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u.$. DAMAGES TO PALESTINE
KOREA, BLACK & NATIVE LIBERATION DAMAGES Click Here
JEWISH SETTLER BEATS CHILD TO DEATH AS NETANYAHU APPROVES SETTLEMENT EXPANSION
28 October, 1996
LAWE - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment PO Box 20873 Jerusalem, via Israel Tel: (972) (2) 5812364/5824559 Fax: (972) (2) 5811072 email: lawe@netvision.net.il
On Sunday 27 October, a Jewish settler from the Betar settlement near Husan village, Bethlehem, beat a Palestinian child to death. The eleven year old child, Hilmeh Salim Hilmeh Shushah was playing with some of his relatives near his parents' house. The house adjoins a settler bypass road linking the Betar settlement with Road 60.
According to witnesses at the scene, at 2:30 p.m. a blue jeep belonging to the head of the settlement security stopped near the children. A settler known as "Nahum", the head of the settlement's security, got out of the jeep. With his rifle butt, the settler beat Hilmeh all over his body and his head. After Hilmeh fell unconscious, the settler carried the him to a nearby Israeli military camp. Hilmeh was brain dead by this time. Afterwards the boy was transferred to Hadassah hospital and was pronounced dead. Nahum was arrested by Israeli police.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced the approval of the sale of 3000 newly-constructed apartments located in settlements throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Some of these apartments are located in the Betar settlement where the settler who murdered the Palestinian boy resides. These apartments were built under the Rabin/Peres administrations but were kept off the market by the Labor government during the Oslo negotiations. The Netanyahu government announced that the sale of these apartments will bring in necessary revenue for the budget deficit.
LAWE - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment looks upon this murder with grave concern. The beating of a child in cold blood is inhumane and inexcusable and calls for an immediate investigation and charges brought against "Nahum". At the same time, LAWE holds the Netanyahu government responsible for this act as it continues to support the Jewish settlers militarily, financially and morally in their vigilante and colonialist acts in the West Bank.
LAWE calls on the international community to protest this beating and to demand a freeze of all settlement expansion, construction, and sales of apartments. With each new apartment enters another settler family of four or more, armed and ideologically opposed to ending the Israeli military occupation. LAWE believes that Netanyahu's policies, like his announcement yesterday, only increase the tensions and hostilities in the area and can lead to further violence and suffering. LAWE calls on all those interested in preventing further horrid acts and opposed to the expansion of the settlements to send faxes to your governments and to the following: Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, fax: 972-2-637891 YESHA Settlers Council, Foreign Desk, fax: 972-2- 5814072 ________________________________________________ LAWE - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment is a non-governmental organization, dedicated to preserving human rights through legal advocacy. LAWE is also an affiliate member of the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights.
PALESTINIAN BOY BEATEN BY SETTLER WAS SLATED TO DONATE BONE MARROW TO DYING SISTER October 29, 1996
LAWE - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment PO Box 20873 Jerusalem, via Israel Tel: (972) (2) 5812364/5824559 Fax: (972) (2) 5811072 email: lawe@netvision.net.il
In a further tragic development, Hilmeh Shusha, the eleven-year old boy who was beaten to death by a Jewish settler, was scheduled to donate bone marrow to his two-year old sister , Suha, dying of Leukemia. Hilmeh was the only suitable donor found by the family and with his death, the family is without any means to save the younger daughter.
On Sunday, October 27, a Jewish settler beat Hilmeh to death with his rifle butt as Hilmeh was walking home from school. Contrary to news reports, witnesses to the incident reported that no rock-throwing had occurred. They stated that Hilmeh and two other children were walking along the bypass road which was empty of traffic. Without warning, a settler's jeep sped by and then stopped in front of the children. A settler, reportedly the chief of security at the Efrat settlement, got out of the jeep and beat Hilmeh on his head and body. Witnesses report that Hilmeh remained on the ground bleeding for a half and hour before the army took him to the hospital. Under the Oslo accords this road is under the security jurisdiction of the Israeli military forces.
Yesterday, the autopsy report from Abu Kabir -the Israeli coroner center - concluded that Hilmeh died from internal cranial bleeding. The report stated that Hilmeh sustained a blunt trauma to the side of his neck which in turn caused internal bleeding in his head.
Hilmeh's mother was with Suha at the hospital when Hilmeh was brought in brain-dead from the beating. Hilmeh was buried this morning in Husan village. _______________________________________________ LAWE - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment is a non-governmental organization, dedicated to preserving human rights through legal advocacy. LAWE is also an affiliate member of the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights.
