolishing patriarchy
should be working on building independent power of
the oppressed, not legitimizing patriarchy by
asking its institutions to arbitrate rape cases.
Also on this page, Cecilia Rodriguez, who was raped
in Chiapas describes her commitment to the
revolutionary feminist struggle against the
patriarchy. This is an example of a real
alternative to running to the pigs for protection
from the patriarchy that they help to uphold.
DOWN WITH PATERNALIST FEAR
One woman in the audience criticized Koestner for
focusing on fear. The critic argued that it would
be better to focus on being "pissed off" and to
struggle for change. The audience shouted this
woman down, with cries that "It's reality." MIM
supports this woman critic's stance. The supposed
need for fear is only bourgeois reality, it is not
a reality that anyone with a serious interest in
feminism should accept. Women and men who want to
end all forms of rape should be working to end the
oppression of groups over groups of people, to
eliminate the possibility of individuals wielding
such power in intimate relationships.
* * *
AMERIKAN MILITARY STILL CONTROL THE NET
MacHome Journal reported the following recently:
"Do you know who's keeping watch over your Internet
domain name (the basic address of a corporation or
organization, such as MacHome.Com)? The national
press reported recently that the National Science
Foundation has turned over Internet domain name
registration to Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI) of
Herndon, Virginia, but Web Review, a biweekly
online magazine (http://gnn.com/wr/), noted that
NSI is owned by Scientific Applications
International Corp. (SAIC) of San Diego. SAIC's
board members include Admiral Bobby Inman, former
deputy director of the CIA; and retired General Max
Thurman, commander of the Panama invasion. Recently
board members include Robert Gates, former CIA
director; William Perry, current secretary of
defense; and John Deutch, the current CIA
director."(1)
The extent to which military personnel are in
charge of corporations charged with managing
important pieces of the Internet hierarchy is not
surprising. The Internet of 1995 has its roots in
the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research
Projects Agency experimental network (the
ARPANET).It was only in 1988 when the DOD began to
dismantle the ARPANET that the National Science
Foundation built NSFNET as the new Internet
backbone.(2)
Activists should be conscious of the extent of
military and government control over the Internet.
This international network is a precious resource
for organizing and agitating; we should be aware of
the need to use caution now and to seize this
resource for exclusive service of the needs of the
people in the future. We can do much valuable work
with tools developed by the pigs for imperialist
use, and we can only look forward to making
militarist use of the Internet obsolete.
NOTES:
1. MacHome Journal December 1995, p. 17.
2. Paul Albinez & Cricket Liu, DNS and BIND in a
Nutshell. (Sebastopol. CA: O'Reilly & Associates,
1992), p. 1-2
* * *
NEW TREATY GRANTS U.S. MILITARY
GREATER DOMINANCE IN THE PHILIPPINES
On December 9 the United Snakes and the Government
of the Republic of the Philippines will ratify the
Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA),
which opens 22 commercial ports throughout the
Philippines to the U.S. military. This effectively
gives the U.S. military greater access to the
Philippines than it had when it still occupied the
Clark and Subic Bay bases.
In 1991, a mass anti-base movement pressured the
Philippine Senate to terminate the United Snakes'
lease on Clark and Subic Bay bases. Almost
immediately, the Ramos puppet regime began
negotiations with the U.S. military on the ACSA.
Since the United Snakes gave the GRP nominal
independence in 1946, the so-called U.S.-R.P.
Mutual Defense Treaty has given the U.S. military
the right to use the Philippines as a base for its
aggressive activities in Asia and the Pacific. U.S.
military personnel are immune to prosecution for
the crimes they have committed against Filipinos on
Philippine soil. Prostitution is rampant around
U.S. bases. The abandoned Clark and Subic Bay bases
are toxic waste dumps which Amerika has refused to
clean up.
The U.S. military directly oppresses the people of
the Philippines and props up the economic system
which keeps the Philippines mired in poverty. This
is why one of the principal goals of the national
liberation movement led by the Communist Party of
the Philippines is to eliminate the U.S. military
presence in the Philippines and why the people
continue to unite around this goal.
MIM supports the Filipino people in their just
demand for an end to U.S. occupation. Contact MIM
for more information on the Communist Party of the
Philippines and the National Democratic Front of
the Philippines and their struggle against
imperialism.
NOTE: Solidaridad November 1995, p. 4. Solidaridad
is a publication of the Philippine Peasant Support
Network (PESANTE).
* * *
SHELL-BACKED NIGERIA EXECUTES OGONI ACTIVISTS
by MCB52
On November 10, the government of Nigeria executed
nine Ogoni activists. Those hanged after
convictions on trumped-up murder charges included
the popular leader of Ogoni opposition to Royal
Dutch/Shell Corporation's operations, Ken Saro-
Wiwa. Saro-Wiwa was a Nobel prize winner who wrote
poetry indicting imperialism and organized the
masses against European and Amerikan oil interests.
Now the military regime is engaging in renewed
repression of the mass movement against imperialist
exploitation in Ogoniland.
Unlike most mass murders of anti-imperialist
leaders, the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight
other Ogoni activists has seen much bourgeois
press. This exposure is a good thing because it
forces Amerikans to see the ideological
contradictions of the so-called free market.
Imperialism has not brought democracy when those
who voice opposition are summarily slaughtered,
with or without trial, in massacres in the streets
or public hangings. MIM does not beg the
imperialist multinationals or comprador regimes to
play nice, we call for the self-determination of
all peoples.
SHELL BOOTED FROM OGONILAND
Oppressed nations can achieve self-determination by
being arbiters of who can and cannot do business on
their land. As the Ogoni did, oppressed nations can
decide whether their land will be a safe or unsafe
place to do business.
MIM reported last April that Ogoni activism was on
the rise and getting results. The Ogoni forced
Shell Oil out of their region of Nigeria, known as
Ogoniland, two years ago. While the company
maintains its operations elsewhere in the Niger
delta, Saro-Wiwa's movement, known as Movement for
the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), made
Shell's operations in Ogoniland too much trouble.
