WW News Service Digest #255
1) Arrest of Milosevic continues U.S. attack on Yugoslavia
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) Canada arrests FTAA protesters
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) Conference to discuss struggle for socialism
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) Time to take action to free Mumia
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) Free Sam Song!
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the April 12, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
ARREST OF MILOSEVIC CONTINUES U.S. ATTACK ON YUGOSLAVIA
Protests in New York, Rome, Berlin, Brussels
By John Catalinotto
Under pressure of an imminent U.S. aid cutoff, the pro-West
regime in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, took former President
Slobodan Milosevic into custody early in the morning of
April 1--just before the midnight March 31 U.S. deadline in
Washington.
Milosevic's arrest is a further step in the criminal U.S.-
NATO plan to turn the Balkans back into a colony of U.S. and
Western European imperialism.
Milosevic had led Yugoslavia for 13 years while its people
attempted to resist aggression from the United States and
other NATO countries. This aggression included subversion,
sanctions, support for right-wing nationalists in Slovenia,
Croatia and Bosnia, fomenting a guerrilla war in Kosovo, and
finally a vicious 78-day bombing campaign in the spring of
1999 directed at Yugoslavia's civilian population and
infrastructure.
Because Milosevic led the party and the government that
tried to resist for 13 years, Washington, London, Berlin and
their allies have demonized him.
U.S. and European Union spokespeople have made it clear that
they will continue to pressure the new Belgrade authorities
to extradite the three-times-elected president to a pro-NATO
tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.
There they want to try Milosevic for alleged war crimes. The
NATO leaders hope that a show trial that finds him guilty
will allow them to hide their own crimes against the peoples
of the Bal kans.
Washington's "New World Order" has been unable to bring
either peace or prosperity to the Balkans. It relies instead
on bribes, fear and intimidation to buttress its rule.
Like the Roman Empire, U.S. imperialism tries not only to
defeat its declared enemies but to humiliate them.
It has even humiliated its clients in the new Belgrade
regime by forcing them to arrest Milosevic on a U.S.
timetable. It is making them jump on cue to get $50 million
in aid and U.S. backing for access to World Bank and
International Monetary Fund loans.
U.S. government spokespeople have made it clear that the
enemy is not just Milosevic, but all Serbs who resisted.
With so much at stake, those who oppose war and aggression
are demanding that Milosevic be freed and that the tribunal
in The Hague be abolished.
FIRST ATTEMPT FAILED
On March 30, seven jeeps carrying heavily armed and masked
commandos--who the authorities claimed were Serbian police--
surrounded Milosevic's home in the Dedinje neighborhood of
Belgrade.
He was at home with his political ally and wife Mira
Markovic, their daughter, and a group of comrades from the
Socialist Party of Serbia, who had come to defend him.
Yugoslav army troops also guarded his Dedinje home. The
Yugoslav army's roots are in the partisan movement that
drove the Nazi occupiers out of Yugoslavia. This force is
considered more independent of NATO and less under the
control of the pro-West regime than the Serbian police.
The SPS defenders successfully resisted the first commando
attack that night. The SPS also called on the population and
especially party members to come out to give symbolic
resistance.
Despite the dangers in facing down armed commandos, hundreds
of people came to Dedinje.
The new Belgrade authorities were working on a short
deadline. Washington had given them only until March 31 to
hand Milosevic over to The Hague or at least arrest him.
They stepped up the pressure with a 36-hour siege of his
home.
Washington called out more of its own puppet forces in
Yugoslavia. Members of Otpor, an ostensibly independent
student organization came out on the streets against
Milosevic. The Washington Post reported last Dec. 11 that
Otpor was trained in tactics by State Department operatives.
In addition, unabashedly pro-Western Serbian Prime Minister
Zoran Djindjic ordered thousands of Serbian police into the
streets to intimidate the people.
An April 1 SPS statement noted that more police were used to
arrest Milosevic than were defending Serb land against KLA
terrorists near the Kosovo border.
According to reports from Belgrade, as many as 400 people
had come to defend the SPS leader on the afternoon of March
31. This crowd dwindled as the day wore on.
Finally, after hours of encirclement and pressured
negotiations, Milosevic decided to agree to the arrest. He
was taken into custody and placed in the Central Prison in
Belgrade.
