[News] Lantos gets slammed

[News at freedomarchives.org]

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Big Victory for Human Rights: CCSF Board Withdraws Award, Invitation
to Congressman Tom Lantos!

By KRISTA HUSAR

SAN FRANCISCO, May 28 -- The Board of Trustees of City College of San
Francisco, under pressure from students and faculty, withdrew a
prestigious award from Congressman Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo) and
rescinded their invitation to have Lantos address CCSF's graduation
ceremony on Saturday, May 29.

Congressman Tom Lantos was to receive the "Friend of City College"
medal at Saturday's graduation ceremony for support in obtaining
funds for cash-strapped CCSF. But his leading role, past and present,
in support of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and Palestine outraged
student groups and faculty -- who went before the CCSF Board of
Trustees Thursday night, May 27, and urged them not to honor a "war
activist." Lantos, the ranking Democratic member of the House
International Relations Committee, is one of the most
strident "hawks" in the Congress.

Among the students and faculty who appeared before the CCSF Board of
Trustees were Revolution Youth members Ben Eckstein and Krista Husar;
AFT 2121 President Allan Fisher; AFT 2121 Past President Rodger
Scott; La Raza Unida member Darren Villegas; Freedom Schools member
Nancy Hernandez; Chair of the Women's Studies Department Leslie
Simon; and Associated Student leaders Amrah Johnson and José
Villalobos.


Husar said that any funds that Lantos might bring to City College
were erased by the fact that "he has consistently and historically
taken money away from education by lobbying for increased spending on
war. He is no friend of youth, at CCSF or elsewhere."

[Revolution Youth activists at CCSF also spent the week gathering
signatures from students, faculty and campus organizations on an Open
Letter to Tom Lantos titled, "A True Friend of City College Would
Oppose the Occupation of Palestine and Iraq!" See text of Open Letter
below.]

Lantos is definitely a fish out of water when it comes to the San
Francisco Bay Area. Even though the voters of his district passed a
proposition calling for reduced military spending and reallocation of
funds to education and other domestic needs, Lantos voted for more
military spending.

AFT 2121 President Allan Fisher told the Board of Trustees
that "Lantos is the only Bay Area Congressperson to vote for giving
the Bush Administration the authorization to invade Iraq." Fisher
also mentioned that Lantos "has been an organizer in Congress for the
Patriot Act."

Rodger Scott, past president of the AFT local at CCSF, said, "You
might as well give Bush the award because though they may be very
different people, their political intent is the same."

Lantos's presence at a youth ceremony would have been all the more
outrageous as Lantos has recently returned from Israel where he shook
hands with and praised Ariel Sharon just days after the Israeli
state's heinous massacre of youth in the Palestinian town of Rafah.

Revolution Youth/CCSF activist Ben Eckstein -- who spoke as
an "Israeli, a conscientious objector, an American and a student" --
asked how a so-called youth advocate could meet with a leader whose
hands were covered in blood. "Our U.S. youth are dying as soldiers in
Iraq, thousands of Iraqi youth are dead, and 17 children were killed
in Palestine last week," Eckstein said. "I challenge anyone on the
Board to find one City College student who thinks of this man as a
friend."

Leslie Simon, chair of the Women's Studies Department, voiced a "deep
concern and objection, as a Jewish-American, to Sharon's policies."
She also stated that there are a lot of American Jews and Jews in
Israel who do not agree with Israel's policy and are not "self-hating
Jews."

There was also concern over due process in the planning of the
graduation.

Associated Students' leader José Villalobos said he was on the
student planning committee and yet he did not hear about the Lantos
award until three days before graduation. He said that he respected
the process and hoped the Board would, too, by taking responsibility
for the fact that students had had no input in the decision to honor
Lantos.


All those who testified against the Board's decision made it clear
that City College's active student body was not going to accept
passively the decision to have Lantos address the graduation
ceremony. Indeed, even if the Board had not rescinded Lantos's award,
there were plans afoot to organize students so that all would stand
up and turn their backs to Lantos when he received the award.