As one manager said: "We haven't had the same level
of agitation against Shell and the government as in
Ogoniland. The Ogonis' demands have gone far beyond
those of other minorities...Our staff and equipment
were facing so much danger that we decided to
withdraw."(1) MOSOP's persistence is reported to
have also made the government raise compensation
rates for the oil-producing lands from 3 to 13
percent.(2)
The gains of the struggle have been limited so far.
Shell left a mess built up over three decades of
exploitation behind it and the government maintains
a policy of wanton neglect of the Ogoni people so
that their schools, health centers and roads are in
appalling disrepair. Electricity and telephones are
hardly available at all.(1) The Ogoni must change
this situation themselves. The comprador state will
not serve their interests.
MNCS DEMAND REPRESSION OF OPPRESSED NATIONS
The New York Times was very disappointed that Shell
did not tell the Nigerian government to behave
itself. Since the executions, Shell has indeed been
a vocal critic of the Nigerian government's
actions. While ignoring the blatantly fabricated
murder charge before it went to trial, Shell
quietly suggested when the executions were imminent
that the Nigerian government might be going too far
in killing these activists. Of course, the New York
Times stayed nicely in toe of the imperialist
practice until after the mass execution was
complete, and even now the general bourgeois media
does not recognize the imperialists' culpability
for the murders. The New York Times whines that
"Summary executions, fraudulent trials and brutal
suppression of dissent are not practices a
responsible corporation can ignore."(3) The
corporation does not ignore these practices, it
enforces them. The New York Times accepted full-
page ads from the Nigerian regime while it
editorialized about that regime's brutality.(4)
Saro-Wiwa's brother has noted that Shell's number
one man in Nigeria, Brian Anderson, offered to use
the company's influence to prevent the execution if
Ogoni leaders would call off global protests of the
company. Though Shell has acknowledged that secret
meetings took place, it did not reveal the topic of
conversation. "He said he would be able to help us
to get Ken freed if we stopped the protest campaign
abroad. Shell are involved in Nigerian politics up
to their neck. If they had threatened to withdraw
from Nigeria unless Ken was freed, he would have
been alive today."(4) Shell decided to risk the
intensification of the mass movement caused by the
executions without this assurance. It used token
press-releases to feign concern about the blatant
human rights violations, but chose not to try to
prevent them.
These games between multinational corporations
(MNCs) and their puppet regimes are not uncommon.
Some times the multinationals or imperialist
governments recognize that revolutionary pressure
is building and it is time to let off some of the
steam by granting concessions or disposing of
particularly horrible CIA-trained dictators. The
dictators, in the case of Nigeria General Sani
Abacha, tend to be very nervous in maintaining
their rule given their proximity to popular
opposition. Therefore, the imperialists take it
upon themselves to micro-manage the internal
affairs to strike a balance between the crumbs of
appeasement and the force of repression.
Because there is no peace under imperialism,
however sophisticated, that balance is usually
brutal. Shell and the Nigerian government work in
close alliance. For example, in January 1993, after
hundreds of thousands in Ogoniland joined mass
protests against Shell, the police razed 27
villages; 2,000 Ogonis were killed; 80,000 were
displaced.(5) These are the most blatant of the
mass-murders of the MNC-military government
alliance. They are also responsible for deaths due
to the gross environmental degradation and economic
destruction of the region.
MAKING THE LAND SAFE FOR SHELL; INCREASING
REPRESSION OF OGONI MASSES
At this point, Shell is letting Abacha continue his
unabashed repression. The military government has
executed MOSOP's leadership and is forcing it
underground. According to one teacher in Ogoniland:
"We are suffering a lot now. The Ogoni people are
not free to express their views. MOSOP has been
driven underground. There are soldiers and
government agents all around. In the Gokana area
alone there are now 3,000 soldiers. If you say you
are a supporter of Ken Saro-Wiwa you will be
arrested and jailed."(1) Another teacher at a
school in Bera said, "Saro-Wiwa was fighting for
the Ogoni people. He never demanded money or
anything from anybody. The government people get
their money from oil; they killed him because he
was a threat to that."(6)
Some of Ken Saro-Wiwa's last words in support of
the Ogoni struggle were: "Whether I live or die is
immaterial. It is enough to know that there are
people who commit time, money and energy to fight
this one evil among so many others predominating
worldwide. If they do not succeed today they will
succeed tomorrow. We must keep striving to make the
world a better place for all of mankind--each one
contributing his bit, in his or her own way."(7)
NOTES:
1. The Independent Nov. 30, 1995, p. 15.
2. Washington City Paper Dec. 8, 1995 p. 19.
3. New York Times Dec. 3, 1995, p. 14.
4. AFX News Service (London) Nov. 30, 1995.
5. NYT Nov. 17, 1995, p. 31.
6. Washington Post Dec. 10, 1995, p. A29.
7. Letter from Saro-Wiwa, Mail & Guardian May 1995.
* * *
UPDATE ON DETROIT NEWSPAPER STRIKE: THE AMERIKAN
"PROLETARIAT"?
by a member of the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist
League (RAIL)
The newspaper guild strike against the Detroit News
and Free Press continues, and neither side seems
ready to give in. The president of Local 22 of the
newspaper guild has referred to unfairly low
wages,(1) while Frank Vega, CEO of Detroit
Newspapers which owns the News and Free Press
claims that the newspaper guild local has "the best
wages, the best benefits, the best work rules in
the country." The argument is over how big a piece
of superprofit pie these workers should have.