Press Release 12 November 1997
ISRAELI SOLDIERS SHOOT NINE YEAR OLD BOY IN BETHLEHEM On 11 November, a nine year old boy was shot in the head, apparently by live ammunition, by an Israeli soldier during clashes at Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem. A ceremony was taking place at the Tomb marking the completion of the walls and guard towers which now surround the Tomb and restrict the main road into Bethlehem. Israeli Defense Minister Mordechai was present. According to eye-witnesses, several dozen children and youth came from the nearby Aida refugee camp and began throwing stones and burning tires. The stones did not endanger nor come close to the Israelis or to the soldiers. Three soldiers went to stop the children, and detained several. One soldier, from a distance of 15 meters, crouched and opened fire on the group, hitting Ali Jawarish, 9, in the head. The eye-witness stated that none of the soldiers went to help the child, who was left lying on the road bleeding profusely. Crowds of ultra-orthodox religious Jews continued praying during the clashes, and according to the witness some watched the shooting from behind barbed wire. The boy was finally taken to Bethlehem hospital, transferred to Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem and then, because of faulty equipment, had to be evacuated to Ramallah hospital, where he remains in critical condition. According to the Israeli Army Radio News, Israeli army officers claimed that the bullet was a rubber-coated metal bullet, but Ramallah hospital doctors who treated the child said that the child had been shot with live ammunition. LAW condemns in the strongest possible terms the excessive use of lethal force by Israeli soldiers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Fifteen meters is not within the acceptable “non-lethal” range if the soldier was firing rubber-coated metal bullets. These bullets cause serious injury and death, particularly if the targets are children. If in fact the soldiers were indeed using live ammunition, this constitutes the most serious breach of internationally accepted standards of the use of force since the uprising last September, in which over 80 Palestinians were killed by live ammunition and by the rubber-coated metal bullets. This tragic incident underlines the essential flaws of the current status quo. Heavily guarded Jewish enclaves in Palestinian populated areas, such as Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, are the source of constant confrontation between Israeli soldiers and the local Palestinian population, adding to the already tense and volatile situation in the West Bank. The illegal presence of the Jewish settlers, and the Israeli soldiers used to protect them, continue to destabilize the region and results in abuses of power like the shooting of this child. LAW calls for an immediate, full inquiry into the shooting, and for those responsible to be brought to justice. LAW - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment is a non-governmental organization, dedicated to preserving human rights through legal advocacy. LAW is also an affiliate member of the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights.
u.$. DAMAGES TO KOREA,BLACK & NATIVE LIBERATION
U.S. CRIMES IN THE KOREAN WAR
THE MASSACRE AT NO GUN RI
“The American soldiers played with our lives like boys playing with flies.”
Chun Choon Ja, who was 12 in 1950 when she witnessed the No Gun Ri massacre
“We just annihilated them.” Norman Tinkler, former machine gunner; U.S. Army
On July 25, 1950, U.S. soldiers of the First Cavalry division rampaged through the villages of Korea’s mountainous Yong- dong county—ordering the villagers to leave their homes. After only a month of war, the U.S. forces were being badly beaten and driven back by fighters of the Korean People’s Army, who were advanc- ing southward from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea based in northern Korea. The First Cavalry troops had just arrived from Japan in those last days of July, but they were already falling apart in panic. On July 26, about 600 men of the First Cavalry dug in near the town called No Gun Ri. A column with hundreds of Korean villagers approached the U.S. lines along a dirt road. They were overwhelmingly women, older men and children dressed in the traditional white clothes of Korean farmers. U.S. troops ordered the people to leave the road and gather on the nearby railroad tracks. The U.S. command called in an air strike that strafed the people—killing 100. The U.S. troops ordered the survivors underneath a bridge, into a tunnel about 80 feet long and 30 feet high. The U.S. com- mander consulted with his superiors and moved his machine guns into position. As night fell, he ordered his machine gunners to open fire. For three days and nights, the people were pinned down in that tunnel. Hundreds died. People dragged the bodies of the dead around them as protection. U.S. riflemen killed people as they crawled out to escape or find drinking water. One sur- vivor, Chung Koo-ho, said many women protected their children with their bodies. Her own mother died on the second day. Suddenly, on July 29, the U.S. troops disappeared-fleeing before the advancing Korean People’s Army. Three weeks later, the revolutionaiy Korean paper Cho Sun In Mm Bc reported that troops of the People’s Anny had discovered “about 400 bodies of old and young people and children.” This war crime was part of the unjust war the U.S. waged from 1950 to 1953 to con- quer Korea and to threaten the newly vic- torious Maoist revolution in China. Back and forth across the Korean peninsula, the U.S. forces and their UN allies fought the Korean People’s Army and volunteers from the Chinese People’s Liberation Anny. The war ended witha major and historic setback for the U.S.-which had been proclaiming itself the atomic superpower of the world.
