> WW News Service Digest #122
>
> 1) Nationwide Demos vs. Texas Execution
> by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 2) Socialst Candidates Condemn Execution
> by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 3) Vieques: New Bombing Sparks Resistance
> by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 4) Free at Last!
> by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 5) Sankofa, Protesters Fight Legal Lynching
> by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the July 6, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>DEMONSTRATIONS NATIONWIDE OPPOSE TEXAS EXECUTION
>
>By Greg Butterfield
>
>Anti-racist activists and death-penalty opponents stayed
>in the streets up till the moment of Gary Graham/Shaka
>Sankofa's June 22 execution. They were determined to do
>everything possible to prevent the state-sanctioned killing
>of Sankofa, who had been on death row since the age of 17.
>After news came of his death, they continued to
>demonstrate, hoping to lay the basis for a broader, more
>militant movement to abolish death row.
>
>New York-area activists held a 10-hour demonstration
>against the execution. The protest started at noon outside
>"Bush for President" headquarters in Manhattan with a
>picket line of 200. Throughout the day, dozens of youths
>and community activists kept the picket going, transforming
>a stretch of Madison Avenue into a big street meeting on
>Sankofa's case and the death penalty.
>
>After 5 p.m. the protest swelled to several hundred
>demonstrators. Led by an International Action Center banner
>reading "Stop the execution," they marched across rush-hour
>42nd Street to Times Square. At the intersection of 42nd
>Street and Broadway, 11 death-penalty foes blocked traffic
>while supporters chanted on either side of the street. They
>were arrested and held in jail overnight, some for more
>than 30 hours.
>
>The angry protest continued after Sankofa's death was
>announced. Chants of "Avenge Shaka, free Mumia" told of the
>protesters' determination to continue the militant
>resistance to racism and legal lynching that Sankofa had
>shown before his execution.
>
>There were also arrests in San Francisco, where 18 people
>locked arms and stood in the intersection of Seventh and
>Mission streets, tying up traffic for 20 minutes during the
>evening rush hour. Other demonstrators cheered them on.
>
>Alicia Jrapko and Gloria La Riva of the International
>Action Center were among those arrested. As she was being
>dragged off by cops, La Riva told a reporter, "George Bush
>is committing an open, premeditated act of murder."
>
>In Detroit, 60 protesters joined a group of hunger
>strikers for a last-ditch demonstration. They marched
>together through busy intersections chanting, "Remember
>Shaka, free Mumia! End the death penalty now!"
>
>The hunger strikers included labor, religious and
>community activists. One of them, Auto Workers Local 2334
>President David Sole, said the group spent every day that
>week camped out in front of the City Council offices,
>leafleting, petitioning and holding street meetings. Every
>night they faxed hundreds of signatures to Bush and the
>Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles demanding the execution
>be stopped.
>
>In Mumia Abu-Jamal's hometown of Philadelphia, dozens of
>protesters gathered at the Clothespin statue across from
>City Hall to leaflet during the evening rush. Many
>passersby stopped to ask questions about Shaka Sankofa's
>case or express support.
>
>Later on, a mobile street rally against the execution
>marched on South Broad Street and then 12 blocks down South
>Street. It lasted late into the evening. Many homeless
>youths joined the march.
>
>About 100 people rallied outside the Republican National
>Headquarters in Washington, organized by the Ad-Hoc
>Coalition to Stop the Execution of Shaka Sankofa.
>
>One demonstrator read a list of the 134 people previously
>executed under Governor Bush. The crowd responded with
>chants of "presente!" Others read the last statements of
>some of those prisoners, including those who maintained
>their innocence and those who urged people to continue the
>struggle.
>
>Protests were also held in Austin, Texas, Northampton,
>Mass., and many other cities.
>
>With reports from David Sole in Detroit, Betsy Piette and
>Joe Piette in Philadelphia, Bill Hackwell in San Francisco,
>and Malcolm Cummins
>in Washington.
