WW News Service Digest #273
1) March for Justice in Cincinnati June 2
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
2) McVeigh & Sankofa: Two Standards of Justice
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
3) Demand 'Round the World: "Free Mumia!"
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
4) Camp Free Mumia Steps up Fight
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
5) Israel Pounds Arab homes in Renewed Land Grab
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 24, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
MARCH FOR JUSTICE JUNE 2: FROM SELMA TO CINCINNATI
By Deirdre Griswold
Will Cincinnati prove to be the Selma of the new century? No
one can be sure in advance what unbearable injustice,
indignity or act of cruelty will become forever identified
as the spark igniting a new movement. But many ingredients
are there to make the comparison.
A police attack on peaceful marchers on a bridge in Selma,
Ala., in 1965 became a watershed in the struggle against
Southern segregation. The scenes of police clubbing and
dragging women and men who had done nothing but march into
that bastion of racist oppression stiffened the resolve of a
movement for dignity and civil rights that had begun a
decade earlier.
Now the national spotlight is focused on Cincinnati, Ohio,
technically a northern city but one very much in the grip of
racism. It was one police murder too many that put
Cincinnati on the political map. The fatal shooting of
unarmed Timothy Thomas, 19, by officer Steven Roach on April
7 came after a string of other killings of Black youths by
police--15 since 1995.
The African American community, especially the young who are
well aware of the horrendous statistics blighting their
lives, rebelled for three days. It was a rebellion against
police brutality, but also against the racist status quo
that allocates more funds to new prisons than to new
campuses and puts more Black men behind bars than in college
classrooms.
Many groups tried to hold demonstrations showing their
opposition to what the city and the police were doing. The
mayor declared a state of emergency and over 800 people were
arrested.
Details about what happened in Cincinnati are now coming out
in a civil rights lawsuit filed by two dozen people against
the city and unnamed police officers.
William Edwards, who for three years has operated a store on
Vine street, says he was maced by shotgun-toting cops who
demanded he close his shop. When Edwards protested that the
street was quiet and he was only standing in his doorway,
the cops first broke a beer bottle on his stoop, then maced
him in the face.
"I told them, 'That's your answer to everything. That's why
you've got this problem. You're losing the city,'" he says.
The officers laughed at him as he stood in pain.
John Conyers, who had known Timothy Thomas personally, says
in the lawsuit that he was among a group of people leaving
the funeral when two police cars swerved into the
intersection of Liberty and Elm and about five cops began
shooting non-lethal ammunition.
One of the injured was a seven-year-old girl. Conyers says
he worked his way through the chaos to block the child from
being shot again.
"They were going to shoot her again, and we went over there
by her," Conyers says. She was crying and yelling for the
shooting to stop. Conyers was repeatedly shot with beanbags
and rubber bullets while this happened, but didn't realize
he had been injured until later.
"At the moment I was worried about that little girl," he
says. "I was protecting that little girl."
Conyers says officers were laughing as the crowd screamed
for answers to why they were being shot.
According to the suit, a schoolteacher from Kentucky was
also injured by police. Conyers says bystanders took the
teacher to an area shielded from the road and waited for
help.
"The ambulance wouldn't even come to get that teacher,"
Conyers told Cincinnati City Beat.
On June 2, a march called by a coalition of Cincinnati
groups will demand an end to racist police brutality in the
city. People will be coming from all over the country.
The International Action Center is organizing transportation
from several East Coast cities and can be contacted at (212)
633-6646 or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The IAC will also raise the issue of freedom for Mumia Abu-
Jamal at the Cincinnati march.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 24, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
MCVEIGH AND SANKOFA: TWO STANDARDS OF JUSTICE
By Greg Butterfield
George W. Bush and John Ashcroft: defenders of death-row
prisoners' rights?
The federal death machine's gears ground to a sudden halt on
May 11, five days before Timothy McVeigh's scheduled
execution. McVeigh was sentenced to death for his role in
the right-wing terror bombing that destroyed Oklahoma City's
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, killing
168 people.