A Half Century of Coverup and Suppression
For almost 50 years, not a word has been said about this war crime in the U.S. press or history books. For decades after the war, survivors of the massacre lived under the military dictatorship that the U.S. imposed on southern Korea. In the 1990s, 30 deter- mined survivors and family members publicly accused the U.S. Anny’s First Cavalry Division. They filed a petition with the South Korean “Government Compen- sation Committee.” The U.S. military authorities answered that there was no evidence that the First Cavalry was in the area, or that they had ever shot at civilians. The petitioners succeeded in getting parts oftheirstory told in the media On September 30, the story broke in the U.S. when the Associated Press released a report documenting the massacre—including eye- witness reports of 12 U.S. war veterans who were there.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
SECRET
Headquarters 25th Inf Div Sangju, Korea
27 July 1950
MEMO TO: Commanding Officers, All Regimental Combat Teams AXL Staff Sections, This Headquarters
ALL Civilians seen in this area are to be considered as Enemy and action taken accordingly.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
U.S. National Archives via Associated Press
The actual document from the U.S. command ordering troops to shoot at Korean civilians in the war zone.
------------------ (See issue for picture.)
Chun Choon Ja at the bridge where she and other refugees came under attack from U.S. troops in 1950.
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One former U.S. soldier, Eugene Hessel- man, recalled his Captain saying:
“The hell with all those people. Let’s get rid of all of them.”
Retired Colonel Robert M. Carroll, who was a 25-year-old lieutenant at No Gun Ri, recalled his riflemen opening fire on the refugees: “This is right after we got orders that nobody comes through, civilian, military, nobody.” After hearing of the AP’s findings, Pen- tagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said the U.S. military stood by its earlier state- ment—that its researchers had no evidence of any massacre of Korean civilians.
A Hidden Story of the American Way of War
By denying the massacre at No Gun Ri, the Pentagon is trying to hide the truth of its brutal methods during the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. The No Gun Ri massacre was, in fact, part of a campaign of genocide launched by the U.S. military. As U.S. forces were being routed in the opening campaigns of the Korean war, the U.S. command ordered soldiers to treat any Korean person in the war zone as an enemy—to shoot them down. Why was the U.S. targeting the Korean people themselves? Because the active sup- port of the Korean people was a key reason the revolutionary armies were defeating the U.S. forces. Millions of Korean people were determined to liberate their country from foreign occupiers. In the Nation magazine (Oct. 25), his- torian Bruce Cumings reports that, by the end of World War 2, the rural people of Yongdong country had built a powerful movement against the Japanese occupiers. When Japanese imperialism collapsed in August 1945, a Yongdong County People’s Committee seized power from the Japan- ese. Similar uprisings took place in many parts of the country. However, U.S. armed forces quickly moved to occupy southern Korea. They sent in “civil affairs teams” to take power away from the local people in areas like Yongdong. The U.S. occupiers quickly re- armed the hated Korean traitors who had worked as colonial cops for the Japanese. Over the next three years, people in places like Yongdong started to wage guerrilla war against these new colonial masters. The pro-U.S. police hunted down communist activists in Yongdong and executed them. In late June 1950, war broke out between the U.S. and the Democratic People’s Re- public of Korea which had been formed in the liberated northern part of the country. As battered U.S. troops fell back, the local guerrillas liberated Yongdong county, deep in the heart of the U.S. occupied zone. One New York Times reporter wrote that there were about 300 guerrillas, in and around Yongdong, shooting the retreating Amer- icans as they moved through. By late July, as the front approached Yongdong, the U.S. conunand ordered their soldiers to kill civilians. The AP investiga- tive team reports that the morning of the No Gun Ri massacre, “the Eighth Army had radioed orders throughout the Korean front that began, ‘No—repeat no—refugees will be permitted to cross battle lines at any time.’ “ Two days earlier, First Cavalry Division headquarters had issued the order: “No refugees to cross the front line. Use discretion in case of women and children.” Maj. Gen. William B. Kean issued orders to the nearby 25th Infantry Division saying, “All civilians seen in this area are to be considered as enemy and action taken ac- cordingly.” His staff members relayed this as “considered as unfriendly and shot.” The aerial strafing of refugees at No Gun Ri was no isolated incident. The AP writes:
“Declassified United States Air Force mis- sion reports from July and August 1950 show repeated air attacks on groups of ‘people in white.’”
