> WW News Service Digest #123
>
> 1) Resend: Sankofa, protesters fight legal lynching
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 2) Throngs cheer diverse lesbin/gay/bi/trans marchers
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 3) San Francisco: Out and against the death penalty
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 4) Denver rainbow march
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 5) Lesbians march in New York
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 6) Canada cutbacks leave 2,000 sick, 11 dead
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 7) Koreans expose U.S. war crimes
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the July 6, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS:
>SANKOFA, PROTESTERS FIGHT LEGAL LYNCHING
>TO LAST MINUTE
>
>By Richard Becker
>Huntsville, Texas
>
>
>At 8:49 p.m. Central Daylight Time on June 22, poison injected into his
>veins by a Texas prison doctor stopped the heart of Shaka Sankofa. He fought
>until the very end.
>
>Strapped to a gurney, Sankofa gave a stirring speech that ended only with
>his last breath.
>
>Sankofa is dead, legally lynched by Gov. George W. Bush and the state of
>Texas. But through his heroic and determined struggle in the last days of
>his life, he dealt a mighty blow to the racist death penalty.
>
>Sankofa is dead. But his revolutionary spirit lives on.
>
>In 1981 Shaka Sankofa, then known as Gary Graham, was convicted of murder
>and sentenced to death. He was condemned after a two-day legal proceeding so
>corrupt and farcical that it could not be accurately called a trial--even by
>bourgeois legal standards.
>
>Graham, a 17-year-old African American, was accused of killing Bobby
>Lambert, a reputed drug dealer who was white. Graham's conviction rested
>entirely on the testimony of one eyewitness who viewed the killing from 35
>to 40 feet away, through a car windshield, at night.
>
>His court-paid lawyer, Ronald G. Mock, failed to call any witnesses,
>although there were two at the time who said they were sure the shooter was
>not Graham. Nor did Mock introduce a ballistics test that showed that
>Graham's gun could not have fired the bullet that killed Lambert.
>
>In the June 11 New York Times, Mock boasted of having more of his clients
>end up on death row that any other lawyer in the United States. His role was
>to speed up the death march for the poor and overwhelmingly African American
>and Latino clients the state of Texas lavishly paid him to represent.
>
>Five times before, Texas authorities had set execution dates for Sankofa.
>Each time, his new lawyers and public pressure had won a stay and a new
>appeal.
>
>But never in the nearly two decades after his original conviction was
>Sankofa granted a new, real trial.
>
>In early May, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his final appeal. The
>Texas Department of Corrections immediately set June 22 as the execution
>date.
>
>With no appeals left it appeared almost certain that the sentence would be
>carried out. But supporters in Texas, including the Texas Death Penalty
>Abolition Movement, Nation of Islam, SHAPE Community Center, National Black
>United Front, New Black Panther Party and others went into high gear.
>
>They demanded that Bush and his appointed Board of Pardons and Paroles grant
>Sankofa clemency and a new trial. The International Action Center/Millions
>for Mumia sent out a call to hold National Days of Protest on June 16-20 to
>stop the execution.
>
>Sankofa himself vowed to resist to the end--as had his comrade Ponchai
>"Kamau" Wilkerson, who was executed in March.
>
>Struggle outside death house
>
>The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had scheduled the announcement of its
>recommendations in Sankofa's case for noon on June 22--just six hours before
>the time set for his execution.
>
>By that time, 300 anti-death penalty demonstrators had assembled outside the
>red brick prison in Huntsville, about 70 miles north of Houston. Several
>dozen media trucks were parked in an adjacent lot.
>
>Hundreds of state, county and city cops, along with the infamous Texas
>Rangers, surrounded the area. On the other side of the prison, a heavy
>police guard protected about 20 Ku Klux Klan members wearing white robes and
>carrying Confederate flags and pro-death-penalty signs.
>
>Noon came and went without an announcement from the board. Then, at 1:45
>p.m., longtime Sankofa supporter Ashanti Chimurenga spoke to the crowd. "The
>Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied all relief and clemency," she
>reported.
>
>The board had not met. Its members simply faxed in their ballots to a
>central office in Austin.
>
>They voted 12 to five against clemency, 14 to three against a 120-day
>reprieve to investigate, and 17 to zero against a conditional pardon.
>
>The execution was set to be carried out in just a few hours. Family members,
>friends and supporters were stunned, many in tears. But no one was ready to
>give up.
>
>Despite her evident pain, Sankofa's stepmother, Elnora Graham, told
>reporters and supporters: "He's a very strong man. And he's still alive.
>He's still alive."
>
>A little after 2 p.m., a powerful rally began along the high barricades set
>up less than 25 yards from the prison wall. It was co-chaired by Gloria
>Rubac, a leader of the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, and Anthony
>Freddie of the Shaka Sankofa/Gary Graham Justice Coalition.
