>Luis Talamantez, a former political prisoner and member of
>the San Quentin Six, spoke of the need to end the cycle of
>violence and reiterated the call to shut down Pelican Bay
>State Prison altogether.
>
>Leslie DiBenidetto-Skopek of the California Prison Focus
>spoke of a recent investigative trip made by CPF on Feb. 11
>and 12 to Pelican Bay to document the conditions under
>which prisoners live.
>
>This Workers World reporter also spoke as a member of a
>10-person delegation of lawyers and activists who had
>interviewed over 60 prisoners in a two-day visit to PBSP.
>
>INVESTIGATION AT PELICAN BAY INDICATES HUMAN RIGHTS
>VIOLATIONS
>
>As part of this investigative visit to PBSP, interviews
>had been conducted under the protection of attorney-client
>privilege. For the prisoners, however, the very act of
>meeting with interviewers was an act of defiance against
>the prison administration.
>
>They told stories of delays in medication refills,
>arbitrary reward and punishment, mentally ill patients kept
>in the harsh Security Housing Unit, and revocation of Law
>Library privileges at times coinciding with court
>appearances. The picture painted was that of a prison
>administration that carries out random reward and
>punishment and divide-and-conquer polices by pitting
>prisoners against each other based on ethnicity, geography
>and other differences.
>
>The prisoners interviewed explained that the lack of
>programs and the isolation create an environment where
>violence is not an unexpected outcome of prisoner exchange.
>
>Prisoners in the Security Housing Unit and the general
>population were interviewed. Prisoners in the SHU are kept
>in cells 23.5 hours a day. In the remaining 30-minute
>period they are released alone into the "yard," a sunless
>space twice the size of a cell, for exercise.
>
>Prisoners are placed in the SHU either for violent acts
>while in prison or for being labeled gang members. The
>label of gang member is often made by the prison
>administration on the basis of information from
>unidentified "confidential informers."
>
>Prison policy allows only three ways to leave the SHU:
>"snitch, parole or die." This means a prisoner either tells
>information, real or fabricated, about other prisoners,
>officially called debriefing, is paroled, or dies. Any
>prisoner who returns to the general population is therefore
>labeled a snitch by the other prisoners and is targeted for
>violence.
>
>These underground regulations were successfully challenged
>by jailhouse lawyer Steve Castillo. The resulting change in
>policy requires all prisoners who have been "gang free" for
>six years while in the SHU to be considered for release
>into the general population without the need to debrief.
>
>Over the course of the two days' investigation, the team
>learned there are prisoners with over six years of gang-
>free activity who have not been before the review board. As
>the investigative team left the prison, we all felt the
>sense of tension behind the walls. The only way to stop the
>violence is to shut down Pelican Bay State Prison
>altogether.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <00a401bf8578$43eba670$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Report from inside north Korea
>Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 20:23:37 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 9, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>INSIDE NORTH KOREA:
>IMPERIALIST SABOTAGE OF ENERGY AGREEEMENT
>ONLY STIFFENS RESOLVE
>
>By Brian Becker and Sharon Ayling
>
>[The authors traveled to the Democratic Peoples Republic
>of Korea from Feb. 19 to Feb. 26 in a Workers World Party
>delegation.]
>
>
>
>The people in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea
>(DPRK) or north Korea are in the midst of a severe power and
>energy shortage that is adversely affecting the overall
>economic life of the country.
>
>The energy shortage, mainly in electrical power, has caused
>major problems in heating and lighting, railway transport and
>agricultural production.
>
>The DPRK's energy crisis has a variety of causes. The single
>biggest reason, however, has been the deliberate sabotage by
>the United States government of the 1994 Framework Agreement
>that the DPRK signed with the U.S.
>
>The Framework Agreement stipulated that the DPRK would
>freeze the construction of a nuclear power plant operated by a
>graphite-moderated reactor. The Clinton administration nearly
>went to war to force the cancellation of the planned power
>plant, which the administration asserted would have allowed
>the DPRK to also produce weapons-grade plutonium necessary to
>build nuclear weapons.
>
>In return for Korea freezing its nuclear power plant
>construction, the United States was to take the lead in
>building in the DPRK two light-water reactors not capable of
>producing nuclear weapons materials. These substitute nuclear
>power plants were to be the alternative energy source for the
>country.
>
>In addition, the U.S. committed itself to shipping 500,000
>tons of oil annually to the DPRK until the light-water
>reactors were up and running. The U.S. also pledged to ease
>and then end the economic sanctions on the DPRK that have
>been in place for more than half a century against this
>small country with a population of 20 million.