Less than 200 jobs remain for the striking workers
as many previous strikers have crossed the picket
lines. Vega also said that he now knows that "we
can do the work with 700 fewer people."(2) Before
the strike, the company offered a wage increase of
10.3% over three years, and buyouts of 100 jobs at
$70,000 per job. Since that time the buyout offer
has been withdrawn.(3) It is not surprising that
the company can operate with less employees; big
businesses in Amerika make no profit from the white
working class.(4) When these Amerikan workers
strike for more wages, they are striking for their
share of Third-World plunder.
The Newspaper Guild has filed a lawsuit against
Detroit Newspapers, claiming civil rights
violations and Detroit Newspapers is filing a
counter suit against. The unions are accused of
racketeering,(5) in part because of vandalism of
distributors' cars and trucks.(6) These random acts
of unorganized violence do not represent a working
class ready for revolution, but one that will take
extreme measures to better its own conditions at
the expense of the Third World.
TROTS TAIL THE STRIKE; APPROVE WHITE WORKERS'
ADVANCE OVER "MORE BACKWARD" WORKERS
On the coat tails of this strike are many
Trotskyist groups attempting to use this as an
example of exploitation of the white working class.
We contacted the Workers' League to hear the
Trotskyist line on this strike. The Workers' League
representative called these workers part of an
international working class, whether they realize
it or not, and that they need to be part of a
rejuvenated international workers' movement. This
person also said that the Workers League was
attempting to educate these workers for that cause.
This person also made the contradictory statement
that it was acceptable for these strikers to fight
for an improvement in living standards! How can the
strikers be part of an international movement if
they fight to improve a living standard that has
been built-up on the backs of Third World workers?
The Workers' League representative admitted that
the Amerikan workers have a privileged status among
workers internationally (quickly pointing out that
they have fallen behind Germany and Japan), but
said that they should not take pay cuts to satisfy
"more backward" countries. MIM does not want pay
cuts for Amerikan workers, MIM wants an end to the
imperialist system that pays with blood money.
MIM and RAIL do not work to support strikes like
these over a pie that is baked by the exploited and
starving people of the Third World. We fight to
give that pie back to the masses who worked so hard
to create it. The idea that imperialism can not be
defeated without the Amerikan working class is
built on Amerikan chauvinism. The Third World is
80% of the world population, and the day will come
when U.S. imperialism will have to answer 100% to
the truly exploited.
NOTES:
1. The Michigan Daily Nov. 7, 1995, p.1.
2. The Michigan Daily Nov. 16, 1995.
3. The Detroit Free Press Oct. 31, 1995.
4. See MIM Theory 1: A White Proletariat? available
from MIM for $3.
5. The Michigan Daily Nov. 15, 1995.
6. The Detroit Free Press Oct. 30, 1995, p. 1B.
* * *
***Reprinted from Red Star, Platform for Communist
Revolutionaries
Vol. 4, No 11.
Nov. 16, 1995
Thirssur, Kerala-680 322
INDIA***
PEOPLE'S WAR IN PERU
A recent report on Reuters Wire Service said
"...guerrillas in the Huallaga are on the move.
Rebels also have stepped up propaganda, infiltrated
some unions and community groups and are active
along the Central Highway connecting Lima with the
highlands." [10 July 1995] Following are reports on
a few of the actions that have been covered in the
press.
GUERRILLAS AMBUSH POLICE
According to a report released by the military, PCP
guerrillas ''ambushed a police truck in the
southwestern region of Huancavelica, killing eight
policemen The police troop carrier was destroyed in
the explosion.'' The report also revealed that the
ambushed truck was engaged in a mission "pursuing
guerrillas in the area'' when it was ambushed. [25
July Reuters] The bodies of the policemen killed in
the ambush were found with signs on them saying:
"Armed forces and police forces! You think that we
have suffered a great blow. You are dreaming. We
say go on dreaming. This is merely a bend in the
road."[28 July EI Mundo-Spain]
200-STRONG PLA COLUMN CONFRONT MILITARY PATROL
A day after Lima newspapers announced that the
total number of active guerrillas was now less than
170 individuals their claim became the object of
ridicule when the military announced that a PCP
Column "made up of between 180-200 rebels" attacked
a military patrol in Fujimori's 'Little Vietnam' in
the Huallaga. [Reuters 21 July]
According to military communiqués the attack was
just one of a series of confrontations between PCP
guerrillas and military patrols in the jungle
between the villages of Montero (where the military
massacred many peasants in April 1994) and Alto
Pacae. The military report said: "The insurgents
attacked with automatic weapons and at the same
time threw grenades and charges of dynamite against
a military column that patrolled this vast jungle
region of the Alto Huallaga." 21 military personnel
were killed and 6 wounded. [La Vanguardia 23 July]
PCP REBELS DESTROY POLICE GARRISON
According to a report in Reuters [July 10] "a
column of 150 Shining Path rebels seized the town
of Nuevo Progreso [Huanuco Province] late on
Saturday and then pulled out before the army
arrived early on Sunday to restore order." The
target of the attack was the police garrison. The
police installation was completely destroyed
following what military reports described as "5
hours of intense fire." Four police agents died.
[La Vanguardia, 23 July]
CAR-BOMB TARGETS PROPONENT OF AMNESTY LAW:
On 1 July 1995, 40 kilograms of dynamite exploded
outside the residence of Congressman Victor Joy Way
of Fujimori's Cambio 90-New majority coalition.
Joy Way has been an unapologetic advocate of
Fujimori's most repressive laws, and the press has
attributed the car-bombing to his sponsorship of a
bill in Congress which puts the Congressional stamp
of approval on Fujimori's Amnesty Law. In its
report on the attack Reuters said: "Joy Way last
week introduced a bill approved by Congress
reaffirming a recent controversial amnesty for
soldiers and police accused of violating human
rights in l5 years of war against leftist
guerrillas. The amnesty, which had been facing a
legal challenge, is opposed by more than 80 percent
of Peruvians, according to polls "[2 July]
PLA ACTIONS REPORTED IN 11 PROVINCES:
Peru's Ideele Magazine (May-June 1995) noted that
the Peruvian government reported 63 actions in 11
of Peru's 23 provinces during the months of April
and May 1995. Military bases in the provinces of
Huanuco and San Martin were attacked. PCP columns
ambushed military patrols in Huanuco, Junin,
Huancavelica and there were numerous battles
between the Armed Forces and guerrilla columns in
Huanuco and Junin provinces. Police posts were
attacked in La Libertad and Ayacucho provinces.