The U.S. military had learned to fear the anti-imperialist consciousness and revolu- tionary organization of the Korean people. The Massacre of Civilians was Routine, Widespread and Officially Approved during this war-as it has been in Every U.S. war of conquest, from the murder of Native peoples in the U.S., to the 1898 invasion of the Philippines, to the 1965 invasion of Vietnam... on down to the recent air war on the people of Yugoslavia. Bruce Cumings notes that the massacre of No Gun Ri may nct have been the first U.S. massacre in Yongdong county. He reports that the Korean People’s Army fighters entering Yongdong were told of an earlier U.S. operation that forced 2,000 civilians into the mountains and killed them—mostly from the air, though several women were reportedly raped before being shot. Cumings adds that a secret U.S. intel- ligence memo has surfaced, addressed to Maj. General Clark Ruffner, discussing the formation of “assassination squads” to hunt down and execute people identified as leaders of the guerrillas. This same tech- nique was widely applied by the CIA’s notorious Operation Phoenix almost 20 years later in Vietnam. In August 1950, Maj. General Hobart R. Gay ordered his soldiers to blow up a bridge over the Naktong River—killing hundreds of refugees. His report on the in- cident did not mention any civilian dead. Later, along the same river, the men of A Company, 14th Engineers had spent two days setting 7,000 pounds of explosive on a second bridge. The detonation order came at 7 a.m., and according to ex-Sgt. Carroll F. Kinsman of Gautier, Mississippi, “It lifted up and turned it sideways and it was full of refugees from end to end.” A simple entry appears in the records, “Results, ex- cellent.” Since 1950, the Pentagon has tried to deny the ugly truth of its war on Korea But the people of Yongdong have not forgotten. They want the world to know the vicious nature of U.S. imperialism. And they demand justice—for the dead and for the living. 0
(See RW Issue for Picture.)
During the Korean War (1950-1953), Korean people help carry supplies to the Chinese People's Volunteer Army.
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Page 14—Revolutionary Worker—October 31,1999
Deconstructing Vanity Fair
Sinister Scenarios Behind the Media Lies About Mumia
by C. Clark Kissinger
The following article by C. Clark Kissinger was written in September of this year. As you know, this fall is a critical mo- ment in the fight to save the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal. With his appeal going to the federal courts, the battle enters its final stage. Vanity Fair magazine chose this junc- ture to publish an article claiming to present the “real inside story” on Mumia Their article was capped off with a claim by a former volunteer for the Philadelphia Prison Society, that Mumia had confessed to him. As part of an organized media cam- paign, ABC’s 20/20 and the Associated Press also carried the alleged “confession” stoly at the same time. In July I published an article refuting some of the most blatant factual distortions in the Vanity Fair piece, and exposing the long-standing ties of its author to Philadelphia’s power structure. (See “A Myth Repeated: A Reply to Vanity Fair and the F.O.P.”, RW#1015. Also available on- line at: www.mcs.netkrwor) Subsequently, the “confession” claim was thoroughly refuted by written documents from the per- son making the claim. But as always hap- pens, the sensational chaige got massive publicity while the refutation was heard by few. The “confession” hoax was not the heart of the Vanity Fair article, however. So I am taking the time now to “deconstruct” the approach of the Vanity Fair article, and look more deeply at what it sought to do. I hope you find this useful.
Analyzing the 20/20 Program
Both 20/20 and Vanity Fair tiy to provide arrative framework for their respective diences to guide how those audiences ll understand what they hear about the se. Let’s look at 20/20 first. To make their narratives more compell- ing, both 20/20 and Vanity Fair provide "characters.” 20/20 draws its heroes and villains somewhat crudely. Its narrative is relatively simple: A young policeman, just starting his life, is tragically gunned down. he open-and-shut case is quickly disposed of by a jury. But a charlatan lawyer, gether with frivolous Hollywood elebrities who don’t really know or care bout the facts, twists this into an intema- ional cause celebre. The defense has noth- ngbut a few easily dismissed technicalities to harp on, but they seize on anything to argue for Mumia Abu-Jainal’s innocence. 20/20 paints a movement made up of paranoid Black militants, impressionable students, and foreigners with an anti- American bias. Pitted against this “juggernaut” is the lonely widow of the officer, working alone at her computer writ- ing 100-page documents, subject to abuse and vilification by this movement and by Jamal himself In this narrative, the main characters are the widow (the hero) and attorney Leonard Weinglass (the villain). Ed Asner and Mike Farrell are cast as dilettantes with a cause. Mumia himself is relegated to a strange role—an offstage character around whom the action pivots, but whose persona and motivations are never clearly delineated. Sam Donaldson plays both narrator and open-ntnded tough-guy journalist. He is supposed to guide the audience’s emo- tions—sympathetic to the widow, barely able to contain his incredulity at the absur- dities he encounters from the lawyer, and impatient to see the sentence carried out and the noble widow given closure. This 20/20 show was first shown at the end of last year. But it clearly did not ac- complish its aim of slowing down the momentum of the movement to stop Mumia's execution. A Rage Against the Machine concert and large-scale teach-ins in the Oakland public schools showed the potential for the movement to reach out quite broadly. The success of the “Millions for Mumia” demonstrations on April 24 probably surprised Mumia's would-be ex- ecutiners. The Evergreen State College in- cident clearly stung them. So the 20/20 piece was updated and run again in July.