>
>CLINTON DOUBLE-CROSS
>
>The DPRK complied, but the United States has not lived up to
>its side of the agreement.
>
>In fact, construction has not even started on the light-
>water reactors. Due to be completed by 2003 according to the
>1994 agreement, the substitute power plant may not be
>operational until 2010 or even later.
>
>The leaders of the DPRK are now waging a campaign to demand
>that the U.S. implement its side of the 1994 agreement. They
>are also insisting that the U.S. pay complete compensation for
>the damages and hardships imposed on the Korean people by its
>refusal to abide by its signed promises.
>
>This is the backdrop for upcoming high-level negotiations to
>be held in Washington in March between the Clinton
>administration and a delegation from the DPRK.
>
>DPRK officials say they suspect that the Clinton
>administration is playing a diplomatic game and never intends
>to fully implement the agreement. When the U.S. government
>signed the 1994 agreement with the DPRK, it was evidently
>convinced that the socialist government in the DPRK would fall
>within a few years-well before the 2003 deadline to finish the
>light-water reactors.
>
>IMPERIALISM'S MISCALCULATION
>
>After the governments in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
>were overthrown in 1989-1991, the DPRK was deprived of major
>trading partners. The Soviet Union had been the largest
>producer of oil and natural gas in the world. It was a source
>of oil and energy resources for the DPRK and Cuba on terms far
>more favorable than those imposed by the imperialist oil
>monopolies.
>
>This blow to the DPRK was worsened by four consecutive years
>of very bad weather, including years of drought followed by
>torrential rains and floods. Further complicating the picture
>was the unexpected death in 1995 of Kim Il Sung, who was both
>the president of the DPRK and the founder and leading figure
>of the Workers Party of Korea.
>
>This combination of factors plunged the DPRK into its most
>difficult period since the Korean War of 1950-53, when U.S.
>bombers leveled every building above one story in the country.
>
>Throughout the first half of the 1990s, U.S. imperialism was
>gloating that the DPRK would soon be overthrown. But to the
>amazement of the Clinton administration, the DPRK has endured.
>
>The Workers Party of Korea carried out a smooth transition
>in leadership. Kim Jong Il became head of the party after the
>death of Kim Il Sung, the much revered leader of the Korean
>revolution. There were no severe splits or cleavages inside
>the Workers Party of Korea of the type that had prompted the
>collapse of governments in the USSR and Eastern Europe.
>
>Instead of rejecting socialism, the Workers Party of Korea
>announced its deep commitment to socialism and the eventual
>transition to communism. Although it faced devastating
>shortages and production declines, the course pursued by the
>DPRK was entirely different from what had taken place in the
>former Soviet Union during the 1990s, when millions of workers
>were summarily fired, laid off, and deprived of housing and
>health care services after the Soviet government was
>overthrown.
>
>In the DPRK, the workers and farmers are upheld as the
>masters of society. Without glossing over the widespread
>material hardships imposed by the loss of the Soviet bloc and
>U.S.-sponsored economic sanctions, the leadership of the DPRK
>refuses to embrace the so-called miracle of the capitalist
>market.
>
>BACKGROUND TO THE MARCH 2000 NEGOTIATIONS
>
>The Clinton administration was hoping that north Korea would
>go the way of East Germany, which was "peacefully" swallowed
>up by West German capitalism after the ruling socialist party
>split into warring factions in 1989.
>
>While it did everything it could to intensify the economic
>problems caused by the collapse of the USSR and other
>socialist countries, the U.S. was banking on provoking a split
>inside the Workers Party of Korea, with one faction favoring
>an accommodation with Western capitalism in return for trade
>and investment.
>
>But imperialism's wishes have been frustrated. Instead, the
>DPRK has maintained its party unity and a militant
>determination to resist imperialism while defending its
>sovereignty and independence.
>
>To the great surprise of the United States, the DPRK, using
>its own technology, succeeded in launching a satellite into
>orbit in 1998. The U.S. insisted at the time that this was
>actually the launch of a medium-range missile capable of
>delivering a nuclear payload. A veritable storm of protest was
>whipped up against the DPRK that lasted for months in the
>United States and Japan.
>
>The DPRK leaders in 1998 struck a defiant tone. They
>insisted that they had launched a satellite, but pointedly
>noted that the rocket could also have launched a missile and
>that U.S. imperialism was not the only country entitled to
>possess advanced rocket technology and weaponry.