The new Serb authorities first charged him with
misappropriating funds and abuse of power. Apparently their
evidence is weak, because they have added charges stemming
from his allies' attempt to defend Milosevic during the
siege, and later said he would be charged with murders.
These charges are really only a smokescreen for the
political battle directed by the NATO powers. The SPS's
enemies need this screen. Despite the setbacks, sacrifices,
and disappointments faced by the population, there is still
a widespread feeling of national pride and unwillingness to
completely submit a Yugoslav president to NATO.
NATO WANTS HIM IN THE HAGUE
U.S. President George Bush, German Foreign Minister Joshka
Fischer, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and French
President Jacques Chirac had barely congratulated the
Belgrade authorities for the arrest before they demanded the
next step--extradition to The Hague tribunal.
This tribunal, known as the International Criminal Tribunal
on Yugoslavia, was set up by the United States, Britain,
France and Germany specifically to try people from the
former Yugoslavia for alleged war crimes.
It has always been funded by these NATO countries. It has
especially close relations to the United States.
It has refused to hear charges against U.S. and other NATO
country leaders for war crimes against the civilian
population of Yugoslavia.
It is obvious why the NATO leaders want Milosevic before the
tribunal. They want to use the case to absolve themselves of
blame for the war and all the crimes they committed.
Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin,
appearing on CNN March 30, said that the United States
should see the local arrest of Milosevic as "a first step"
toward getting him before the ICTY.
Rubin's marriage to CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour--
who was CNN's main reporter from the Balkans throughout the
crisis there--reflects the close, cooperative relationship
between the corporate media and the U.S. government in
prosecuting and justifying the war against Yugoslavia.
This relationship clearly continues. After the arrest of
Milosevic, all reports in the Western corporate media put
the entire blame for the war on him and on the SPS.
Some go beyond blaming Milosevic. They blame all Serbs. For
example, Blaine Harden's article in the April 1 New York
Times, headlined "Milosevic is accused, but all of Serbia is
on trial," was one of the more viciously anti-Serb.
Harden wrote similar anti-Serb diatribes for the Times in
mid-May 1999 when NATO was preparing a ground attack on
Yugoslavia.
Many in the media have been advising the Bush administration
not to release the promised $50 million in aid to Yugoslavia
until more steps are taken to turn over Milosevic to The
Hague.
The new Belgrade regime itself fears that under the impact
of a continually declining standard of living and its
obvious subservience to NATO, it will soon lose any support
among the population. It thus wants to destroy Milosevic and
the SPS to wipe out organized resistance.
Djindjic has already seen tens of thousands demonstrate
against NATO on March 24, called out by the SPS to mark the
second anniversary of the war.
BIG LIE EXPOSED
For a year after the NATO forces began to occupy Kosovo in
June 1999, anti-war forces in the United States, Western and
Eastern Europe held people's tribunals charging NATO with
war crimes for their aggression against Yugoslavia.
In the United States, the International Action Center, led
by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, made a strong
case that not only had NATO forces purposely attacked
civilian targets, squeezed Yugoslavia with sanctions and
destroyed the environment, but that NATO country's leaders
had also planned and instigated the war.
Finally, long after the war, some of the truth began to
break into the media. On Feb. 8, the major German television
network ARD broadcast a special on the war entitled "It
Began with a Lie." This showed that the charges of mass
murder, genocide and organized "ethnic cleansing" made
against Belgrade were inventions of the U.S., German and
other governments.
The media are not taking note of any of this, however, in
reports about Milosevic's arrest.
INTERNATIONAL ANTI-WAR FORCES
SAY 'FREE MILOSEVIC'
Within the NATO countries, those groups that organized the
tribunals and similar anti-war actions have spoken out
against the illegal arrest of the SPS leader.
On April 2, the International Action Center held an
informational picket line outside Grand Central Station in
New York. As thousands of commuters and office workers
passed, protesters demanded that Milosevic be freed and NATO
leaders put on trial.
In Rome the same day, the group that had held an anti-NATO
tribunal submitted a note to the Yugoslav Embassy protesting
the arrest. This group, called the Ramsey Clark Tribunal, is
working to expose and abolish The Hague Tribunal.
