= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 

     XX XX  XXX  XX XX   X   X  XXX  XXX  XXX  XXX
     X X X   X   X X X   XX  X  X X   X   X    X
     X V X   X   X V X   X X X  X X   X   XX   XXX
     X   X   X   X   X   X  XX  X X   X   X      X
     X   X  XXX  X   X   X   V  XXX   X   XXX  XXX

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 

         THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

     MIM Notes 109                  February 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.

IN THIS ISSUE:

1.  PATAKI TALKS WAR ON FIRST NATIONS
2.  SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY:MANDELA'S
    CONCESSIONS PROVE FATAL TO AZANIANS
3.  LETTERS TO MIM
4.  INCREASE REVOLUTIONARY AGITATION:
    MAKE MIM NOTES BIWEEKLY!
5.  BUCHANAN STEALS PHONY MARXIST THUNDER
6.  AMERIKAN CLAWS TEAR DEEP INTO HAITI
7.  NEW POLITICAL RESTRICTIONS ON
    IMMIGRATION COMING DOWN
8.  MILLION MAN MARCH LETTERS
9.  UNDER LOCK AND KEY:
    NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS
10. FIGHT AIDS IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST
    IMPERIALISM AND NATIONAL OPPRESSION
11. RAIL AGAINST MASSACHUSETTS PRISON EXPANSION 
12. VIRGINIA PRISON CRACKDOWN INTENSIFIES
13. PALESTINE HOLDS ELECTIONS; ISRAEL HOLDS THE 
    REINS
14. U.S. IMPERIALISTS OPPRESS TURKISH PEOPLE
15. HONG KONG FALSELY PROMISES WESTERN WAGES:
    CHINESE PROLETARIAT FIGHTS BACK
16. KOREAN MASSES REMEMBER KWANGJU MASSACRE
17. MOHAWKS RESIST IMPERIALIST MACHINATIONS
18. MIM ASKS MOHAWKS ABOUT SIX COUNTIES 
19. MOHAWK WOMEN WANT REVOLUTION
20. MOHAWKS FACE POLITICALLY-INDUCED RECESSION
21. FIRST NATIONS LIVE UNDER POLICE STATE, NOT 
    "DEMOCRACY"

***

PATAKI TALKS WAR ON FIRST NATIONS


New York governor George Pataki has contingency 
plans for bringing in the U.S. National Guard to 
enforce payment of state taxes on the First Nations 
enclosed within New York borders. In December, New 
York gasoline and cigarette dealers who feel that 
the First Nation dealers are running them out of 
business complained to Pataki in a demonstration 
near an Oneida gas station.(1) Thus far Pataki has 
not taken any special measures to tax the First 
Nations despite the state's victories in court 
battles against Amerikan dealers who distribute to 
First Nations, but this recent move indicates that 
the First Nations should be prepared for battle.

MIM spoke to a member of the Seneca nation passing 
by while MIM was on the way to a cigarette shop. 
Our Seneca friend had mixed feelings about New 
York's talk of war: They "can't do that; New York 
State can't declare war on the Seneca; if they want 
to do that the U.S. federal government has to do 
that." He also said, "they can get the same thing 
done just bringing drugs in here; they don't have 
to declare war. They'll probably just do that." MIM 
agreed with our friend that if the drugs don't 
outright incapacitate people, they can make them 
"brain dead" and thus damaged as if in war. On the 
other hand, the same Seneca is preparing for a 
shooting war in July, 1996 against New York State. 
He said the state is talking about putting up a 
steel fence around the Senecas, but he noted the 
Senecas would survive on the wealth of their own 
land even if they had to do without trade.

In the Akwesasne territory of the Mohawk nation, an 
activist against state taxes, named Kakwirakeron, 
told MIM that the contingency plans of New York 
compared the First Nations with Japan: "In one 
breath we're citizens; they're saying 'you're part 
of us;' next they're saying they have a contingency 
plan. Who makes military plans against their own 
citizens?" During World War II, the Amerikan 
government rounded up the people of Japanese 
descent. Our Mohawk nationalist friend points out 
that it's not possible to have it both ways: 
Amerika cannot claim to have citizens of minority-
national descent and then treat them as aliens when 
it's politically expedient.

When explaining that New York has not had the 
authority to tax the Mohawks for 220 years, the 
activist added that: "Indian people have never 
given foreign people the authority to tax. The 
United States came into being because Great Britain 
taxed them. `No taxation without representation. . 
.' That was their war cry. If it applies to them, 
certainly it applies to the Indian nation." MIM 
also agreed with our Mohawk friend when he said, "I 
don't know anybody who pays taxation to Russia, 
Italy. . .  etc." Amerika taxing Indians is the 
same as Russia or Italy taxing Amerikans.

At the same time, it is not the case that the 
Mohawks believe we can all march straight into the 
world without state power. Discussing the Amerikan 
prison situation, Kakwirakeron pointed out that 
according to the Great Law, which is the spiritual 
tradition the Mohawks follow, the death penalty is 
justified for treason, espionage and rape. However, 
there is a difference between Mohawk justice 
governing Mohawk people and imperialist taxes and 
criminal law being imposed on Mohawk people. 

As is already common in many places, the various 
nations of the Iroquois Confederacy will pay taxes 
to their own authorities: "They get caught up in 
that system [of the white man's] that provides 
employment and wages controlled by foreigners, so 
we do need to turn that around, and the direction 
we need to go. . . taxes is a dirty word now, but 
we're going to develop successful businesses and 
create economic empowerment. Part of that is that 
businesses" will return some of that to the 
community. Then the Mohawks will have "taxes paid 
to ourselves, not foreign governments."

Preventing a New York State war against First 
Nations presents a challenge to internationalists. 
On the one hand, we in imperialist North America 
are not ready to bring down the imperialist 
government. On the other hand, the First Nations 
are ready for us to do so, and they have a 
demonstrated willingness to take up armed struggle 
for their own national liberation. The First 
Nations cannot afford to wait for the rest of North 
America to recognize their independence. Hence, MIM 
and our friends must figure out ways to wage a 
particular kind of political struggle against 
imperialists oppressing the First Nations, and get 
them to pick on someone their own size.

NOTES: Indian Time Dec. 22, 1995, p. 24. 


* * *


SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY:
MANDELA'S CONCESSIONS PROVE FATAL TO AZANIANS


At least 38 Azanians were shot and hacked to death 
in December in a new escalation of the settler-
inspired war between supporters of the nationalist 
African National Congress (ANC) and the reactionary 
nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). Three 
brutal attacks carried out over a space of ten days 
prove that ordinary Azanians are still cannon 
fodder for the bourgeois power struggles between 
ANC's and IFP's leadership. The ANC and IFP are 
allied with opposing factions of the Afrikaner-
settler Nationalist Party (NP) which invented 
apartheid.(1)

Apartheid-sponsored and IFP-aligned hit-squads have 
sparked violence killing more than 20,000 Azanians 
in the past 12 years. Proletarians supporting the 
ANC in townships around KwaZulu-Natal and 
Johannesburg have retaliated fiercely.(2) The 
apartheid security apparatus achieved great success 
in its bid to divide Azanians along ethnic lines 
through its early alliance with the IFP and 
Mangosuthu Buthelezi. 


IFP DIVIDES AZANIANS TO SUPPORT APARTHEID


These 12 years of violence have created more than 
one-half million internal refugees in the KwaZulu-
Natal province, which has a total population of 
eight million. Significant portions of the youthful 
rural lumpenproletariat or migrant labor force are 
separated from their older relatives, as the 
proletarianized youth become involved in labor and 
civic struggles led by the ANC coalition.(2)

Buthelezi raises the ethnic flag as he fights for 
virtual secession of the province from the rest of 
the country to increase his power base. Buthelezi 
is not advocating self-determination as a path to 
liberation, he is attempting to advance his own 
position within neo-apartheid. Relying on a series 
of crises to keep his supporters mobilized, 
Buthelezi has fought for a federal governing system 
supported by the Amerikan and German governments. 
Buthelezi also wants to keep Azanians under the 
rule of hereditary amakhosi (chiefs), most of whom 
loyally served the apartheid regime for decades 
under his leadership. 

As the ANC and IFP fight over territory to shore up 
their negotiating positions, December's death toll 
demonstrates that the elections will be preceded by 
increased violence. It also shows the masses that 
they can't rely on the ANC leadership to protect 
them from the running-dogs of fascism. 


POLICE SUPPORT THE IFP


Police and witnesses agreed the latest attack--on 
the morning of December 25--was carried out by a 
heavily armed impi (mob) of 800 Inkatha Freedom 
Party supporters. The impi shot and butchered 18 
ANC supporters and injured dozens more in rural 
Shobashobane Ward, south of Port Shepstone.(1) The 
Shobashobane attack marks a new stage of battle 
between the ANC and IFP as most attacks in recent 
years have been carried out small groups at night. 
The involvement of 800 attackers in what the pigs 
say was a highly organized action is reminiscent of 
the height of the war in the mid-1980s when pitched 
street battles were common in parts of the 
province.

Survivors of the Christmas Day attack said the impi 
mercilessly hunted down its fleeing victims in a 
four-hour rampage. The local pigs--long accused by 
local ANC supporters of supporting the IFP's 
expansionist war in the area--say the attack was 
over by the time they arrived an hour after it 
began.(5)

There are two police stations within a ten minute 
drive of Shobashobane. The road to Shobashobane is 
clearly visible from the pig station. Reports of 
pigs assisting IFP killers are still common among 
the people. Despite their support for the comprador 
ANC leadership, the masses know that little has 
changed since the ANC merged with F.W. de Klerk's 
settler Afrikaner regime almost two years ago.


ANC FAILS THE PEOPLE


The ANC has promised repeatedly to protect the 
people, and deployed 1,000 extra pigs and soldiers 
around the province for this purpose. That the 
massacre happened in spite of this is not 
surprising; the ANC is allying with the NP to 
deploy the same pig force against the IFP that the 
apartheid government once used to suppress the 
people. The smattering of ex-guerrilla fighters 
from the ANC and Pan-Africanist Congress who have 
been integrated into the pig force and army have 
little influence over their settler superiors. As 
the handful of survivors of the Shobashobane 
massacre join the province's internal refugee 
population, Shobashobane has surely fallen to IFP 
control.

The ANC's comprador leadership is now adding its 
voice to the former regime's propaganda, touting 
the April 1994 elections as the successful 
conclusion of a negotiated revolution and the 
beginning of a new South Africa. But activists 
living in African townships and rural villages 
throughout KwaZulu-Natal continue to suffer the 
results of the ANC sell out.

In KwaZulu-Natal, people are now forced to live in 
an extended bantustan under IFP control, even 
though the provincial election was widely 
recognized as a total fraud. ANC leaders in the 
province-- notably the late Stalinist Harry Gwala 
who died last year after a vicious revisionist 
campaign against him by so-called comrades in the 
ANC and South African Communist Party--were 
chastised by President Nelson Mandela for 
challenging the election results. The ANC decided 
to accept the election results, arguing that 
Buthelezi would go to war if he didn't control the 
province. 


SELF-DETERMINATION FOR AZANIANS


Buthelezi wants KwaZulu-Natal to be politically 
independent while remaining economically integrated 
with South Africa. His desire for economic 
integration demonstrates his phony nationalism: 
genuine self-determination would include economic 
self-sufficiency as well. Mouthing the rhetoric of 
self-determination, Buthelezi exploits the English 
imperialist image of the so-called Zulus as a 
mighty warrior race. English historians built this 
image as an explanation of their own army's defeat 
at African hands in KwaZulu-Natal. But the people 
the English called Zulus were not all of a single 
ethnic group, and the people Buthelezi calls Zulus 
have no nationalist aspirations distinct from the 
Azanian hunger for liberation from the settlers.

The Azanian masses have fought a long battle 
against apartheid's efforts to pit them against one 
another as a dozen small separate and weak nations. 
They must reject this settler-inspired conflict in 
favor of the PAC slogan "Peace among the Afrikans, 
War against the enemy." Only a genuine 
revolutionary nationalist movement will achieve 
self-determination for the Azanian masses and 
destroy the neo-apartheid system.

NOTES:
1. New York Times Jan. 7, 1996.
2. South African Human Rights Committee reports
3. Mail & Guardian Dec. 22- Jan 3, 1996.
4. Detroit Free Press Dec. 26, 1995.
5. Detroit Free Press Dec. 30, 1995.
6. Mail & Guardian Sept. 22-28, 1995.
7. Gatsh Buthelezi: Chief with a Double Agenda, 
Mzala, 1984. 


