>
> WW News Service Digest #64
>
> 1) Mumia, Diallo and the struggle for Black liberation
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 2) San Diego cop terror
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 3) Irish Lesbian & Gay Organization demands inclusion
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 4) AFL-CIO Working Women's Conference
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 5) Vieques movement rejects Clinton-Rossello deal
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 6) Women of El Salvador: 'Your struggle is mine'
> by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 30, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>MUMIA, DIALLO AND THE STRUGGLE FOR BLACK LIBERATION
>
>By Larry Holmes
>
>[Excerpts from a Feb. 25 speech at a Black History Month
>forum in New York.]
>
>Recent events here in the city of New York are an
>education about how the system deals with the oppressed.
>
>There are a lot of people in Harlem who think it was a
>good thing that Democratic Party presidential candidates
>Gore and Bradley recently came and debated issues of
>concern to the Black community at the Apollo Theater in
>front of a largely Black audience. Of course, it was
>posturing over substance. But some felt it was a concession
>to Harlem. And it was relatively unique that they would do
>that.
>
>But the real deal went down in Albany, N.Y., a few days
>later when four white cops were acquitted of all charges in
>the shooting death of Amadou Diallo. And the outrage over
>that totally eclipsed what happened at the Apollo.
>
>The verdict was no surprise. The fix was in. Everybody
>knew as soon as they moved the trial out of the Bronx that
>it was going to happen.
>
>Politicians have been going around the Black community
>talking peace and telling everybody to turn their cheek. At
>the same time helicopters are hovering overhead, riot
>police are taking their positions on rooftops and troops
>are deployed at various armories.
>
>It all took place during Black History Month--which is a
>product of our struggle against cultural genocide, a legacy
>of slavery. It's important that television networks put on
>Black History Month programs. But all that is no substitute
>for justice being denied to Amadou Diallo. It's no
>substitute for the betrayal of Black people for the ten-
>thousandth time when they place their faith in the
>government to deliver some justice to them.
>
>Black History Month grew out of Black History Week, which
>was the idea of Black scholar Carter Woodson, who lived in the
>1920s. The 1920s were a very interesting period for the Black
>struggle culturally and politically. It was the time of the
>Marcus Garvey movement and the great Harlem Renaissance. A
>time when the migration of Black people from the South to
>Northern cities had swelled cities like Chicago and Detroit
>and especially New York.
>
>But the 1920s was also a time of a big reign of terror--
>primarily, though not exclusively, in the South. The Klan
>purportedly had 3 million members. The Klan ran most of the
>governments south of the Mason Dixon line. Lynchings were
>an everyday occurrence.
>
>This was the time of the infamous attack on the Black
>community in Tulsa, Okla., where a racist mob destroyed
>what was called "Black Wall Street." Three thousand Black
>people were killed over three days. And no one was ever
>arrested, convicted or imprisoned for that.
>
>It was the period of another incident that's almost
>equally as infamous--Rosewood, Fla.--where hundreds of
>Black people were killed. There were hundreds of these
>kinds of incidents on a smaller or more intermediate scale.
>
>Of course racist terror was not limited to the 1920s. Racist
>terror is a constant feature of national oppression under
>capitalism. And it intensifies during economic crisis and also
>in reaction to struggle.
>
>Take for example the period called Black Reconstruction
>after the Civil War. It lasted less than 10 years. It was a
>time when the freed slaves were promised some rights, were
>voting for the first time, holding office and exercising a
>very limited form of self-rule.
>
>The slavocracy was already plotting their counter-
>revolution to get back in power. But what drove the old
>slave-owning class nuts was when the freed slaves got tired
>of waiting for the land promised to them. The former slaves
>began seizing and occupying the slave-owners' plantations,
>expropriating the land and defending their rights with
>guns.
>
>That's when the slavocracy launched its bloody violent counter-
>revolution, spearheaded by the Klan, with the tacit approval of
>the Northern bourgeoisie who conveniently withdrew federal troops
>that were supposed to defend Black people.
>
>U.S. GOV'T WAGED WAR AGAINST `SECOND RECONSTRUCTION'
>
>Some people refer to the struggle of the 1960s as the
>second Reconstruction. It was a time when we were supposed
>to finish the unfinished business of Black liberation that
>was the promise of the first Reconstruction.
>
>It started with the struggle against legal segregation and
>for voting rights. And there were elements in the
>government and bourgeoisie who supported it in a limited,
>contradictory way.
>
>But when people like Malcolm X, and shortly after him the
>Black Panthers, began to have influence over the movement, the
>struggle evolved from a movement for civil rights into a Black
>liberation movement that was revolutionary in character. It
>was demanding self-determination and freedom now, the right to
>community self-defense with arms against racists and police--
>not only in the South, but also in Oakland, New York, Newark,
>Los Angeles and everywhere that Black people were.
>
>And moreover, some of the best elements embraced Marxism and socialism
>and the liberation movements around the world. And this made them even
>more of a danger to the ruling class. This is when the ruling class
>unleashed the full force of the state to crush the leadership of this
>movement.
