>stability in Yugoslavia.
>
>4. Destroying the peace-making role of the United Nations.
>
>5. Using NATO for military aggression against, and
>occupation of, non-compliant poor countries.
>
>6. Killing and injuring a defenseless population throughout
>Yugoslavia.
>
>7. Planning, announcing and executing attacks intended to
>assassinate the head of government, other government
>leaders and selected civilians in Yugoslavia.
>
>8. Destroying and damaging economic, social, cultural,
>medical, diplomatic--including the embassy of the People's
>Republic of China and other embassies--and religious
>resources, properties and facilities throughout
>Yugoslavia.
>
>9. Attacking objects indispensable to the survival of the
>population of Yugoslavia.
>
>10. Attacking facilities containing dangerous substances
>and forces.
>
>11. Using depleted uranium, cluster bombs and other
>prohibited weapons.
>
>12. Waging war on the environment.
>
>13. Imposing sanctions through the United Nations that are
>a genocidal crime against humanity.
>
>14. Creating an illegal ad-hoc criminal tribunal to destroy
>and demonize the Serbian leadership. The illegitimacy of
>this tribunal is further demonstrated by its failure to
>bring any case regarding the oppression of the Romani
>people, who have suffered the highest rate of casualties
>of any people in the region.
>
>15. Using controlled international media to create and
>maintain support for the U.S. assault and to demonize
>Yugoslavia, Slavs, Serbs and Muslims as genocidal
>murderers.
>
>16. Establishing the long-term military occupation of
>strategic parts of Yugoslavia by NATO forces.
>
>17. Attempting to destroy the sovereignty, right to self-
>determination, democracy and culture of the Slavic,
>Muslim, Roma and other peoples of Yugoslavia.
>
>18. Seeking to establish U.S. domination and control of
>Yugoslavia and to exploit its people and resources.
>
>19. Using the means of military force and economic coercion
>in order to achieve U.S. domination.
>
>The Members hold NATO, the NATO states and their leaders
>accountable for their criminal acts and condemn those found
>guilty in the strongest possible terms. The Members condemn
>the NATO bombardments, denounce the international crimes
>and violations of international humanitarian law committed
>by the armed attack and through other means such as
>economic sanctions. NATO has acted lawlessly and has
>attempted to abolish international law.
>
>
>RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION
>The Members urge the immediate revocation of all embargoes,
>sanctions and penalties against Yugoslavia because they
>constitute a continuing crime against humanity. The Members call
>for the immediate end to the NATO occupation of all Yugoslav
>territory, the removal of all NATO and U.S. bases and forces
>from the Balkans region, and the cessation of overt and covert
>operations, including the "International Criminal Tribunal for
>the Former Yugoslavia" in The Hague, aimed at overthrowing the
>government of Yugoslavia.
>
>The Members further call for full reparations to be paid
>to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for death, injury,
>economic and environmental damage resulting from the NATO
>bombing, economic sanctions and blockades. Further, other
>states in the region which have suffered economic and
>environmental damage due to the NATO bombing and economic
>sanctions on Yugoslavia must also be awarded reparations.
>The Members condemn the threat or use of military
>technology against life, both civilian and military, as was
>used by the NATO powers against the people of Yugoslavia.
>
>The Members urge public action and mobilization to stop new
>and continued sanctions and aggressions by the U.S. and other
>NATO powers against Iraq, Cuba, north Korea, the countries of
>Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Puerto Rico, Asia,
>Sudan, Colombia and other countries. We ask for the immediate
>cessation of overt/covert activities by the U.S. and NATO in
>such countries.
>
>The Members believe that the interests of peace, justice and
>human progress require the abolition of NATO, which has proved
>itself beyond any doubt to be an instrument of aggression for
>the dominant, colonizing powers, particularly the United States.
>The Pentagon, the central and key element of NATO and the
>greatest single threat to the people of the world, must be
>disbanded.
>
>The Members urge the Commission to provide for the permanent
>preservation of the reports, evidence and materials gathered to
>make them available to others, and to seek ways to provide the
>widest possible distribution of the truth about the U.S./NATO
>war on Yugoslavia.
>
>We urge all people of the world to act on recommendations
>developed by the Commission to hold power accountable and to
>secure social justice on which lasting peace must be based.
>
>Done in New York this 10th day of June, 2000.
>
>
>
> - 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: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 00:29:29 -0400
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>Subject: [WW] Racism Rules in U.S. Courts and Prisons
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the June 22, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>NEW STUDIES PROVE BEYOND SHADOW OF DOUBT: RACISM
>RULES IN U.S. COURTS AND PRISONS
>
>By Monica Moorehead
>
>The controversy surrounding the application of the death
>penalty inside the United States has finally reached the
>mass media. This debate will certainly help to bolster the
>efforts of the anti-death-penalty movement--especially as
>it continues organizing to stop the executions of political
>prisoners like Shaka Sankofa and Mumia Abu-Jamal.