It was to have been the first federal execution in 38 years-
a river the Bush administration is eager to cross.
Attorney General Ashcroft postponed McVeigh's execution
until at least June 11 after the FBI said it had failed to
turn over 3,000 pages of evidence to McVeigh's lawyers. The
postponement is meant to give the defense team time to study
this new material.
"Today is an example of the system being fair," said
President Bush, who was responsible for the state-sponsored
lynchings of more than 140 prisoners when he was Texas
governor.
Ashcroft said the postponement was necessary for "the
integrity of the nation's system of justice."
All sides admit there's little chance of uncovering
significant evidence in the newly released documents. But
both officials said they couldn't go forward with McVeigh's
execution in good conscience until his legal team had a
chance to review the paperwork.
WHAT ABOUT SHAKA?
Bush and Ashcroft didn't show such concern for fairness and
integrity last year.
On June 22, 2000, Texas Gov. George W. Bush brushed aside
world leaders, religious figures, celebrities and nervous
members of the capitalist establishment, who had all
appealed to him to delay the execution of Shaka Sankofa/Gary
Graham.
Bush pushed that execution forward despite a mountain of
evidence pointing to Sankofa's innocence.
Professor Lawrence C. Marshall, legal director of the Center
on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of
Law, said that execution was "based on the weakest evidence
I have seen in the last 30 years."
Sen. John Ashcroft, like Democratic President Bill Clinton
and Vice President Al Gore, didn't utter a single word of
protest.
So what's different now?
McVeigh, a Gulf War veteran and Ku Klux Klan sympathizer, is
white. His racist, anti-women, anti-gay ideology has much in
common with some of the far-right groups that backed Bush's
presidential candidacy and Ashcroft's attorney-general
nomination.
In an unusual arrangement-sealed under Clinton and continued
under Bush-- the U.S. government agreed to turn over every
document concerning McVeigh's role in the Oklahoma City
bombing to the defense.
Sankofa-a juvenile at the time of his arrest for murder in
1981-was an impoverished African American youth. His trial
was marred by judicial misconduct and suppression of
evidence. After his conviction, he became a revolutionary
political activist and prisoner-rights leader.
During nearly a decade of appeals, Sankofa couldn't get a
single court to hear his case, even after many eyewitnesses
came forward to contradict the testimony of the witness who
had fingered him. His defenders had uncovered this new
evidence without any help from local, state or federal
authorities.
DOUBLE STANDARD
The Bush administration's sudden concern for a death-row
prisoner's legal rights shows that the capitalist state has
two standards of "justice": one for its ultra-right stooges,
another for the oppressed people and impoverished workers
who make up the vast majority of the 3,600 people on death
row.
Foes of the death penalty oppose McVeigh's execution. They
know the government's real aim is not to punish the racist
far right but to shore up waning public support for legal
lynchings.
What about the thousands of African Americans, Latinos and
other poor people on death row who never received a real
trial, much less full disclosure from the government?
Death-penalty foes, anti-racists, unions and community
organizations must mobilize to put the Bush administration's
feet to the fire and demand that the same standards of full
disclosure and legal rights be applied to all death-row
prisoners.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 24, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
DEMAND HEARD 'ROUND THE WORLD: "FREE MUMIA!"
By Leslie Feinberg
"Brick by brick," they roared in Philadelphia.
"Wall by wall," they echoed in San Francisco and Atlanta.
"We're gonna free Mumia Abu-Jamal," reverberated from
Australia to England.
Supporters of Abu-Jamal, recognized by millions around the
world as a political prisoner framed for his beliefs, also
pressed this vow in cities in Cuba, Spain, France, Canada,
Italy, Denmark and Germany on May 11-13.
More than 20,000 Cubans rallied to demand freedom for Abu-
Jamal in the town of Bahia Honda, province of Pinar del Rio
on May 12. The day before, Cuban television's roundtable
discussion featured a special segment about solidarity
actions for Abu-Jamal in the United States.
