>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the June 8, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
> MUMIA ON SHAKA" `RESIST THE DEATH MACHINE!'
>By Mumia Abu-Jamal
>
>At the tender age of 17 a youth named Gary Graham was
>faced with a terrifying reality. The state of Texas and
>Harris County district attorney picked him as another
>expendable Black life form: a Black youth to feed to the
>death machine. In a case of murder, where neither
>fingerprints nor ballistics nor any credible evidence
>points to any notion of guilt, Gary Graham faces a legal
>murder.
>
>Over half his life spent in a hellish and harsh Texas
>death cell, Gary Graham has grown into the man now known
>as Shaka Sankofa, a young man who is deeply conscious of
>his individual and collective self and of his place in
>history.
>
>If there is a crime for which Bloody Texas seeks his
>death it is this: It is a crime in a racist nation for a
>Black youth to be conscious and thinking in political and
>collective terms. For Shaka Sankofa innocence is not
>enough. The state and federal judiciary have, it is true,
>provided oceans of process, but not an iota of justice.
>His life, and the lives of thousands of young men and
>women like him, were expendable at birth, not just at
>trial. Why should it be otherwise before the lily white
>and wealthy appeals courts?
>
>The Sankofa case presents a challenge to all of us, not
>just those of us who steadfastly oppose the death
>penalty, but for those who say we believe in fundamental
>fairness and basic human rights. Under the terms of
>international human rights pacts (to which the United
>States is a party) the execution of a person who is a
>juvenile when the alleged crime occurred is a violation
>of international law. But the American Empire sneers at
>international law.
>
>It is necessary to mobilize unsparing protests and stiff
>resistance to the death machine to bring about what
>should be our obvious goal:
>the life and freedom of Shaka Sankofa.
>
>May 5, 2000
>
> - 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)
>
>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Wed, 31 May 2000 23:46:10 -0400
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>Subject: [WW] Land for Zimbabwe
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the June 8, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>EDITORIAL: LAND FOR ZIMBABWE
>
>The African country of Zimbabwe used to be called Rhodesia,
>after the British imperialist and diamond millionaire Cecil
>Rhodes. Rhodesia's last prime minister, Ian Smith, was
>known for his heavy-handed racist rule in a country where
>whites make up 1 percent of the population but have
>controlled the economy and reaped its benefits ever since
>the area fell under British colonial rule.
>
>Zimbabwe has now been politically independent for 20
>years. The African people, led by the national liberation
>groups ZANU and ZAPU, won their freedom in 1980, but the
>tiny class of wealthy whites still holds the country's
>richest farmland and much more.
>
>Last month about 50 landless farmers and veterans of the
>anti-colonial guerrilla war occupied Smith's 4,000-acre
>ranch. Unfortunately Smith, like so many of his cronies,
>wasn't there. He spends his time in a wealthy suburb of the
>capital. But the squatters, especially those veterans who
>had survived the hard years fighting Smith's army, no doubt
>felt a great sense of historic justice anyway as they
>hunkered down in quarters formerly occupied by their enemy.
>
>This step toward long-delayed justice is just one of many
>seizures of white-owned lands in recent months that have
>been supported by President Robert Mugabe. Now the
>Zimbabwean government has announced it will seize 841
>white-owned farms and hand them over to landless Africans
>by the end of June. Last month a law was passed empowering
>the government to seize private land without compensation.
>
>Those who confiscated the whole continent of Africa and
>stole its people to boot are of course crying bloody murder
>at all this. They accuse Mugabe of a political ploy, since
>elections are coming up. Some in the progressive movement
>echo this charge, adding that Mugabe has persecuted those
>to his left who have long advocated redistribution of the
>land. But even if Mugabe should have done it earlier, and
>his motivation to do it now is "political," that doesn't
>invalidate the land seizures.
>
>Would anyone progressive oppose the Emancipation
>Proclamation because Abraham Lincoln should have freed the
>slaves earlier, did so as a last resort in order to win the
>Civil War, and then did it only after African Americans
>were already freeing themselves en masse?
>
>If it's "political" to seize the land, that means Mugabe
>is doing it to please the masses. In other words, the
>people want the government to make this move. It's about
>time.
>
>Mugabe may very well hope that a deal can be struck with
>Britain over this question. The Zimbabwe government has
>been trying to get Britain to buy out the white farmers.
>But the wily imperialists in London would rather see a few
>farmers killed in these land battles than admit to the
>principle that the colonizers owe something to those
>they've oppressed for over a century.
>
>Seizing the land and distributing it among the veterans
>and other Black farmers won't change the class character of
>the Zimbabwe government, which is bourgeois. But it will be
>a big step toward bringing the economy more in line with
>the political gains of the national democratic revolution
>against colonialism and white rule.