High tension pylons were downed, causing black-outs
in the Ayacucho and Lima provinces There were also
reports of actions to disseminate PCP propaganda in
Lima. **
* * *
UNDER LOCK AND KEY:
NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS
FEDERAL PRISONERS FACE LOCKDOWN
Dear Comrades,
In my last two letters, I forgot to mention that I
have been receiving your MIM Notes unhindered.
Please be aware that I will never lose interest in
your work, but as you say, policy is policy.
What do you think about the national shutdown of
nearly all federal prisons? Within this state, they
have moved all inmates into a security system
called "control movement". Instead of allowing us
to go to the recreation field, which was probably
an area of one square mile, they have placed us in
an area of maybe 250 square yards behind our
dormitories. One dorm alone houses about 300
inmates.
We are not allowed to go from the A-side to the B-
side of the dorm any longer. Whatever side you are
on, that's the side you stay on. They are really
making it a cattle stall now....Until next time,
may we all struggle as one against the beast!
--a South Carolina prisoner, 10/30/95
DEATH PENALTY CRISIS IN AMERIKKKA
Legalized lynching, commonly referred to as the
"death penalty", is out of control in the United
States of America. Only Allah (God) knows how many
poor people will have to be murdered by the states
before this genocidal machinery of death stops.
There is a bloodbath taking place in the U.S. today
with the southern "death belt" states carrying out
executions at a frenzied pace. In Texas, sometimes
as frequently as two legalized lynchings per week,
with no end in sight. What is happening at this
bloody site is an international disgrace. It is
appalling, outrageous, horrific and it is getting
worse!
No longer can socially conscious people of good
will and progressive forces throughout the world
remain silent in the face of the enormity of these
human rights violations and this racial injustice.
For history is a fit testimony of the fact that if
a government is not strongly resisted when it does
wrong, it will continue to do wrong. Silence in the
face of injustice and inhumanity only invites
greater barbarity. This human massacre is
horrifying and tragic. Poor people, human beings,
are being silently killed in the middle of the
night and little is known or being said about it.
This is the time to break the silence--by any means
necessary! We must all come together and stop this
bloody massacre!
Only hours ago, the people of the United States
murdered yet another African-American male, Carl
Hammond. He was the 12th person murdered by the
political serial killers of Texas this year. The
97th person I have known and befriended who has
fallen victim to this bloody madness since my
unjust arrival on Texas' death row as a child in
1981.
Today, June 21, 1995, as the blood of victims of
legalized lynchings continues to flow in Texas and
throughout the country, I have initiated an
indefinite hunger strike to protest against this
racial injustice. I will only discontinue the
hunger strike in the event that there is serious
and immediate action taken to impose a moratorium
on all executions throughout the U.S. Pending the
outcome of an in-depth inquiry of the racist use of
the death penalty and the civil and human rights
abuses arising from its use.
I believe strongly that such an inquiry will
provide us with concrete and solid evidence on the
social impact, constitutionality and desirability
of the death penalty and ultimately lead to and
support abolition of the death penalty in this
country once and for all before the executioners
kill all of us....
Sadly and outrageously, there have already been
over 18,777 executions in this country since the
first documented one in 1608. Racism has
accompanied this shameful march for nearly 400
years...
Today, there are more that 3,000 men, women and
children trapped on America's death rows. A
disproportionate number of them are poor
minorities. Former slave-holding states have
carried out over 80% of all U.S. executions. The
death penalty is used almost exclusively to
vindicate the death of a white person and is seldom
sought when the victim of the crime is a person of
color. Why in all of modern history have there been
only three white persons executed for taking the
life of a Black person? This is yet another example
of the double standard of justice in Amerikkka,
which places value on the life of a white person
but totally devalues the lives of people of
color...
We must take immediate action to abolish the death
penalty in this country, just as those great and
courageous spirits before us rose to the challenge
and met the demands of history and abolished
slavery. For as the late Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall once declared: "The scandalous
state of our present system of capital punishment
will cast a pall of shame over our society for
years to come. We cannot let it continue."....
--A Texas prisoner, 6/21/95
A WORLD OF DESPAIR
We are the oppressed; We are the forgotten; We are
the ones that Suffer day after day. What is to
become of Ourselves in this world of ours?
The bricks we count Just to wind down our long
days, to hope to be free again, Shall we always be
forgotten to the days of our death?
And then do we have to oppress our peoples that are
behind those walls that show despair with No
concern because "It's not our problem?"
But do beware you may be next, to find the pain
that lurks in there.
--an Iowa prisoner, 10/16/95
AFFLICTION
Troubled by thoughts of loneliness on short running
roads back by circular wire high above the sky
Might not make the difference for all the rage
within bundle up in-tie for the otherside.
--an Iowa prisoner, 10/16/95
SOUTH CAROLINA SANCTIONS LETHAL INJECTIONS
Since I last wrote I have been placed on lock-up
for standing up for myself, which one has to do a
lot around here. It has gotten to the point now
where these people (prison officials) just do
anything. They have just passed a law for the
lethal injection, and the first person they killed
was a handicapped African-American. All that the
prisoners did here was say how fucked up it was.
Which is right, but what is really fucked up was
that there was nothing they (other prisoners)
wanted to do about it. The ones that did try to
protest or have a sit-in, or boycott the canteen
were locked up or ignored.
The real sadness of it all is that next time it
might be one of these brothers getting that needle.