Vanity Fair—A More Refined Strategy of Attack
But the Vanity Fair article represented a new development. I think they are finally starting to realize that a big attraction of the Mumia movement is Mumia himself. The statement of Evergreen State College Presi- dent Jane Jervis put it well. “Abu-Jamal deserved inclusion [as a speaker at the Evergreen graduation ceremony] because he has used his free speech rights to gal- vanize an international conversation about the death penalty, the disproportionate number of Blacks on death row, the relationship between poverty and the criminal justice system.” So Vanity Fair appears in July with a refined strategy. More sophisticated audiences require more motivations and subtlety to make the case against Mumia believable. Vanity Fair does at least three things differently than 20/20—and one thing similar The similar thing is their treatment of the widow Maureen Faulkner. The different things are these: First, they actually mention some of the key issues surrounding the case. They ac- knowledge that, “After reading the trial transcript, one could reasonably conclude that, in terms of fairness, there were some potentially troubling developments.” They cite questions about the impartiality of the judge, questions about whether Mumia’s right to defend himself was violated. “There was the possibility [sic] that the resources allotted by the court for Abu- Jamal’s representation, roughly $14,000, were simply inadequate by any standard, since he was facing the death penalty." They gently say, "There was the question of why witnesses who meight conceivably have been helpful in advancing the defense theory that another person had shot Faulkner were never called.” There are reasons, according to Vanity Fair, why people might have qualms about the trial and the political situation in Philadelphia surrounding it. Well-docu- mented brutality and corruption in the Philadelphia police department are referred to, but as part of an effort to debunk Mumia’s credentials as an anti-police brutality reporter. It establishes that the author, Buzz Bissinger, knows that the Phil- ly cops have a dark underside. Of course, Bissinger acknowledges all this only so that he can say that despite the justness of these concerns, the fact remains that Mumia killed Faulkner. By doing so, he hopes to disarm a more savvy audience. Of course, there are many problems that Bissinger does not address. He steers clear, for example, of ballistics evidence on the trajectory of the bullet that shot Mumia that shows the prosecution scenario to be im- possible. Even if Faulkner were shot first (for which there is no evidence), the prosecution scenario would have him wheel around after being shot in the back and stand above Mumia to fire the bullet that entered him heading downward. Fur- ther, various witness statements changed dramatically between the time they were first given to police to the time of trial. And, not only were there important witnesses not called, but one key witness, a police officer whose report refutes the claim that Mumia confessed the night of the shooting, was “on vacation” and kept unavailable to tes- tify. The point is this: The burden of proof rests on the prosecution. If their scenario is impossible, if their witnesses are not credible, if they have not assembled ir- refutable physical evidence—end they have not in this case—then the accused is not guilty. Moreover, if errors in procedure have been committed that are so grave as to deny the defendant due process, then ac- cording to the rules of the court system, the trial must be thrown out. Vanity Fair tries to say that it doesn’t matter that the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office is world-renowned for racism and corruption.. It has been inves- tigated numerous times by federal authorities for this, and made a cover-story for TIME magazine. According to Vanity Fair it doesn’t matter that the Philly D.A.’s office has been caught using instructional videotapes on how to exclude Black jurors, which is, by the way, illegal. Eleven Black jurors were dismissed from Mumia’s jury pool. It doesn’t matter that hundreds of people have been released from jail based on an investigation in 1995 of the regular Philadelphia police practice of framing people and planting evidence. It doesn’t matter that one of the very sane cops who was exposed for these practices was ex- posed for his role in trying to get someone to make false statements to incriminate Mumia Most recently Len Weinglass has cited the case of Matthew Connor, another case that Mumia-prosecutor Joseph McGill called “open and shut.” Connor spent 12 years in prison before the truth came out. The second difference with 20/20 is that Bissinger and Vanity Fair bring Mumia himself front and center. This begins with an attempt to debunk Mumia’s bona fides as a reporter. Bissinger understands that the true story of Mumia has actually been key to the way this struggle has developed. People look at the man’s life—from the Black Panther Party to his years as a jour- nalist and now to his time on death row-- and they see someone who’s devoted his life to fighting for justice. They read his writings today and have no trouble under- standing both how he could have been a very compelling journalist and why his brand ofjournalism could earn the hatred of the authorities. So people figure that whatever happened on that night, that the police and courts were going to get Mumia by hook or crook. At minimum, most people cannot reconcile the life of Mumia with the prosecution scenario and charge of murder in the first degree. Bissinger responds with a cynical counter-scenario, well-suited to a cynical age. Bissinger labels Mumia’s conviction and sentence as a good career move on Mumia’s part! Bissinger wants people to see Mumia as someone who lost direction at a certain point and, in a not very subtle racist slant, a Black man just too irrespon- sible to make it. He tried the patience of his long-suffering employers one time too many, and finally came “apart personally and professionally.” Bissinger paints Mumia as extremely unstable, perhaps on drugs (“he seemed high all the time,” one anonymous source says), a guy who had carried a gun for 2 1/2 years, a time-bomb waiting to go off who