* * *

LETTERS TO MIM

MIM'S PROTEST OF CIA INSULTING TO THE PEOPLE

Dear MIM,

Picked up a couple issues of MIM recently and would 
like to share some thoughts with you. I've always 
found your reporting interesting but do not wish to 
take any one position, so please, I don't need 
anything further than perhaps a direct response to 
the opinion below. ... I was moved to write when 
the article on p. 6 spoke about your group's 
apparent interest to restrict CIA access to school 
campuses. In my view, it is insulting to "the 
people" to "protect" them via restrictive 
techniques like that. Instead, I believe that any 
real protection comes from a constant program of 
broad-based education (or enrichment) of such truly 
deceiving-type organizations.

I think people can change minds best by efforts to 
convince (via documentation, etc.) instead of 
techniques that intimidate people to bow to a 
certain viewpoint--how ever factual it is. With 
protection via enrichment, people become 
strengthened so that wherever they go they can take 
their increasingly critical views with them. To me, 
that's much stronger than allowing others to do 
their homework for them.

--An Internet reader
January 1996

MIM responds: Thanks for writing to MIM. Your 
letter brings up an interesting and important point 
about power--who has it, and how is it used. It 
also raises the question of the role of 
revolutionary leadership in the struggle against 
imperialist patriarchy.

First, the role of revolutionary leadership. It 
seems we agree on the reactionary nature of the 
CIA. As a vanguard party fighting for abolition of 
oppression, MIM seeks to unite all who can be 
united against imperialism. The CIA embodies and 
carries out all that we hate about the United 
Snakes, and it is our responsibility as anti-
imperialists to agitate against its despicable 
actions. When the CIA comes to recruit on 
University campuses--historically one of the 
primary locations of youth's resistance to 
Amerikkka--MIM exposes this contradiction and uses 
it as a point of unity-building for the anti-
imperialist, anti-militarist forces.
Unfortunately, at this stage of the struggle we do 
not have the power to restrict a heavily armed 
military organization of the State from doing its 
disgusting job. The power we have comes from the 
method you uphold in your letter--building mass 
support among the people against the CIA and the 
Amerikan state. Through building an independent 
media, MIM provides exactly the kind of critical 
tools you mention. MIM Notes and other MIM 
publications are tools around which to organize. If 
students read MIM Notes and organize against the 
CIA on campus, we have provided revolutionary 
leadership. And as you can see from any issue of 
MIM Notes, we agree with you that documenting our 
sources is important.

In one sense, your accusation of an attempt to 
protect the people is accurate. However, we are not 
concerned about "protecting" UCLA students from the 
CIA--they are not the ones being slaughtered by it. 
We do try to prevent the slaughter of those in the 
Third World, however, and they do not take offense. 
The CIA is not engaging in polite dialogue with 
those struggling for justice in the Third World, it 
just kills. Though it is true that Third World 
peoples are organizing well to protect themselves, 
we have an obligation to help them from 
oppression's supply-side. This assistance is 
internationalist, not paternalist.

BLACK AND WHITE SHOULDN'T MATTER--BUT THEY DO

Dear MIM,

In MIM Notes 108 ... I was reading the letter, 
"Multi-National Organizing Debated: A Letter to 
Union Del Barrio." The one about them complaining 
on MIM's "methods" in distributing your literature 
or something to that nature. By the way, I agree 
with your response about your right to distribute, 
property of the masses and so on. But I would like 
to discuss 8 part of the response. The area where 
MIM stated: "MIM must never be equated with 
revisionists such as the SWP, the RCP, and other 
integrationist organizations."
Integrationist is what I'd like to highlight. What 
is your meaning of this? That you're against 
integration? Though I don't have your response, I'd 
like to put my own thoughts into this.

I do believe in putting the races together to make 
one. Whether this is known as integration as the 
U.S. knows it, so be it. Building national and 
racial pride to the point that we are first black 
and white before we are people is dangerous and 
wrong. Blacks, Hispanics, first nations and others 
must be liberated. The majority of these people 
have been oppressed. I agree, wholeheartedly.

But, raising these oppressed nations by building 
their own national pride can be dangerous. Racism 
has very easily started this way, though 
historically the whites have dominated racism, 
they're not the only ones capable. Is it really 
smart and correct (I mean, as you generalize that 
the "white pigs" are oppressors) to build these 
hates for the quote "white oppressive class," when 
not all whites are like this? Shouldn't instead of 
falsely including non-oppressive whites, that you 
call for the fall of the imperialists and 
capitalists (though you have done this), shouldn't 
this be your foremost cry? Majorities may be 99% 
correct, but there is still that minority 1% that 
is being falsely accused. Isn't it possible that a 
revolutionary cry that says bring down the white 
oppressive class (though this isn't your only cry), 
could be resulting in a great retribution against 
many innocent whites? And you might write back to 
me saying, are there really any innocent whites. 
And I'll say yes. ...

... In the final result, black and white shouldn't 
matter. Communism is equality, equality is when 
people are people, not colors. Yes, destroy or 
reform the oppressors, but identify your 
oppressors, but in doing so, protect minorities, 
since that's our business anyway.

The masses have no color. Only a drive to be 
liberated, ALL THE MASSES! Instead of BLACK POWER! 
WHITE POWER! Why not POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
Onward!

--a RAIL comrade in the East
January 1996

MIM responds: MIM agrees that in the final result, 
people are people, communism is equality, and 
people should not be divided based on "color." In 
struggling for the abolition of oppression we 
necessarily struggle for the eradication of such 
distinctions (class, nation, gender). The question 
is how to get from here to there. 

In our continuing struggle to answer this question, 
we do rely greatly on the legacy of the Black 
Panther Party to answer that nations need self-
determination in order to reach equality. While 
they were organizing principally amongst the Black 
nation, they formed strong alliances with 
revolutionary parties of other nations and never 
lost sight of the importance of internationalism. 
Did they want division? No, they wanted unity. But 
they were materialists and understood where real 
unity came from.

In formulating a line and a strategy to achieve 
communism--a system of equality in which groups do 
not oppress groups--Maoists make an assessment of 
the material interests of the various social 
classes and groups. Based on such an assessment, we 
determine, from the vantage point of the 
international proletariat, who are our friends and 
who are our enemies. Always, we remember that 
political line is decisive and remain open to any 
individual of an objectively oppressor group who 
wants to forsake the interests of their group and 
join the side of the oppressed majority. 
"Innocence," as you say, can be demonstrated by a 
revolutionary line and practice. MIM's own forces 
are multi-national at this stage of the struggle.

MIM believes that without changing the fundamental 
structure of society and the economy (in other 
words, under the current system of inequality) 
integrationism has proven to be a failed strategy 
for the oppressed nations. Liquidation of oppressed 
group identity in favor of a false unity with the 
oppressor group inevitably results in the 
liquidation of the oppressed group's interests. 
Indeed, integrationism means that the oppressor 
nation's national pride remains dangerously intact-
-albeit masked by integrationist rhetoric--while 
the oppressed nation is told to subordinate its own 
pride altogether. Led by a proletarian feminist 
party, national liberation struggle remains the 
best option for Black, Latino and First Nation 
peoples. In polemicizing with Union Del Barrio, MIM 
wanted to be clear that while anyone advocating and 
distributing the correct political line should be 
allowed access to the masses at revolutionary 
events, this does not put MIM in the revisionist 
camp of denying the need for national liberation.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO MIM!

Dear MIM,

Enclosed is a check for $100. Please use it for 
books for prisoners, MIM Notes, or any 
administrative costs.
Happy New Year!

--a reader in the Midwest

MIM responds: Thanks! We publish this letter to let 
prisoners know that books are available--your gift 
will be of great service to their study. We also 
publish it so that other readers can get the idea 
of donating swimming around in their heads--there 
are no fat cats in MIM and we need as much support 
as we can get!

***MIM NOTES CORRECTION: On page 11 of MIM Notes 
108 (January 
1996) we wrote that MIM "requires forever monogamy 
of our members." This is incorrect. MIM upholds 
asexuality as the most advanced sexual practice 
under capitalism. We also have policies regarding 
divorce for spousal abuse."***


* * *


INCREASE REVOLUTIONARY AGITATION
MAKE MIM NOTES BIWEEKLY!

FEBRUARY 1995--MIM is issuing a call to all 
progressive and revolutionary forces to put out 
MIM-related publications weekly, and do it in 1996 
as our New Year's Resolution. The 1995 MIM Congress 
solidified our commitment and organization to 
three-pronged agitation: MIM Notes, Maoist 
Sojourner and the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist 
League (RAIL) publications. Now we ask you, how can 
we increase MIM Notes from once to twice a month to 
make a fourth monthly newspaper? who will you 
organize? what stories will you write? how much 
money can you collect or submit for this effort?

MIM is calling on all of its friends across the 
country to help us achieve greater funding, writing 
and distribution for MIM Notes to make this advance 
to twice a month. We need concrete commitments: 
will you agree to distribute a bundle of papers at 
your local college? will you agree to send us $100 
a month to help pay for the extra issue? will you 
commit to writing an article each month about local 
happenings in your area? write to us and tell us 
how you will help make MIM Notes biweekly. 

STRUGGLE FOR THE CORRECT LINE TO
ADVANCE THE PARTY AGITATIONAL ORGANS

When MIM Notes first came out as an English-
language newspaper in 1989, months passed between 
issues. By 1991, MIM Notes was a monthly. Now with 
the masses' support and the strength of the correct 
line, the family of Maoist and progressive 
publications is getting ready to advance its 
influence by publishing an agitational organ every 
week.

MIM and its friends will reach this new strategic 
stage in the English-speaking imperialist countries 
by using four weapons: two issue of MIM Notes per 
month, Maoist Sojourner and the RAIL publications. 
Our strategic stage is nothing compared with the 
advance of the People's War in Peru that reached 
the strategic equilibrium where neither the 
people's military forces nor the old regime can 
wipe out the other. Our stage of struggle is not 
that glorious, but advancing to weekly newspapers 
would be a bold advance for our level of 
development. With that basis of agitation and 
mobilization, we could also deepen our financial, 
education and non-print media programs.

The publication of weekly MIM family publications 
will hurt the fortunes of the decaying revisionist 
parties. They will not be able to mislead people 
with their own more frequent publications, as if 
there were no line differences between MIM and the 
other groups calling themselves socialist, 
communist or even Maoist. The publication of weekly 
newspapers will help us sharpen the questions: 
capitalism or socialism? Labor aristocracy or 
proletariat? Weekly papers will obviate the straw 
questions: which party lives closer to me? Which 
party publishes more often?

STEER A CORRECT COURSE BETWEEN CONSERVATISM AND 
ADVENTURISM

From the beginning of MIM's existence, some have 
claimed to agree with MIM's line while being unable 
to get anything done to advance that line. Now we 
are sure it is possible that the MIM family can 
have four news publications every month, plus a 
quarterly theory journal. The only questions are 
how soon will it happen? who will distribute? who 
will finance and who will write and produce the 
articles?

In advancing to four news publications per month at 
this time, we are steering a course between losing 
all our forces in one battle, and allowing our 
forces to dissipate and whither away from a lack of 
experience. There are three incorrect camps in our 
movement that we must struggle against.

The focoist and military adventurist camp wants to 
burn out our forces in armed struggle at this early 
stage in development. These comrades are correct 
that armed struggle is necessary and they are also 
correct that a lack of armed struggle prevents the 
full political development of a proletarian party. 
But they make an incorrect estimate of the balance 
of forces. They are too optimistic about the impact 
of fighting losing and winning military battles at 
this time. We don't want them to give their blood 
in a suicidal battle right now, we want their 
consistent sweat in agitational work with the 
masses.

The conservative camp looks at the reactionary 
state of the gender and labor aristocracies and 
concludes that it may as well do drugs in the 
remaining years of our specie's lifetime, rather 
than fight an invincible imperialist system. The 
conservative comrades do not realize that even weak 
forces can fight and win very small battles for our 
class's political viewpoint, and then proceed to 
more advanced struggles. Even though we are being 
choked here in the imperialist countries by the 
gender and labor aristocracies, we must not 
underestimate what we can struggle for and achieve.

The third camp of comrades may know that MIM should 
shoot for weekly publications this year, and it may 
know that armed struggle is not right yet. But this 
camp ignores the history of the reactionary classes 
in the United Snakes and refuses to recognize the 
sharp line divisions between Maoism and others 
claiming socialism.