>
> - 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, 28 Jun 2000 23:01:01 -0400
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>Subject: [WW] Socialst Candidates Condemn Execution
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the July 6, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>SOCIALIST CANDIDATES CONDEMN "STATE-SANCTIONED
>MURDER"
>
>[The following statement was issued by Monica Moorehead and
>Gloria La Riva, Workers World Party presidential and vice-
>presidential candidates, after the June 22 execution of
>Gary Graham/Shaka Sankofa.]
>
>
>
>The execution of Shaka Sankofa, formerly known as Gary
>Graham, stands as a grim reminder that there is a racist
>war taking place in this country against poor people of
>color. This state-sanctioned murder of an innocent man has
>been condemned by human-rights activists worldwide,
>including Commandante Fidel Castro of Cuba. Archbishop
>Desmond Tutu of South Africa called for the end of the
>death penalty in the United States in light of Shaka's
>murder.
>
>A top United Nations official, Mary Robinson, also
>denounced the execution. "The overwhelming international
>consensus that the death penalty shall not apply to
>juvenile offenders stems from the recognition that young
>persons lack maturity and judgment and thus cannot be
>expected to be fully responsible for their actions," she
>said.
>
>For the UN commissioner on human rights to take a public
>stance against the policies of the U.S. government is quite
>remarkable. This indicates that the United States is
>isolating itself more and more from the rest of the world,
>including its allies, on this issue.
>
>Shaka was executed not because he was guilty of a murder
>that took place in 1981. Like millions of others, Shaka's
>"crimes" were that he was young, African American, poor and
>therefore at the mercy of the semi-slavery-like mentality
>of the Texas courts at the time of his conviction at the
>age of 17.
>
>Whatever mistakes he committed during his youth should be
>understood within the context of "crimes of survival."
>Under the capitalist system, if you are not white, straight
>and rich, you are dehumanized by the criminal justice
>system from the U.S. Supreme Court on down.
>
>This is a continuation of the Supreme Court's Dred Scott
>decision of 1857. That decision legally declared that
>African slaves were "three-fifths human" and therefore
>could be denied their full constitutional rights to life,
>liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
>
>The other "crime" that Shaka was guilty of was becoming a
>revolutionary during his 19 years of incarceration. Just as
>Malcolm Little became Malcolm X while imprisoned, Shaka
>Sankofa chose his righteous name to reflect his growing
>political consciousness.
>
>In Texas, you can learn very quickly which side of the
>class struggle to be on due to the vicious, racist nature
>of the prisons and the capitalist system in general.
>
>LEGAL LYNCHING
>
>The legal lynching of Shaka holds many lessons for the
>workers and the oppressed. One immediate lesson is that
>poor people, especially those of color, cannot expect to
>receive any kind of real justice because of poorly trained
>defense lawyers, the lack of adequate legal counsel for
>indigent defendants and, of course, racism.
>
>Ruling-class dynasties like the Ken nedys, Rockefellers
>and DuPonts never set foot on death row because they can
>buy high-priced, slick lawyers and bribe prosecutors and
>judges to get them off with at most a slap on the wrist.
>
>A comprehensive study done by Columbia University on the
>application of the death penalty in the United States
>underscores the fact that there is a 68-percent error rate
>for convictions in capital punishment cases.
>
>Shaka's execution helps to expose the undemocratic nature
>of the Texas criminal-justice system. Look at how the 18-
>member Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles determined Shaka
>Sankofa's fate.
>
>Did they hold an emergency session to discuss his case?
>Did they hold a public hearing as one Texas state
>legislator suggested? They did none of these things.
>
>This secretive board--appointed by Gov. "Death," George W.
>Bush and each paid $80,000 a year--faxed in their
>decisions.
>
>Would anyone want her or his fate determined by a faxed
>vote? Can any ordinary person in the state of Texas name
>all the members of this powerful board?
>
>Can anyone in a high position of authority making a huge
>salary make a rational decision when a poor Black person's
>life is at stake?
