-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- ------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Mar. 16, 2000 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- PROTESTERS TO HOUND PRO-DEATH-PENALTY CANDIDATES: CAMPAIGN GROWS TO STOP EXECUTIONS By Workers World Houston bureau Over 300 people demonstrated at the governor's mansion in Austin, Texas, March 4. The crowd, mostly youths, surrounded the mansion--one square block. They chanted, drummed and spoke, denouncing Gov. George W. Bush and calling for a moratorium on executions. The action was called by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Njeri Shakur of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement received an ovation when she spoke about how death-row prisoners Ponchai "Kamau" Wilkerson and Howard Guidry carried out a courageous death-row demonstration. On Feb. 21-22, Wilkerson and Guidry took a prison guard hostage for 13 hours to protest the railroading of youth onto death row. The two prisoners called for a moratorium on executions. Shakur, along with SHAPE Community Center Director Deloyd Parker and the National Black United Front's Kofi Tahara, met with the two prisoners and presented their demands to prison officials. The guard was released unharmed. Shakur and other speakers called for a nationwide campaign to "hound Bush" as he campaigns for the presidency. Hundreds in Austin signed a petition circulated by the new Texas Death Penalty Moratorium Committee. The committee was initiated by former death-row prisoner Clarence Brandley, Muhammad Mosque #45 in Houston, the Abolition Movement, Harris County Green Party, SHAPE and others. Governor Bush is drawing fire worldwide for the rapid pace of executions and lack of due process in Texas. Opponents point to the lack of a public-defender system for indigent prisoners--the vast majority of those who wind up facing the death penalty. Bush vetoed legislation to create a public defender system last year. He has presided over 122 executions since he took office. Another 458 prisoners await execution. All the women and men on death row are poor and working-class people. Forty-one percent of death-row inmates are African Americans--but only 12 percent of Texas' population are Black. ABOLITIONIST NJERI SHAKUR TARGETED On March 8, the state of Texas lashed out at Njeri Shakur. Judge Jan Krocker charged Shakur with contempt of court and sentenced her to 30 days in jail. Shakur, a grandmother, is to spend four weeks behind bars for objecting to Krocker's racist conduct at a Feb. 8 hearing. Krocker, who is white, let prison guards beat African-Asian prisoner Ponchai "Kamau" Wilkerson after she set his execution date. "Judge Krocker is known here in Houston," said Gloria Rubac of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement. "Her reputation is one of extreme brutality in a city known for it's judicial misconduct and racism." Shakur's supporters say the jail sentence is retaliation for her leadership in building community support for a moratorium on executions. Representing the Abolition Movement, Shakur filed a complaint against Wilkerson's court-appointed attorney, Troy McKinney, with the Texas Bar Association Feb. 29. Shakur and Millions for Mumia's Greg Butterfield said McKinney had refused to file a petition for executive clemency. Krocker told Shakur's attorney she was locking up the abolitionist to prevent her from protesting at Wilkerson's March 14 execution. Activists here said Krocker's repression won't quell the movement to stop executions. "Gov. Bush wants quiet on his home front while he campaigns for president," said Johnnie Stevens of People's Video Network. "But he's not going to get any." Rubac and Stevens said their organizations would campaign for Njeri Shakur's freedom and hound Krocker. "We are going to expose her," Rubac said. Others joining in defense of Shakur include SHAPE Community Center, the Justice for Pedro Oregon Committee, and Houstonians United for Mumia. BARNES: `CONTINUE THE STRUGGLE' At the Austin rally a young woman spoke for the Committee for Justice in France. The Committee for Justice raised more that $85,000 to aid attorneys investigating the case of Odell Barnes. Barnes was executed in Huntsville March 1. A young Black man, Barnes was proven innocent by DNA tests paid for by the French group. The weekly Houston Press ran a cover story on the new evidence in late January, including the likelihood that blood on Barnes' overalls was planted there in a police laboratory. The Texas courts, the Board of Pardons and Paroles, and Bush refused to act on this evidence. Bush ignored pleas from French President Jacques Chirac and the European Union Parliament asking for clemency. On the death-chamber gurney, Barnes told his family and supporters: "I thank you for proving my innocence, although it has not been acknowledged by the courts. "May you continue in the struggle," Barnes said, "and may you change all that's being done here today and in the past." Outside, death-penalty opponents rallied and chanted: "George Bush, serial killer!" One in every seven people sent to death row is later proven innocent, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Proof of 13 wrongful convictions of death-row prisoners in Illinois prompted a powerful movement in that state. Illinois' Republican governor was forced to enact a moratorium in January. Calvin Jerold Burdine, a gay man whose 1983 conviction was overturned last September, was ordered released by U.S. District Judge David Hittner in Houston March 1. But two days later, a federal appeals court threw out the ruling. Burdine remains behind bars. Burdine's court-appointed attorney slept through much of his trial. The attorney, Joe Cannon, did not object to the prosecutor hurling anti-gay slurs at Burdine. Burdine was bashed repeatedly after going to prison. One of his eyes was gouged out. His case, among others, is bringing Houston's lesbian, gay, bi and trans community into the struggle for a moratorium. A front-page article in the weekly Houston Voice reported the role lesbian, gay, bi and trans people have taken in the national movement to end the death penalty. Lesbian author and anti-racist activist Minnie Bruce Pratt reinforced the point during an appearance at Houston's Lesbian and Gay Community Center March 5. She talked about the need for unity between the lesbian/gay/bi/trans struggle and the moratorium movement. Workers World Party sponsored the meeting. For updates on Njeri Shakur and information on how to support the struggle in Texas, visit the Abolition Movement's new web site: www.geocities.com/tdpam/. - END - (Copyleft Workers World Service. 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