This third camp imagines that it has only strategic 
differences with the social-democrats and liberals. 
It didn't learn anything when the majority of pro-
Moscow communist parties internationally converted 
to social-democracy. It hails Gorbachev and 
breathes life into revisionist organizations, 
because it intends to be the more aggressive wing 
of the labor aristocracy. It didn't study how the 
labor aristocracy differs from the proletariat, or 
it did and found the proletariat lacking. The 
people in this third camp are impressed by the 
union bureaucracy jobs that the spokespeople for 
the labor aristocracy get. They are impressed by 
the sheer strength of the labor aristocracy class, 
especially in numbers, and they aren't ready to 
make a break for the MIM line. 

NOTAS ROJAS: WHAT WILL BE THE NEXT STEP?

Last summer the party gained the full time labor of 
a Spanish-speaking Maoist, whose principal job is 
to reach the Spanish-speaking masses and assist 
with translation.

Hopefully as the English-language papers become 
more well-known and our Spanish-language 
publication expands, we will find more comrades 
able to make an impact on the significant Spanish-
speaking populations in the imperialist countries. 
Along these lines we have translated some work from 
Luis Arce Borja about the great Peruvian struggle. 
We hope to expand that work in the future and bind 
the Spanish-speaking proletariat to Maoism ever 
more closely.

MIM'S REJECTS AVAKIANS

There are those who would have the people rely on 
magical leaders and "international centers" of 
Maoism to make the revolution for them. There is no 
such magic leader. The masses must make the 
revolution. Before they do, a party of people must 
commit itself to revolution. We must become good at 
building the independent media of the oppressed. 
Then we must learn how to develop financially and 
how to carry out other tasks to do our 
international share of overthrowing imperialism. 
From our experience we know that revolutionary 
efficiency can improve ten-fold with practice in 
struggle. The revolutionary potential of the people 
is very great.

When a student first joins a student newspaper, 
s/he may be uncertain as to whether s/he can even 
write an article fit for newspapers. As s/he 
gathers experience, s/he will become capable of 
writing articles very quickly. With this advance of 
efficiency, a handful of students can soon manage a 
daily newspaper.

Revolutionary efficiency improves at least as 
quickly as the efficiency of bourgeois journalists, 
computer programmers and circulation departments. 
This is part of what Mao meant when he said "learn 
to swim by swimming" and "learn to fight by 
fighting." One drawback of having to rely on youth 
is that they will not know this as well as workers 
will know this. Workers who actually do work will 
learn that they become productive with experience. 
Those with little or no experience in revolutionary 
work cannot know this yet. They must dive right in 
and learn that way.

We have learned from the sacrifices of others that 
it is not yet time for armed struggle in the 
imperialist countries. Yet weekly newspapers are a 
modest goal. We know that a daily newspaper is 
within reach of the proletariat in such a large 
area as imperialist North America. We will settle 
for a weekly combination of newspapers while we 
work on other media practices--video, cyberspace 
and word of mouth. All the great consequences of 
coming out with weekly newspapers are yet to be 
discovered.

IMPACT ON PRISONERS CLEAR

The prisoners who write to MIM are studying MIM 
work with the clarity and seriousness enforced by 
the system's repressive attacks. These dedicated 
comrades are a model for everyone outside the 
walls. If all the students studied as hard as the 
prison comrades, we would already be a society of 
geniuses, instead of a society of aimless parasites 
making progress only by accident and when permitted 
by the system.

MIM publications are the most censored in North 
Amerika. Some states block our publications from 
prisons wholesale. In other states, only certain 
prison wardens are causing problems. In more 
states, the power-tripping settler guards make it 
impossible for prisoners to read, even when the 
warden doesn't censor MIM.

MIM publications do more to advance the literacy of 
prisoners than other publications do, because MIM 
prints what people of oppressed background want to 
know. Used to outright slavery, the imperialists 
bring back the chain-gang in some places and in 
other places they try to enforce a slavery of the 
mind by censoring MIM Notes.

Publishing weekly is a win-win situation for our 
fight against the Injustice System. If they censor 
us more, we will shout it to the people outside the 
prison walls more than ever before. If they don't 
censor us, we will bind ourselves to the prison 
masses ever more closely.

OUT ON THE STREETS

Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League and Maoist 
Sojourner publications are free on the street. If 
our readers will distribute this literature on the 
streets, we will expand our circulation. Old copies 
of MIM Notes are also free and available. If your 
area is already covered, take over circulation in 
your area and our comrades will switch their 
coverage to other areas. If you distribute our 
literature where there is none, that will add 
directly to the cause.

The fancy computer and writing work that goes into 
our publications is for nothing if we don't get the 
literature to the people. Hand out our papers in 
busy subway stops, leave them in colleges and write 
to us for more ideas for distribution.

We usually ask for money when we hand out our 
papers, so that crackpots won't take our papers and 
throw them away. If you are paying some token sum 
for them, we know you won't throw them out. If we 
can see that you are carrying out a consistent 
political practice and we can see the results of 
your work, then we may let you have the papers free 
to distribute as you see fit. You can also sell the 
current issue of MIM Notes to recoup your expenses 
and even become a self-sufficient distributor of 
MIM Notes and MIM Theory.



* * *



BUCHANAN STEALS PHONY MARXIST THUNDER

Pat Buchanan, a candidate in this year's Republican 
Party campaign for president, Nixon's speech writer 
in 1968 and a high-ranking official in two other 
Republican presidencies is now singing the labor 
aristocracy song as directly and loudly as the 
phony Marxists.

"'I've seen what happens when company towns become 
ghost towns. These working people, who agree with 
us on so many cultural and social issues, they're 
wondering why we're selling them down the 
river,'"(1) said Buchanan. Buchanan's analysis is 
right on: many labor aristocrats are wondering if 
their alliance with the imperialists still holds as 
strongly as it should.

Buchanan adds that when he gets to be president, 
bankers will be at the back of the bus. Comments 
like that have one conservative saying "Buchanan 
has moved to the left of President Clinton." 
Buchanan responds that he was calling himself 
"conservative" before anyone else in the campaign 
and "Conservatives ought to be worshipping at a 
higher altar than the bottom line of a balance 
sheet. What in heaven's name is it that we 
conservatives want to conserve if not social 
stability and family unity?" Hence, Buchanan is in 
the race to promote his strategy to preserve the 
system: offer more goodies to the labor 
aristocracy.

Two phony leftists--one on the editorial board of 
the journal Dissent and the other a union 
economist--published an article in the New York 
Times admitting that the blue-collar workers they 
worship are going for Buchanan's conservatism 
rather than "liberal" economic internationalists. 
They did try to differentiate themselves from him a 
little, maintaining that only is reactionary 
economic nationalism was positive for the working 
class.(3) 

FLATTERING WHITE WORKER NATIONALISM

Like our national chauvinist phony Marxists, 
Buchanan is flattering white worker nationalism: 
"'For whose benefit was that $50 billion bailout of 
Mexico City? . . . It wasn't the workers on Main 
Street, it was the bankers of Wall Street. 
Citibank, Chase Manhattan, J.P. Morgan and Goldman 
Sachs all got off the hook, and they put us on. If 
I'm elected, you have my word: I will cancel 
foreign aid, and there will be no more $50 billion 
bailouts of socialist regimes anywhere in the 
world.'"(1) Mexico is not socialist, but for the 
labor aristocracy, Mexico might as well be 
socialist, since it is an enemy.

The centerpiece of Buchanan's campaign is bashing 
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and 
the latest General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 
(GATT). The latter is widely and erroneously 
referred to as "the" GATT, when it is actually only 
the latest of several GATTs going back decades. 
NAFTA- and GATT-bashing have earned Buchanan a 
place of honor in Ross Perot's activities, and the 
chance to address Perot's followers in the quasi-
third party of pro-capitalist opinion.

Industrial workers who lose their jobs in 
international competition are most threatened by 
NAFTA and GATT. MIM does not oppose the NAFTA or 
the latest GATT treaty. We seek to overthrow the 
capitalist system, not favor existing trade 
treaties over other imperialist deals.

IMPERIALIST-SOCIETY NATIONALISM IS
REACTIONARY NATIONALISM

In the imperialist societies, there is no 
progressive role left for economic nationalism. 
Nationalism in the imperialist societies is 
reactionary and pits the imperialist society 
workers against the vast majority of workers of the 
world. MIM seeks to advance the interests of the 
international proletariat as a whole--not just the 
Amerikan section, the English section or the 
Australian section. 

MIM favors oppressed nation efforts to protect 
their economies against Amerikan regulation. 
Economic nationalism still has a progressive role 
in the oppressed nations, where the national 
bourgeoisie has been strangled by the imperialists. 
In this issue of MIM Notes, there is a story about 
First Nation efforts to turn "free trade" rhetoric 
against the imperialists. In many other countries, 
protection of local business against imperialism is 
still an important rallying cry in line with the 
interests of the international proletariat.

Even in Marx's time, there was no room for 
pretended socialists in Europe who opposed free 
trade in the name of workers. Marx considered the 
free trade-oriented bourgeoisie to be more radical 
than the national chauvinist social-democrats: 
"But, in general, the protective system of our day 
is conservative, while the free trade system is 
destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and 
pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the 
bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the 
free trade system hastens the social revolution. It 
is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, 
that I vote in favor of free trade."(2)

NOTES:
1. Boston Globe Jan. 6, 1996, p. 11.
2. David McLellan ed., "Speech on Free Trade, 
Brussels, 9 January 1848," Karl Marx: Selected 
Writings (Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 270.
3. New York Times Jan. 8, 1995, p. 27.


* * *


AMERIKAN CLAWS TEAR DEEP INTO HAITI

by MC234

In the past, MIM Notes has reported on the ties 
between the U.S. government/CIA and the right-wing 
Haitian death squad FRAPH, as well as links between 
the CIA and the overthrow of Haiti's president 
Aristide several years ago. Former FRAPH leader 
Emmanuel Constant was the first to spill some of 
the beans about CIA support for FRAPH. On the eve 
of his return to Haiti, he further revealed that 
the CIA armed FRAPH and that close collaboration 
continues to this day.(1)

Constant is being deported for immigration 
violations,(2) but MIM suspects the real reason is 
because he has outlived his usefulness to the 
Amerikan government. This should serve as yet 
another warning to comprador slime: if the masses 
don't get you first, Amerika may get tired of you 
and spit you out. 

Constant also revealed that much of the United 
Snakes' anti-FRAPH practice was just for show. 
"[T]he early, high-profile arrests of FRAPH men 
were done by U.S. forces 'for publicity,' and that 
after being held briefly and released, many of his 
men were given 'a card telling them they were 
arrested by mistake'." According to The Nation, 
some FRAPH leaders were released on direct orders 
from Washington. 

According to one Green Beret commander, when U.S. 
troops arrived in Haiti, they "went after FRAPH 
real hard [searching for weapons]" but "were told 
to 'back off.'"(1) FRAPH leaders were told "that as 
long as they kept their guns out of view they would 
'get no trouble' from the Green Berets."

As the Nation explains: "The whole point of FRAPH, 
of course, is that it is not a military fighting 
force but rather a paramilitary group organized to 
kill unarmed civilians. This means that its weapons 
are small and dispersed."(1)

These dispersed weapons came in large quantities--
"five to ten thousand pieces--in crates from Miami 
marked "Police Material: Do Not Open." The weapons 
included "Colt .38 revolvers, 9-millimeter semi-
automatic pistols, American made M-3 'grease gun' 
machine guns with short collapsible stocks, 
Thompson submachine guns, Smith & Wesson .38 
revolvers and fragmentation and gas grenades." 
These weapons passed through a U.S. Navy blockade. 

U.S. TROOPS TO REMAIN IN HAITI

Haiti, the United Nations and the United States 
have "agreed to retain a small [United Nations] 
peacekeeping force in the country after" the newly 
elected president, Rene' Preval takes office in 
February.(3)

Clinton promised Congress that U.S. troops would be 
removed when the new government took office. But 
Amerika is considering "supporting the peacekeeping 
force with military engineering units to assist in 
construction projects and other civilian 
activities." USAID "will continue to operate in 
Haiti, and a Department of Justice police-training 
program will also remain."(3)

Normally MIM doesn't see much difference between 
U.S. military operations and U.N. military 
operations led by puppet governments. But 
apparently in this case, Amerika is leaving nothing 
to chance, and is keeping it's talons firmly sunk 
into Haiti.

REVOLUTION IS THE ONLY SOLUTION

The reality of Amerikan neocolonial control over 
Haiti is clearly revealed in its relationship with 
FRAPH. For all who believe that the continued U.S. 
occupation of Haiti is for the good of the Haitian 
people, this is clear evidence to the contrary. 
Only through self-reliant revolutionary overthrow 
of Amerikan imperialist control will the people of 
Haiti gain genuine self-determination and make real 
leaps in advancing their freedoms and the 
development of their country.