>
>Some were killed, others were imprisoned and are still
>there like Ruchell Magee, Mutulu Shakur, Sundiata Acoli and
>so many others. Assata Shakur had to escape into exile in
>Cuba.
>
>In many ways what is happening in Philadelphia today is a continuation
>of the government's war under COINTELPRO in the 1960s. It's a
>continuation of the war against the vanguard of the movement--against
>MOVE, against Mumia Abu-Jamal, and like-minded leaders and activists.
>
>Look at the bombing of the MOVE organization 15 years ago
>in Philadelphia that murdered adults and children. MOVE had
>said: "We are a peaceful organization. Life is sacred to
>us. But we don't recognize the authority of the U.S.
>government, or the Pennsylvania or Philadelphia government
>over us. And if they try to impose their authority on us by
>force of arms then we will exercise our right to defend
>ourselves."
>
>This is why MOVE members are in jail now. And this is what
>set the basis for Mumia Abu-Jamal being on death row today-
>-for being a defender of MOVE.
>
>For the moment, we are obliged to echo the call for a new
>trial for Mumia. We familiarize ourselves with the details
>of how Mumia was framed so we can win people over to this
>call for a new trial.
>
>But as communists we are in solidarity with the
>revolutionary elements in the Black liberation movement
>because we support their right to fight national oppression
>by any means necessary.
>
>If this were another time, different demands would be
>advanced. For example the demand that Mumia, all the MOVE
>prisoners, all the Black and Puerto Rican liberation
>prisoners, Leonard Peltier--all be given unconditional
>amnesty. They're prisoners of class war.
>
>The same is true about Diallo. We support those who demand
>justice in the capitalist courts. But we know that they're
>not going to get any justice there. In reality that trial
>should take place on the street where they murdered Amadou
>Diallo. The people should hold court.
>
>Some may think that this is a wild and crazy idea. But in
>the course of revolutions, it has been done all over the
>world. And it will be done here, someday.
>
>Our movement may not be strong enough to make these
>demands and push them forward at this time. But the
>objective conditions for the Black liberation struggle have
>changed a lot since Reconstruction, the 1920s and even the
>1960s. The Black nation is no longer geographically or
>socially isolated. These days a much bigger part of the
>working class is Black, Latino, Native, Asian and Arab. In
>more and more cities you can see the new composition of the
>working class.
>
>This does not negate the struggle of Black people or any
>other oppressed nation. It doesn't negate their separate
>struggle for liberation. It does tend to merge their
>struggle for liberation with the working-class struggle--
>which is a good thing in theory, and hopefully in practice,
>for the working-class struggle and for oppressed people to
>liberate themselves from national oppression.
>
>But we can't just wait for the workers to rise up and free
>Mumia, get all the political prisoners out of jail and get
>some justice for Diallo.
>
>Because historically the vanguard of the working-class
>movement faces a critical question. It was the question
>during slavery that Marx himself posed to the socialist
>movement here. It was the question that came up during the
>counter-revolution to wipe out the Reconstruction, which
>Marx posed again to the socialists here.
>
>It was the question posed by the best elements in the
>communist movement in the 1920s and 1930s when the Garvey
>movement was under attack. And it was the question posed in
>the 1960s when the Black liberation forces were under
>attack by COINTELPRO.
>
>And that question is a simple one: What will the working-
>class movement do? Will it intervene at a critical moment
>and maximize the chances that the struggle will be
>successful and therefore foster unity between the workers
>and the oppressed? Or will it stand on the sidelines?
>
>Our Party understands this question. It's an understanding
>that has guided our actions throughout our 41 years of
>existence. In the 1960s we subordinated the growth of our
>Party to supporting the Black liberation struggle and
>fighting the imperialist war in Vietnam. We wanted to
>recruit. But there was a war going on and we had to
>position ourselves as closely as possible in political and
>practical solidarity with the Black liberation movement.
>
>Whether it is legal, monetary or political defense,
>getting the guns and taking up our positions with them--
>we'll do it. This is what we tried to do for virtually an
>entire decade. Then we did the same thing in bigger and
>different ways in the 1970s and 1980s as our Party grew.
>
>And this is why we're going to be working hard the rest of
>this spring to fill the theater at Madison Square Garden on
>May 7 so it will play a role in freeing our brother Mumia
>Abu-Jamal. But we're not just going to do that. We're going
>to be watching what has happened in this city and we're
>going to take concrete steps to make sure that our Party is
>in solidarity with the ongoing struggle to win justice for
>Amadou Diallo.
>
>And maybe we can even link the fight for justice for
>Diallo and the battle against police terror to Mumia's
>struggle and somehow find a way to bring that to the
>Garden, too.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <009901bf972d$6acf5b80$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] San Diego cop terror
>Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 09:13:10 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 30, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>SAN DIEGO COP TERROR:
>COALTION DEMANDS COMMUNITY CONTROL OF POLICE
>
>By Craig Mace and Bob McCubbin
>San Diego
>
>Terrorists stalk the streets of this city--killers in
>uniform. In response, the San Diego Committee against
>Police Brutality is demanding community control of the
>police.