>
> - 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)
>
>
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Date: Wed, 31 May 2000 23:46:08 -0400
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>Subject: [WW] Death Penalty Foes Slam Candidates
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the June 8, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>AS MORE EXECUTIONS LOOM: DEATH PENALTY FOES SLAM
>CANDIDATES
>Activists Tell Texas Gov. Bush: Don't Kill Shaka Sankofa
>(Gary Graham)
>
>By Elijah Crane
>
>At a May 26 news conference held in Washington, Rubin
>"Hurricane" Carter and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. called for a
>new trial for Texas death-row prisoner Shaka Sankofa
>(formerly known as Gary Graham). Carter, a boxing legend
>who spent more than 20 years in prison for a crime he
>didn't commit, told reporters that there is "clear evidence
>of his innocence" and "we must not let him die."
>
>Jackson criticized presidential candidates Gov. George W.
>Bush and Vice President Al Gore for their pro-death-penalty
>positions and responded to Bush's claim that only guilty
>prisoners have been executed in Texas, saying, "Almost
>certainly, there have been or will be innocent people
>executed in Texas and elsewhere."
>
>George "serial killer" Bush, as he is commonly referred to
>in the movement to abolish the death penalty, has presided
>over the state-sanctioned killings of 132 people, five of
>which took place in the last two weeks of May alone. An
>additional 15 executions are slated to take place before
>November.
>
>On May 25, Cardinal Roger M. Mahoney of California had
>raised his voice against the death penalty in Washington.
>In a speech to the National Press Club, Mahoney declared
>that the death penalty is "fatally flawed and biased"
>against people of color and the poor.
>
>He then issued a letter to California Gov. Gray Davis
>urging him to impose a moratorium on the death penalty
>immediately. The governor refused. California holds 565
>prisoners on death row, more than any other state.
>
>The Rev. Al Sharpton will lead a group to Washington to
>lobby in Congress against the death penalty on June 8. In
>addition, Amnesty International has issued a call to stop
>the execution of Shaka Sankofa and abolish the death
>penalty.
>
>Popular opposition to the death penalty has grown
>tremendously in the United States in recent years. Mass
>demonstrations such as the May 7 Madison Square Garden
>rally for Mumia Abu-Jamal have broken through the media
>whiteout. There is now widespread recognition that Abu-
>Jamal is the face of the movement to end the racist death
>penalty.
>
>Many of the celebrities and activists who support Mumia
>Abu-Jamal--like Ed Asner, Mike Farrell and Danny Glover--
>have also been following Shaka Sankofa's case very closely.
>Like Abu-Jamal's, Sankofa's original trial was riddled with
>police, judicial and prosecutorial misconduct and coaxed
>testimonies.
>
>Both Abu-Jamal and Sankofa are fighting for a new trial,
>which would allow them to enter new evidence and prove
>their innocence.
>
>Sankofa is one of 70 people who were juveniles at the time
>of their arrest and subsequently sentenced to death in
>flagrant violation of international law. Although Sankofa
>left school at an early age, he has gained a revolutionary
>education behind prison walls. "Like Malcolm X," said Larry
>Holmes of Millions for Mumia, "Shaka has become very
>political and revolutionary since he went to prison. He is
>the one who holds classes for other prisoners, who
>disseminates literature."
>
>TEXAS' GOV. "DEATH"
>
>It is not surprising that Texas, with the most executions
>in the United States, does not have a public defender
>system. Last year Bush vetoed a bill that would have helped
>counties institute such a structure. Instead, thanks to
>Bush's 1995 efforts to make the death penalty "swift and
>sure," pro-death-penalty judges appoint lawyers they know
>will expedite the process.
>
>Every tier of the system is stacked against the oppressed.
>There is no "fairness" or "impartiality" in this system--
>least of all in the state of Texas--as long as you are
>Black, Latina/o, lesbian, gay, bi, trans, and/or poor.
>
>As Sankofa's June 22 execution date grows closer, the
>debate in the ruling class is also intensifying. And the
>pressure is on. Media coverage of the death penalty has
>skyrocketed, with Texas receiving specific attention. Every
>major news outlet from the New York Times to PBS to CNN is
>covering the issue extensively.
>
>"The pressure is growing," said Monica Moorehead of
>Millions for Mumia on May 26. "You can see it because Bush
>had to come out today in favor of DNA testing."
>
>DNA testing for prisoners has proven the innocence of the
>accused 26 percent of the time when administered during
>trial.
>
>"The movement to abolish the death penalty must take full
>advantage of this situation and do everything we can to
>deepen the crisis for the imperialist bourgeoisie,"
>Moorehead said.
>
>Demonstrators in support of Abu-Jamal throughout Africa,
>in Italy, France, Sweden, Germany and elsewhere around the
>world have also taken a stand against the U.S. death
>penalty. Oppressed and working-class people everywhere are
>affected by the U.S. death machine--whether it's Pentagon
>bombs or execution, as in the case of two German citizens
>executed by the state of Arizona in 1999 who were denied
>access to their diplomatic consul.
>
>National Days of Actions have been called for June 16-19
>to demand an end to the death penalty, to stop the
>execution of Shaka Sankofa and grant him a new trial now.
>Demonstrations will be held in Detroit, San Francisco, Los
>Angeles, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, Houston, and
>other cities. Mass support for these actions is needed. The
>time is ripe for a movement against the death penalty to
>strike a critical blow and build united popular support.
>
> - 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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