Among the U.S. activists who participated by telephone were
Monica Moorehead, Workers World Party leader who took part
in the first such roundtable on Abu-Jamal's struggle last
June. She told Cuban viewers about the mobilizing efforts in
Philadelphia for Camp Mumia. Jeff Mackler of the
Mobilization for Mumia spoke of the upcoming march in San
Francisco.
"No justice, no peace, until Mumia is released," promised
those committed to winning Abu-Jamal's freedom in cities
across the United States and around the world. The ruling
powers had best listen up to just how serious Abu-Jamal's
supporters are.
May 12 has become an international day of solidarity with
Mumia Abu-Jamal for anti-racist and anti-death-penalty
forces worldwide.
This May 13 was also the 16th anniversary of the murderous
firebombing of the MOVE Organization--a majority Black
communal group--by the Philadelphia authorities that
massacred 11 women, men and children.
'WE MIGHT NOT LEAVE NEXT TIME!'
A 48-hour "Camp Free Mumia" in the shadow of Philadelphia's
City Hall ratcheted up the struggle to free Abu-Jamal to a
higher level.
It took a battle just to win the right to pitch tents in
Dillworth Plaza in front of City Hall.
City officials had illegally denied a permit to camp in the
plaza on the east side of City Hall. The city had granted
the Republican National Convention a 10-day permit for the
exact same site last August.
The Washington, D.C.-based Partnership for Civil Justice and
the Philadelphia branch of the American Civil Liberties
Union filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of organizers of
Camp Free Mumia.
The International Action Center and Camp Free Mumia won an
impressive victory against the city and police when a
federal judge in Philadelphia ordered municipal officials to
provide a permit for the May 11-13 encampment.
"The IAC successfully challenged the illegal and
unconstitutional tactic of the city of Philadelphia in the
city's ongoing efforts to suppress the free speech rights of
demonstrators," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, lead counsel
in the lawsuit and member of Partnership for Civil Justice.
The event opened on the evening of May 11 with a hip-hop
concert and a video teach-in.
Two rallies brought scores of diverse Abu-Jamal supporters
to the podium.
One thousand protesters assembled at the camp on May 12 and
then marched through the downtown thoroughfares of
Philadelphia. They were met by the cheers, applause and
encouragement of many onlookers and motorists.
The weekend occupation ended May 13 with a tribute to the
fallen MOVE members.
It was an urban occupation that warned by its very presence
that next time it might not leave. It was a warning that if
the state tries to take Abu-Jamal's life, his supporters
could make Philadelphia and other major cities ungovernable.
'WE STAND WITH MUMIA!'
In San Francisco, some 2,000 people marched and rallied May
12 to demand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Demonstrators
included many youths and organized groups including the
Brown Berets, Students for Justice, MAJESTIC--Mumia Abu-
Jamal's Eman cipative Stanford Team Insti gating Change--and
contingents from many campuses.
The spirited and multi-national march wended its way through
many San Francisco neighborhoods. Chants demanding Abu-
Jamal's freedom rang off surrounding buildings. Onlookers
received information about the fight against racism and for
Mumia.
The rally was broadcast live on KPFA, the Bay Area's
Pacifica radio network affiliate.
Laura Herrera, Jeff Mackler and Cristina Vasquez of the
Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, the group that
initiated the march, co-chaired the rally along with John
Parker of the Los Angeles International Action Center.
One of Abu-Jamal's new lawyers, Elliot Grossman, read a
statement from the death-row prisoner.
Three Cuban institutions sent solidarity messages to the San
Francisco action. The Cuban National Union of Jurists'
statement said in part: "We condemn the U.S. government,
which portrays itself as champion of human rights, yet
condemns innocent people to death, keeping human beings
under pressure and tension that constitutes a psychological
war of extermination.