>
>And what about the undemocratic nature of the U.S. Supreme
>Court's intervention? They voted five to four against a
>stay of execution for Shaka. Can anyone in his or her right
>mind believe that this is constitutional even under
>bourgeois law?
>
>A CNN viewer commented on the night of Shaka's death that
>a vote so close should indicate there is a case of
>reasonable doubt as to Shaka's guilt.
>
>The bottom line is that the execution of Shaka Sankofa is
>a result of the anti-poor and racist use of the death
>penalty. The death penalty, under capitalism, serves the
>interests of the rich and the powerful, while at the same
>time it terrorizes the poor, the oppressed and those like
>Mumia Abu-Jamal who speak out against injustice.
>
>Moratoriums on the death penalty, like the one instituted
>in Illinois, are progressive steps forward. A moratorium is
>certainly needed in Texas to bring a halt to the genocidal
>murders.
>
>But moratoriums alone are not enough. They are only
>temporary, stop-gap measures. It is not enough for
>governors and state legislatures to intervene on this
>question because many of the politicians who are for
>moratoriums are also unequivocally for the death penalty.
>They view the moratorium as a vehicle for buying some time
>in order to "fix the problem" of executing the wrongfully
>convicted. This includes passing legislation that will
>institute DNA testing.
>
>Every time an execution takes place, it reinforces and
>strengthens the ruling-class argument that the repressive
>state apparatus as the "only" deterrent to "crime." But
>statistics show that the death penalty does not serve as a
>deterrent to crime. In fact, those states that use the
>death penalty have on average twice as many murders as
>states that do not use the death penalty, according to
>Amnesty International.
>
>Instead of spending millions of dollars to execute the
>poor, the money could be spent on job training, education
>and drug rehabilitation on demand, especially for young
>people in working-class and oppressed communities.
>
>If town meetings on the death penalty were held all over
>the country, a great majority of the people could be won
>over to this alternative program.
>
>A WAKE-UP CALL
>
>Shaka's life could not be saved. Why not? The masses did
>not intervene in an organized and forceful way to stop it.
>
>This is partially due to the lack of working-class
>leadership on this question. The labor movement, the
>women's movement, and the social democrats failed to take
>up this struggle, with a few notable execeptions.
>
>This fact, however, does not mean that Shaka died in vain.
>The U.S. population and the whole world received a wake-up
>call on how the death penalty is carried out in such a
>callous and biased manner as the battle to save Shaka's
>life was played out in the mass media.
>
>The masses are beginning to call into question the
>legality of the death penalty, even if it is from a moral
>point of view. And it was important that the masses saw the
>political movement fight back against the execution in the
>hundreds in front of the Huntsville death house.
>
>Over time, the ruling class's decision to kill Shaka will
>prove to be a gross miscalculation on their part.
>
>In the long run, the death penalty under capitalism must
>be abolished. Like police brutality, it is an example that
>class rule exists within the United States--that a tiny
>minority of millionaires and billionaires will do
>everything in their power to instill ideological passivity
>and sow divisions within the majority, the multinational
>working class, in order to hang on to their capitalist
>profit system.
>
>The political movement must continue to assert itself as
>the leadership of the anti-death-penalty movement in an
>independent manner, and not rely on so-called liberal
>bourgeois figures to define the struggle. Our communist
>election campaign is devoting itself to help do agitational
>outreach to our class on this pivotal issue in order to
>deepen class consciousness and bring the masses into the
>arena of struggle.
>
>The next big battleground on the death penalty will surely
>be the struggle to win a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal. His
>case is linked to the overall struggle to end the death
>penalty, police brutality and all forms of racist
>repression.
>
>We had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Shaka Sankofa
>four years ago during our 1996 election campaign, along
>with other Texas death-row inmates like Ponchai "Kamau"
>Wilkerson, who was executed this past March.