NOTES: 
1. The Nation Jan. 8-15, 1996, p. 11-15.
2. Reuter Dec. 29, 1995.
3. New York Times Jan. 11, 1996. 


* * *


NEW POLITICAL RESTRICTIONS ON
IMMIGRATION COMING DOWN

by MC12

Both houses of the Amerikan Congress have proposed 
formal political restrictions on entry into the 
United Snakes. Identical amendments appear in each 
house's bill for State Department spending. These 
bills will replace the McCarren-Walter Act, which 
was repealed in 1990.(1) Such restrictions are 
designed to pose increasing obstacles to 
international revolutionary organizing.

The amendment, which is available on the Internet 
(ht.//thomas.loc.gov), includes a section on 
"Membership in a terrorist organization as a basis 
for exclusion from the United States under the 
Immigration and Nationality Act." It requires 
exclusion of anyone who "is a member of an 
organization that engages in, or has engaged in, 
terrorist activity or who actively supports or 
advocates terrorist activity." The bill defines 
"terrorist organization" as "an organization which 
commits terrorist activity as determined by the 
Attorney General, in consultation with the 
Secretary of State."

There is also a section called "Incitement as a 
basis for exclusion from the United States." This 
bans entry by anyone who "has advocated terrorism 
or has incited targeted racial vilification or has 
advocated the death or destruction of United States 
citizens, United States Government officials, or 
the overthrow of the United States Government."

Despite all the hoopla about the official end of 
the "Cold War," revolutionaries need to stay 
vigilant about political persecution; Amerikan 
imperialists have no less reason to repress 
revolutionaries now than they ever did, but their 
task is made a lot easier by official ideology 
which defines the United Snakes as a free country. 
Independent revolutionary media need to point out 
the truth as loudly and clearly as we can.

NOTES: "Defending Our Borders Against Dangerous 
Ideas," David Cole, Washington Post Jan. 5, 1996, 
p. A21. 


* * *


MILLION MAN MARCH LETTERS

HARDER ON BLACK MISLEADERS

I read the article on the Million Man March 
(November 1995). It was good but I think the Party 
was too soft concerning the misleadership of the 
national bourgeoisie and the compradors. Of course 
some diplomacy must be used in allying with the 
national bourgeoisie but criticism should be sharp 
and clear cut.

By the way, the NOI did receive white permission to 
peacefully assemble upon the capital. The Million 
Man March was in the air way before it was done and 
white supervision was also present in the form of 
police helicopters and police despite the wide 
presence of the Fruit of Islam (the security branch 
of the NOI.) This should be common sense to MIM and 
there is no need to spread the fallacy that "Black 
men broke one of the oldest Amerikan rules: no 
congregating without white permission or 
supervision."

Remember, the Amerikan state is "so secure that the 
leaders allow us the luxury of faint protest..." 
(George Jackson, Blood in My Eye) Also let me 
inform you being that the Party is kind of 
estranged from the ghetto, that for years Black men 
women and children have been coming together for 
rallies of Black unity on every last Sunday of the 
month. These rallies are mainly held in Harlem on 
126th and Brooklyn in Fort Green Park and led by 
the 5% Nation and the NOI and this has been going 
on for years without white supervision.

Nevertheless I support about 30% of the shit 
Farrakhan and the NOI do. But when I see Black 
folks boot licking and Brown nosing to the empire 
I'm gonna say something and my criticisms are gonna 
be based upon a foundation. Too many times the 
national bourgeoisie has led the Black nation down 
the road of assimilation and integration. A simple 
reading of Before the Mayflower, and When and Where 
I Enter (by Paula Giddings) clearly shows this as 
well as J. Sakai's Settlers. In this post-cold war 
post-segregation era holding empty marches on the 
capital ain't gonna do it. I would've been more 
impressed if it was done in front of the U.N. (but 
white people wouldn't have given "permission" for 
that!) However I support Farrakhan due to the fact 
that he does recognize and speak out against white 
supremacy and national oppression but when he 
starts talking that other shit and it comes to him 
accepting aid from the empire, I draw my lines and 
make my criticisms sharp and to the point.

--New York Prisoner

MIM responds: We tried to criticize Farrakhan in a 
way that was "sharp and clear cut." We criticized 
the "atonement" and get-out-the-vote aspects of the 
march, as well as Farrakkhan's speech, which was 
integrationist and assimilationist, and of course 
the paternalistic exclusion of women. We also 
pointed out the cultural nationalism exhibited by 
many among the petit bourgeoisie in the crowd. We 
didn't condemn the march, though, because it 
reflected a progressive trend among many people 
within the Black nation.

The question of the Black national bourgeoisie is 
complicated, as the New York Prisoner points out. 
In particular, it is hard to tell who is a national 
bourgeois with a bad political line and who is a 
comprador outright. Because those Blacks who get 
richer tend to become economically integrated with 
white Amerika instead of developing independently, 
it's hard to sort out who's who. In our criticism 
we focus on the political views expressed because 
while we try to figure this out the least we can do 
is point out reactionary politics when we see them.

The New York Prisoner is right that the march had 
legal permission and police supervision; the 
article was speaking metaphorically and carelessly 
misstated this fact. What we meant was that whites 
were pissed that they couldn't control the form and 
content of the march. That doesn't mean the content 
of the march was all progressive, but it was 
definitely not what white Amerika had in mind 
(which is more like Colin Powell, who knew enough 
to stay away). But don't think that means the Black 
nation has complete democratic freedom. Even "faint 
protest" can be banned when it is connected to 
activities like the Black Panther Party's breakfast 
programs--in other words to revolutionary politics. 
Whitey would rather not allow any big Black 
protests, but a case like the Million Man March 
falls in between: whitey hates it but it's not 
revolutionary enough to infiltrate and try to 
destroy, which would only serve to further 
radicalize the Black nation and its allies.

The New York Prisoner also makes a good point about 
the Harlem demos, and that gets to the real point 
of our article. There is no doubt that we are 
seeing a growing national consciousness within the 
Black nation. The Harlem demos may point to that, 
but the Million Man March was a big event meant for 
the whole Black nation. MIM is always trying to 
encourage Black national consciousness and lead it 
in a revolutionary direction.

MIM'S RIGHT ON MMM, BUT WHAT ABOUT MAOISM?

**The following exchange is between MIM and an 
Internet reader who wrote to ask us to repost our 
article on the Million Man March (November 1995, 
MIM Notes 106) on alt.politics.socialism.trotsky. 
This debate is continuing to delve more deeply into 
the theoretical issues of Maoism as practiced 
during the Cultural Revolution, and for that debate 
MIM directs readers and letter writers to MIM 
Theory, a quarterly theoretical journal available 
from MIM for $5.**

Dear MIM: Just a quick note to thank you for 
reposting your article on the MMM to 
alt.politics.socialism.trotsky. I am virtually 
alone among my comrades in supporting certain 
elements of black nationalism as both progressive 
and insurrectional. The opprobrious backlash 
against my qualified support of MMM seemed 
to indicate I had struck a nerve of some kind.

At any rate, your article said a lot I could not 
find words for. While I still think your core 
politics are off-the-mark (having spent a lot of 
years in China, and met many a former Red Guard, 
you'll never convince me that the Cultural 
Revolution was anything more than mass manipulation 
for dubious ends), the fact that you understand the 
black political environment and hold hopes for its 
radicalization is itself a very positive thing. 

Comradely,
An Internet reader

MIM Responds: Thank you again for calling our 
attention to a debate which needed Maoist 
influence. Your letter supporting our position on 
self-determination and national liberation, yet 
disavowing the Great Proletarian Cultural 
Revolution (in other words, disavowing Maoism 
itself) presents an interesting contradiction. 
MIM's political line stems from the universal 
lessons and revolutionary science of Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism. Our specific line on the Million 
Man March comes from our position that the 
principal contradiction in the world today is 
between imperialism and the oppressed nations. This 
means, in part, that we see national liberation 
struggles at the forefront of the fight against 
imperialist patriarchy. MIM maintains that for a 
national liberation struggle to achieve success and 
end the oppression of people over people, it must 
be led by a genuine Maoist party.

So our line on nationalism cannot be separated from 
our Maoism--they are the same. You say you have 
personal experience in China and could therefore 
never support the GPCR. To this type of argument, 
MIM has often responded by asking: What if the 
millions of Chinese peasants whose living 
conditions dramatically improved as a direct result 
of the GPCR had access to mass publications or the 
Internet and could tell us of their personal 
experiences? How would that influence the debate? 
Personal experiences of individuals cannot justly 
be compared to the material improvement of groups.

We thank you again for writing and hope you will 
continue to write and struggle with us over these 
and other important questions.


* * *


UNDER LOCK AND KEY:
NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS

LEWISBURG PENITENTIARY UPDATE

On November 1, several prisoners (about 10) created 
a disturbance in the mess hall. They had been 
drinking, took a case of soda from a guard and 
barricaded themselves into one of the dorms. They 
then proceeded to take a pipe from a floor fan and 
create a cannon with a cue ball. When the riot 
squad stormed the dorm, the prisoners fired the 
'cannon' at them. The pool ball went through a 
chicken-wire enforced window of a door. The 
prisoners then soaped the floors and turned the 
fire-hoses on the riot squad.

The riot squad turned off the water and tear-gassed 
the ENTIRE unit. They then proceeded to beat and 
drag out every prisoner from the unit, despite the 
fact that only ten prisoners were involved. The 
riot squad beat prisoners so badly that OVER 20 
PRISONERS were sent to the hospital. One prisoner 
had five teeth knocked out and had his collar bone 
and arm broken. He was not one of the 10 prisoners 
that started this.

After they had all of the prisoners handcuffed and 
stripped naked, they had them lay on the floor for 
18 hours. Men were defecating on themselves because 
if they spoke they were kicked in the head. Almost 
the entire unit was transferred.

After this, the warden went to all of the different 
leaders of the communities in the prison and asked 
them to have a meeting, amongst themselves, to try 
and calm the situation down. There was talk about a 
work strike, but also mainly younger prisoners were 
heading towards serious violence. The leaders of 
the different communities met for hours and came 
out of the meeting with the decision to take back 
to all of the different units to have a work 
strike. The ONLY demand that they had of the prison 
officials was to ensure that the prisoners that had 
gotten hurt RECEIVED MEDICAL ATTENTION. That was 
the only thing that they wanted out of the work 
strike. It was really a compromise because many 
prisoners were so angry that the threat of a 
serious riot was very real.

The men at the meeting then went back to the units 
and held meetings. One prisoner said that out of 
200 prisoners in his unit, 190 attended that 
meeting. He said that after 11 years in prison, he 
had NEVER seen such unity in prison. The men met 
calmly, talked about the situation and tried to 
resolve it to ensure that the others who had gotten 
hurt were taken care of.

What followed is a clear example of what prison 
officials are capable of. The warden immediately 
locked-down the entire prison. EVERY MAN who was at 
the meeting (the meeting that the warden ASKED them 
to have) was put in the hole and the majority of 
them were already transferred. Those who led the 
meetings in the units were also put in the hole and 
transferred. The prison has already transferred 400 
prisoners and more are being transferred daily.

The riot squad would walk up and down the units at 
night with flashlights and pull people out of their 
cells. The prison was CLEARLY intimidated by the 
unity of these men and responded in the ONLY way 
they are capable--senseless violence and 
punishment.

There are several of the community leaders 
(including political prisoners) that remain in the 
hole in Lewisburg. Lewisburg is off of their lock-
down and visits have been resumed, unless you were 
placed in the hole.
It is important to know what prison officials do to 
these men. It is important to let the prison 
officials know that we know.

WHAT TO DO: Call, fax, and write the warden at 
Lewisburg. Let him know that people know what 
happened there. Let him know that people know how 
guards beat prisoners. Let him know that those 
still in the hole should be released back into 
population.

Warden J.D. Lamar 
P.O. Box 1000 
Lewisburg, PA 17837 
phone (717) 523-1251 
fax 717-524-5805
--from a prison support group, Nov. 19, 1995

FOCUS ON THE YOUTH

Dear MIM,
When I originally came to prison back in 1988, I 
was a very confused young gangbanger from 
Inglewood, CA. I took a deal for 12 years on a 
bunch of very senseless robberies. Over the past 8 
years, I've grown up tremendously. Today I feel as 
though I'm a man who is ready to deal with what's 
happening out there in society ... I'm 28 now and I 
have less than two years to go before I get 
paroled.