happened to go off on a well-meaning, nice cop like “Danny” Faulkner. Then, once in prison, Mumia begins anew “career," one in which he is lionized by the mighty. Here Bissinger is trying to supply a plausible explanation of Mumia’s behavior that would fit the prosecution scenario. It is worth noting that all of Bissinger’s Mumia- detractors are anonymous. Bissinger chose not to use a three-hour interview he con- ducted with Philadelphia journalist Linn Washington. Washington’s close knowl- edge of Mumia and the case put the lie to Bissinger’s portrait. The third new thing Bissinger does is the news hook of the story: he introduces a new character—Philip Block Bloch is pre- sented as someone with liberal leanings, someone drawn to Mumia in many ways, but still someone whose conscience finally compelled him to “come forwaid.” Not an easy decision, Bloch says, as he still respects Mumia and hopes that he doesn’t get executed. But truth is truth, and so he had “to come forward.” Bloch is important to the article for two reasons: first, he is supposed to be the final piece of evidence. But Bloch also fills an important symbolic function. He is sup- posed to be the stand-in for the reader—the reader who may have been attracted to Mumia, may have doubts about the case against him, may not wish to see him ex- ecuted, but who—unlike the callous celebrities—has finally seen the light and decided to side with Maureen Faulkner. Note how Bloch’s conversation is framed—the alleged -“calumny” against Maureen Faulkner is what drives him to go public (in Philly papers Bloch said that had Faulkner been single, he probably never would have “gone public”). These angles have all been deepened as Bloch became a celebrity himself in Philadelphia, all the while claiming to have been Mumia’s “friend.” Bloch makes a another noteworthy state- ment in Vanity Fair on why he came for- ward. He says that “I see the level of hatred that’s being amused in people towards the police. And I think it’s just crossed a line.” My observation is that the movement for justice for Mumia has focused a good deal on the travesty of Mumia’s trial, and not on brutality by police. We don’t talk enough, in my opinion, about the brutality inflicted on Mumia that night. One thing that has changed in the past few years is the grow- ing movement against police brutality. This movement has given voice to the families of people killed by the police, and has begun to point to a problem of epidemic proportions. Bloch now describes this as a motivating factor for his “coming for- ward.” Whatever his motivations, Bloch’s story does not hold up. Linn Washington writes, “I question Bloch’s allegation, especially since I sat in the same place Bloch says he sat when Mumia made his indirect confes- sion.... I interviewed Mumia inside these cubicles at Huntingdon and Mumia refused to talk freely inthe cubicles because he said prison authorities planted hidden micro- phones to eavesdrop. During the interview, I asked Mumia a question regarding the shooting of Faulkner. He refused to respond giving two reasons: (1) his lawyers told him not to discuss that incident; and (2) the cubicle was bugged. Mumia is no fool. By the time of Bloch’s visits in 1991-1992, Mumia was a veteran of many battles with prison authorities and was well aware of their tactics, like bugging these cubicles.” Since the Vanity Fair article appeared, we have uncovered a letter that Bloch sent to Mumia many months after the “con- fession” conversation supposedly took place. In the letter Bloch writes, “So, it is possible to get justice from a jury. Not al- ways, but sometimes. So, when you get a new trial I think there is a good chance of acquittal.” Bloch also signed an ad for Mumia in the Harrisburg Patriot News in 1995. The ad called on people to “Take a Stand for Mumia,” the signatories declar- ing, “We care about Mumia because there is compelling evidence that points to his innocence.” These are hardly the actions of someone privy to information of Mumia’s guilt.
Maureen Faulkner— Pointwoman for a Reactionary Crusade
Yet Bloch’s symbolic importance be- comes clearer when you see that it is he who leads the reader to the final focus on Maureen Faulkner. She is portrayed as suf- fering alone, “putting out the fires of hell,” while Mumia is living the life of Riley.. .on death row! A few things that need to be said here. First, the portrayal in Vanity Fair not withstanding, Maureen Faulkner is not out there alone. She is the spokesperson for powerful forces who have a whole agenda for society that includes intensified police powers, gutting of defendants’ rights, and stepped-up use of the death penalty. Second, I think Maureen does have to be accountable for what she is doing. She has willingly become the pointwoman for a crusade to kill a man railroaded in a kan- garoo court, as well as for the larger agenda of racist mass imprisonment and state- sponsored murder bound up in his case. Third, Mumia has a right to due process, and Maureen Faulkner does NOT have a right to prevent him from getting it in the name of “closure.” I feel there are a number of questions that need to be addressed by these people cam- paigning for Mumia’s execution, especially those who claim to be great authorities on the trial transcripts. I think we need to know what they think of the jury-picking prac- tices in Philadelphia and at Mumia’s trial itself. We need to know what they think of Judge Sabo—his record overall and his conduct at Mumia’s trial in particular. We need to understand whether they consider it to be judicial or prosecutorial misconduct when critical witnesses and evidence are hidden from the defense. We also need to know their views on the death penalty. Do they find it alanning that 61 percent of those on death row in Penn- sylvania are Black when Black people make up only 10 percent of the state’s population? What do they think about the fact that 55 percent of Pennsylvania’s death row is made up of people from Philadel- phia, while Philadelphia holds only 15 per- cent of the state’s population. And, beyond Pennsylvania, what do they think about the 80+ people nationally, who have gotten off death row in recent years only because they had a chance to prove their innocence after their regular trial was over?