La Raza Unida member Daniel Villegas put it best when he said, "We
need people in solidarity with the youth. For three semesters CCSF
has had ongoing antiwar protests. This is an antiwar campus."

In response to the student and faculty demands, Chancellor Day called
Congressman Lantos on Friday morning to inform him that there would
be no award and that he was disinvinted from attending the
graduation.

The CCSF Board of Trustees Meeting that witnessed this impressive
challenge from students and faculty will be aired again in the Bay
Area on Wednesday, June 2, on Channel 27 at 8:30 p.m.

*******************


REVOLUTION YOUTH-INITIATED OPEN LETTER
TO CONGRESSMAN TOM LANTOS!

"A True Friend of City College Would Oppose
the Occupation of Palestine and Iraq!"

REVOLUTION YOUTH/CCSF
c/o Ben Eckstein
Room 207, Student Union
City College of San Francisco
Email: revolutionyouth35 at hotmail.com
----------

Dear Congressman Lantos,

At a time when City College of San Francisco has decided to award you
the Friend of City College Medal, we the undersigned students,
faculty, staff and organizations of CCSF, call on you to abandon
fully your support to the U.S.-funded occupation of Iraq and
Palestine.

These are occupations that have turned into massacres of tens of
thousands of innocent people, all fraudulently in the name
of "democracy" and "security."

We are particularly alarmed that on Monday, May 24 you met with
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem and embraced his
criminal attacks on the Palestinians in the refugee camp of Rafah in
the Gaza Strip, which left more than 46 people dead and thousands
injured and homeless.

The weeklong attack by the Israeli Defense Forces on the Rafah
refugee camp was condemned unanimously (14-0) by the UN Security
Council. The European Union said Sharon's actions in Rafah showed
a "reckless disregard for human life." A top Israeli cabinet member
went so far as to compare this most recent attack on the Palestinians
with the massacres his own family had endured during the World War II
Holocaust in Eastern Europe.

Aside from violating international law, the Geneva Conventions and
the most recent UN Security Council Resolution 1544 adopted on May
19, these attacks are a continuation of the Israeli government's
aggression toward all Palestinians as part of the decades-old
occupation of their land.

At the very moment the international community condemned Sharon and
the Israeli government for the unprovoked raids on Rafah, you reached
out to embrace a man with so much blood of innocent people on his
hands. How can anyone accept this?

We also are strongly opposed to your support for the U.S.-led Gulf
War against Iraq in 1991 and your support for the most recent Bush
administration war and occupation of Iraq.

The U.S.-appointed authority in Iraq, just like the Sharon government
in relation to the Palestinian people, operates criminally, bringing
destruction and despair to a nation of proud and ancient people in a
direct attempt to break down local and social structures and to deny
them their right to self-determination.

The American people are being misled and lied to by politicians and
the media. They are conned into believing that the wars funded with
our tax dollars are justifiable and legitimate, when in truth they
are wars for profit and power waged by the ruling few. They are wars
carried out, as well, against working people at home in the form of
brutal attacks on our civil and constitutional rights, and the
assault on Social Security, heathcare, labor laws, and funding for
education -- to mention but a few examples.

We believe that a true friend of City College is a person who opposes
war, who fights for human rights, who upholds the right of peoples to
self-determination, who cares for the youth and their rights and who
contributes to better education for all -- everywhere. It is someone
who opposes military recruitment of impoverished youth with the false
promise of a better education and future. It is someone who joins the
world community in condemning Sharon's criminal actions in Rafah -
not applauding them, as you have done.


We call on you, Congressman Tom Lantos, to join the millions and
millions of people all over the world who call for the end of the
occupation of Iraq and Palestine.

Sincerely,

[FOLLOWS LONG LIST OF SIGNATORIES FROM PETITION SHEETS]




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