In Berlin, a leader of the German anti-NATO tribunal,
Wolfgang Richter, told the newspaper Junge Welt April 2 that
"NATO is the criminal and belongs in The Hague before the
International Court." He said that the United States and
NATO countries should be paying reparations to Yugoslavia
instead of threatening to withhold aid.
In Brussels, the Belgian Workers Party wrote, "This witch
hunt [against the SPS leaders] is the continuation of the
policy of conquest followed by NATO, the United States and
the European Union for the last 10 years in the Balkans."
Speaking for the IAC in New York, Sara Flounders told
Workers World: "It is vitally important that protests, even
protests that can only now be symbolic, are held against
this new crime by the U.S. and NATO against the Yugoslav
people. Washington's New World Order is full of
contradictions and conflicts, from the collapsing stock
market to bitter rivalries between U.S. and European
corporations, to the dangers of new U.S. aggression against
China and Russia. A new struggle will awaken, a struggle
against what is really Washington's new empire.
"Now whatever we can do to show the way will set the
groundwork for that new struggle and help it to victory,"
said Flounders.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the April 12, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
CANADA ARRESTS FTAA PROTESTERS
The Canadian Federation of Students is protesting the arrest
of 87 people at a peaceful demonstration in Ottawa on April
2. About 400 people, many of them students, had gathered at
the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to
demand that the Canadian government release the text of the
draft agreement of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
Representatives of every country in the Western Hemisphere
except Cuba will be meeting in Quebec City beginning April
19 to ratify the FTAA, which is an expanded version of the
North American Free Trade Agreement.
"The Canadian government has so much to hide in this trade
agreement that it would rather allow dozens of people to be
arrested than allow the democratic process to take its
course," said Jen Anthony, National Deputy Chairperson of
the Canadian Federation of Students.
"The Canadian government is afraid of letting average
Canadians know what is in the FTAA deal because it knows
that people will hold it accountable to protect our rights
and the environment," Anthony added.
Huge demonstrations are expected during the FTAA meeting.
Thousands who oppose capitalist globalization are expected
to come from all over the world. In addition, Canadian labor
unions are mobilizing for a march on April 21, saying that
NAFTA has already put downward pressure on pay and working
conditions and that the FTAA will only make things worse.
For information about how people from the U.S. can
participate in the Quebec protests and at border crossings,
contact the International Action Center, 39 W. 14th St., New
York, N.Y.; (212) 633-6646; email [EMAIL PROTECTED]; web
site www.iacenter.org.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the April 12, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
AS CAPITALISM SELF-DESTRUCTS:
CONFERENCE TO DISCUSS STRUGGLE FOR SOCIALISM
By Deirdre Griswold
In times of capitalist boom, those who hate all the
injustice and cruelty of the system agonize over how to
reach others with their message of struggle. That is hard to
do when everyone seems to be watching "Do You Want to Be a
Millionaire?" and money seems to grow on trees.
But then come times like now, with hundreds of thousands
getting pink slips, utility bills skyrocketing, and the life
savings and pensions of many workers and middle-class people
going up in smoke as stocks collapse.
These are times when all the questions about this chaotic
system--questions that supposedly had been put to rest long
ago--come pounding on the door.
Why is food being destroyed when people are hungry? Why do
millions face economic insecurity when the industrial-
technological infrastructure has never been more advanced?
Why are companies laying off thousands of workers and
simultaneously raising top executives' salaries and perks by
millions of dollars?
Why, just when people really need protection, has Congress
rushed to tighten bankruptcy laws and cut public assistance?
Why, when the threat is right here at home, do the
politicians look for enemies abroad and throw money at the
military?
In short, what is capitalist crisis, and what can we do
about it?
CONFERENCE JUNE 2 AND 3
Every crisis comes as a big surprise to most people, and
needs careful analysis. But even though each new development
has its own unique features, Marxism has for a very long
time provided the tools to analyze this crisis-prone system
and develop a program of struggle against the capitalist
class.
That will be the framework for a conference in New York on
June 2 and 3, when Workers World Party will present a
discussion on the socialist answer to the growing capitalist
crisis.
There are several varieties of socialist parties in the
world today.
Some think socialism can come into existence gradually,
through elections. They're generally known as social
democrats. Some have been elected to office, and have
entered governments in countries like Germany and France.