Wake up, my brother! Sleep no more in the belly of
the beast. Don't take your life for granted.
Remember it could be you, me or your neighbor next
time. Let's not let there be a next time.
No matter what, the blood of brother Sylvester
Adams is on the South Carolina Department of
Corrections' hands. Well, until next time, I'll
leave you with one final thought. Want for your
brother man that which you would want for yourself.
Sylvester Adams (1959-1995) Peace be Upon Him. The
first to die in South Carolina of lethal injection
and hopefully the last.
--a South Carolina prisoner, 9/27/95
OHIO-7 MISREPRESENTED
On Oct. 1, NBC's Sunday Night Movie was titled, "In
the Line of Duty: The Hunt for Justice." It was
billed as the "true story" of the decade-long
government hunt for a group of anti-imperialist
political fugitives who, when finally captured in
1984 and '85, were called the Ohio-7. This was a
pro-FBI/police/government movie that contained many
misrepresentations and one very dangerous outright
lie. It had no input or collaboration from any of
the Ohio-7. In fact, we weren't even aware that
this movie existed until it was aired.
Besides casting the revolutionary fugitives in a
negative light in which the government was
portrayed heroically, a totally fabricated element
was included. Richard Williams, one of the Ohio-7,
was shown as cooperating and providing information
to the FBI. This is absolutely false. In one scene,
as Richard is being transported by the FBI and NJ
State Police, they threaten to kill him and as the
scene ends, he is seen agreeing to talk. This never
happened. No defendant in any of the Ohio-7 state
and federal trials, including Richard Williams,
ever was a government witness or in any way worked
with the government against the Ohio-7.
Richard Williams was convicted in Brooklyn federal
court for conspiracy and bombing and later in NJ
State court for shooting a New Jersey state
trooper. He received double life from NJ and 45
years from the federal case. Richard, like three
other Ohio-7 political prisoners, has been in
prison for about 11 years. He has no release date.
Richard is and for years has been a committed left
activist, a political prisoner, a stand-up convict
and my friend. This slanderous lie has the stink of
the FBI COINTELPRO on it. It is designed to cause
mental anguish as well as physical attack. This is
a very serious move against our brother. Because of
the nature of this government lie, I am releasing
this statement immediately and ask that it be
disseminated as widely as possible. I am one of the
Ohio-7 and I feel confident that I speak for all
the Ohio-7 when I denounce this government lie
against Richard Williams.
--an Ohio-7 prisoner, 10/12/95
MEDIA COVERAGE OF CORRUPT POLICE: THE MUMIA
CONNECTION
NBC's program 'Dateline' which was aired on October
20, 1995, spoke of a corrupt police department in
Philadelphia. Corruption that covered up for five
Philadelphia pig cops mentioned in the program (but
we know there are more). It was reported that 55
people who've been "set up" and brought in by these
corrupt pig cops, have had their cases thrown out
or overturned by the courts.
These corrupt cops had planted drugs on people,
lied on people, and robbed people for their money.
It would be safe to say that they even murdered
people. According to the report there are about
1,000 cases that the Department of Justice is
looking at in connection to these cops. They are
(possibly) going to release those who are sitting
in prisons because of these foul cops.
Philadelphia is the same state where they are
holding brother Mumia for an alleged murder of a
cop (which he did not commit) and have him
sitting/rotting on death row. Now these truths are
coming to light. Now the news media is reporting
this reality.
But I still do not trust the news media. There is
some hidden agenda they have in wanting to expose
these truths. For the news media has known for
years of trumped-up charges being lodged against
innocent people and never said a word. The news
media knows of the secrets this government conducts
against the people and they go along with the
cover-ups by not reporting these truths unless it
is good for them to do so, not what is good for the
people.
...Still monitoring and still observing.
--A Michigan prisoner, 10/21/95
TWO WASHINGTON STATE PRISONS CENSOR MIM NOTES
MIM received letters from two Washington state
prisons rejecting MIM Notes.
On October 10, 1995, the Special Offender's Center
(SOC) in Monroe, WA returned the September 1995
issue of MIM Notes with a rejection notice.
Official Renschler at SOC claims that, "The mail
contains information which, if communicated, would
create a risk of violence and/or physical hard to
any person."
On October 24, 1995, the McNeil Island Correction
Center (MICC) in Steilacoom, WA sent MIM a
rejection notice for a copy of MIM Notes. Official
Hollowell at MICC claims that, "The mail or
publication is a threat to legitimate penological
objectives."
Complaints and protests can be sent directly to:
Tom Rolfs, Director, Division of Prisons or
Community Correction, P.O. Box 41100, Olympia, WA
98504-1100.
MAIL APPEAL FOR MIM NOTES
This letter was written to, Tom Rolfs, Director,
Division of Prisons, PO Box 41100, Olympia, WA
98504-1100, in response to MIM Notes being
censored.
This is an appeal to the censorship of the October
1995 issue of MIM Notes. The reason given for the
censorship was that in each issue on page two it
states: "MIM struggles to end the oppression of all
groups over other groups, classes, gender, nations.
MIM knows this is only possible by building public
opinion to seize power through armed struggle." The
claim is that the reference to armed struggle
violates DOC Policy 450.100 E.3.b.
Am I correct in understanding that each and every
copy of MIM Notes will be censored solely because
of this statement on page two? Please tell me if
there is anything else in this issue of the MIM
Notes which you find objectionable and a basis for
censorship.
DOC Policy 450.1000 E.3.b states material can be
censored by the DOC if "It may be reasonably be
thought that the material would incite, aid, or
abet the performance of physical violence or
criminal activity upon an individual or group, or
the material is deemed to be a threat to legitimate
penological objectives."
What "legitimate penological objectives" do you
claim are threatened by this issue of MIM Notes?
More importantly, how are such objectives
threatened? If you claim it will incite violence
please identify whom you think would be the object
and the perpetrators of such violence.
