>infamy, they have been desperate to prove their moral
>superiority. To this end, they cooked up an "International
>Criminal Tribunal" in The Hague to investigate war crimes
>in "the former Yugoslavia." To no one's surprise, this body
>has declared NATO to be blame-free. Only Yugoslavs, it
>seems, are guilty in this one-sided war fought entirely on
>Yugoslav territory, since that country has never sent one
>soldier outside its borders.
>
>It was the Amadou Diallo verdict all over again. In New
>York, police can rapid-fire 41 bullets at an unarmed Black
>man just standing in the hallway of his own building and
>get away with it. In the Balkans, NATO, from a very safe
>distance, can blow up people, hospitals, bridges,
>embassies--on television, no less--and get away with it.
>
>At least, in the imperialist courts and tribunals.
>
>But this is not the end of the story. Police brutality,
>racist courts and prisons, the death penalty--all are under
>scrutiny and attack as never before. The anguish and
>suffering of so many has been translated into action.
>Committees exist all over this country--made up of
>relatives, loved ones, friends and supporters of people
>behind bars--to seek the truth, to exonerate the innocent,
>to support political prisoners, to expose the cops,
>prosecutors and judges who conspire to lock away the poor
>and people of color.
>
>In fact, what was a loose network of stalwarts, people who
>persisted against hope, has grown into a strong movement
>that is at last receiving some recognition in the
>capitalist media. Their work has helped educate the world
>on the true nature of U.S. democracy. The result is acute
>embarrassment for U.S. representatives, who are challenged
>with "Free Mumia" and "End the death penalty" slogans
>wherever they go.
>
>The people's movement can and will be the court of last
>resort on this matter. Even the most draconian repression
>cannot withstand an aroused and conscious popular struggle.
>This is as true at home as it is true abroad.
>
>The Vietnamese proved it in their heroic fight for
>liberation. The U.S. was found guilty of war crimes then,
>too, by an independent tribunal founded by British
>philosopher Bertrand Russell. At the time, in 1967, it
>seemed that the Pentagon was invincible. But a few years
>later the last U.S. agents were clinging to helicopter
>struts as Saigon fell and Ho Chi Minh City was born. That
>great victory gave heart to those fighting racism and
>oppression here at home.
>
>An independent people's tribunal has moral authority that
>no imperialist court can ever acquire, no matter how many
>judges it can bribe or powerful media outlets it can wield.
>
>In the New York tribunal, witnesses testified not only to
>the deliberate targeting of civilians and life support
>systems in Yugoslavia but to the criminal use of the death
>penalty here, to the oppression of Puerto Rico, to past
>aggressions in Korea and Vietnam.
>
>It's all part of the same system. The crimes abroad speak
>volumes to the criminality at home--and vice versa. Uniting
>all the movements against capitalist oppression, whether
>the targets are poor and working people here or somewhere
>else, is the key to victory.
>
> - 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 00:29:28 -0400
>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
>Subject: [WW] Domenstic Partner Victory for Gay Auto Workers
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the June 22, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>GAY AUTO WORKERS WIN HEATH COVERAGE FOR DOMESTIC
>PARTNERS
>
>By Martha Grevatt
>Twinsburg, Ohio
>
>Ask the average lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender auto
>worker if he or she is "out" at work and nine times out of
>ten the answer will be no. Ask if they have ever been
>harassed or discriminated against on the job and the answer
>will be yes.
>
>Their stories of abuse could fill volumes. This writer can
>attest to many personal experiences of verbal harassment,
>vandalism, sexual harassment and even death threats.
>
>So few would have imagined that this year General Motors,
>Ford and DaimlerChrysler would agree to grant health-
>insurance benefits to the same-sex domestic partners of
>their employees.
>
>In the 1996 contract negotiations with the United Auto
>Workers, Chrysler (now DaimlerChrysler) absolutely refused
>even the most basic demand to add the words "sexual
>orientation" to the Equal Application clause in the
>national agreement.
>
>It took a three-year struggle to get those words added to
>the 1999 contracts with the Big Three auto makers. It took
>an international campaign of faxes, letters, calls,
>picketing dealerships and hounding the media. The issue
>finally broke into the press, including even the Wall
>Street Journal.
>
>This fight was led by the Campaign for Equal Rights at
>Chrysler and Pride At Work, the official lesbian, gay,
>bisexual and transgender constituency group of the AFL-CIO.
>One leader in this campaign, Ron Woods, was a subject of an
>award-winning documentary, "Out At Work."
>
>The demand for both protective language and equal benefits
>was brought to the 1999 bargaining convention by at least
>one local, Local 122 in Twinsburg, Ohio. The 1999 contract
>contained an agreement to set up a committee to study the
>feasibility of granting same-sex domestic-partner benefits,
>although only in the area of health care.