But instead of dismantling corporate rule and instituting
socialist ownership of the means of production, these social-
democratic parties help to manage capitalist society and
even participate in imperialist wars of aggression--like the
NATO assault on Yugo slavia, or France's continued military
presence in Africa.
Where elected socialists have tried to do what the people
wanted from them, where they have tried to truly change
society in the interests of the poor and oppressed, they
found the rules had changed.
In Chile, for example, even though the people voted in a
socialist coalition headed by Salvador Allende, and even
though the Chilean establishment boasted of a long
democratic history, in 1973 the ruling class gave the
military the go-ahead to overthrow and murder Allende and
thousands of his followers. It turned out that those who
held the real power tolerated democracy only as long as it
didn't challenge their privileged social position.
This included big U.S. corporations allied to the Chilean
ruling class. Working with Gen. Augusto Pinochet through the
Central Intelligence Agency, they directed the coup and the
extreme repression that followed.
U.S. 'DEMOCRACY' AND CLASS STRUGGLE
As we enter a new period of class struggle in the United
States driven by economic hardships, it is important that
the growing movement understand the nature of U.S.
capitalist democracy.
George Bush's election "victory" shocked many here, as did
the revelations of how many votes were stolen. People in
Chile, however, or Indonesia, where the CIA worked with the
military and used fascist-type repression to demolish large
popular movements, have long seen U.S. democracy in a
different light.
Revolutionary socialists and communists like Workers World
Party say it is worse than naïve to teach the workers and
oppressed that they can rely on bourgeois democracy in their
struggle for social justice. Whether it is the racist,
sexist, anti-gay violence of the police or the intervention
of the courts and the government against a strike, the
capitalist state ultimately serves the bosses against the
workers and oppressed.
It doesn't matter that the majority of the voters are
working people. There are a thousand ways their will is
frustrated in the halls of government, where the corporate
lobbyists have the last word.
Why should these questions be of interest right now, when
the very idea of a struggle for power and a different social
system seems so remote? Shouldn't all our attention be
focused on how to save jobs, how to build the unions, how to
stop evictions and utility shutoffs, how to force the
government to spend the trillions of dollars in its coffers
on the social good instead of on war, prisons and corporate
welfare?
Here's a bit of historical truth: the best fighters for all
these things have always come from the ranks of the
socialists and communists. In the 1930s, not only were
industrial unions formed, but the government was forced to
institute programs like social security, welfare,
unemployment insurance, disability and so on, as well as
large public-works projects. There were few militants who
did not consider themselves socialists or communists.
And it was the Marxists in the workers' movement who best
understood that racism is a tool of the bosses that must be
fought with working-class unity and respect for the self-
determination of the oppressed.
By the middle of the Depression, the bosses in the United
States saw that they could lose everything they had stolen
from the workers. So most of them finally agreed, after much
kicking and screaming, to go along with President Franklin
Roosevelt's "New Deal" and appease what was becoming a
revolutionary movement of the workers, rather than have an
army of millions of starving unemployed camped on their
doorsteps.
In the decades that followed, the Cold War and the expansion
of U.S. imperialism took a heavy toll on revolutionary
movements everywhere and on the bloc of socialist countries
in Europe led by the Soviet Union, finally leading to their
collapse.
But a new period has now begun--a period of capitalist
instability.
If it runs its course, it will lead to terrible crises all
over the capitalist world, including in the imperialist
countries themselves, which have seemed invulnerable.
Hundreds of millions of people will be clamoring for a way
out of the hell on earth created by the profit system.
It's time for a full and serious discussion on how to build
a revolutionary socialist movement in the United States.
Save the date--the weekend of June 2--to be in New York at
the Workers World Party Conference on Socialism. Check out
future issues of this newspaper for details.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the April 12, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
TIME TO TAKE ACTION TO FREE MUMIA
Monica Moorehead speaks at D.C. conference
Special to Workers World
Washington, D.C.
[Over 200 activists, mainly from the East Coast, attended the
Free Mumia Conference in Washington, D.C., March 31 to take
up strategies and tactics to help build broad political
support in the struggle to free African American political
prisoner and revolutionary journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, who
sits on death row in Pennsylvania.