Over the past eight years I've been taught and 
schooled by the best of convicts. So when I get out 
of here in '97, I feel as though I have an 
obligation to inform my young brothers of what is 
really happening. I've always been a very good 
talker so when I get out I'm going to focus on 
those young Bloods and Crips. And try to focus all 
of that negative energy that they have inside of 
them, into some positive channels. I look forward 
to working with MIM also in '97 ...

Constantly struggling.
--a California prisoner, Nov. 4, 1995

BILL OF CRIME

A bill of crime, the high and 
all mighty want passed by the 
legislative body, against it 
will be the law and the oppressed. 
They say we need it to bring 
crime to all time low, the 
Public opinion agreeing right 
along through all it is a 
Propaganda Machine. 
The bills that have been passed 
Many times before are only 
affecting the oppressed. 
They say,

Build 
Lock 
and execute them

So society may be safe but in reality 
they want to Quiet us, 
for in the capitalist greedy minds 
are dancing dollar bills for their 
big old piggy-banks.
--an Iowa prisoner, Oct. 16, 1995

AGGRESSIVE MADNESS

The surroundings are closing 
on my sane mind 
Next thing i know 
Paranoid to the bones 
flinch at every noise 
Sweating through my pores 
with no remorse 
though everyone's out 
to get me at once 
have i gone mad 
to only do the dance 
"Mental Maniac"? 
Ponder with such delirium 
only seems one way out 
Aggressive technique 
it felt so easy 
Cutting the water of life 
Whirling sensation 
Nothing at last 
finally finding the peace 
i so much desired 
from my past.
--an Iowa prisoner, Oct. 16, 1995

ABOLISH AMERIKKKA'S OPPRESSIVE CONTROL UNITS

In the late 18th century, the Walnut Street Prison 
in Philadelphia, PA, became the first penitentiary 
in U.S. history to experiment with the use of long-
term isolation. This was based on the "Quaker 
theory" that without social interaction, a prisoner 
could not be influenced by fellow inmates and that 
a religious conversion would occur during the years 
of enforced meditation and result in the 
individual's reformation.

This theory had monstrous effects upon those 
incarcerated between its walls. During that time a 
considerable number of prisoners fell into a 
madness, even after a short confinement. Some fell 
into a semifatuous condition from which it was 
almost impossible to arouse them. Others became 
violently insane, some to the extreme of committing 
suicide. Those who underwent these isolating 
conditions were generally not reformed. In most 
cases individuals did not recover sufficient mental 
activity to be of any service to the community.

It would seem that after such experimentation, that 
this type of treatment would be eliminated by 
prisoncrats. Though after two centuries, the 
practice of confining prisoners to small cells for 
long periods of time is still in full force.

In modern times the U.S. penitentiary at Alcatraz 
became notorious for holding the most dangerous 
criminals within the U.S. penal system. In reality 
it became the first "control unit prison" used as a 
mechanism to enforce control over prisoners and 
society. In the early 1960's, three prisoners 
achieved the "impossible" and escaped from the 
island. At the same time, a new high-tech federal 
penitentiary had just finished construction, so 
Alcatraz ceased operation.

Now the super-max penitentiary in Marion, Illinois 
became the new "End of the line" for both state and 
federal prisoners who prisoncrats considered to be 
"institutional problems" or "too dangerous" to be 
housed in any other institution. Because of 
appalling conditions in October, 1983, a riot broke 
out and two guards were killed. This gave the 
prisoncrats the excuse to lock down the entire 
prison population. This meant that prisoners were 
confined to their cells for 23 and a half hours a 
day and all visits were suspended. Until a court 
order was enforced, even attorneys were denied 
access to the prison.

Eventually the lockdown eased in some areas, but 
stringent and restrictive policies remained largely 
in effect. Months after the riot an emerging 
pattern of brutal repression against the 350 
inmates became apparent. 60 additional guards were 
brought in from other parts of the federal prison 
system to systematically beat and brutalize scores 
of prisoners.

The idea of Marionization spread rapidly throughout 
the Amerikkkan prison system because prison 
officials cried that their institutions were unsafe 
and control over the convict in every way possible 
was desperately needed. The truth behind the 
reasons these control units are needed is they are 
a means of political, economic and social control 
of a whole class of oppressed and disenfranchised 
people. These include especially African, Latino 
and indigenous people who are a disproportionate 
part of control unit populations.

These torture units go beyond the usual constraints 
of maximum security prisons. Better defined as a 
prison within a prison, these control units are 
used to defeat prisoners' revolutionary attitudes, 
organization, militancy, legal and administrative 
challenges; and anything else the prison 
administrators deem objectionable. These control 
units have various names such as: Adjustment 
center, security housing unit (SHU), maximum 
control complex (MCC), administrative maximum (ad-
max), intensive management unit, and administrative 
segregation (ad-seg). Every prison possesses the 
label control unit status if long-term punishment 
and/or isolation are used.

While conditions vary from prison to prison, the 
goal of these units is always to achieve the 
spiritual, psychological and physical breakdown of 
the prisoner. Once prisoners are confined to a 
control unit, gross human rights violations take 
place on a daily basis. With minor differences, 
these control units share the following features:

Prisoners spend years of isolation in tiny cells, 
usually 6 by 8 feet for 22-23.5 hours a day. The 
short time that they do spend outside their cel                within a cement or chain link "dog pen" 
that lacks any kind of equipment and proper space 
to for physical exercise. Participation in programs 
including religious services, educational/work/job 
training, congregate dining and exercise are 
strongly prohibited by the administration. Also 
greatly limited is access to medical and 
psychiatric care. In some facilities, prisoncrats 
save time and money by locking up mentally ill, 
AIDS, HIV positive and Tuberculosis infected 
prisoners instead of treating them.

The most damaging aspect of control units is the 
physical and mental torture that is imposed upon 
their victims. First the methods of how physical 
torture is inflicted: Forced cell extractions by 
militarily attired, baton-wielding guards are 
constantly used without cause or warning. These 
guards violently beat, choke, and kick already-
shackled prisoners. Sometimes these cell 
extractions are so abusive that prisoners require 
extensive medical attention. Devices such as tazer 
guns, pepper spray, maces and manacles are used and 
four-point restraints and hog-tying are routinely 
overused, despite the fact that such instruments 
have caused bodily harm and death.

Another cruel practice is "caging". This is where 
scantily clad or naked prisoners are held in 
outdoor cages for hours in cold and rainy weather. 
The systematic use of firehosing shackled prisoners 
while in their cells, with high-pressure cold 
water, then leaving standing water in the cell, 
usually accompanies a prisoner being put in "strip 
cell status." While frigid temperatures make it 
impossible to sleep or even lay down, a bright 
light shines upon the cell 24 hours a day.

For those who can endure the physical cruelty, the 
mental torture can surely affect one's sanity. One 
example of this is sensory deprivation. This is 
when the prisoncrats forbid prisoners to have 
books, televisions, radios and contact visits, 
including those with lawyers. In some control units 
it is impossible for prisoners to communicate 
amongst themselves. Verbal harassment containing 
derogatory or racial statements are made by the 
guards. Mail is misplaced, delayed, destroyed or 
censored. Threats are made against family and 
visitors. The passing of false confidential 
information to foster paranoia and fights between 
convicts is utilized to weaken any unionization 
between prisoners.

Legal access is another area that is greatly 
violated. This includes the censoring of lawyer and 
court mail, guards monitoring attorney-client phone 
and visit conversations, and the hindering of 
access to legal books and materials. These 
oppressive prisoncrat policies only amount to 
cruel, barbaric and inhuman conditions that must be 
ended at all cost!

Currently there are more than 38 control unit 
prisons around the nation. The new control unit at 
the federal prison in Florence, Colorado will join 
the new breed of dungeons like the ones at Maximum 
Control Complex (MCC) in Westville, Indiana and 
Pelican Bay prison in Crescent City, California, as 
the newest super high-tech torture chambers. They 
are designed to administer the very most in sensory 
deprivation and dehumanization of inmates. 
Currently Iowa is building a control unit with the 
same features as Florence. This writer faces the 
possibility of being transferred because of my 
political and rebellious attitude toward the 
capitalist system. Essentially control units serve 
only one purpose, and that is to control society. 
All control units must be abolished, and the 
victims of these dungeons treated as survivors of 
torture.

--An Iowa prisoner, Oct. 18, 1995

SOUTH CAROLINA COMMISSIONER ORDERS LOCKDOWN
OF ISLAMIC PRISONERS

I am a prisoner in the Lee Correctional Institution 
here in South Carolina. I hope this letter will be 
accepted in the degree of sincerity that it is 
written in. As I am in the lock-up unit here, I 
only have certain access to the proper writing 
materials. It is very necessary that I write to 
your movement at this moment because of the limited 
mail rights we get on lock-up for those of us who 
are in a financial bind. I am writing to your 
movement because we share in the views of 
Nationalism as a people and I hope we maybe able to 
correspond with one another in view and respect ...

Here in this lock-up, I have acquired an appetite 
for materials that help me better understand my 
position in this prison and the societal position 
of our people. You see, I am a member of the Nation 
of God and Earth and since I devoted myself to 
Islam and Knowledge of Self, I am constantly met by 
opposition. The director of the Department of 
Corrections, who is Michael Moore, who came from 
Texas is now the Commissioner of South Carolina. He 
has arbitrarily ordered the lock-up of all members 
of the 5% Nation of Islam and the Nation of God and 
Earth here in South Carolina. This happened on 
April 28, 1995, I and four others are left here on 
lock-up because we refuse to sell out.

--A South Carolina prisoner, Nov. 1, 1995

SAVE BROTHER KHALFANI

Khalfani Khaldon (s/n McQuay) was serving a 25-year 
sentence that was given to him back in 1987. He was 
scheduled to be released in September of 1997. Yet 
he was charged with the murder of a colonial 
officer. The guard's demise came five days after 
the murder of Gregory Resnover (Ajamu) who was also 
accused of the murder of an Indianapolis racist 
police officer.

On December 13, 1994, Khalfani was transferred to 
the Supermax at Westville, Indiana and was 
eventually framed on this murder charge. The prison 
investigators/Indiana State Police have been trying 
to get Khalfani on something for about five years. 
In August of 1994, Khalfani was run up on a bomb 
plot by prisoncrat Karl Swihart and an agent named 
Claud Bigsby, who was sent to Khalfani by Swihart 
in hopes to set him up by getting him to agree to 
help smuggle a bomb into the prison. Swihart 
already had the bomb inside the prison and wanted 
his agent to get Khalfani's prints on it. Knowing 
Khalfani's position as a revolutionary and his 
politics, he thought Khalfani would go for it.

The plan didn't work, still Swihart had Khalfani 
fingerprinted. It is clear how much they wanted 
Khalfani, now they pick him out of 200-some people 
and say he killed this guard. Khalfani has been 
wrongfully charged and we must serve notice that we 
demand Khalfani's charges be dismissed and that he 
be released on September 10, 1997 promptly. We must 
fight back and we need your help and support to 
insure this brother's freedom from these 
injustices.

We demand! (1) A new investigation into the case 
for brother Khalfani. (2) That all evidence from 
alibi witness be weighed in the outcome of 
Khalfani's case. (3) The discrediting of witnesses 
that have been paid by the state to place Khalfani 
at the crime scene.
--Khalfani Khaldon, Oct. 30, 1995

PIG LIES AND PRISONER SUFFERS

I am just writing to tell you about an incident 
that ultimately finds me on the Disciplinary 
Segregation (DS) unit for 3 years and 7 years added 
to my sentence.

On October 10, 1995, I was in the chow hall with 
the rest of the cell house. We were waiting to go 
back to the cell house and were standing by the 
door, when Lt. Mace came up to the door and told 
everyone to "move behind the rail." Everyone moved 
back except me. I just took a few steps back and 
was standing by the tray window. He asked me to 
move from the tray window, so he could see the 
window; and I moved away from the tray window.

Then the pig asks me if I had a problem and I said, 
"Yeah, I got a lot of problems." He asked me for my 
ID and started to reach over at me. I jerked back 
and gave him my ID. He then started to order me 
around. He told me to "get over by the tables, 
behind the rail....Get over there now!" So I told 
him, "Fuck that! I ain't doing shit, just because 
you want me to..."

I was then escorted back to the cellhouse. About 30 
minutes later I found out that the pig wrote me up 
for a Class A Battery. The pig lied on me, and even 
though I had witnesses saying that I didn't even 
touch the pig, I got 3 years lock-up and 7 years 
tagged onto my outdate!! And this is not the first 
time I was sent to lock-up either, on a falsified 
conduct report. It happens all the time. Especially 
if you don't like to be ordered around.

