Systematic Injustice Against Sundiata Acoli By Stephen Lendman
countercurrents.org | Apr 26th 2011 8:11 PM
Systematic Injustice Against Sundiata Acoli
By Stephen Lendman
Countercurrents.org
In her book titled "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness," Michelle Alexander cites Martin Luther King in 1968
highlighting the need to shift from civil to human rights advocacy, saying
initiatives for it just began. In fact, it's truer now than then with Blacks
and Hispanics comprising two-thirds of America's prison population, by far
the world's largest at around 2.4 million, most incarcerated for nonviolent
or political reasons.
Focusing on the war on drugs, Alexander characterizes the New Jim Crow as a
modern-day racial caste system designed by elitists who embrace
colorblindness. Believing poor Blacks are dangerous and economically
superfluous, America's gulag became an instrument of control. According to
Alexander:
"Any movement to end mass incarceration must deal with (it) as a racial
caste system, not (a method) of crime control. We need an effective system
of crime prevention and control in our communities, but that is not what the
current system is. (It's) better designed to create crime, and a perpetual
class of people labeled criminals, rather than to eliminate crime or reduce
the number of criminals."
Overall, America's most vulnerable are victimized by judicial unfairness,
get tough on crime policies, a guilty unless proved innocent mentality,
three strikes and you're out, racist drug laws, poverty, and advocacy for
social justice issues challenging repressive state policies.
As a result, figures like former UN ambassador Andrew Young believes
"(t)here are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people (in America incarcerated
as) political prisoners." Including undocumented Latino immigrants and other
aliens, it's tens of thousands, an April 2011 Government Accountability
Office (GAO) report saying Washington annually spends over $1.5 billion
imprisoning them.
Currently, around 55,000 are in federal prisons, another 75,000 in state
facilities. At a November 2010 Workers World Party conference, International
Action Center organizer Gloria Verdieu said:
"Freeing all political prisoners, prisoners of conscience and prisoners of
war" tops America's social justice struggle, "because the state uses the
criminal justice system to lock up those who sacrifice their livelihood for
freedom and justices for the masses."
In fact, international precedent recognizes releasing them. France freed
anarchists, Germany Baader-Meinhof figures, and Britain IRA members. Not
America, however, in contrast to notorious criminals pardoned, including
Iran-Contra conspirators Caspar Weinberger, Elliott Abrams and John
Poindexter, as well as others convicted of serious offenses warranting long
internments.
Unlike them, today in America, heroic activists are incarcerated unjustly,
including Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Ramsey Muniz, Oscar Lopez
Rivera, the Cuban Five, lawyers Lynne Stewart and Paul Bergrin, and, among
many others, Sundiata Acoli (born Clark Edward Squire) for 38 years.
Access his complete profile at:
http://www.sundiataacoli.org/
Born in January 1937, it calls him a New African political prisoner of war,
mathematician, and computer analyst with a BA in math from Prairie View A &
M College. In summer 1964, he did voter registration work in Mississippi. In
1968, he joined the Harlem Black Panther Party, doing community work
relating to schools, housing, jobs, child care, drugs, and police brutality.
In 1969, he and others were arrested in the Panther 21 conspiracy case,
jailed for two years without bail, then acquitted and released. Afterward,
FBI pressure denied him professional employment, and COINTELPRO harassment
and surveillance drove him underground.
Driving on the New Jersey Turnpike in May 1973, he and others were accosted
by state troopers. Zayd Shakur was killed, Assata Shakur wounded and
captured. One state trooper was killed, another wounded. Acoli was captured
days later. In a highly charged, "sensationalized and prejudicial" trial, he
was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life plus 30 years.
Initially for five years at Trenton State Prison (TSP), he was confined to a
special Management Control Unit (MCU) solely for political reasons, given
only 10 minutes daily for showers and two hours weekly for recreation.
The International Jurist (TIJ) "publishes perspectives and opinions on the
current state of international law and its future," especially international
humanitarian law, human rights law, transitional justice and international
criminal law, and comparative law.
After interviewing Acoli in September 1979, TIJ declared him a political
prisoner. Days later, he was secretly transferred to solitary confinement at
maximum security US Penitentiary, Marion, IL despite no outstanding federal
charges. In July 1987, he was sent to Leavenworth, KS federal prison.
Eligible for parole in fall 1992, he was denied permission to attend his own
hearing, permitted only to participate by prison phone. Despite his
exemplary prison work, academic and disciplinary record, hundreds of
supportive letters, and numerous offers as a computer professional, he was
denied in a 20 minute proceeding, giving him "a 20-year hit, the longest in
New Jersey history," minimally requiring him to serve another 12 years
before again becoming eligible for parole.
Reasons given were his Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army
membership, as well as hundreds of "Free Sundiata" form letters calling him
a "New Afrikan Prisoner of War" and that he hadn't been sufficiently
rehabilitated. At issue, however, is forcing him to renounce his social
justice advocacy and admit wrongdoing for struggling to liberate his people.
On March 4, 2010, the New Jersey State Parole Board (NJPB) denied him for
the third time, again calling him "not rehabilitated" despite over a 1,000
supportive letters and petitions from noted figures, including lawyers,
clergy, academics, psychologists, community members, and journalists.
Then in mid-July, with no explanation, he got written notice of a 10-year
hit, requiring at least another six years imprisonment before parole
eligibility at which time he'll be 79 years old or perhaps dead.
On August 27, 2010, an administrative appeal to the New Jersey Parole Board
was filed, his legal advisers saying his case is strong based on NJPB
procedural errors.
Throughout his incarceration, he's endured harsh treatment yet maintained an
exemplary record, as well as becoming a talented painter and writer on
prison industrial complex issues. He's also a father, grandfather, and both
brother and mentor to fellow inmates besides making invaluable community
contributions before incarceration.
In the 1960s, after years as a skilled computer programmer, he participated
in southern civil rights struggles. Moreover, his New York chapter Black
Panther Party activities involved him in numerous social justice struggles,
including education, slum housing, school breakfasts, healthcare, legal
help, and politics. He also worked on anti-drug and police brutality
initiatives, an admirable record overall deserving praise, not incarceration
for nearly four decades.
A Final Comment
On April 17, 2011, Acoli's latest article headlined, "Sundiata Acoli: Why
You Should Support Black Political Prisoners/POWs and How," saying:
"My name is Sundiata Acoli....and am now a Black Political Prisoner and
Prisoner or War (PP/POW) who's been (incarcerated) for the last 37 years."
"So why should you care," he asked? "Why should you support Black PP/POWs?
Well, maybe you shouldn't. If you're happy with (how America) and the world
is going, and if you want (Washington and Western powers) to dominate and
oppress the rest of the world, then (don't) support Black PP/POWs (and it
agenda to end predatory) capitalism, sexism, (racism), and all unjust
oppressions of people and life (on) earth."
That advocacy got Acoli and many others imprisoned for supporting and doing
the right thing. Now it's up to mass activism no longer to tolerate it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
[email protected]. Also visit his blog site at
sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with
distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive
Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at
noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
Original Page: http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman260411A.htm
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