Besides the May 11-13 Camp Free Mumia Now initiative in
Philadelphia, other actions discussed at the conference
included mobilizing for Abu-Jamal's first day in federal
court before Judge William Yohn, the May 12 international
day of actions to Free Mumia, a June march to the United
Nations to raise Abu-Jamal's case, and organizing Free Mumia
brigades at the anti-FTAA protests in Québec and at the
border crossings April 20-21.
Abu-Jamal sent a taped greeting to the conference. In it, he
focused on the importance of linking up the anti-
globalization struggle with the struggle of oppressed
peoples everywhere against capitalist oppression.
The following are excerpts of remarks given by Monica
Moorehead at the conference's Saturday morning plenary
session. Moorehead is a national leader of the International
Action Center and a member of the national coordinating
committee in defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Besides the IAC,
the NCC includes representatives from International
Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal, New York
Free Mumia Coalition, Refuse and Resist, Mobilization to
Free Mumia, Academics for Mumia and others.]
We can't give long speeches here. So let me weigh in on what
I think is important right now. The first thing is let's not
sit around waiting for Judge Yohn to make a ruling. Organize
a demonstration, a teach-in, a sit-in, do something. But
don't wait for Yohn. Pay attention to what Yohn is doing but
don't wait for him to act.
If we started running a betting pool on when Yohn is going
to make a ruling, I would bet $5 that he will rule within
the next 60 days. As a matter of fact, I would have bet the
same $5 one year ago that the ruling was going to come down
in the spring of 2000. And sisters and brothers, I would
have lost my five bucks and this is the only reason I would
have bet five bucks in the first place.
So yes, let's have our action plan ready for when Judge Yohn
does whatever he is going to do. But in the meantime, let's
put our bet on sure things and not things that may happen
tomorrow, next month, next year, whenever. Let's not
surrender control of this struggle to a judge. We need to
find a way of taking control of what is our greatest
strength.
How do we do this? How do we take control? The first thing
we have to understand is where our strength lies. For
example, there are a number of fronts in our struggle to
free Mumia. One way of looking at it is that there are two
big main fronts--one of those fronts is the legal battle.
The legal briefs, legal arguments, the suppressed evidence,
the amicus briefs, the constitutional rights violations,
what is the next legal step, etc.
Second, there is the mass struggle. Let's call that the
ground war. The struggle to mobilize the people. This
concerns things such as when are we going to fill Madison
Square Garden again or possibly Yankee Stadium, or shut down
every campus in the country, or maybe every campus on every
one or two continents, when are we marching, where are we
marching to, what building are we going to take over, etc.
Are these two fronts dependent on each other? The legal
front and the ground war? Of course they are. Should the
soldiers in our army whose primary assignment is to follow
the legal front be constantly strategizing with other
soldiers whose primary assignment is planning the ground
war? Of course they should.
But here is the difference, sisters and brothers. I think
that we all know this. But sometimes we need to remind
ourselves of this difference and I think now is one of those
times. On which of these fronts can people like us make the
biggest difference?
If tomorrow morning all of us opened up our mail and to our
amazement, somebody sent you a law degree from Harvard
University with your name on it, and a license to practice
law in the state of Pennsylvania, and because of that,
overnight Mumia now had a legal team of about a thousand new
lawyers ready to lay siege to the courts of Philadelphia,
would that help us? Maybe. I don't know.
But one thing I do know. And that is that it would not be
decisive. Now just suppose if the same one thousand of us
who just became lawyers tossed that law degree in the
garbage, and focused our attention on organizing the ground
war. The war that would touch millions if not billions of
people on a global scale, the ground war that can mobilize
tens of thousands, perhaps millions in our battle to tell
the bourgeoisie that if you even try to execute Mumia, you
will spark social unrest that will make the 1960s look like
a picnic.
Now that's more likely to be decisive. The moral here is
yes, let us all stay abreast of the legal developments in
this case. Let us all become familiar with Mumia's legal
situation. Let us be able to explain it to people who ask
us. That is important.
But in the final analysis, we had better excel in that front
of the struggle that we can execute some control over. And
sisters and brothers, that is the ground war.
Speaking of the ground war, let's try a different tactic for
the weekend of May 12, when we will be descending on
Philadelphia. One of the great things about a protracted
struggle is that it enables our movement to try different
tactics. Sometimes many tactics simultaneously. Sometimes we
go to the big demonstrations in Washington or Philadelphia
or San Francisco in the early morning and then in the late
afternoon, we get back on the bus and go home that same day.