>
>Trying to bully the DPRK had backfired. The hysteria against
>the DPRK subsided after a few months and the U.S. quietly
>acknowledged that Pyongyang had indeed launched a satellite
>and not a missile.
>
>The DPRK also denounced U.S. footdragging on the 1994
>agreement and suggested it was being forced to resume its
>earlier nuclear program. It was only then that the United
>States announced it wanted to get the negotiations back on
>track.
>
>U.S. MUST PAY COMPENSATION
>
>If the U.S. fails to move quickly to compensate Korea for
>its failure to implement the 1994 agreement, the Korean
>peninsula may experience a new wave of tensions, including the
>possibility of military hostilities.
>
>"Never before in the history of Korea has there been such a
>power shortage as today," reported the KCNA, the official news
>agency of the DPRK, on Feb. 23.
>
>"The DPRK's freezing of nuclear-power based construction has
>brought an enormous loss to it amounting to tens of billions
>of dollars. The light-water reactors will probably not be
>finished by 2010, though the initial plan called for
>completion by 2003," says the KCNA statement.
>
>At the upcoming negotiations in Washington, the DPRK
>representatives will be demanding U.S. compensation for its
>energy losses, the end of economic sanctions, the immediate
>withdrawal of 40,000 U.S. troops from south Korea, and the end
>of U.S.-South Korean military war maneuvers that constantly
>threaten the DPRK.
>
>U.S. imperialism has made the destruction of the socialist
>government in north Korea an ongoing priority. It is an
>integrated strategy combining war threats, sanctions and
>subversion. Washington's decision to restart negotiations is a
>result of the steadfastness and military strength of the DPRK
>and nothing more. Negotiations are not a sign that the U.S.
>rulers have changed their objectives in regard to Korea.
>
>Progressive people in the United States must join with the
>Korean people in demanding that the U.S. government live up to
>the 1994 agreement. Certainly the U.S. should be required to
>pay compensation for the hardships imposed by its double-
>dealing refusal to provide a substitute power plant. Those who
>deprive people of food, medicine and heat as part of a
>political war against socialism should be held accountable for
>their actions.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <00aa01bf8578$6b9a3060$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Stand with Cuba
>Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 20:24:43 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 9, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>EDITORIAL: STAND WITH CUBA
>
>After alienating virtually the entire world in the case of
>the kidnapped six-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez, U.S.
>imperialism can find no other followup but to intensify its
>lies and arrogance, launching a new attack on socialist
>Cuba.
>
>How else can anyone view the completely unwarranted
>charges against Cuban diplomat JosÇ Imperatori and the
>illegal ouster of this representative of Cuba from the
>United States? How else can anyone view the trumped-up
>charges and entrapment against Immigration and
>Naturalization Service official Mariano Faget?
>
>Let there be no doubt. The FBI, the CIA, military
>intelligence and all the secret spy operations of the U.S
>government are cesspools of anti-Cuba operatives. Trained
>in the Cold War and nurtured with the most stupidly vicious
>anti-Cuba propaganda, having the closest ties to the anti-
>Cuba criminal gangs in Dade County, these operatives know
>only hostility to the island nation. They will tell any
>lie, frame up any person, and endanger any child to carry
>out this hostility.
>
>Even though INS policy is to return children in Elian
>Gonzalez's position to their home country immediately, U.S.
>authorities handed him to a distant relative and put him in
>the hands of the right-wing Cuban counterrevolutionaries.
>
>Even though Attorney General Janet Reno said INS policy
>should prevail, she has allowed viciously anti-Cuba
>officials in the Florida and federal courts to stop any
>action that would return Elian Gonzalez to his community
>and family in Cuba.
>
>As usual, the Clinton administration has capitulated to
>the most reactionary forces in the machinery of the
>capitalist state. We hold this administration responsible
>for the continued kidnapping of the boy and for the frame-
>up against INS official Mariano Faget. We hold it
>responsible for the unwarranted charges against Cuban
>diplomat Jose Imperatori, who was courageous enough to try
>to stay in this country and force the criminals in the
>Justice Department to try him in a public court, and who is
>continuing his struggle in Canada.
>
>We call on all those in this country with any feeling at
>all for justice and human rights to demand that Washington:
>
>Allow Jose Imperatori to return to his duties in the
>United States.
>
>Drop the charges against Mariano Faget.
>
>Return Elian Gonzalez to Cuba.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
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