>
>The agreement to provide these benefits, announced on June
>8 at a joint news conference by GM, Ford and
>DaimlerChrysler, was the outcome of this union-negotiated
>committee. It did not come from any genuine "commitment to
>diversity," as the bosses hypocritically proclaimed.
>
>This victory follows similar ones at United Airlines and
>US Airways, and of course the victory in the state of
>Vermont.
>
>When these rights are guaranteed in union contracts, they
>are safeguarded against being undone at the whim of the
>bosses. This was underscored recently when Exxon Corp.
>tried to eliminate domestic-partner benefits for all its
>employees. The few workers who didn't lose them were those
>whose unions had fought for and won them.
>
>While the concession by the Big Three is a tremendous
>advance, it still falls short of full equality. It fails in
>the areas of bereavement leave, pension, family leave and
>other benefits granted to heterosexual spouses. Even the
>health benefits are being denied to retirees in same-sex
>relationships. This is the first time that retirees have
>not received the same improvement in the health-care
>package as active employees.
>
>Some lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups,
>including Pride At Work, believe that partners of unmarried
>heterosexuals should also receive domestic-partner
>benefits. Of course, the inequality hits lesbian, gay, bi
>and trans workers the hardest, since they are denied the
>option of marriage.
>
>The issue of work-place discrimination will not be fully
>addressed until protection is extended to transgendered
>workers.
>
>The hostile work environment many lesbian, gay, bi and
>trans workers face won't go away overnight as a result of
>this new development. However, the fortress of bigotry that
>is the U.S. auto industry has been shaken to its
>foundations.
>
>[Martha Grevatt is the national secretary of Pride At
>Work-AFL-CIO as well as a member of the Civil Rights
>Committee of UAW Local 122. She has worked at
>DaimlerChrysler for 13 years.]
>
>
> - 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] National Uproar over Texas Death Machine
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the June 22, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>NATIONAL UPROAR OVER TEXAS DEATH MACHINE: STOP THE
>EXECUTION OF SHAKA SANKOFA/GARY GRAHAM
>
>By Gloria Rubac
>Houston
>
>As the execution date for Shaka Sankofa (Gary Graham)
>nears, the struggle in Texas over the death penalty has
>become white hot.
>
>"The June 22 scheduled execution of Gary Graham is based
>on the weakest evidence I have seen in the last 30 years,"
>Professor Lawrence C. Marshall told a packed press
>conference here on June 12. "Of the 684 men and women who
>have been executed in this country, I am aware of none who
>was executed in the face of such overwhelming doubt of
>guilt."
>
>Marshall is Legal Director of the Center on Wrongful
>Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law in
>Chicago.
>
>The Center on Wrongful Convictions held the press
>conference in the Moot Courtroom at the Thurgood Marshall
>School of Law to highlight the fallibility of eyewitness
>identifications in criminal cases and to ask Gov. George W.
>Bush to stop the execution of Sankofa/Graham.
>
>"There's no blood, no hair, no gun, no fingerprints, no
>confession, not even any circumstantial evidence linking
>Gary Graham to the crime," said Marshall. "His death
>sentence rests entirely upon the uncorroborated testimony
>of a sole witness, who initially expressed doubts that he
>was the man and provided information for a composite sketch
>that bears no resemblance to him.
>
>"Gary Graham will be killed on procedural technicalities
>because he had a lawyer who was incompetent and the new
>evidence was discovered too late. The Supreme Court says
>that the safety net in situations like this is the governor
>and executive clemency. That's what we're asking for today.
>Mistakes happen and it is the governor himself who can
>remedy this mistake.
>
>"On behalf of our center, we are asking Governor George
>Bush to stop this execution."
>
>The auditorium was filled with local and national news
>media as well as supporters of Sankofa. Silence filled the
>room as each of 12 former prisoners stepped to the podium,
>gave a brief synopsis of their conviction and prison time,
>and then declared: "I am living proof that eyewitnesses can
>and do make mistakes."
>
>Curt Bloodsworth had been identified by five eyewitnesses
>at his 1985 trial. He was convicted of rape and murder and
>sentenced to death. Three DNA tests exonerated him in 1993.
>Bloodsworth said, "We can no longer trust the death
>penalty. Since 1986, 87 people have been released from
>death row. The system is falling apart. I don't want Gary
>Graham to die. One person is being released from death row
>for every seven executed. The 12 of us sitting here today
>are living proof that the system is not working."
>
>Anti-death penalty activists gave the 12 a standing
>ovation.
>
>RAPE VICTIM PICKED WRONG MAN
>
>You could have heard a pin drop as Jennifer Thompson told
>her electrifying story of being raped when in college and
>then, with absolute confidence, mistakenly identifying an
>innocent man as the rapist. As a result, Ronald Cotton
>spent 11 years in a North Carolina prison before DNA
>exonerated him.
>
>Thompson was in tears as she told of the guilt she felt.
>"It's the hardest thing I ever did--to admit I made a
>horrible mistake.