>
>On March 17, 1999, JosÇ Luis Ram°rez became a victim of
>San Diego cop terror. He died after being shot five times
>by San Diego police. Witnesses say he was unarmed.
>
>On April 14, 1999, San Diego police pulled over motorist
>Harold Martin. They pepper-sprayed him and beat him. He
>later died at the hospital.
>
>Last summer Demetrius DuBose, a young Black athlete, had a
>misunderstanding with a neighbor. By the time the police
>arrived, the situation had been resolved. But a few minutes
>after their arrival, this unarmed young man lay dead on the
>sidewalk, 12 bullets in his body. Six had entered through
>his back.
>
>Federico Adame, 27 years old, was pepper sprayed and
>beaten to death in November by five San Diego sheriff's
>deputies on the sidewalk outside a party. He was unarmed.
>
>A month and a half ago, Sonserra Holloway, 20 years old
>and pregnant, was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent
>working on a joint undercover operation with the San Diego
>Police Department 30 miles from the border. She was unarmed
>and handcuffed in the back seat of a patrol car when she
>was killed.
>
>Most recently, the week after Holloway's killing, police
>killed a homeless man named William Miller, shooting him
>seven times. They alleged he threatened them with a tree
>branch he used as a walking stick.
>
>The San Diego Committee against Police Brutality came into
>being during 12 weeks of demonstrations after the killing
>of Demetrius DuBose. Activists with the committee have
>organized many demonstrations, news conferences and
>community forums. They have been working directly with the
>families of victims of police brutality.
>
>They are also circulating a petition demanding community
>control of the police, starting with an independent
>community-elected law enforcement accountability board.
>They insist that this body must have the power to
>investigate police misconduct and indict law officers
>involved in criminal wrongdoing.
>
>The current citizens' review board in San Diego is
>appointed by the appointed city manager. This sham body and
>the San Diego district attorney have found every police
>shooting in the last decade to be "justified."
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <009f01bf972d$867573b0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Irish Lesbian & Gay Organization demands inclusion
>Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 09:13:56 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 30, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>TEN YEARS OF PROTEST:
>IRISH LESBIAN & GAY ORGANIZATION DEMANDS INCLUSION
>
>By Martha Grevatt
>New York
>
>For 10 years in a row, the Irish Lesbian and Gay
>Organization has been demanding the right to march in the
>St. Patrick's Day parade in New York. This year, hundreds
>picketed before and during the parade, and 69 people braved
>arrest for occupying Fifth Avenue along the route.
>
>Despite snow and bitter cold, the demonstration went on
>for hours. Activists chanted, "We're Irish, we're queer,
>we'll be here every year," and, "We march in Dublin, we
>march in Cork, why can't gays march in New York?"
>
>The latter chant referred to the fact that lesbians and
>gays are welcome to march openly on St. Patrick's Day in
>the Republic of Ireland.
>
>In fact, over 70 people flew over from Dublin, Cork, and
>other parts of Ireland to join ILGO's protest. Some of them
>were among those arrested.
>
>Supporters also drove from Boston, Cleveland and other
>cities to take part.
>
>After the official parade began, demonstrators booed non-
>stop--targeting senate candidate Mayor Rudolph Giuliani,
>the military contingents and the police.
>
>Protesters chanted, "NYPD, just like the RUC." They were
>comparing the New York Police Department's notorious racist
>brutality and its treatment of the St. Patrick's day
>demonstration with the repressive tactics of the Royal
>Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland.
>
>Booing was just as loud for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
>Giuliani's rival in the New York Senate race had refused
>ILGO's request that she cancel her participation in the
>march to protest the exclusion of Irish gays and lesbians
>by the march sponsors, the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
>
>Of the 70 protesters who were arrested, 20 were held
>overnight. They included 1969 Stonewall Rebellion veteran
>Sylvia Rivera, who was not released until 4 p.m. the next
>day.
>
>The police didn't succeed in intimidating the
>demonstrators, however. ILGO vows to return next year--and
>every year--until it wins the right to march.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <00a501bf972d$9cb93850$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] AFL-CIO Working Women's Conference
>Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2000 09:14:33 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Mar. 30, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>AFL-CIO WORKING WOMEN'S CONFERENCE:
>THE EXULTANT NEW FACE OF LABOR
>
>By Shelley Ettinger
>
>Since October 1995, when the new, more progressive, more
>struggle-oriented leadership under John Sweeney took over
>at the AFL-CIO, developments in the labor movement have
>been mixed.
>
>There are steps forward--like the emphasis on organizing
>low-wage workers, which mostly means women and people of
>color. But there are also steps back--like the campaign
>against China.
>
>And for all the talk of a sea change, there is a lot of
>staying in the same place. Unions are now winning slightly
>more representation elections than they're losing, and the
>number of new union members is finally growing. Still, the
>
__________________________________
KOMINFORM
P.O. Box 66
00841 Helsinki - Finland
+358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081
e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.kominf.pp.fi
___________________________________
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subscribe/unsubscribe messages
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
___________________________________