"What human rights is the U.S. government talking about when
it commits the crime of racial discrimination, apartheid and
xenophobia? We call for justice in the case of Mumia Abu-
Jamal, who simply for being Black could be taken to the
gates of death."
The more than 50 speakers included San Francisco Labor
Council Secretary-Treasurer Walter Johnson, Jackie Mishak of
the San Diego Coalition to Free Mumia, former Black Panther
and longtime Bay Area revolutionary activist Kiilu Nyasha,
prisoner-rights activist Luis Talamantez, Howard Wallace of
Service Employees Local 250 and Pride at Work, and recently
released political prisoner Linda Evans.
Eyad Kishawi of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee drew the connections between the fight to free
Mumia and the struggle for freedom and justice of the
Palestinians and all oppressed people of the world.
Gloria La Riva's statement to the rally provoked emotional,
militant responses from the demonstrators. The Workers World
Party speaker said: "We stand with Mumia because he is an
African American leader like so many others who has been
targeted by the racist capitalist state for standing up, for
being a voice of the voiceless. We stand with Mumia because
he is the innocent victim of another racist cop frame-up.
"We stand with Mumia as we stand with the Palestinian
people, with the Colombian people, with the people of Cuba.
We stand with Mumia as we stand with our brothers and
sisters who rebelled in the streets of Quebec against the
imperialist world order and in the streets of Cincinnati
against racist police.
"We stand with Mumia as we stand with all those around the
world who are resisting the U.S. empire."
La Riva encouraged all who can to travel to Cincinnati for
the June 2 convergence against racism, and to be in
Washington, D.C., for the protests against Bush and the
International Monetary Fund/World Bank beginning Sept. 29.
The rally also featured many hip-hop performers down for
Mumia, including Company of Prophets, Blackalicious and
Naru.
'CHANGE ONLY COMES THROUGH STRUGGLE!'
In Atlanta more than 100 spirited supporters of Abu-Jamal
marked May 12 with a rally in downtown Woodruff Park and a
march ending at the city jail.
The events were initiated by Atlanta Millions for Mumia and
endorsed by over 30 organizations and individuals.
American Indian Movement drummers opened the rally. Rally
speakers established the common links that bind well-known
political prisoners like Abu-Jamal with the millions of poor
men, women and youths who fill this country's jails and
prisons.
Speakers included Shakur Sunni-Ali from the International
Committee to Support Iman Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, the Rev.
Paul Turner of Gentle Spirit Christian Church, Spelman
College Professor M. Bahati Kuumba, and Reid Jenkins of the
Atlanta Leonard Peltier Support Group.
Spoken word artists Natidred, Daa'iyah and Aziza won
applause for their passionate words and political rhyme.
Marching behind a bright red sound truck decorated with
"Free Mumia" flags, the demonstrators stopped at the Richard
Russell Federal Building. Jamila Levi spoke to the crowd
there, explaining the legal status of Abu-Jamal's case.
The next stop on the march was the Fulton County Courthouse
where hearings are currently being held in the upcoming
death-penalty case of Jamil Al-Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown).
At the rally there, demonstrators heard a rousing
denunciation of the death penalty by Ed Brown, Al-Amin's
brother.
The protest ended in the shadow of the mammoth Atlanta City
Jail where prisoners indicated their approval by knocking on
the slitted windows.
Seventy-year-old community activist Carrie Morris challenged
the mostly young crowd to "never give up." Declaring with a
strong voice that "change only comes from struggle," this
veteran of many marches and protests advised demonstrators
to "get in the face" of the politicians and their big-
business bosses to make their demands heard.
[Includes reports by Gloria La Riva, Tahnee Stair and Dianne
Mathiowetz.]
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 24, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
IN SHADOW OF CITY HALL: CAMP FREE MUMIA STEPS UP
FIGHT FOR DEATH-ROW PRISONER
By Leslie Feinberg
Camp Free Mumia
Dillworth Plaza, Philadelphia
For 48 hours beginning May 11 Dillworth Plaza was liberated
by those who believe that Mumia Abu-Jamal must be free.