Time is short in the fight for Mumia’s life. As is the case with everything worth fighting for, we expect it to be just that—a fight. But to win, we must face every attack and turn it around. If Vanity Fair (and the accompanying stories on 20/20 and AP) brought knowledge of Mumia to many more people, we must reach those many people with the issues and the truth. 0 ________________________________________________________________
October 31, 1999—Revolutionary Worker—Page 7
NOVEMBER 1999: LEONARD PELTIER FREEDOM MONTH
Lecnard Peltier has spent 23 hard years in US. prisons—targeted, framed and sen- tenced by the U.S.government. His spirit is unbroken, but his health has worsened He suffersfivm a painfull jaw condition, from diabetes, a heart condition and from the denial ofmedical treatment. The Parole Commission fried to slam the door on Leonard's case: In 1993 they denied him parole and ruled that his case would not be heard again for 15 years—in 2008!
This injustice is intolerable—and the demand for his freedom is growing.
November 1999 is Leonard Pettier Freedom Month with actions everyday in Washington, DC. The opening event on November 1 will bring together veteran fighters of the Wounded Knee occupation and Leonard Peltier & family with Peltier supporters.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
Leonard Peltier was born on Turtle Mountain reservation in North Dakota in 1944. His family came from the Anishinabe (Chippewa) and Lakota (Sioux) peoples. He says, “During harvest season, . . .my whole family—grandparents, aunts, uncles, and children—would migrate from Turtle Mountain to the Red River Valley to work in the potato fields.”
Native people were supposed to be defeated—and disappearing. But the strug- gle continued. “Traditionalists” pulled back into distant rural pockets to keep their ways alive. Other Native people drifted into urban ghettos where they mingled with proletarians of other nationalities. In the 1960s, Black people started shak- ing the United States with powerful rebel- lions. A new generation of Indian youth woke up and formed the American Indian Movement (AIM). Like the Black Panther Party, they worked day and night to bring hot, radical, anti-system politics to the masses. Urban Indian radicals linked up with the rez youth and whole communities Peitier became a of "traditionalist" people. Leonard Peltier became a leading activist in that radical new generation. Leonard told the RW about the condi- tions that created AlM: “Poverty, discrimi- nation. The injustices that people were receiving in the courtrooms. The violations of the Indian treaties made between two sovereign nations—the United States gov- ernment and Indian nations. The bigotry that exists around Indian territories. The unemployment which brings in the high alcoholism rate and disease rate of the reservations. In them days, it was just still not illegal to kill an Indian. If you killed an Indian, you’d be very unfortunate if you got probation—most of them were released im- mediately. The FBI’s CO1NTELPRO (Counter In- telligence Program) targeted leading ac- tivists of AIM. One FBI document recom- mended that “local police put leaders under close scrutiny, and arrest them on every possible charge until they could no longer make bail.”
Peltier was attacked in a res- taurant by two off-duty cops, beaten and charged with attempted murder.
One cop said his job was “catching a big one for the FBI.”
Wounded Knee 2 and the Need for Armed Self-Defense
On the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Indian reservations in South Dakota, AIM led hundreds, in February 1973, to take over the buildings at Wounded Knee. They were blockaded by federal forces. The firefights lasted over two months and brought AIM’s struggle worldwide attention. During the 36 months after Wounded Knee, more than 60 AIM supporters died violently on or near the Pine Ridge reserva- tion. “The only way to deal with the Indian problem in South Dakota,” said William Janklow, then South Dakota deputy attor- ney general, “is to put a gun to American Indian Movement leaders’ heads and pull the trigger.” The FBI arrested 562 AIM supporters for participating in Wounded Knee. 600 people were charged with sup- porting the defenders. With many of Pine Ridge’s core activists underground, in jail or dead—elders asked AIM members to organize self-defense camps to protect the people. In 1975, the Northwest AIM group, including Leonard Peltier, set up a defensive camp. A 1975 FBI memo says: “There are pockets of In- dian population that consist almost ex- clusively of American Indian Movement (AIM) and their supporters on the Reserva- tion. It is significant that in some of these AIM centers the residents have built bunkers which would literally require military assault forces if it were necessary to overcome resistance emanating from the bunker.”
