<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div id="container" class="container font-size5">
<div style="display: block;" id="reader-header" class="header"> <font
size="-2"><a
href="http://operamundi.uol.com.br/conteudo/babel/42648/Secret+fbi+program+coordinated+political+repression+in+the+united+states.shtml&SyAxxOu=="
id="reader-domain" class="domain">http://operamundi.uol.com.br/conteudo/babel/42648/Secret+fbi+program+coordinated+political+repression+in+the+united+states.shtml&SyAxxOu==</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Secret FBI program coordinated political
repression in the United States</h1>
</div>
<div class="content">
<div style="display: block;" id="moz-reader-content">
<div
xml:base="http://operamundi.uol.com.br/conteudo/babel/42648/Secret+fbi+program+coordinated+political+repression+in+the+united+states.shtml&SyAxxOu=="
id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<p class="subtitle">Breno Altman | New York and Atlanta -
09/08/2016<br>
</p>
<p class="subtitle">Clandestine measures to combat rebel
groups. Illegal arrests and trials. This was the US
federal police’s formula during the Cold War</p>
<div class="descript">
<p> The Americans had their eyes glued to the television.
That night, March 8<sup>th</sup>,1971, Joe Frazier and
Muhammad Ali were fighting each other at Madison Square
Garden, a traditional indoor arena in New York, the
first of their legendary fights of the century.</p>
<p> They fought through fifteen dramatic <em>rounds.</em></p>
<p> Frazier was the world heavyweight champion. His
challenger, undefeated, had had the highest belt in his
category stripped from him for refusing to fight in the
Vietnam War.</p>
<p> Most of the white fans craved for the defeat of the
man who "flew like a butterfly and stung like a bee", as
described by himself. Ali was the great symbol of the
resistance against racial supremacy in a nation still
marked by segregation; a star of civil disobedience
against the anti-Communist hawks who ruled the White
House.</p>
<span></span>
<p> During the 11<sup>th</sup> round, the black idol of
the conservative middle class knocked down Ali with a
left hook. Ali fell on his back. Recovered. Rose
stunned. Slowly, he dragged himself to finish the fight,
which ended with his defeat by points.</p>
<p> Less than 200 kilometers away in Media, Pennsylvania,
a group of eight young people prepared for a spectacular
action. They were a part of a small organization called
Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI.</p>
<p> Their leader was William Cooper Davidon, a physics and
mathematics university who, on the same date, turned 44
years old. He would enter history, soon we shall see, as
an Edward Snowden or a Julian Assange of the analog era.</p>
<p> They were ready, after months of preparation, to
invade the city’s FBI office, where they imagined they
would find compromising documents on police activities
during that troubled period in U.S. history.</p>
<p> The papers they found were parte of a little treasure:
the secrets of the Counter Intelligence Program
(COINTELPRO), a clandestine plan of J. Edgar Hoover to
face the Communists and other insurgent groups.</p>
<p> <strong>COINTELPRO: "Expose, infiltrate,
manipulate." </strong></p>
<div class="image-vertical"><strong></strong></div>
<p> Conceived in 1956 at the peak of the Cold War, the
COINTELPRO would be officially interrupted in 1971, soon
after the findings of Davidon and his companions began
to circulate in the press.</p>
<p> One of the documents, signed by Hoover himself, on
August 25<sup>th</sup>, 1967, determined the goals of
the program’s new phase: “to expose, infiltrate,
disrupt, manipulate, discredit, neutralize and, if
necessary, eliminate black nationalist hate-based
organizations and groups, their leaderships, spokesmen,
members, and supporters.”</p>
<p> It was an internal war declaration that didn’t have
any consent from the parliament or government
recognition.</p>
<p> The "vale-tudo" included fabricating evidence, forging
crimes, provoking internal conflicts, destroying
material resources, media war, control of the legal
system and cold-blooded murders.</p>
<p> Although publicly suspended, the program would still
be secretly conducted until 1975, when investigations
opened by the Senate forced the CIA and the FBI to
reorganize their operating manual.</p>
<div class="img-vertical fl-l">
<p class="img-vertical-descript">Cynthia McKinney:
"There were no limits to the action of the State on
the combat against rebel organizations"</p>
</div>
The chief inquirer, Frank Church, a Democrat senator from
Idaho whose surname baptized the commission in charge, was
clear and concise in his conclusions: "these are illegal
and anti-American activities."