They traveled many hours to get to this patch of concrete
and strip of trees on the east side of Philadelphia City
Hall--from Alaska, New Mexico, Indiana, Missouri, South
Carolina, Ohio, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New
York. And, most important, many came from Philadelphia.
This was a diverse crowd. They were clad in denim and khaki,
kente cloth and Guatemalan weaves. They waved black, green
and red flags and rainbow flags.
Their T-shirts quoted Mumia Abu-Jamal, Che Guevara, Assata
Shakur, John Africa and Emma Goldman.
Scores of variously designed "Free Mumia" T-shirts--some
faded almost beyond readability--demonstrated that long-time
supporters of Abu-Jamal had been drawn to this urban protest
encampment.
The solidarity growing out of the rising new youth movement
was evident. A youth wore a sticker on his backpack that
read "Rape-Free Zone." Other buttons and stickers read
"Another Man for Choice" and "Straight but Not Narrow."
The plaza was bedecked with banners with militant slogans. A
dozen colorful tents sprouted in front of City Hall. Booths
provided registration forms, logistical information,
literature.
Some 150 people camped out all over the plaza on the night
of May 11. More than 100 camped out May 12 despite cold and
wind and choking pollen levels. Members of the group Food
Not Bombs provided everyone with something to eat.
The sounds of chanting, drumming, hip-hop and militant
rallies could be heard non-stop.
Drummers kept up pulsating percussion from nightfall to
dawn. They gave energy to hours of vocal chanting demanding
Abu-Jamal's freedom.
And all night long people from the encampment--young and old-
-stood along the curbside, holding up posters reading "Honk
if you support Mumia." From dusk to dawn cheers greeted the
steady cacophony of car horns sounded in support.
Judi Cheng, a supporter from Jersey City, N.J., estimated
there were "nine honkers for every heckler."
All told, it was a symphony of solidarity.
NON-STOP PROTEST
The encampment was a non-stop protest--from the moment the
camp began to take shape on Friday afternoon to the time it
was struck on Sunday.
It took great cooperation among strangers from diverse
communities and far-flung regions. Many people commented on
the mood of Camp Free Mumia--how relaxed everyone was with
each other.
Particularly noteworthy were the bonds quickly forged
between homeless African American men who regularly sleep in
the shadow of City Hall and Abu-Jamal's supporters.
Some of the homeless men told Workers World about the
violence and racism the cops unleash on them with impunity.
On the nights of the encampment, the police backed off from
their nightrider attacks in and around the plaza.
"All night long we looked out for each other," said Deirdre
Sinnott, one of the International Action Center coordinators
of the event. "Some of the most political people I've talked
to have been the homeless."
Brad and Douglas were part of a group that drove about 14
hours from Indiana to get to the encampment. The two white
youths slept outdoors on May 11 in solidarity with the
homeless.
Douglas told Workers World: "I wanted to have a little
better understanding of what it's like to have to sleep
outside. It sucks. It was noisy, it was uncomfortable, it
was cold, it was hard. The wind was very nagging. It gave me
a lot of respect for the people who have to live this way
year round."
Brad found out about the encampment by visiting the
www.mumia2000.org web site. He involved others by sending
out "a bunch of e-mails. And I asked my school, Manchester
College, to help fund our transportation. I got $350 from
Peace Studies."
He said that Abu-Jamal's case "represents so much that is
wrong with the prison system, the death penalty and the
Justice Department. I fully believe Mumia is a political
prisoner because he speaks out so against the system."
Brad explained: "I got involved through my anti-sweatshop
group at Indiana University. Mumia is like one of the first
activities for me--the birth of an activist."
Natalie, from Manchester College, added, "The death penalty
has been a really big issue on our campus."
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Johnnie Stevens, a co-coordinator of the People's Video
Network, described the May 11 concert that opened the
protest program: "The hip-hop concert was great. There was a
constant flow--predominantly young people from Philly."