The Shootout at Oglala
On July 26, combat-armed police started massing near Oglala village—”GOONs” of the local reservation government, BIA police, state trOopers, U.S. Marshals, and FBI SWAT teams. The Indians, including Leonard Peltier, prepared to defend them- selves. Amund noon on July 26, two FBI agents drove straight for the AIM camp. It is not clear how the shooting started. The agents, Coler and Williams, got out of their car and began firing. Members of the AIM camp fired back. Coler and Williams called for reinforcements. It was the prearranged signal for all-out federal assault. Three Indian youth shot out the tires of the first reinforcements. The whole police assault froze. Coler and Wil- liams were caught in their own trap. AIM rifles kept the feds at bay all after- noon—as the people of the camp, including Peltier, slipped away. After the firing stopped, the Feds stormed in. Their point- men, Coler and Williams, lay dead. An In- dian, Joe Stuntz Killsright, was also dead. Everyone else escaped. The authorities unleashed the largest manhunt in FBI history, with combat gear, grenade launchers, helicopters, and track- ing dogs. For three months, this “task force” ran amok—storming into homes and holding people at gunpoint. Grand juries were convened. The media spread FBI lies about “AIM terrorism.” During this hysteria, the authorities charged three AIM members-Leonard Peltier, Bob Robideau and Dino Butler- with killing the two FBI agents.
The Making of a Railroad
Peltier escaped to Canada, where he con- tinued to organize. Butler and Robideau were tried and found “not guilty” in July 1976. The all-white jury was shocked to hear of the government terrorism on Pine Ridge. After this, a 1976 FBI memo called for directing “full prosecutive weight of the federal government.. .against Leonard Pel- tier.” Peltier was captured and illegally smuggled back into the United States by orders of then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The authorities had no evidence linking Peltier to the killing of the FBI agents. So they manufactured it. And the trial judge stopped the defense from exposing the prosecution lies. A mentally ill Indian woman, Myrtle Poor Bear, was pressured by the authorities to make statements implicating Peltier. In fact, she had not witnessed anything. At Peltier’s trial, an FBI agent swore that he had personally seen Peltier near the two dead agents. FBI lab experts claimed a shell casing at the scene came from Leonaid Peltier’s AR-iS rifle. These were deliberate lies. The Court of Appeals later wrote: “[the prosecution’s] theory, accepted by the jury and the judge, was that Peltier killed the two FBI agents at point blank range.” Leonard Peltier was convicted of two counts of first degree murder on April 18, 1977. Judge Benson ruled that Leonard should serve two life sentences consecu- tively. It was a complete railroad.
The Government Case Unravels -The Railroad Continues
"As warriors of our nation we must show our people the spirit of Crazy Horse so they may rise off their knees... Raise up with me and resist the terrorist attacks of genocide against our nation.’”
Leonard Peltier from prison, 1978
In 1979, the FBI tried to assassinate Pel- tier in prison. Secret documents surfaced, proving that the FBI manufactured the “evidence” against Peltier. A 1975 memo to the FBI director revealed that the firing pm of the AR-15 rifle connected to Peltier had not matched any shell casing supposed- ly found at the scene. By the late 1980s, Prosecutor Lynn Crooks admitted that the government did not know who shot the FBI agents. Crooks said, “We did not have any direct evidence that one individual as opposed to another pulled the trigger.” On October 5, 1987 the Supreme Court refused to review the case. In 1993 the federal courts denied Peltier’s appeal. They argued that even if there’s no evidence of “close-up killing,” Peltier was guilty of “long-range aiding and abetting.” Leonard told the RW, “The government has ad- mitted in two courts of law at the Appellate Court level that they don’t know who killed the agents.... And now the government on their most recent decision is claiming that I am an ‘aider and abettor.’ Basically, that was their theory—I was aider and abettor at 15 to 20 feet or 200 yards, about two foot- ball fields away. They don’t know where I aided and abetted—but I was on the reser- vation.” In other words, the federal court says Peltier must spend life in prison for being present as the AIM encampment defended itself. The system wants someone punished for the armed resistance at Oglala. Leonard Peltier has become a symbol— for millions—of Native resistance and U.S. government injustice. November 1999 is Leonard Peltier Free- dom Month. Spread the word. Take a stand.
Resources:
Leonard Peltier Freedom Coalition, D.C. 202-857-1469
Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, Kansas, 785-842-5774; web site: members.xoom.com/freepeltier
Leonard Peltier’s new book Prison Writings:
My Life Is My Sundance
has recently been published.
RW Online at www.mcs.net/~rwor for background and updates on Leonard Peltier
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