From: Michael Novick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Inner-city residents sue over CIA drug allegations LOS ANGELES (Reuters) 3-15-99 - Inner-city residents of two California cities who claim that the CIA ignored crack cocaine dealing in their communities during the 1980s filed class action lawsuits against the Justice Department on Monday. The complaints represent the latest salvo in an ongoing war over allegations that the spy agency helped introduce crack into Los Angeles and Oakland, Calif., as the profits were funneled to CIA-backed Contra rebels fighting Nicaragua's leftist government. Those claims first surfaced in a 1996 article in the San Jose Mercury News, but were discounted by a series of stories in the Los Angeles Times, other newspapers and a year-long probe by CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz. But many in the black community, which was hardest hit by the 1980s explosion of crack cocaine in the inner-cities, have been reluctant to accept the rebuttals. Monday's lawsuit stems from a March disclosure by Hitz that late CIA director William Casey and former Attorney General William French Smith had an agreement in 1982 that the CIA had no obligation to report drug crimes to the Justice Dept. A spokesman for the Justice Department was not available for comment late Monday. "If it had not been for the CIA/DOJ secret agreement of 1982 and the ensuing policy of deliberate silence, the commencement of the crack cocaine epidemic in South-Central Los Angeles during that era would have been avoided or greatly reduced," said Katya Komisaruk, a lawyer for the class of plaintiffs. Among those named as plaintiffs are people who were born addicted to crack, family members of people who were killed in drug-related drive-by shootings and community members affected in other ways. REUTERS In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. People Against Racist Terror (PART) PO Box 1055 Culver City CA 90232 Tel.: 310-288-5003 E-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> URL: <http://people.we.mediaone.net/part2001/index.html> Order our quarterly: "Turning the Tide:Journal of Anti-Racist Activism, Research & Education" End the racist death penalty! Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Alejandrina Torres, and all political prisoners and P.O.W.'s in U.S. prisons! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ideas on how we can improve ONElist? http://www.onelist.com Check out the Suggestion Box feature on our new web site