And that's okay.
But sometimes, we can go to the big protest and bring a
sleeping bag or a tent or a pillow and lots of food and
water and stay there over night. Several nights. Sometimes
you can stay for weeks, if not months.
This tactic goes by many names. You can call it an
encampment. You can call it an occupation. You can call it a
vigil. You can call it a sit-in. But whatever you call it,
it is the same thing. People staying to make a point.
So why not stay in Philadelphia on the weekend of May 12 for
a few days. And set up something like a camp. Let's call it
Camp Free Mumia Now! Right in front of City Hall. Starting
on Friday May 11 through Saturday and into Sunday, May 13.
If we do this, I wouldn't be surprised if a whole lot of
people from all over the country take up a residency in Camp
Free Mumia Now on the weekend of May 12.
And I think it will send a message to the Philadelphia
establishment that says: Do you want to disregard our
movement? You want to underestimate us? Dismiss us? You
question our resolve? Our capabilities? Our militancy and
our determination to do what is necessary to win this
struggle? So what we are doing this weekend is just a little
taste of what we are prepared to do to free Mumia.
To borrow a phrase the rebellious Attica prisoners used 30
years ago because they were slaughtered by [New York Gov.
Nelson] Rockefeller's storm troopers, "This will be the
sound before the fury."
Free Mumia! On to the building of Camp Free Mumia Now!
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the April 12, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: FREE SAM SONG!
Sam Song, a Korean-born U.S. citizen living in Flushing,
N.Y., is being held in a cold seven-foot-square prison cell
in South Korea. His crime, according to the Seoul
authorities, is that he helped publish a book on the
reunification of Korea and that he visited North Korea.
Song does not deny either charge. Rather, he has been
extremely public about the book and about the visit he made
to see a brother from whom he had been separated for 50
years. Song says he has the legal right, as a naturalized
U.S. citizen, to do both these things.
The problem is not Song but South Korea's draconian National
Security Law and the attitude of the U.S. government.
Washington by law and by precedent should be making a big
fuss about one of its citizens being held under another
country's anti-democratic laws. But it has uttered hardly a
peep.
Song appears to be the victim of a hardening U.S. attitude
against the normalization process between North and South
Korea that was begun last June with the celebrated meeting
between President Kim Jong Il of the north and President Kim
Dae-Jung of the south. That meeting, which had the blessing
of the Clinton administration, was to be the first step in
relaxing tensions between the two parts of the Korean
peninsula, which have been separated ever since U.S. troops
occupied the south.
Now a new Cold War wind seems to be blowing in Washington,
and the Bush administration is trying to use a presumed
"threat" from North Korea as the excuse for deploying an
extravagantly expensive "national missile defense" in Asia
aimed at China. This has thrown a wet blanket on the
reunification process in Korea.
Ironically, the book Sam Song helped publish was a best
seller in South Korea last year, when enthusiasm for
reunification was bursting out all over. Some 5,000 copies
were sold before the security services, very likely after
consulting with their hard-line U.S. counterparts, decided
to ban it.
Sam Song was arrested in Seoul on Feb. 27 just minutes after
testifying on behalf of the publisher of the book, a Korean
citizen who had also been arrested under the National
Security Law.
Last October Song had gone to North Korea to see his brother-
-a joyful reunion made possible by the summit meeting
earlier in the year. He believed he had nothing to fear,
since it is not illegal for U.S. citizens to visit the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
If the U.S. government were truly interested in human
rights, this would be an ideal case to pursue. And there is
no doubt that the South Korean government, which has always
bent to U.S. pressure, would release Song if Washington
demanded it. Ironically, Song some 20 years ago had helped
the present South Korean president, Kim Dae-Jung, when the
latter was an opposition leader seeking asylum in the U.S.
A Committee to Free Sam Song has been formed in the Korean
community in the U.S. and is organizing support for him. The
International Action Center is urging people to call and fax
the White House, State Department and South Korean Embassy
demanding the immediate release of Sam Song. Workers World,
while adding its voice to those demanding freedom for Sam
Song, also demands freedom for all political prisoners in
South Korea and the repeal of the hated National Security
Law.