Stevens said that after the concert people stayed to watch
videos about Abu-Jamal's case, the prison-industrial complex
and the 1985 Philadelphia police bombing of the MOVE
Organization. They were projected right onto the walls of
City Hall.
A powerful tribute to the MOVE members closed the weekend's
program.
Ramona Africa, the sole adult survivor of the bombing of
MOVE, told Workers World, "This whole weekend is really
important because it's dealing with major issues people
can't afford to close their eyes to--like the death
penalty."
She referred to the recent affidavits filed by Abu-Jamal's
new legal team that contain a statement from a man
confessing he was hired to kill Daniel Faulkner, the white
cop Abu-Jamal is convicted of shooting. "Yet this man--Mumia
Abu-Jamal--sits on death row. Why is that?"
And she emphasized: "Executions don't only happen so-called
legally by lethal injection, but take place on the street.
Mother's Day commemorates the 16th anniversary of the
bombing of my family. This government has a lust for blood
that has nothing to do with justice at all."
Jason Corwin from the Seneca Nation said: "I've been a long-
time supporter of Mumia. I came into awareness of his case
while working for Leonard Peltier [an imprisoned leader of
the American Indian Movement]. Mumia really represents the
finest qualities of human beings. He's a caring family man,
a strong, outspoken person for truth, and unwavering in his
commitment to see all oppressed people--all oppressed life--
gain their freedom."
Rainbow bunting for Philadelphia's annual Pride Fest hung
from lampposts on all major thoroughfares. But none waved
more proudly than the rainbow flags at Camp Free Mumia.
On the afternoon of May 12, Tim Eubanks, who described
himself as a queer Black activist from New York, explained
why he took part. "When I heard it was an encampment, the
idea of that sparked my mind. It adds something to it to
stay overnight. Walking up here today and seeing all the
signs, the Rainbow Flags for Mumia banner, I got really
excited."
A group of Lesbian Avengers--Gunner, Jillian, Matie, Katie
and Kate--explained why they traveled from Boston to be
here.
Matie: "People are marginalized by the system and an injury
to one is an injury to all. We all need to stick together."
Katie: "Racism is so linked to queer oppression. Anyone who
is not a white, straight, Christian, non-trans rich man is
marginalized. Mumia has spoken out for queer rights."
Jillian: "Coming with the Lesbian Avengers, there's power
behind that name and the power of the organization. Bringing
that power to a cause that's worthwhile adds rather than
just coming as out individuals."
Gunner: "It's important to have a place to dialogue with
people, to create spaces like this one here about causes and
to be able to also dialogue with others about other issues."
Corwin, the Avengers and Eubanks were speakers at the
afternoon rallies that day.
'THE PEOPLE UNITED CAN NEVER BE DEFEATED!'
The range of speakers demonstrated the broad solidarity that
Abu-Jamal's struggle has inspired.
Monica Moorehead, a national leader of Millions for Mumia,
and Leslie Jones, youth coordinator of International
Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, co-chaired
the rally.
The program wove together the struggle to free Native
warrior Leonard Peltier, oust the U.S. Navy from Vieques,
defend the Charleston 5 dock workers, win a living wage for
Harvard's most impoverished workers, and defend Palestinian
self-determination with the battle to free Abu-Jamal.
Speakers included Ramona Africa; Larry Holmes, International
Action Center co-director and organizer of Camp Free Mumia;
Pam Africa, national coordinator of ICFFMAJ; Marlene Kamish,
one of Abu-Jamal's new legal team members; Ray LaForrest,
Haitian activist and union organizer; Mark Taylor of
Academics for Mumia; Katie Herzig and Matie from the Boston
Lesbian Avengers; Clark Kis singer, leader of Refuse &
Resist; and Minnie Bruce Pratt, a national organizer for
Rainbow Flags for Mumia.
One thousand marchers then stepped off from Dillworth Plaza
to take their message to downtown shoppers. The march moved
slowly down the broad avenues, making a whole lot of noise.