>
>Rubac, who met with Sankofa and other death-row inmates many times,
>denounced "the slavery that exists today inside the Texas prisons."
>
>"Bush the father slaughtered the people in Iraq," Rubac continued. "Now
>George W. is slaughtering the people inside the Texas prisons.
>
>"We have to end prison slavery in Texas. We have to stop the Texas death
>machine."
>
>Quanell X of the New Black Muslim Movement said: "We are not here to appeal
>to the conscience of George W. Bush. There is no point to that. We are here
>to appeal to the Black family."
>
>Conrad Worril, chair of the National Black United Front in Chicago, termed
>Texas "a part of the new Confederacy. ... It is George W. Bush and the Texas
>Board of Pardons and Paroles who are on trial here today."
>
>Larry Holmes, a national leader of the International Action Center and
>Millions for Mumia, said that "the real murderer is not inside here in some
>cell but in the governor's mansion in Austin.
>
>"If they have the arrogance to go through with this assassination, it will
>be a freedom fighter who is martyred here today."
>
>At one point, a group of youths and other activists rushed the line of
>police and prison guards outside the death house. Some broke through and ran
>toward the building. Eight people were arrested.
>
>Minister Robert Muhammad of the Nation of Islam, Sankofa's spiritual
>advisor, emerged from the prison a little before 4 p.m. He told the crowd
>that Sankofa had said that "the board decision comes as no surprise."
>
>Muhammad said: "Shaka knows that this struggle is much bigger than him as an
>individual. It is the struggle to end the racist, anti-poor death penalty."
>
>He quoted Sankofa as saying: "Death is a complement to life. The only way
>you can avoid dying is by not being born. But what the enemy tries to do is
>to make death something to fear.
>
>"Non-cooperation with evil is an obligation like cooperation with
>righteousness is an obligation."
>
>Muhammad explained that Sankofa "refuses to accept a last meal because it
>would be to accept injustice." He called Sankofa "one of the strongest
>people I've ever met," and said that "he does not seem desperate or even
>anxious."
>
>Around the same time, it was announced that Sankofa's lawyers, Jack
>Zimmerman and Richard Burr, had made last-ditch appeals to the Texas Court
>of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.
>
>The Texas high court quickly turned it down. At 5:30 p.m. came the news that
>the U.S. Supreme Court had refused to hear the appeal by a vote of five to
>four.
>
>The multinational crowd outside the prison grew, swelling to as many as
>1,000 between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. After the announcement of the Supreme Court
>decision, the organizers led a march to the downtown Huntsville area, which
>was closed down that day, and into the Black community.
>
>There the New Black Panther Party staged an armed demonstration of support
>for Sankofa. About 200 people, mostly African American, joined the march.
>
>A little before 6 p.m., the execution witnesses--including Sankofa
>supporters the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Bianca Jagger of
>Amnesty International, and Minister Muhammad--entered the Walls death unit.
>
>Outside, Larry Holmes led the demonstration in chanting, "Shaka Sankofa,
>live like him--dare to struggle, dare to win."
>
>The end seemed near.
>
>Then came another announcement. Law yers Burr and Zimmerman had filed an
>unusual civil action based on the deprivation of Sankofa's constitutional
>rights. If the issues it raised could not be resolved by midnight, an
>automatic 30-day stay of execution would have to be granted.
>
>But at about 8 p.m., word came that the civil action, too, had been thrown
>out.
>
>In the last minutes of his life, as Sankofa spoke his final words, the
>demonstrators join ed in chanting, "Long live Shaka Sankofa."
>
>With great sadness and deep anger, the demonstrators marched out or slowly
>dispersed.
>
>Deep divisions in ruling class
>
>The acceleration of the movement to stop
>Sankofa's execution and end the death penalty in the weeks before his death
>brought to the surface deep divisions within the U.S. ruling class.
>
>This latest development came only a few months after Illinois Gov. George
>Ryan was forced to declare a moratorium on executions in that state because
>13 innocent people had been released from death row.
>
>Suddenly, the TV screens and editorial pages of leading capitalist media
>outlets--the New York Times, CNN, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, ABC,
>etc.--were filled with calls to stop Shaka Sankofa's execution, grant him a
>new trial, and, in some cases, suspend the death penalty.
>
>A widely reported study of all death sentences in the U.S. between 1973-1995
>by Columbia University showed that 68 percent were overturned due to legal
>flaws, and that many of those retried were found innocent.
>
>What accounts for this surge of opposition to the death penalty from some of
>the biggest corporate media? Certainly it can't be attributed to any moral
>outrage. They are corporations after all. No, it has to do with the reality
>that the rising tide of executions here undercuts the U.S. role as the
>pretended champion of human rights and democracy around the world.
>
>Nearly all of the closest U.S. allies have eliminated the death penalty,
>while at home the pace of executions is speeding up. And it's clear that
>those sent to the death house are exclusively poor and overwhelmingly people
>of color.