--an Indiana prisoner, Nov. 12, 1995

THE STRANGE DEATH OF DONALD WOODS

...Remember the September 1990 death of Donald 
Woods at the Waupun Correctional Institution? There 
was no video, the media did not do a front page 
story on the broken bones and extensive wounds 
inflicted on Woods, but the fact remains, he died 
as a result of the actions of the Waupun staff.

On September 8, 1990 at 6 p.m., five correction 
officers forcibly removed Woods from his cell for 
disturbing other inmates in his block with "bizarre 
noises." This was accomplished by cornering Woods 
with a plastic shield, handcuffing him and gagging 
him with a towel. Woods was gagged because Woods 
was tested HIV positive and allegedly spat at 
officers in the past.

Once out of his cell, Woods was thrown into a 
laundry cart, like a sack of dirty clothes and 
transported to the "Adjustment Center," where he 
frantically struggled against the officers trying 
to place him in restraints. Their adrenaline 
pumping from the heat of battle, the officers 
lifted him on the bed and began the process of 
subduing the inmate. One officer applied pressure 
on the towel over his mouth to keep his head in 
place, while a 200-pound officer dug his right knee 
firmly into Woods' chest, preventing the manacled 
inmate from arching his back. Stripped of his 
clothing and placed tightly in restraints, Woods 
urinated on himself and slowly drifted into 
unconsciousness.... At 3:30 a.m. he was found dead.

A four-month investigation by the Dodge County 
District Attorney concluded that there were no 
grounds for criminal prosecution against the Waupun 
staff because they did not "knowingly" contribute 
to Woods' demise.

The bottom line is that Woods died of asphyxiation 
brought by the restraining methods of the state, 
therefore someone has to answer for his death....

Certainly this is not the Middle Ages. We don't 
throw human beings into laundry carts or leave an 
unconscious man unattended in a cell for seven and 
a half hours. People are incarcerated to be 
rehabilitated. The state had better re-evaluate 
prison policies to make sure there are no more 
abuses and no more deaths, so Donald Woods will not 
have died in vain.

--from The Spanish Journal, April 1991, submitted 
by a Wisconsin prisoner

RCG1 RESPONDS: Prisons may claim that they exist to 
"rehabilitate" prisoners but pigs incarcerate 
people as a means of social control.

Unfortunately, Amerikkkan society hasn't progressed 
much beyond the Middle Ages when it comes to 
dealing with crime. Sure they don't cut off fingers 
for stealing--instead they may imprison, isolate, 
abuse and even kill people for stealing. Amerikkka 
does not address the real cause of petty "crimes" 
like shoplifting, nor does it lock up the true 
criminals: the imperialists who cause poverty and 
national oppression.

A Wisconsin Prisoner adds to the article from the 
Spanish Journal: This document represents the death 
of a prisoner by correctional officers who were not 
charged. They suffocated this prisoner, murdered 
him and got away with it!!!

Pigs need to learn they have no right to take 
another life--or even mistreat lives. However, a 
great percentage of Pigs like their job as it is 
their legal way to relieve their hate. Prisoners 
are merely "Hate Rocks" for society--for those who 
cannot portray hate in their personal lives. We are 
the Hate Rocks, a route for their negativity to 
flow!

Here in Wisconsin prisons the only things that 
protect an officer is the 10 years for the crime, 6 
more years for the repeater law, then another 
strike towards three strikes and you're out. Surely 
Pigs don't think they themselves protect one 
another? They're foolish, so they likely do.

Pigs must stop their actions. Some of us just can't 
keep holding back, time after time, year after 
year. We don't want to hurt anyone...

--a Wisconsin prisoner, Oct. 23, 1995


* * *


FIGHT AIDS IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST
IMPERIALISM AND NATIONAL OPPRESSION

Following the celebration of World AIDS Day, MIM 
emphasizes internationalism. We fight First World 
chauvinism and struggle against imperialism in the 
fight against AIDS. AIDS is a good example of the 
effects of national oppression on rates of an 
infectious disease. 

What started in Amerika as a gay white male disease 
has spread into the oppressed nations. Because of 
lack of access to education and health care, social 
conditions that encourage drug use, and many other 
socio-political factors, AIDS has quickly become a 
leading killer in poor, non-white communities in 
Amerika. MIM does not dismiss the plight of the 
whites who suffer from HIV or the risk of 
infection. Lesbians, gays and bisexuals in 
particular have had to overcome serious social 
barriers to fight this disease. But it is 
significant that what started off as a 
predominantly white disease has disproportionately 
attacked non-white communities. 

Within Michigan, the lines are clearly drawn 
between the privileged and oppressed people. In 
Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties, 50% of people 
with AIDS and 42% of asymptomatic HIV positive 
people have annual incomes under $10,000.

In 1993, AIDS became the second leading cause of 
death among Black men ages 25 to 44 and is the 
fastest growing cause. In 1987, the AIDS rate among 
Black gay men was twice the rate among white gay 
men. By 1994, the rate among Black gay men had 
risen to 5 times that of white gay men.

Women are increasingly becoming affected by AIDS. 
In southeast Michigan in 1987, the rate among men 
was 10 times the rate for women. By 1994, the rate 
among men had decreased to only 5 times that of 
women. 83% of women living with AIDS in 
southeastern Michigan are Black. The percentage of 
AIDS cases in the population of Black women is 
almost 16 times the percentage among white women.

MIM believes that the Third World and internal 
colonies within the United Snakes are owed 
reparations. As a part of these reparations, 
Amerikans will be forced to stop hoarding medical 
care and research advancements. We must fight 
Amerikan domination so that members of oppressed 
nations receive benefits from research. Urban 
poverty, and denial of access to education and jobs 
are connected to the disproportionate number of 
members of the Black nation with AIDS. Even if a 
cure to AIDS is discovered, oppressed nationals are 
not guaranteed care and treatment. 

MIM regrets that these facts are not more 
extensive, but if you would like to work with us to 
expose how AIDS and access to medical treatment is 
yet another example of white nation oppression, 
contact us at the address on page two. Specifically 
we are making a call for research on AIDS infection 
and available treatment within Amerika's and 
Michigan's gulags. 

NOTE: All statistics are taken from the 1995 Region 
1 Epidemiological Profile, Michigan Department of 
Public Health; Michigan HIV Report, Vol. 10, No. 5, 
Sept-Oct., 1995 MDPH; National Public Radio report 
from the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention, Nov. 23, 1995. Information compiled in 
"Between the Lines" December, 1995.


* * *


RAIL AGAINST MASSACHUSETTS PRISON EXPANSION 

On January 3 and January 15, the Revolutionary 
Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) held rallies in 
Boston to protest the expansion of prisons in 
Massachusetts. On January 3, opening day for the 
Legislative session, a small group braved a bad 
snow storm to gather in front of the State House. 
They held signs, handed out flyers, and chanted 
slogans. 

On January 15, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, more 
than 30 people including ex-prisoners and families 
of prisoners, rallied at the Boston Commons. This 
rally included a speech from the mother of one 
transferred prisoner and an anti-imperialist song 
composed for the occasion by a prison activist from 
a local church. Both rallies drew the interest of 
several mainstream media papers and TV stations. 

The rallies had 3 main demands:

RETURN THE PRISONERS SENT TO TEXAS
NO MORE OUT-OF-STATE TRANSFERS
NO PRISON EXPANSION

As MIM Notes has reported, Gov. Weld asked the 
Massachusetts State Legislature last fall for $705 
million to expand prisons in Massachusetts. The 
Legislature didn't respond right away, so in 
November Weld took 299 prisoners hostage and sent 
them to Texas as a publicity stunt to demonstrate 
overcrowding. (Weld would have sent 300, but guards 
beat one prisoner so badly he couldn't travel.)

The House responded by approving $289 million, and 
the Senate $303. Before a bill can be sent to the 
Governor for approval, the House and the Senate 
must negotiate differences between their two bills. 
They did not do this before leaving for recess. 
They returned on January 3, and high on their 
agenda is finishing this prisons bill.

At the January 15 rally, a RAIL activist gave an 
introductory speech, describing the deterioration 
over the last five years of already deplorable 
conditions in Massachusetts prisons. Pointing to 
such repressive measures as phone-monitoring and 
arbitrary lockdowns, she called on the ralliers and 
bystanders to work in solidarity with the prisoners 
struggling against oppression.

The mother of a prisoner sent to Texas, who has 
been working with the American Friends Service 
Committee for her son's return, spoke about the 
conditions there. She traveled to see her son (but 
not to touch him--visits in the Dallas jail are 
non-contact) and learned that the prisoners are 
being kept in control units meant for short-term 
holding and are being denied heat and sufficient 
food. When her son was escorted past the cells for 
Texas prisoners, he noticed that they had heat. He 
asked the guard the reason for the discrepancy and 
was told that Massachusetts does not pay enough. 
She explained how her son had been a model inmate, 
and had followed all of the rules and was 
attempting to rehabilitate himself. The Department 
of Correction's response to this contradiction is 
"Overcrowding."

A representative of Latinos Against Abuse of 
Prisoners exposed this lie. There is a surplus of 
prison beds in Massachusetts at the minimum 
security level because prisoners are over-
classified into higher security ratings. He further 
explained that the prison style in Texas is "small 
group isolation." Prisoners are locked in small 
"tanks" with a few other prisoners. They are 
allowed no contact with friends, family, or even 
the guards. This allows the prison to deny that it 
is isolating prisoners. But the effects are the 
same as solitary confinement, and Amnesty 
International considers small group isolation to be 
torture.

The lesson for prisoners is pretty clear: trying to 
get along doesn't work. Do what you are told? Get 
sent to Texas. Resist? Get beaten or sent to higher 
security prison, but at least you stay hundreds, 
not thousands of miles away from your friends and 
family.

Weld and both parties in the Legislature are quick 
to oppose crime and to argue for the incarceration 
of more young people. Their anti-crime rhetoric is 
an attempt to hide the real criminals: the people 
running and funding the big business of torture. As 
Gov. Weld admits, prisons are capital investments.

Rates of imprisonment have been rising in 
Massachusetts, but there is no relationship between 
increased incarceration and stopping crime. The 
brutality of the Massachusetts prison system has 
also increased. This is not surprising to prisoners 
and their friends, as the Massachusetts 
Commissioner of the DOC is Larry DuBois, architect 
of the control unit systems at Marion, IL and 
Lexington, KY. Both facilities were cited by 
Amnesty International as violating international 
standards for the treatment of prisoners. DuBois 
has applied his Marion model to the Massachusetts 
prison at Walpole.

Massachusetts doesn't need more prisons, it needs 
to lock up it's real criminals: Gov. Weld, Larry 
DuBois and the rest of the proponents of spending 
millions of dollars on the torture of human beings.

The rallies were sponsored by RAIL, MIM, Latinos 
Against Abuse of Prisoners, Committee to Free 
Puerto Rican Political Prisoners and POWs, 
LIBERATE! all Black and New African Political 
Prisoners and POWs, and other organizations. 


* * *


VIRGINIA PRISON CRACKDOWN INTENSIFIES

Under the pretense of protecting against fires, the 
state of Virginia is restricting prisoners' rights 
to property from literature to wedding rings. 
Banned items include any T-shirts that aren't plain 
white, musical instruments, typewriters, tape 
recorders, most radios and any more than 12 books 
and 12 magazines. Jewelry worth more than $50 is 
banned and no gems are allowed, including in 
wedding rings.

The restrictions are the latest in a long trail of 
repressive measures instituted under the current 
governor, George Allen, who also led the popular 
move to eliminate parole. The state has already 
"canceled recreation programs ... cut back on 
visiting hours, begun monitoring telephone calls, 
imposed fees for some medical care and forced 
recalcitrant [sic] inmates to eat tasteless food 
called 'diet loaf.' Hundreds of men have been 
shipped off to Texas prisons, and for the first 
time, some guards now carry guns inside prison 
fences." According to the Washington Post, Virginia 
is "keeping pace" with similar trends in the rest 
of the country.

The state has about 26,000 prisoners. The rules 
apply to new prisoners, while current prisoners 
supposedly have a year to comply, although they 
have to comply immediately if they are transferred. 
The new rules give sadistic officials many new ways 
to punish and torture individual prisoners, as well 
as the whole population.