>
>Although we were afforded just a short time to visit with
>Shaka by the prison authorities, it became abundantly clear
>that he was a staunch revolutionary who was more concerned
>about the plight of Black and oppressed peoples than his
>own individual case.
>
>If his life had to be sacrificed, he wanted it to be for
>advancing the struggle for social change. As he said just
>seconds before his life was so barbarically taken, "You can
>kill a revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."
>
>Long live the spirit of Shaka Sankofa! For Shaka, free
>Mumia! Abolish the racist death penalty!
>
> - 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, 28 Jun 2000 23:01:01 -0400
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>Content-transfer-encoding: Quoted-printable
>Subject: [WW] Vieques: New Bombing Sparks Resistance
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the July 6, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>BATTLE OF VIEQUES: NEW BOMBING SPARKS RESISTANCE
>
>By Berta Joubert-Ceci
>
>Late in the afternoon of June 25, the U.S. Navy began
>dropping bombs again on Vieques, Puerto Rico. Despite wide
>opposition from all sectors of Puerto Rican society, the
>Pentagon initiated its plan to drop 130,000 pounds of bombs
>during five days of military practice at the eastern tip of
>the island, home of the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training
>Facility.
>
>This is the largest military exercise in Vieques since
>April 19, 1999, when two 500-pound bombs fell on an
>observation post in the shooting range and killed a
>civilian guard, David Sanes.
>
>After Sanes's death the people of Vieques and mainland
>Puerto Rico penetrated the restricted military zone,
>establishing encampments and effectively stopping the
>Pentagon's exercises for over a year.
>
>Then on May 4, hundreds of FBI agents, federal marshals
>and marines evicted the more than 200 protesters. They
>sealed the base in an attempt to prevent activists from re-
>entering.
>
>But demonstrators have managed to return to the area, even
>though most have been detained. Some remain hidden in
>secluded areas in an effort to stop the bombing.
>
>The people responded immediately to the latest threat.
>
>Once activists spotted three Navy ships on the horizon
>June 24, they started penetrating the restricted area.
>Despite heavy security, over 200 protesters have succeeded
>thus far, by land and by sea.
>
>One activist managed to jump over the cyclone fence that
>divides the military from the civilian area. He planted a
>Vieques flag on the base before marines could catch him.
>
>In a dramatic scene, fishers in five boats, under the
>leadership of Carlos Zen=A2n, took a few demonstrators by sea
>to the restricted shooting area June 26. Two Harbor Patrol
>boats with military personnel and one helicopter tried to
>catch the boats. But the protesters threw steel rods at the
>military vessels and were able to escape to safety.
>
>The Navy later claimed two sailors were injured by the
>rods.
>
>According to the Associated Press, by June 28 at least 135
>demonstrators were arrested. The federal court that oversees
>these cases has taken a tough stand. The court is imposing
>$500 cash bail for those who refuse to identify themselves.
>Several people have been kept in jail for refusing to post
>bail.
>
>NAVY LIES, BOMBS SOONER
>
>The brass knew that some protesters were hidden in the
>target area. But they started bombing anyway.
>
>In fact, there was a calculated move by the U.S. forces to
>deceive the people of Vieques and endanger their safety.
>
>On the morning of June 25 the Navy posted an announcement
>in the ferry terminal. It alerted fishers and the public
>that bombing exercises would resume the following day.
>
>But just a few hours later, children ran scared and houses
>trembled when the bombs fell and explosions broke the
>yearlong peace in Vieques.
>
>The Pentagon said these exercises were needed for the
>aircraft carrier group USS Washington, with its 16 ships,
>80 combat planes and 15,000 troops before it is deployed in
>the Persian Gulf.
>
>But the truth is the military brass feel they must flex
>their muscles. They don't want the world to think that a
>few hundred Puerto Ricans, representing the majority of the
>population, can stop Pentagon business as usual.
>
>This imperialist arrogance hasn't deterred the people's
>will to resist. It has actually enhanced the solidarity.
>
>For example, the general population of prisoners is
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