Borrowing a popular chant from the AIDS movement, protesters
chanted: "Our brother Mumia is under attack. What're we
gonna do? Act up, fight back!"
Throbbing percussion of scores of drums, cowbells and other
instruments accompanied the chants.
Many pedestrians, shoppers and drivers greeted the marchers'
demands with raised fists of solidarity, applause and
cheers. One clapping bystander told her friend: "That's
right! They need to free him."
Nodding at the powerful march, Pam Africa told Workers
World: "People are organizing all over the world against
this most terroristic government--in the face of the
Republican National Convention, in the face of Seattle. Even
the most traitorous tricks of this government haven't been
able to divide this movement."
A whole row of people carried a 65-foot quilt made by
Fatirah Aziz to demonstrate support for Abu-Jamal. Aziz had
put out a call over the Internet for 8-1/2-inch squares, and
got responses from Kentucky to Senegal. She quilted them
together in three weeks.
Aziz told Workers World: "I wanted to make something to show
how many care about him--people who couldn't be here. It was
a labor of love. "
The marchers passed a site of the Underground Railroad.
Painted on the side of the building was a two-story mural of
Harriet Tubman looking down on demonstrators, holding up her
lantern to show the way to freedom for those escaping
slavery.
Abu-Jamal demonstrators won overwhelmingly more support than
heckling as thousands of predominantly white, middle-class
runners and walkers passed by in a Mother's Day "Race for a
Cure" for breast cancer.
A sanitation worker who brought up the rear of the race was
chanting along with demonstrators. And the municipal workers
who cleaned the park afterward found many concrete ways to
express their solidarity with the encampment.
By the time marchers returned to Camp Free Mumia, a strong
wind had blown in a cold front. But the chanting, drumming
and car horns blaring for Abu-Jamal throughout the night
brought reporters back to the encampment at 2 a.m. and again
at 4 a.m.
On Sunday morning, as protesters prepared to make their way
to the closing MOVE event, Larry Holmes told those gathered:
"The media hate to cover Mumia. But we made them do it. We
were on every television channel, in every newspaper, we
even got national coverage."
The organizers had had to go to court just to get permits
from the city to hold the encampment. Holmes concluded:
"We've been here for 48 hours. We won this battle. But it's
not over. Not until Mumia is free."
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the May 24, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
FUNDS, GUNS, SETTLERS COMES FORM U.S.: ISRAEL
POUNDS ARAB HOMES IN RENEWED LAND GRAB
By Richard Becker
May 14 was a day of unprecedented Israeli violence against
the Palestinian people in the illegally occupied West Bank
and Gaza.
Elements of the U.S.-armed Israeli Army, Navy and Air Force
launched heavy assaults on residential areas and Palestinian
Authority facilities in several areas. At least seven
Palestinians were killed. Many more were seriously wounded.
Densely populated Gaza was rocketed from Navy gunboats, Air
Force helicopters and by surface-to-surface Army missiles.
The heaviest death toll was in the West Bank town of
Beitunia. There the Israeli Army, in a surprise attack,
massacred five Palestinian security officers inside and
outside their small checkpoint post.
Two of the Palestinian officers were reportedly sleeping and
two others preparing food when the daytime attack took
place. A sixth officer was seriously wounded.
PA President Yasir Arafat denounced the Israeli attack as
"assassinations." He said, "Israel must know that it will be
harshly judged over this crime."
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell refused to comment on
the massacre of the Palestinians. Instead, Powell brazenly
attacked Arafat, saying, "That kind of language I don't
think is very helpful, especially during the time Israel is
celebrating its anniversary."
May 15 was the 53rd anniversary of Israel's declaration of
"independence." But the Palestinians commemorate the date as
Al-Nakba, or "the Catastrophe," for when they were
dispossessed and driven from their homeland.
Massive actions were expected to take place in the West
Bank, Gaza, in Palestinian areas within the 1948 borders of
the Israeli state and elsewhere.