I have subscribed to and received MIM Notes for
approximately six years now. No issue has been
rejected prior to this and most importantly, no
illegal and criminal activity can be traced to any
issue of MIM Notes I have received. It is apparent
that you and your staff are seeking to impose your
political views and beliefs upon me. Being part of
the machinery that actively oppresses others and
helps maintain the political status quo, your
decision to censor is not surprising.
Please note that in Wright v. Van Boening, I
successfully litigated the censorship of political
materials similar to those in MIM Notes. In
addition to a monetary settlement and the return of
the materials, your predecessor, Larry Kincheloe,
sent all institutions a directive to the effect
that political materials of this type were not to
be censored. I can provide you with a copy if you
need one.
More recently in Wright v. Blodgett, I was also
successful in litigating the confiscation of
political materials of a similar nature and
received a monetary settlement.
I am requesting that this and all future issues of
MIM Notes be delivered to me in a prompt manner. In
the event you deny this appeal please inform me if
the decision to ban MIM Notes applies to all future
issues that will be sent.
Thank you for your time and attention in this
matter.
--A Washington state prisoner, 10/29/95
SUNDIATA ACOLI REQUESTS EMERGENCY RESPONSE
Sundiata has requested people contact their local
news media and demand coverage of the nationwide
prison uprisings that have been erupting as of late
as well as the total lock-down of all U.S. Federal
Prisons (including USP Allenwood where Sundiata is
imprisoned). He also asks people to contact their
Congressional representatives and state that if
they do not change their position on the sentencing
of crack offenders, they will not receive your
vote.
The following is a sample letter by a New Jersey
activist. Please feel free to use/modify this
example in writing your local media.
Dear Editor,
Your coverage on the issue of Congress voting to
maintain the disparities in sentencing between
crack cocaine and powder cocaine was unfortunately
minimal. The short story on October 31st "Clinton
Draws Flak on Crack" didn't nearly capture the
inherent racism in the Congressional decision to
ignore the recommendation of the Sentencing
Commission, which was that penalties for crack be
equalized with those of cocaine.
As a prisoner advocate, I am aware of thousands of
young males of color all over the country who have
been waiting for the Congress to vote to make the
minimum sentences equal. They feel, as do most of
us in the field of criminal "justice" that the
disparity in sentencing is based on the race and
economics of the law breaker--folks of color are
those most frequently using and being charged with
possession of crack cocaine, getting the mandatory
minimum of five years, as opposed to the mostly
white folks who get charged with use of the more
expensive cocaine getting a minimum of ten months
probation for possession of the exact same amount!
Can we really ignore the racism inherent in the
congressional decision? I am also suspecting racism
in the lack of coverage on the issue. How many
people know that young men of color protested and
rebelled in Federal prison after prison all across
the country? Where was the media coverage this past
couple of weeks on that? These young prisoners are
full of justifiable rage and frustration at the
differential treatment that whites get from police,
the courts and while in prison. They understand
that racism isn't an emotion, but is an intentional
political construct backed by the government and
its institutions. Racism is not some mental quirk
or psychological flaw. I can think of no clearer
example of this than the refusal of Congress to
heed the equalization recommendation of the
Sentencing Commission--and the astounding lack of
coverage of these nation-wide rebellions.
These young men of color have been doomed to years
of imprisonment, while seeing their white
counterparts walk.... President Clinton's statement
that "crack carries with it so many devastating
social ills" is shallow. It isn't crack that
carries with it social ills. It is the social ills
of poverty, horrendous schools and high
unemployment that create the need for pain-numbing
crack. Neither racially based sentencing nor
prejudicial coverage do justice to any of us.
Sincerely, --A New Jersey activist
MONEY MISUSED: PRISONS INSTEAD OF PEOPLE
Sorry for not writing, but there are so many
altercations going on in the system today that I
had to do an in depth study on the American Justice
System. First of all roughly 877,000 Black men
between the ages of 20 and 29, an astonishing one
in every three, are in prison, jail, on probation
or parole. Incarceration rates for Black men have
soared since 1990, when one in four were under the
criminal justice system.
Discrimination explains part of it. So does the
Sentencing Project, a research organization that
seeks alternatives to incarceration. Also the
nation's failed "War on Drugs". Police drug sweeps
in poor communities and mandatory sentencing laws
have had a disproportionate impact on young Black
men.
But discrimination and drug policy don't explain it
all. Poverty, unemployment, drugs, family
disintegration, and gangs in the poor communities
all play a part in the downward direction of our
Black men. So far the country is moving precisely
in the wrong direction, wasting increasing funds in
the construction and operation of prisons while
doing less to change the conditions that breed
crime in the first place. (The focus should be on
relieving poverty in the Black communities.)...
--a California prisoner, 10/11/95
PRISON BRIEFS
The beatings still go on. Isolation cells are still
being used, although I hear that both the "pink-
room" and the "cadre area" isolation cells are no
longer to be used due to a government
investigation, but if so, it hasn't started yet.
The physical and psychological torture is applied
constantly and the blowers I mentioned are still in
effect.
--a Maryland prisoner 5/7/95
Texas no longer feeds its captives beef. Yeah,
they've got a new flavor, "VitaPro" (soybean). They
are actually feeding us animal food. That and pork
(forced vegetarianism). Despite the fact that the
system raises and slaughters thousands of cows and
pigs a week. Obviously being sold for private
profit.
--a Texas prisoner, 6/2/95
We've been facing down attacks from various
plantation "administrators" because of our
political activities. Our press has been withheld
from captives at different camps. One brother was
put in the "hole" for a piece that he wrote on the
Oklahoma City bombing by the right-wing
reactionaries. Another brother was placed on "phone
restriction" for calling the media. So these are
some of the things that we must contend with. And
this isolation isn't helping one bit. Nevertheless,
just thought I'd "plug in". Press on and keep up
the good work.