>
>"I took 11 years away from this young man. You can't do
>this to Gary Graham," she said. "If there's ANY doubt, then
>you can't kill him, you just can't do it! He has 10 days
>left on this planet. I beg Governor Bush to view this
>evidence. The people can't let the execution of Gary Graham
>happen. They just can't."
>
>Elnora Graham, Sankofa's stepmother, thanked Thompson for
>speaking out about her mistake and joining with the
>wrongfully convicted in asking Bush to stop her son's
>execution. "I thank God she has the courage to stand up and
>admit she made a mistake. I wish Bernadine Skillern could
>do the same thing," Graham said.
>
>Skillern is the only eyewitness the district attorney
>called to testify against Sankofa, even though she saw the
>killer for only a few seconds, at night, in a poorly lit
>parking lot, through her windshield from about 30 to 40
>feet away. There were seven other witnesses, most of whom
>were much closer and saw the killer for a much longer
>period of time, but they were never even talked to by
>Sankofa's court-appointed attorney. Their description of
>the killer did not resemble Gary Graham.
>
>HOW COPS RIG LINEUPS
>
>Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, a professor of psychology at the
>University of Washington in Seattle and the nation's
>leading authority on eyewitness testimony, said that the
>eyewitness procedures employed in the Graham case were
>flawed.
>
>Using huge blowups of the police photo spread and the
>lineup that was used to identify Sankofa, she explained how
>improper police work led the witness to identify Sankofa.
>
>"The photo array shown to the key witness was suggestive
>because Graham was the only man shown in the array who
>matched key aspects of the victim's initial description.
>Then in a lineup the following day, Graham was the only
>person whose picture had been in the photo array.
>
>"We know beyond doubt that mistaken eyewitness testimony
>is the major cause of wrongful convictions. Let's recognize
>that scientific truth before we execute an innocent person
>in ignorance of it," Loftus urged.
>
>As Marshall ended the press conference, he told the media,
>"Chances for Gary Graham to live depend in a large part on
>the people in this room. You folks in the media have a very
>special opportunity to tell the truth about this case. We
>hope you make full use of what you have heard today. A
>man's life depends on it."
>
>The same day as the press conference, the second article
>in a series on the death penalty in Texas was published by
>the Chicago Tribune. The Chicago journalists had done a
>five-part series a year ago on the death penalty in
>Illinois. They exposed police and prosecutorial misconduct,
>coerced confessions, and false eyewitness identification
>that led to the release of several on Illinois death row
>and ultimately to a moratorium on executions ordered by
>Gov. George Ryan.
>
>Texas death penalty foes feel that the Tribune series,
>along with recent front-page articles in the New York
>Times, the Washington Post and even the Houston and Dallas
>papers will add to the pressure on Bush to not only halt
>Sankofa's execution but to admit what people around the
>world are saying.
>
>"The death penalty is fraught with errors. It's racist, it
>convicts the innocent as well as the mentally retarded,
>juveniles, non-citizens and the mentally ill. Bush is lying
>when he says that everyone on death row in Texas is guilty
>and everyone had a fair trial," declared Njeri Shakur of
>the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement.
>
>`FIGHTING THE DEATH PENALTY FOR DECADES'
>
>At a lunch for the press conference participants, Minister
>Robert Muhammad of the Nation of Islam told the group, "We
>thank you for being with us today. We have been fighting
>for Shaka for over seven years. Some of us have been
>fighting the death penalty for decades. We have quoted the
>statistics, we have shown how unfair the death penalty is
>applied, and that innocent people are on death row.
>
>"But today, you people, the experts, have validated what
>we have been saying. Thank you for your expertise. I
>witnessed the execution of an innocent man, Odell Barnes,
>on March 1. I don't want to witness Sankofa being executed.
>Thanks to those of you who were wrongfully convicted and
>went through hell in prison. You still have the courage to
>tell your story and help others. We activists in Houston
>are grateful to you and I am sure Brother Shaka Sankofa
>sends his thanks also."
>
>Under Bush Texas has executed 132 people since 1995.
>Activists are feeling very optimistic for the first time.
>"We are seeing the beginning of the end of the death
>penalty. It's on its way out," Shakur said.
>
>Diana Shorthouse, also with the Texas Death Penalty
>Abolition Movement, said, "The dam is cracking. All the
>horror stories about sleeping attorneys, drunken attorneys,
>coerced confessions, police lies, prosecutors hiding
>exculpatory evidence, it's all coming out. When the dam
>breaks, the death penalty will have to be abolished
>forever.
>
>"The question now is will this happen fast enough to save
>Shaka Sankofa and Jessy San Miguel and the others already
>scheduled to be executed this summer? We now have the focus
>of the world on Texas and Bush and the Huntsville
>executioners. I hope this international attention combined
>with international actions by activists all over the world
>will stop the death machine in time."
>
> - 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)
>
>
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