Thousands marched in the Ain al-Hilweh, Saadnayel and other
Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon on May 13. Mass
demonstrations in Jordan were repressed by the pro-U.S.
government on May 11, with more than 50 people arrested.
ISRAEL ESCALATES WAR AGAINST PALESTINIANS
Israeli attacks on Palestinian areas have been escalating
for weeks, especially in the days leading up to May 15.
On May 7, Israeli tank fire killed a 4-month-old Palestinian
girl and severely wounded several members of her family in
their home in Khan Younis, Gaza.
On May 11, Israeli forces bulldozed at least five homes in
the Deir El-Balah refugee camp in southern Gaza, leaving one
dead, two wounded and more than 30 people homeless.
Altogether, Israel destroyed 60 houses and hundreds of acres
of orchards, groves and farmland in Palestinian areas in the
previous week.
The death toll since the beginning of the second Intifada,or
Uprising, now stands at more than 440 Palestinians and 77
Israelis.
More than 13,000 Palestinians--over 95 percent of the
injured--have been wounded. At least 1,000 of the wounded
Palestinians will suffer lifelong disability, many of them
paralyzed or missing eyes.
A May 1 article in the Guardian of London reported: "The
Nobel prize-winning U.S. group Physicians for Human Rights
blames the widespread use of the M-16 automatic rifle for
the high rate of crippling Palestinian injuries." The U.S.-
designed weapon is standard issue for Israeli troops.
Yet most U.S. media attention--and condemnation--was
reserved for the killing of two Israeli settler teenagers
near Tekoa settlement in the West Bank.
Seth Mandel, the father of one of the boys, brought his
family to Tekoa from College Park, Md., less than five years
ago. According to Menachem Froman, the Tekoa rabbi, Mandel
aspired to be a "spearhead" among the settlers. "They are
pioneers of pioneers,"Froman said of the Mandel family.
In other words, Mandel was among the most aggressive and
extreme of the 200,000 settlers, many recently arrived from
the United States. These "spearheads" of the settler
movement, armed with automatic weapons and backed by the
Israeli military, are determined to drive the Palestinians
out of the West Bank and all of Palestine.
RESISTANCE INTENSIFIES
The Israeli government headed by notorious war criminal
Ariel Sharon has vowed to keep building new settlements and
expanding the existing ones. The settlements' purpose is to
establish "facts on the ground"--Israeli possession of wide
swaths of the West Bank and Gaza.
These "facts" are intended to create a situation where, the
Israeli leaders hope, it will be practicably impossible for
a real Palestinian state to come into existence.
It is not just the right-wing Likud governments that have
pursued this end, but the Labor party regimes as well. Since
1993, when the Oslo "peace process" began, the population of
the settlements has increased by 72 percent. The biggest
percentage increase came under the Labor government of Ehud
Barak.
Sharon has rejected any limit to Israeli settlements in the
West Bank and Gaza. This is despite the undeniable fact that
they blatantly violate international law that prohibits
annexing and settling militarily occupied lands.
Sharon has begun denying that the West Bank and Gaza are
occupied at all. He referred to them in recent
pronouncements as "disputed areas." Two weeks ago, the
government allocated an additional $375 million to
settlement expansion.
Contrary to the image deliberately created by U.S. officials
and their official media, nearly all the fighting and dying
goes on inside the tiny fraction of Palestine that is under
tenuous Palestinian control. The relentless Israeli
aggression is relentlessly termed "retaliation" by the
corporate media.
Although it faces overwhelming fire power and what appear to
be insurmountable odds, the Palestinian resistance is
intensifying and deepening. After all, the Palestinians have
long confronted what appear to be impossible obstacles.
While they lack helicopters, gunboats, tanks, missiles and
machine guns, the Palestinians are fighting back heroically
with everything at their disposal. Tens of thousands
reportedly marched militantly through Ramallah at the
funeral of the five Palestinian security officers.
What the Palestinian people need in this critical hour is
intensified international solidarity.