Stand Firm, --a Michigan prisoner 9/17/95
A MASSACHUSETTS PRISON CONTINUES TO CENSOR MIM
NOTES
One Massachusetts prison has been censoring MIM
Notes since May 1995. In September 1995, Under Lock
& Key printed "Massachusetts prisoner fights
censorship," which documents one prisoner's
struggle to receive MIM Notes. This prisoner is
continuing his legal battle to receive this paper,
as the prison continues to censor MIM Notes. The
following is the most recent censorship letter from
the prison officials.
Dear Sir/Madam:
Please be advised in accordance with the Department
of Corrections policy, 103 CMR 481, Inmate Mail
Regulations, your publication, MIM Notes, shall be
disapproved for receipt by an inmate at Old Colony
Correctional Center for the following reasons:
poses a threat to security and good order of the
institution.
481.15 (1) (e) Depicts, describes or encourages
activities that may lead to the use of physical
violence or group disruption.
481.15 (1) (f) Encourages, facilitates or instructs
in the commission of criminal activity.
You may appeal this decision to the Superintendent,
Paul B. Murphy, should you opt to do so.
Respectfully,
Edward Ficco, Deputy Superintendent of Operations,
10/12/95
Letters of Protest can be addressed to: Edward
Ficco, Deputy Superintendent of Operations, or Paul
B. Murphy, Superintendent Executive Office of
Public Safety, Department of Correction Old Colony
Correctional Center, One Administration Rd.,
Bridgewater, MA 02324
Calls can be made to: Massachusetts Department of
Correction (617) 727-3400 or Old Colony
Correctional Center (508) 697-3360.
How many times do you have to break a man's body
before you break his soul?
Shaka Shakur is back in a lockdown situation - he
was recently put into the Hospital Restraint Unit
(HRU) of the Indiana Reformatory until he learns to
walk without crutches again.
After much pressure was put on to get him taken to
outside doctor, Shaka was finally sent to a
hospital and diagnosed with a herniated disc in his
back. He has been on medication for the pain for a
year and has been on crutches since June - recently
his crutches were taken away from him arbitrarily.
He was scheduled for surgery under the
recommendation of Dr. Kevin Kaufman at Wishard
Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana. Shaka has not
been allowed this surgery and has been further
isolated by being put into the HRU. Indiana
Reformatory "doctor" Dr. Chavez has further
escalated the situation by harassing Shaka--calling
him a "fucking shithead" and accusing him of faking
his injury.
The HRU is in total isolation from the rest of the
prison. According to Shaka it is much like the
Maximum Control Complex prison in Westville,
Indiana with boxcar doors and forced air and no
contact with anyone. The one other prisoner in the
HRU is being "treated" (i.e., experimented upon)
with psychotropic drugs.
Please write letters and send faxes to:
Ed Cohn Indiana Department of Corrections Indiana
Government Center South 302 W. Washington Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204
FAX: 317-232-6798
Demand that Shaka Shakur 28443 be removed from the
HRU and taken back to the AS unit where he was and
further demand that he be sent to Wishard Hospital
for the Surgery recommended by Dr. Kaufman, and
finally that he be given back his crutches.
Write letters of support to Shaka at:
Shaka Shakur 28443 Indiana Reformatory P.O. Box 30
Pendleton, IN 46064
--Posted to the Internet by BCAC, P.O. Box 93312,
Milwaukee, WI 53203, October 7, 1995
* * *
SAGE/UAW DEMANDS SHARE OF BLOOD MONEY
November 30--The UCLA's Student Association of
Graduate Workers/United Auto Workers (SAGE/UAW)
marched on UCLA's campus to demand "better health
care through collective bargaining" for student
employees of the University. As MIM Notes has
stated before, "SAGE wants to position itself to
get a larger share of UCLA's pie. But UCLA's pie is
stolen--its wages, library collection, manicured
lawns and seismic renovation construction [as well
as the health care it does provide] all rest on the
backs of the toiling peasants and workers of the
world's oppressed nations."(1)
MIM would like to see a world in which all people
have full access to health care, education, housing
and food. Principally the Third World proletariat
and peasantry lack these necessities, and MIM
speaks from their class viewpoint MIM. The people
of the neocolonies suffer under pro-landlord
dictatorships which are propped up by the U.S.
military and CIA. The University of California
(U.C.) plays no small part in this imperialist
process. U.C. manages the only labs in the United
Snakes which are authorized to design and test
nuclear warheads.(2) U.C. got $72,304,000 in total
contracts and grants from the Department of
"Defense" in Fiscal Year 1989 alone.(3) UCLA
received $18.7 million in Pentagon research funding
in Fiscal Year 1993.(4)
MIM leads the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League
(RAIL). RAIL is currently campaigning to smash
U.C.'s ties to the U.S. war machine, particularly
U.C.'s management of war labs. SAGE/UAW student
employees, on the other hand, are campaigning to
get a share of U.C.'s bloody war money. Some in
SAGE/UAW are merely acting in accordance with their
material interest, illustrating MIM's thesis that
the material interests of the privileged majority
of First World residents are in contradiction with
the material interests of the world's majority, the
Third World proletariat and peasantry. We call on
these petit-bourgeois students to break with their
misanthropic material interest, commit class
suicide and join humanity.
Others in SAGE/UAW are acting under the mistaken
impression that SAGE's demands are progressive. We
call on these subjectively progressive activists to
join RAIL's campaign against U.C.'s ties to the
U.S. war machine. By so doing, these activists will
strike a blow against the imperialist system which
forcibly denies basic needs like health care to the
world's majority. This would be much more
progressive than demanding more resources for an
already over-privileged group.
NOTES:
1. MIM Notes June 1995, p. 8.
2. Z Magazine April 1992, pp. 47-48.
3. The Pentagon: Directorate for Information,
Operations and Reports, 1987-1990, as cited in Z
Magazine, September 1991, p. 26.