The restrictions on literature, as well as 
typewriters, seriously increase the level of 
political repression for prisoners in Virginia. 
Some liberals, including the American Civil 
Liberties Union, may try to stop the restrictions, 
which went into effect January 1. MIM hopes these 
legal challenges are successful, and we urge 
readers to support them, but we also know that 
repression of the vast prisoner population is 
serious political business not subject to the 
niceties of "democracy" or free speech.

We urge prisoners in Virginia and elsewhere to 
write us with news and testimony about increasing 
repression in prison life, and those outside the 
walls to contact MIM or RAIL to get involved in 
regional campaigns to expose and challenge prison 
oppression.

NOTES: Washington Post, Dec. 30, 1995, p. D1. 


* * *


PALESTINE HOLDS ELECTIONS; ISRAEL HOLDS THE REINS

JERUSALEM, Jan. 15--The first elections under the 
new Palestinian Authority (PA) are scheduled to 
take place January 20.(1) Although MIM cannot 
predict the results of these elections, we do know 
that the situation in Palestine today is 
neocolonialism [Arafat won. -ed]. Israel continues 
to use military 
force and economic pressure to control the West 
Bank and Gaza, and the elections will not change 
this.

Meaningful Palestinian self-rule will come when 
Palestinians can expel Israel and all imperialist 
powers from their territory. Genuine national self-
determination must come from a position of power. 
Today, Palestine does not have the power to enforce 
its own borders or its own laws; it is subject to 
Israeli wishes and demands.

INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS DENOUNCE PALESTINIAN
PROCEDURE; HAMAS BOYCOTTS ELECTIONS

Election observers from the European Union have 
criticized "irregularities" in the Palestinian 
election proceedings. These problems include the 
length of campaign time, the registration period 
for candidates, and the participation of 
candidates. The observers have no authority over 
the electoral process but do make reports and 
recommendations to their respective governments. 
The appearance of legitimacy in the elections could 
be a factor in foreign governments' decisions to 
recognize the PA and its authority in Palestine.

The international observers' opinions on the 
election are no reflection of the masses' esteem 
for the process. In his report to the Knesset (the 
Israeli Congress) Foreign Affairs and Defense 
Committee at the beginning of January, the head of 
the General Security Service (GSS) reported that 
70% of Palestinians living in the West Bank and 
Gaza plan to vote.(2)

The election registration period was initially 
extended so that three Hamas representatives could 
enter themselves as candidates. Three days later, 
the Hamas members withdrew from the elections but 
agreed to allow its members to vote.(2) Hamas has 
now called for a boycott of the elections.(3)

ISRAELI RESPONSE TO STATEHOOD:
YOU CAN HAVE SOME LAND, BUT ON OUR TERMS

Moderate Israelis are vocally open to Palestinian 
statehood in the West Bank and Gaza. Yet very few 
of them oppose the majority of Israeli violence 
against Palestine. They uphold the Liberal position 
that a transition period to self-rule is necessary, 
and otherwise say that Israel should exercise its 
power to grant Palestinian statehood carefully. 
These politics are Liberal because they obscure the 
question of national self-determination. If the 
Palestinians deserve their own land then they 
deserve it on their own terms, without Israeli 
mediation.

The moderate Israelis often note the contrast 
between Israel's dispute with Palestinians over the 
territories, and the dispute with Syria over the 
Golan Heights. These Israelis support giving Gaza 
and the West Bank to the Palestinians and 
acknowledge that Palestinians have historically 
lived there; the land is theirs and they should 
have the right to govern.

By contrast, the Golan is not occupied by Syrians. 
Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza were 
self-governing until Israel deprived them of 
autonomy in 1967, but the Golan is only territory 
that changed hands in a war. The Golan is strategic 
territory between Israel and Syria because it 
stands between Israeli settlements in the Galil 
along Lake Kinneret and the rest of Syria. The 
Golan is inhabited primarily by Druze, whom 
Israelis say have no preference for Syrian rule 
over Israeli. MIM does not know of any Druze 
nationalist aspirations.

The contrast between moderate opinions on the Golan 
and the West Bank and Gaza is characteristic of 
Liberalism in the oppressor nations. Israelis are 
primarily concerned with their own national 
dominance in the region and only secondarily 
concerned with Palestinian territorial rights. True 
to oppressor nation form, there is no discussion of 
broad territorial reform that would fairly 
represent all nations living in what is now Israel.

The Israeli right opposes all territorial 
compromises with any of Israel's neighbors. Much of 
the right is religious and argues for holding on to 
territory for religious reasons. Hebron for example 
is the site of biblical women's tombs and therefore 
a holy place for religious Jews.

PALESTINE STILL UNDER ISRAELI RULE, RESISTANCE 
CONTINUES

A group of 28 Palestinian women prisoners scheduled 
to be released from an Israeli prison months ago 
are refusing to leave until all Palestinian women 
prisoners are set free by Israel. Israel insists it 
will not release five Palestinian women, whom 
Israel claims have killed Jews. Israel still holds 
a total of approximately 4,000 Palestinians 
prisoner.(4)

At Christmas festivities in Bethlehem, where Yasir 
Arafat campaigned for president of Palestine, a 
laser beam traced the words "Release the Prisoners" 
on a town square. The reference was to Palestinian 
leaders still held in Israeli jails.(5)

The Palestinian police, under the PA agreement with 
Israel, are now helping to repress anti-Israeli 
politics. The police arrested the head of the Fatah 
Hawks (A PLO faction) on December 17 after his 
faction had initially refused the PA order to 
disarm.(6)

The Palestinian Authority has shown itself, by 
written agreement with Israel and in practice, to 
be willing to enforce Israeli law against 
Palestinians. But the people of Palestine 
understand that neocolonialism is not what they 
have fought for all their lives. Only through 
proletarian revolutionary struggle will genuine 
self-determination for the people of Palestine and 
all imperialist colonies be achieved.

NOTES:
1. New York Times Dec. 14, 1995.
2. The Jerusalem Post Jan. 3, 1996.
3. National Public Radio Jan. 13, 1996.
4. Reuter Jan. 12, 1996.
5. NYT Dec. 25, 1995.
6. NYT Dec. 18, 1995.


* * *


U.S. IMPERIALISTS OPPRESS TURKISH PEOPLE

As in most countries in the world, the United 
Snakes government is responsible for propping up a 
reactionary dictatorship in Turkey. According to 
Reuters, "The Human Rights Watch group said in a 
report on 29 incidents between 1992 and 1995 that 
Turkey used U.S.-supplied fighter-bombers to attack 
civilian villages. The report said American 
helicopters were used to support 'a wide range of 
abusive practices, including the punitive 
destruction of villages, extrajudicial executions, 
torture and indiscriminate fire.'" The total of 
U.S. military aid to Turkey's fascist regime is 
$5.3 billion in the last 10 years.

Aside from the U.S. imperialists, the usual 
imperialists are also to blame for doing their 
share to oppress the Turkish people: "The human 
rights group said Turkish forces have also relied 
on British armoured cars, German-designed rifles 
and machine guns, Belgian rifle grenades and German 
armoured personnel carriers."

NOTES: Reuters Nov. 20, 1995.


* * *


HONG KONG FALSELY PROMISES WESTERN WAGES:
CHINESE PROLETARIAT FIGHTS BACK

The British colony and city-state of Hong Kong 
continues to exploit and super-exploit the Chinese 
proletariat. On November 22, 1995, 400 workers from 
the state-capitalist People's Republic of China 
went on strike at Hong Kong's new airport 
construction site. They had been promised lower-end 
wages on the scale of the imperialist countries--
$1300 a month. Instead they received a fraction of 
that sum.

To add insult to injury, the workers have to pay 
between $2400 and $7200 each for the privilege of 
going to work in Hong Kong. These exploited workers 
help maintain the conditions of privilege that the 
majority of First World people enjoy. MIM 
understands the importance of proletarian 
internationalism and supports the demands of these 
workers. Strikes like this help raise the 
consciousness of the proletariat and emphasize the 
importance of taking their struggle further and 
abolishing capitalism. We call on the international 
proletariat to take up the study and struggle of 
Maoism as the most effective way forward out of the 
exploitation and oppression inherent to 
imperialism.

NOTES: Reuters Nov. 22, 1995. 


* * *


KOREAN MASSES REMEMBER KWANGJU MASSACRE

The Kwangju massacre is now the subject of 
bourgeois bickering in southern Korea for the first 
time. President Kim Young Sam has ordered that the 
legislature draft laws to punish the former 
presidents who were involved in the 1980 massacre. 
The mere admission by the president of Korea that 
the former presidents must be punished itself a 
watershed in Korean history.

Thousands of people lost their lives in the 
southern town of Kwangju when they revolted against 
the U.S.-backed military regime and took control of 
their city. The U.S.-commanded military arrived and 
mowed the people down. Since then, more martyrs 
have been created all over Korea as the people 
protested Kwangju. The oppressors have had a hard 
time eradicating the photos and video films of 
their repression.

Korean history the masses make history. As time 
goes on, the role that elites can play in the 
economy and politics can only decline. The trend of 
history is toward greater democracy. The abolition 
of slavery in most of the world was a huge step 
historically, as was the advent of bourgeois 
democracy. Southern Korea recently obtained 
bourgeois democracy and the forthcoming indictments 
against ex-presidents Chun and Roh are part of that 
democratization.

Chun Doo Hwan was the military regime's leader 
before Roh Tae Woo and he appointed Roh as his 
successor. Roh held the first bourgeois democratic 
election. Today, progress toward the masses' 
complete control of society proceeds inexorably. In 
Kwangju, we see that the methods of mass repression 
can succeed in the short run. But in the long run 
witnesses, photos, videos and now even computer 
accounts will circulate. Korean activists used e-
mail and personal computers to sustain the memory 
of Kwangju.

The struggle of the masses in Korea has borne 
considerable fruit. The ruling class has been 
forced to hold elections for the first time, an 
historical step forward in any country. It has also 
forced the regime to negotiate somewhat with the 
North over reunification and now the masses are 
reversing the verdict on the massacre. The days 
when the right of private property of the elite is 
higher than the right to food, medicine, shelter 
and clothing--those days are coming to an end.

NOTES: New York Times Dec. 6, 1995, p. A7. 


* * *


MOHAWKS RESIST IMPERIALIST MACHINATIONS


Every time one picks up a Mohawk newspaper, there 
is another story about how the U.S. or Canadian 
government believes the First Nations are getting 
rich illegally. The imperialists call the Mohawk 
businesspeople organized crime or undemocratic. For 
example, the Montours, two businesspeople in the 
Six Nations territory surrounded by Ontario, are 
facing charges from federal authorities that they 
made a profit of $25 million through tobacco 
smuggling.(3) One of the Montours claims that he 
paid taxes to the United States and that Canada had 
no right to charge him, but he wouldn't mind paying 
bail to his own people for the sum of $50,000--and 
facing charges in front of his own people. He says 
that police claims that he tried to set up business 
in Mexico are true, but he never made millions of 
dollars and the whole issue is whether Canada has 
the right to tax the First Nations when they 
conduct their business.

The spokesperson for the Nation Office in Kahnawake 
told MIM that, "they tell all these stories about 
people making millions of dollars [from the 
difference in taxes between Canada and First 
Nations, ed.], but it's not true." From MIM's own 
observations, the business in cigarettes is not as 
fast as the authorities claim. Even the largest 
dealers are not selling the kind of volume that 
would justify all the police stories like that from 
the RCMP about the Montours. Whether or not First 
Nations are selling cigarettes as quickly as the 
imperialists say, MIM believes that the First 
Nations have that right to make millions too. Our 
Trotskyist and crypto-Trotskyist enemies would 
disagree thanks to their phony Marxism. They say we 
should not ally with the national bourgeoisie--the 
businesspeople of the oppressed nations, because 
they are capitalists. In contrast, we at MIM say 
that it is true that the oppressed nations can and 
do generate their own classes that oppress 
themselves. However, this does not mean we should 
support white nation monopolies by opposing the 
national bourgeoisie while waiting for revolution.

Peter and Jerry Montour, accused of evading 
Canadian taxes under the name of "smuggling", are 
friends of the people at this stage of the 
struggle. We thank the Montours for clearly linking 
the tax situation to the question of having an 
independent national court system for the First 
Nations. The Montours have correctly raised in 
their own defense that the white imperialist nation 
of North America has no business trying them. By 
fighting this case vigorously in this fashion, the 
Montours do the oppressed peoples everywhere a 
favor.