>
>Many of Washington's allies, including the European Union, condemned the
>United States for this latest execution, in large part because Gary
>Graham/Shaka Sankofa was a minor in 1981. Executing a person for a crime
>committed while under age 18 years is a violation of international law.
>
>Another factor in the emerging bourgeois opposition to the death penalty is
>fear that the rash of legal lynchings will spur rebellions in the nationally
>oppressed communities.
>
>Execution carried out despite growing opposition
>
>In the days after the execution, condemnation was widespread.
>
>The June 23 Italian daily Il Manifesto carried a big picture of Bush on its
>front page with the headline "The executioner doesn't let up." Many other
>newspapers around the world condemned the execution.
>
>A German legislator, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, said: "The U.S.
>presents itself as the world police defending human rights, and on the other
>side it carries out the death penalty."
>
>UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, who had called for a
>stay of execution, said that it "ran counter to widely accepted
>international principles."
>
>In the United States, demonstrations and disruptions of Bush's campaign
>activities took place coast to coast for a week before June 22. In Texas,
>the active movement against the death penalty, especially in the African
>American community, grew to a level not previously seen.
>
>Dozens were arrested during these pro tests. As the clocked ticked down to
>the execution June 22, 18 people were arrested at a militant protest in San
>Francisco and 11 more in New York.
>
>But despite strong opposition from within their own ranks, the decision of
>the U.S. rulers and their state was to go ahead with the legal lynching of
>Shaka Sankofa. They oppose granting anything that the oppressed could view
>as a concession or even a slight relaxation of repression. They are afraid
>that this could raise expectations and encourage the struggle.
>
>The prison system and the death penalty are weapons of state-sponsored
>terrorism, which have been greatly expanded over the past two decades.
>
>The ruling class and its state have always turned first to greater violence
>and repression when confronted with new and rising popular movements, in an
>attempt to crush them and demoralise their proponents. This has been true in
>the United States in regard to the civil-rights, labor, anti-war and other
>struggles.
>
>It is only when those movements grew, became stronger and proved that they
>weren't going away that the ruling class was forced to make some
>concessions.
>
>In the final analysis, the state killed Shaka Sankofa because the movement
>wasn't strong enough to stop them. The best way to truly honor Sankofa and
>to assure that his valiant sacrifice was not in vain is to build a movement
>so powerful that it can stop the state murder of Mumia Abu-Jamal, halt all
>executions and abolish the racist death penalty once and for all.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
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>
>
>
>Message-ID: <003801bfe390$2d2bbc60$0a00a8c0@home>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Throngs cheer diverse lesbin/gay/bi/trans marchers
>Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 15:11:35 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the July 6, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>NEW YORK: THRONGS CHEER DIVERSE PRIDE MARCHERS
>
>By Gery Armsby
>New York
>
>On June 25, New York's 31st annual Heritage of Pride march
>flowed down Fifth Avenue from Central Park to Greenwich
>Village. Wave after wave of the nearly 300 groups that
>composed this year's parade brought their lesbian, gay, bi
>and trans pride out into the streets of Manhattan. Huge
>crowds warmly cheered them.
>
>Pride marches held each June here and around the world
>commemorate the June 1969 Stonewall rebellion in which
>trans youths and other lesbian, bisexual and gay people--
>Black, Latino and white--united in a momentous fight
>against police repression in Greenwich Village.
>
>Out of that four-night-long street battle against the cops
>a movement that set its sights on lesbian and gay
>liberation emerged.
>
>Since 1970, when the first commemorative march was held to
>remember the rebellion at the Stonewall Bar, the fight for
>gay and lesbian liberation has steadily strengthened--
>closely aligning itself with the HIV/AIDS struggle, the
>struggles for trans and bisexual liberation, and the
>struggle against racism.
>
>The expansion and growth of the lesbian, gay, bi and trans
>movement and its active participation in the struggle
>against racism and national oppression were apparent to the
>hundreds of thousands who cheered and watched along the
>parade route.
>
>A big contingent of Puerto Rican women marched near the
>front of the parade. With banners and shouts they demanded,
>"U.S. Navy out of Vieques!"
>
>The Caribbean Pride float and contingent--emblazoned with
>flags from Jamaica, Grenada, Martinique, Trinidad and
>Tobago, Bahamas, Saint Lucia, Sint Maarten, Antigua,
>Barbados, Montserrat, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican
>Republic among others--spanned almost two city blocks.
>
>Also near the front of the march were delegations from
>local and national lesbian, gay, bi, trans and two-spirit
>people of color organizations. These included African
>Ancestral Lesbians United for Social Change, Audre Lorde
>Project, Kilawin Kolektibo: Filipina Lesbian Collective,
>South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association, Brasilian Rainbow
>Group, LLEGO--the National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual
>and Transgender Organization, Colectivo Mexicano LGBT,
>Project Reach, Gay Men of African Descent, and many others.
>
>
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