4. West L.A. Independent July 28, 1994, p. 2
* * *
INTERVIEW WITH SCOTTISH COMRADE
***MIM interviewed a comrade from a party in
Scotland with some Maoist leanings called the
Workers Party. MIM sought an update on the anti-
poll tax struggle which this party had initiated.
See an upcoming issue of MIM Theory for a deeper
theoretical interview.***
MIM: What is happening now with the taxes that
replaced the poll tax?
WORKERS PARTY: There is no systematic attempt to
refuse to pay them. There is a campaign in which I
am to some degree involved to use the same mass
payment tactics to prevent water privatisation.
MIM: Did the anti-poll tax movement leave behind
any permanent organizations? In what sense does it
carry over into today's political movements?
WP: The Maoists were too few and ideologically
incoherent to make anything much of it. The
Militant labour has capitalised on it by getting
representatives elected. The anti-water
privatisation campaign draws on much of the
experience and some of the activists of the
previous campaign. There is still a struggle
against attempts to recover tax debts from then,
with Militant continuing to work hard at it.
MIM: Here in Florida for instance, we have a
movement of reactionary whites to remove education,
health and other services from undocumented
workers; even though Florida has no income tax and
just a sales tax. What portion of labor in
Scotland and England is done by undocumented and
legal immigrants? What is their tax situation?
WP: There is no popular movement for this here,
but the government is going to do it none the less.
I would think that the number of illegal immigrants
in Scotland would be relatively small, and indeed
relatively small in the country as a whole. I don't
know the details of whether illegal residents in
general pay income tax. I would think that in most
cases they would, since income tax is deducted here
by employers at source, not doing that would be to
openly admit that they were employing people
illegally.
* * *
FILM DOCUMENTS INDONESIAN BRUTALITY IN EAST TIMOR
The film East Timor: Death of a Nation premiered in
Boston on December 7th, exactly 20 years after
Indonesia's invasion of East Timor. More than
200,000 Timorese, approximately one third of the
1975 population, have been killed by the Indonesian
military since the invasion. Independent English
film makers John Pilger and Max Stahl produced this
film covertly, without the knowledge of the
Indonesian government. Pilger and Stahl's caution
is justified as journalists attempting to document
the brutal repression in East Timor have been
killed by the Indonesian military in the past.
This documentary intertwines interviews with East
Timorese guerrillas still fighting in the
mountains, Timorese in exile, people in the
villages and English and Australian government
officials. It paints a depressing picture of the
torture and massacre carried out by Indonesia, the
suffering and resistance of the East Timor people,
and the complicity of the imperialist governments.
Although this film does not focus on the U.S. role,
Amerika played a big part in both condoning the
1975 invasion and funding the subsequent massacre
and current repression.
NOVEMBER 12TH MASSACRE NOT AN ABERRATION;
MASSES RESIST INTEGRATION
Showing rare footage of the November 12, 1991
massacre of peaceful demonstrations, Pilger tells
the audience that a second unreported massacre took
place that same day and the following day. Then he
cuts to interviews of English and Australian
officials who say that this one massacre was an
aberration. The interviews, mass graves,
destruction, relocation and on-going military
occupation make it clear that the imperialists'
lies are necessary to defend their support for the
regime in Indonesia.
Interviewing Alan Clark. English defense minister
during the Indonesian invasion, about the massacres
in East Timor Pilger says "I read that you are a
vegetarian and are concerned with the way that
animals are killed. Does that concern extend to the
way humans are killed?" Clark's answer: "Curiously
not, no."
The resistance continues in spite of severe
repression in East Timor. On the third anniversary
of the November 12th massacre last year, over 1,000
East Timorese youth demonstrated in Dili. The
Indonesian authorities responded with tear gas,
beatings and mass detentions. This year riots and
other protests have broken out frequently
throughout the country. Most recently on October
1st in Dili groups of youth blocked off parts of
the town following clashes with pro-integration
Timorese. Police then fired indiscriminately into
crowds and broke into homes to break up the
protests. House to house searches for participants
in the unrest continued through November and
probably continue today. Amnesty International
reports that the military provoked the clashes that
led to the rioting in October "through the use of
agents provocateurs."(2)
In the Indonesian effort to force assimilation of
the East Timor population use of the Timorese
language is banned, cultural displays are not
allowed, massacres are a regular occurrence and
many people have been forcibly relocated to camps
where they can be more easily controlled and
monitored. Forced sterilization is becoming common
practice as the Indonesian government realizes that
the Timorese are not quietly submitting to
integration even after 20 years of repression.
School girls are being injected with the
contraceptive Depo Provera and told it is anti-
tetanus medicine. The doctor in one clinic boasted
of having sterilized 500 women. And while all this
is going on, Indonesian dictator Suharto won the
United Nations prize for support of family planning
recently.
AMERIKA FEEDS THE OCCUPATION
According to the U.S. state department, about 90%
of the weapons used during the Indonesian invasion
of East Timor were U.S.-supplied.(1) Indonesia and
the East Timorese resources it controls are
considered an important economic and strategic
prize. Amerika has provided Indonesia with hundreds
of millions of dollars in military and economic
assistance since 1975. The Clinton administration
alone has provided almost $300 million in economic
assistance and tens of millions of dollars in
weaponry in the past 3 years.(1)
Amerika's complicity in this brutal and hidden
massacre should force all who live within U.S.
borders to speak out and take action to support the
Timorese resistance. The courage and strength of
the Timorese resistance deserves the support of all
anti-imperialists.
To order a copy of the video Death of a Nation
write to ETAN at P.O. Box 1182, White Plains, New
York 10602. $40 for home use, $150 for full public
performance rights.
NOTES:
1. Los Angeles Times Dec. 7, 1995.
2. Network News, East Timor Action Network/US, P.O.
Box 1182, White Plains, New York 10602. Issue no.
12, November 1995.
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