Trotskyist and crypto-Trotskyist critics would say 
that under the dictatorship of the proletariat 
(socialism), white nation chauvinism and racism 
would suddenly disappear; hence, according to them, 
we should support keeping integrated court systems 
as a step forward for international solidarity of 
peoples. They oppose the nationalism of the 
oppressed nations because they claim to oppose all 
nationalism.

We at MIM believe it will take a long stage of 
history in the dictatorship of the proletariat 
before the white nation people are ready to treat 
other peoples fairly. The dictatorship of the 
oppressed nations over the oppressor nations led by 
the oppressed nation proletariat will have to 
cleanse the imperialist nation of its parasitic 
influences and history first. For the foreseeable 
future, it is incorrect to oppose imperialist 
nationalism and oppressed-nation nationalism 
equally. Accordingly, we at MIM ally ourselves with 
the nationalism of the Montours. To do otherwise is 
to defend white nation monopolies, otherwise known 
as imperialism.

MIM has also spoken to Mohawks who believe it would 
be better for a people to die upholding the Great 
Law than to surrender a spiritual principle. 
Another Mohawk points out that it was the Christian 
missionaries who said, "don't fight for your land; 
don't worry those people will be punished in the 
afterlife." According to Kakwirakeron, this idea 
was not part of the Great Law, but it was dressed 
up as the Great Law and brought in by the 
Christians: "No one knows about that, the life in 
the hereafter." We agree with Kakwirakeron and are 
wary of how religion advocates capitulation to the 
status quo in the name of the hereafter.

But Kakwirakeron clarified that to develop the 
economy, the Mohawks need to be strong spiritually. 
"If we are going to survive as Indian people, we 
have to adapt a viable economy ... Today the 
poorest are Indian who in reality used to be the 
richest. So I disagree with people [upholding the 
Christian point of view]. Our people were never 
impoverished. To me that is the Big Lie."

Kakwirakeron went to great length to explain that 
First Nation peoples have always had pride in the 
fruits of their labor: "Go to a pow-wow; look at 
their pride in the regalia. They don't get the 
oldest, most downbeaten material; they get the 
best, proudest, brightest materials. Our crafts are 
not shoddy; they take a lot of skill to make; look 
at our silversmiths' work, sought by everybody ... 
and imitations can't compare."


THE ROAD FORWARD TO FIRST NATION INDEPENDENCE


We at MIM believe the current imperialist system 
will never give the First Nations a real choice. If 
the First Nations take up unbridled competitive 
capitalism, they lose their culture that way. If 
they try to run their own governments, the 
imperialists suffocate their economies, drug the 
people, wage war and infiltrate the government 
agencies.

The way out of this problem for the First Nations 
must be an internationalist alliance led by the 
proletariat to crush imperialism. Oppressed nations 
everywhere have the right to follow the 
imperialists right back into their den--not just to 
win the war on their own territory, but to take it 
to the imperialists so there is never a war again. 
An oppressed people's United Nations--not like the 
current puppet of imperialists--must run the 
affairs of the imperialist society so that it 
becomes an ex-imperialist. Once the ex-imperialist 
society shows signs of not wanting to return to 
imperialism, the people there will be allowed to 
run their own affairs again.

We call this plan the dictatorship of the oppressed 
nations over imperialism led by the proletariat of 
the oppressed nations. Anyone who has an organized 
military force to use against someone else is 
exerting dictatorship, so we are honest and we call 
it a "dictatorship." Some day it shall be 
unnecessary, but anyone who says that organized 
armed force is unnecessary now is telling lies or 
making silly promises akin to kissing babies in a 
presidential campaign.

It is crucial for the proletariat to lead, because 
the proletariat is the large class of property-less 
people who have an interest in abolishing the class 
system. The international proletariat is too 
numerous to buy-off or co-opt, unlike the national 
bourgeoisie. The proletariat doesn't have a 
monopoly business and it is not interested in land 
as property. In application to the First Nation 
situation, the proletariat is not going to squeeze 
out First Nation business or take its land, because 
the international proletariat is going to abolish 
the competition of the profit-system and make 
pursuit of land as property unthinkable.

Some organization, whether Maoist or otherwise, 
must mobilize the oppressed people toward these 
goals. The same organization can only succeed by 
having the upper hand over the national 
bourgeoisie, which by itself will be inclined to 
sell-out the struggle, even to the extent of 
cutting a deal with the imperialists to become a 
puppet leadership of First Nation peoples. The only 
way to have that upper hand over the national 
bourgeoisie is to mobilize the proletarian and 
other classes of the common people.

It is true that the new dictatorship we are aiming 
for can become as bad as the one that it replaces. 
For this reason it is important to be honest and 
call it a "dictatorship" as honesty is the first 
step to accountability. The next step is to wage 
the cultural revolution to abolish the bases of 
classes and oppression generally, eventually to 
make dictatorship unnecessary.

NOTES: 
1. Eastern Door Dec. 22, 1995, p. 7. 
2. Eastern Door Dec. 22, 1995, p. 10. 
3. The People's Voice Dec. 22, 1995, p. 1.


* * *


MIM ASKS MOHAWKS ABOUT SIX COUNTIES 

MIM carried out a challenging discussion with 
Kakwirakeron regarding the situation in Ireland and 
the six counties occupied by England. In particular 
we asked about the situation of the peace 
negotiations there amongst the Loyalists, the IRA 
and the British and his opinion about them.

We gave Kakwirakeron the hypothetical: suppose the 
nationalist forces would lose a referendum in the 
six counties, because historically settlers had 
moved in in great numbers. Now suppose it is to the 
point where common people are killing common people 
of the same nation (Ireland). Should the 
nationalists accept a peace with England or won't 
that encourage the British to send more settlers 
(in the long run) and win more referenda in the 
future as soon as peace makes it attractive to send 
more people into the six counties and elsewhere?

Kakwirakeron said, "I'll answer to that. We didn't 
lose our land in war. We gave up our protection of 
other nations under our protectorate status, but we 
didn't lose our own land in battle. We lost it in 
peace." It was in peace time that families were 
forced apart, economies destroyed and drug problems 
arose. People grew up not knowing their own 
families or native tongue. In that situation, 
according to Kakwirakeron, "the price of peace is 
too high." Many First Nation people MIM has spoken 
to see no difference between the devastation of 
drugs and war.

The context of the discussion regarding Ireland was 
the death penalty, civil war, the methods small 
nations use to fight large ones and the 
possibilities of moving to a peaceful society and 
how fast that could happen. We at MIM agreed with 
Kakwirakeron, at some point we are going to have 
abolish the violence of civil war in order to move 
forward, and even the death penalty will have to 
disappear.


* * *


MOHAWK WOMEN WANT REVOLUTION

Imagining that the Mohawk women are coerced into 
radical politics by their male brothers is far from 
the truth. Women in Kahnawake territory also face 
the economic reality of trying to make a living 
while the white man strangles every economic 
advance of the people. In late December 1995, a 
woman Mohawk cigarette dealer took time out to give 
MIM her political views and reactions to MIM Notes. 
She told MIM that she'd "like to see a revolution" 
in the United States and Canada. In her opinion, it 
won't happen in Canada, because the people let the 
government "walk all over them." She also didn't 
believe they would have the guts to take up arms.

Citing discontent with the recent referendum 
results and even demonstrations, the Mohawk trader 
told us it only went so far. For her part, she 
believed that if such a government as the white 
government arose within the Mohawk nation and did 
what the imperialist government does to other 
people, it would not last: "We have laws that go so 
far as to saying you eliminate such leaders 
physically if necessary."

Reading MIM Notes, she wondered aloud, "I wonder 
what's going to happen to Louis Farakkhan; anytime 
you organize a million Blacks like that. But 
probably the same thing as Malcolm X." She imagined 
he would sell-out and/or be killed.

Like any other people, the Mohawk people are 
diverse and one can find reactionary Mohawks or 
Christian Mohawks as well. However, the proportion 
of revolutionary Mohawks is much higher than the 
proportion of revolutionaries in imperialist North 
America. 


* * *


MOHAWKS FACE POLITICALLY-INDUCED RECESSION

The ongoing controversy surrounding economic 
development in the First Nations includes analyses 
showing that the Mohawk economy is in a downward 
spiral.(1) Many Mohawks believe that the Canadian 
and Quebecois governments are succeeding with 
economic force in strangulating the Mohawk nation 
since the armed struggle in Oka in which Mohawks 
successfully defended their land from Quebec 
takeover in 1990. (MIM covered this struggle in MIM 
Notes 43) Elmer Jacobs, the owner of a hardware 
store, reports that his own business is down and 
that six other Mohawk businesses in the Kahnawake 
territory closed in 1995.(1) And a spokesperson for 
the Mohawk Nation Office told us: "there's an 
economic collapse. . . . after the crisis in 1990 
they were so adamant they were going to [choke our 
economy]."

Meanwhile, a Kahnawake Chamber of Commerce is 
meeting to argue with a Mohawk development agency 
about who is responsible for development. Some 
argue that the economy should move forward with 
collective or government forms and others argue 
that individual capitalists must lead forward.(2) 
Complicating the question for MIM and First Nation 
peoples is the fact that the First Nation 
governments tend to become infiltrated by the white 
nation's government. That can extend from bringing 
in New York police to patrol in Akwesasne territory 
on the one hand to accepting Canadian federal 
social workers and psychological therapists on the 
other hand.

A leader of the Mohawk tax fight against New York 
State has come to the conclusion that First Nations 
must have economic power first and then they can 
have political power. A spokesperson for the Nation 
Office in Kahnawake disagrees with those who would 
say one can compete in the "so-called free market 
system." In late December 1995, the spokesperson 
told us, "We say we're an independent and sovereign 
nation, but the United States and Canada say `might 
is right.'" Furthermore, "we know their governments 
are controlled by major banking institutions which 
are pulling the strings." In free markets, "they 
say you have the same opportunity as everyone else, 
but it's not necessarily true. How do you break 
into something someone has a monopoly on and has 
held for hundreds of years?"

By forcing the collapse of First Nation business, 
the white man can "draw people into federal 
assistance programs. That's something we worked on 
very hard in the past to break the dependence on 
the federal government." However, the white man 
seems determined to keep the First Nations poor, 
dependent and unable to claim their land: "It 
doesn't matter what we do [listing commodities that 
the governments have outlawed the First Nations 
from trading or making--ed.]; if we grow corn the 
government says, 'that's illegal corn.'"


* * *


FIRST NATIONS LIVE UNDER POLICE STATE, NOT 
"DEMOCRACY"

In First Nations throughout North America MIM hears 
the same story that the officially recognized 
governments are puppets of the white man, or at 
least partially infiltrated by the white man. The 
white nation comes with religion, psychology and 
social work programs with which to assimilate the 
people and justify taking their taxes. In the case 
of the Kahnawake band council, the Nation Office 
spokesperson told us that band numbers are a means 
of enforcing taxes and having the government keep 
track of people: "The comparisons with what went on 
with the Jews [who the Nazis tattooed and numbered 
for slaughter--ed.]; you talk about a Holocaust."

Kakwirakeron, who is on the steering committee of 
an organization against the New York State tax 
effort, said this of his local government, 
recognized by U.S. authorities, "They're really 
administrators. . . . Over the years, they 
erroneously see themselves as the government." 
Seeing them as basically puppets, "consciously or 
unconsciously," he said the elected officials of 
Akwesasne territory "are the ones least aware of 
their own rights, least educated" in their own 
history and political struggles. Kakwirakeron 
doesn't vote in the elections, because he doesn't 
recognize the so-called government as an 
institution of the Mohawk people.

He pointed out that the people taking money from 
the white man's government "believe there is some 
real power there, that this is a quick way to take 
some money." MIM also says that it is true that the 
U.S. and Canadian governments owe huge reparations 
to the First Nations; however, as the Nation Office 
and Kakwirakeron said, the white nations at this 
time are not capable of rendering reparations 
without trying to set up puppet governments. For 
now it would be better for the imperialists to 
recognize the First Nations as separate countries 
with their own free trade zones. Reparations will 
have to wait until the white nation can give them 
in a way acceptable to the Mohawk people as a 
nation.

According to Kakwirakeron, the First Nations are 
trying to break with the puppet governments and the 
schemes of the imperialists to assimilate their 
peoples. But he also said that it was only in the 
last ten years that the First Nations have had 
significant elements trying to develop 
economically: "For myself, I firmly believe we need 
to set a real economic base. . . create employment 
inside our territories, businesses wholly-owned by 
native people." He added that he himself was trying 
to expand beyond business dedicated to local trade 
and that First Nations should try to enter the 
global marketplace. Of course, the imperialists are 
not about to let oppressed peoples of the world 
compete fairly in a capitalist system.***