>
>The use of state-sanctioned, legalized murder has emerged
>as the number-one political issue in the country. With
>Sankofa's execution scheduled for June 22, major commercial
>newspapers including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times
>and Chicago Tribune have printed front-page articles along
>with editorials finally admitting that indigent people,
>especially those who are Black and Latino, are the main
>victims of the death penalty.
>
>Texas Gov. George Bush, the frontrunner for the Republican
>presidential nomination, has been put on the hot seat by
>death-penalty opponents and the media for executing more
>people--132--than any other governor. Democratic
>presidential frontrunner Al Gore is also pro-death-penalty.
>
>Anti-death-penalty activists are making plans to confront
>these two candidates and their parties at their respective
>conventions this summer.
>
>LIEBMAN STUDY PROVES INJUSTICE OF DEATH PENALTY
>
>This controversy has been intensified by the most far-
>reaching study ever on the death penalty. It was conducted
>by a group of lawyers and criminologists at Columbia
>University, led by Professor James S. Liebman.
>
>The study, just released, focused on 5,760 appeals in
>capital-punishment cases from 1973, when the death penalty
>was reinstated, until 1995.
>
>It found that more than two-thirds of those verdicts, or
>68 percent, were overturned due to flaws and errors within
>the criminal-justice system.
>
>Three hundred thirteen executions were carried out within
>this time frame. The study concludes that the death penalty
>system is "collapsing under the weight of its own
>mistakes."
>
>The report is titled "A Broken System: Error Rates in
>Capital Cases, 1973-1995." It cites three major areas of
>concern in these reversals of capital appeals: ineffective
>counsel, prosecutorial and police misconduct--especially
>the withholding of crucial evidence from the jury, and
>targeting people of color in overwhelmingly
>disproportionate numbers.
>
>Homophobia was also a factor in some convictions.
>
>The study was based on a review of the court records of
>the cases during three legal stages before they reached the
>U.S. Supreme Court: state direct appeal, state post-
>conviction and federal habeas corpus.
>
>Some 47 percent of the death sentences were reversed by
>the state appellate courts. Federal reviews found all kinds
>of flaws in 40 percent of the remaining cases.
>
>Liebman pointed out that the number of errors as well as
>the number of cases that have gone undetected since 1995 is
>due in great part to the speeding up of the execution
>process, mainly by the executive branch.
>
>President Bill Clinton's signing of the 1996 Effective
>Death Penalty Act, an amendment to the Anti-Terrorism bill,
>made it virtually impossible for death-row inmates to have
>their death sentences overturned by federal appellate
>courts. Under this law, federal judges are not obligated to
>review the state courts' findings. In fact, the law put a
>one-year time limit on federal appeals following the state
>appeals process.
>
>Since Clinton signed the law, a number of states have
>eliminated public-defender offices that had helped death-
>row inmates with their appeals.
>
>ERROR RATES AS HIGH AS 100 PERCENT
>
>Examination of the court appeals in 26 death-penalty
>states showed that three--Kentucky, Maryland and Tennessee-
>-had an error rate of 100 percent.
>
>California was 87 percent. Texas has an error rate of 52
>percent, Pennsylvania 57 percent and Virginia 18 percent.
>
>The states in the Deep South had the highest rates of
>error compared to other regions. Twenty-four of these
>states had rates of 52 percent or higher.
>
>The study also found that when verdicts in capital cases
>were overturned, 75 percent of former death-row inmates
>received lighter sentences and 7 percent were found not
>guilty.
>
>The death penalty issue first drew renewed national
>attention in February when Illinois Gov. George Ryan, a
>pro-death-penalty Republican, signed a moratorium on
>executions. A Northwestern University class had discovered
>suppressed physical evidence that exonerated 13 death-row
>inmates in Illinois.
>
>Since then, a number of city councils, including
>Philadelphia's, have passed non-binding resolutions calling
>for a moratorium on executions because of wrongful
>convictions.
>
>The New Hampshire state legislature then passed a
>moratorium--the first time a state legislature had done so.
>The bill was vetoed by the Democratic governor, but her
>action could not turn back the roaring tide of anti-death-
>penalty sentiment.
>
>A number of doctors are putting pressure on the American
>Medical Association to vote for a moratorium on executions,
>including the right to DNA testing to prove innocence. Some
>legislators in Texas are promoting a bill requiring DNA
>testing.
>
>The issue of the death penalty is helping to shed a lot of
>light on the deepening repression against people of color
>and the young. A recent "60 Minutes" TV segment focused on
>a 13-year-old African American male with the mental
>capacity of a 6-year-old who has been sentenced to seven
>years in a maximum-security prison for juveniles for
>murder. He had been tried as an adult at the age of 11.
>This schoolchild was shown being brought into court with
>shackles on his wrists and ankles.
>
>Trying juveniles as adults is a violation of international
>law as well as a crime against humanity.
>
>SHOCKING FIGURES ON DRUG BUSTS
>
>Human Rights Watch recently released a study exposing the
>war against drugs as nothing more than a convenient cover
>for the U.S. government's war against Black America.
>
>Federal statistics indicate that whites outnumber Blacks
>as drug users five to one. Yet Black people compose 62
>percent of the prisoners incarcerated on drug charges,
>while whites make up only 36 percent. The study is based on
>1996 figures from 37 states.
>
>Black men are sent to state prison at a rate 13 times
>higher than white men. Out of every 100,000 Black men, 482
>enter state prisons compared to just 36 out of every
>100,000 white men. Black people are officially 13 percent
>of the overall U.S. population.
>
>In Illinois--a state where hundreds of thousands of union
>jobs in heavy industry have disappeared in the new economy,
>leading to steep economic decline in the Black communities-
>-Black men have been sent to state prison for drug
>convictions at a rate 57 times higher than whites.
>
>Black people compose 90 percent of all prison admissions
>for drug charges in that state--the highest percentage in
>the country.
>
>These tragic statistics indicate that there are all kinds
>of methods of carrying out racist genocide, from lethal
>injection to imposing long sentences for drug addiction.
>
>MILITANT ORGANIZING IS THE ONLY WAY
>
>As much as these studies have been helpful in exposing the
>racist and anti-poor character of the death penalty, the
>progressive movement must not let down its guard. The
>movement must use this information to its advantage by
>putting mass pressure on the government and not rely on the
>media to do the organizing.
>
>The mainstream media are controlled by big business, which
>had pushed to reinstate the death penalty--not for the
>rich, of course, but for the poor. Now, however, big
>business is concerned about its tarnished image worldwide,
>since the United States is becoming notorious for having
>executed more people than any other industrialized country.
>
>The capitalist system is inherently racist and anti-poor,
>and its laws reflect this reality.
>
>These studies did not stop the right-wing U.S. Supreme
>Court from issuing another outrageous ruling on June 12.
>The decision makes it more difficult for death-row inmates
>to win some kind of federal intervention when state courts
>deny them their right to defend themselves from
>prosecution.
>
>The only way to abolish the death penalty and all aspects
>of the prison-industrial complex is to organize the masses
>in the streets into a powerful movement to demand money for
>jobs, education and drug rehabilitation--not to
>incarcerate, execute and criminalize the poor, youth and
>people of color.
>
> - 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: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 00:29:29 -0400
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>Subject: [WW] Maryland Guv Commutes Death Sentence
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the June 22, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>MARYLAND: GUV COMMUTES DEATH SENTENCE
>
>By Sharon Black
>Baltimore
>
>Anti-death-penalty activists in Maryland won a major
>victory when Gov. Parris N. Glendening was forced to
>commute the sentence of death-row inmate Eugene Colvin-el
>on June 7.
>
>There were no witnesses in the case, and activists had
>asserted there was no credible physical evidence linking
>Colvin-el to the murder with which he was charged. He has
>continued to assert his innocence.
>
>Glendening supports the death penalty but faces a growing
>movement opposing it. That movement includes grassroots
>community groups, sections of the Catholic Church and
>prominent politicians. Under broad pressure, he reversed
>his position and commuted Colvin-el's sentence to life
>imprisonment.
>
>At a June 3 community rally, Stephen Ceci, an organizer
>for the All Peoples Congress, linked the case of Colvin-el
>and the struggle in Maryland with the fight to stop the
>execution of Shaka Sankofa and Mumia Abu-Jamal. He also
>proclaimed: "The vast majority of prisoners are victims of
>capitalism. They are imprisoned for the crime of being
>poor."
>
> - 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: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 00:29:30 -0400
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>Subject: [WW] Injustice at Home, Injustice Abroad
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the June 22, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>EDITORIAL: INJUSTICE AT HOME, INJUSTICE ABROAD
>
>This issue of Workers World focuses on two main themes: the
>revelations proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that the
>criminal justice system in the United States is
>outrageously racist and unjust; and the tribunal in New
>York that just found the U.S. government and the leaders of
>NATO guilty of war crimes in their conduct of the war
>against Yugoslavia.
>
>These are not unrelated themes. In fact, they go to the
>heart of the famous saying that foreign policy is merely an
>extension of domestic policy.
>
>Ever since the U.S. and its NATO partners--all predatory
>imperialists and all jockeying with one another for
>economic advantage--launched their blitzkrieg war on
>Yugoslavia last year, following in the footsteps of Nazi
>
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