<p> This is also the opinion of Cynthia McKinney, 61, a
former federal representative for Georgia. A Democrat
like Church, she devoted much of her academic and
parliamentary life to study the subject.</p>
<p> "There were no limits to state action regarding the
combat against rebel organizations," she says. "The main
targets were clearly the minority groups such as blacks,
Native Americans and Latinos.”</p>
<p> In her youth, she was sympathetic to the Black
Panthers. But Cynthia never considered herself as an
"active revolutionary", although she has actively
participated in researching and reporting the repressive
apparatus that let hundreds of activists to prison and
dozens to death.</p>
<p> "The country's elites panicked with the black
uprisings and the movement against the Vietnam War," she
analyzes. "The white supremacy system and the
corporations' ruling could not coexist with a situation
that seemed to jeopardize their hegemony."</p>
<p> The former representative emphasizes that the reaction
was not restricted to repressive action.</p>
<section class="noticias-relevantes cf">
<h4 class="subtitle"><a
href="http://operamundi.uol.com.br/conteudo/babel/44874/programa+secreto+del+fbi+coordino+represion+politica+en+los+ee.uu..shtml">Programa
secreto del FBI coordinó represión política en los
EE.UU.</a></h4>
<h4 class="subtitle"><a
href="http://operamundi.uol.com.br/conteudo/babel/44846/ee.uu.+ocultan+informacion+sobre+sus+presos+politicos.shtml">EE.UU.
ocultan información sobre sus presos políticos</a></h4>
<h4 class="subtitle"><a
href="http://operamundi.uol.com.br/conteudo/babel/42652/former+prisoners+organize+solidarity+towards+current+political+detainees.shtml">Former
prisoners organize solidarity towards current
political detainees</a></h4>
</section>
<p> "The strategy was supported by a collusion between
police devices and the media, which still exist” she
says. "The COINTELPRO documents show that a third of its
budget was dedicated to bribe journalists and vehicles
that participated in the demonization of the
insurgents".</p>
<p> Her assessment is supported by writer Sara Flounders,
currently the main leader of the International Action
Center, an organization founded by former Attorney
General of the Republic, Ramsey Clark, to oppose wars
promoted by the United States and the persecution of
minorities inside the country.</p>
<p> </p>
"The FBI’s intervention overstepped repressive measures,
conditioned the communication industry's behavior and
contaminated the legal system," she says. "The trials of
most political prisoners were farces, with fabricated
evidence, witnesses under pressure and illegal decisions."
<p> <strong>Church Commission</strong></p>
<p> The acknowledgment of these facts is in the Church
Commission's, completed in 1976. Contrary to what
occurred in other countries, however, the findings of
the illegalities committed by the state were not
accompanied by an amnesty policy or a reparation of the
brutalities.</p>
<p> One of the few exceptions was the case of Dhoruba Bin
Wahad, 70, born Richard Earl Moore.</p>
<p> One of the Black Panther leaders in the Bronx, New
York, Wahad lived in clandestinity. Founder of the armed
branch of the organization, he was captured by the
police while leading the invasion of a local club
dominated by drug dealers.</p>
<p> "Drugs were encouraged in black communities,
particularly heroin, as a part of the CIA’s and FBI’s
strategy," he records. "Drug dealing helped finance
illegal intelligence activities abroad and was a
destabilizing element of the anti-racist fight".</p>
<p> The John Kerry Committee, in 1986, headed by the
current Secretary of State, then a Massachusetts
senator, effectively proved that public resources were
offered to dealers who were willing to collaborate with
the enemies of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua
during the 80’s. Despite strong cover up indications,
there is no official recognition of the alleged
facilities drug trade within the United States had.</p>
<p> The Black Panthers, however, were convinced that the
future of their party was conditioned to cleaning the
neighborhoods in which they operated from drug dealing.</p>
<p> Arrested on September 1971, in one of the
confrontations with organized crime, Wahad was the big
fish that the police hoped to present as being
responsible for a widely reported shooting.</p>
<p> <span>Youtube<br>
<img
src="cid:part5.2C832EE0.13EF368D@freedomarchives.org"
alt=""><br>
Police captures Dhoruba Bin Wahad when he led an
invasion on a local club controle by drug dealers</span></p>
<p> On May 19<sup>th</sup>, two police officers had been
shot down with a machine gun in front of Frank Smithwick
Hogan’s house, who was New York's Attorney General and
one of the exponents in the campaign against the rebel
organizations.</p>
<p> Wahad was sentenced to life imprisonment, with right
to parole, a sentence based on witnesses who reported
seeing or knowing of his alleged participation in the
crime.</p>
<p> <strong>Revision</strong></p>
<p> After four years in jail, he heard about the
information brought to the public by the Church
Commission and his lawyers filed a lawsuit to gain
access to those documents.</p>
<p> During the next fifteen years, the FBI released more
than 300,000 pages with various information. Trying to
sink the defense in a sea of paper, its agents
eventually gave them transcripts of the witnesses’
reports against, in which was clear that they had
changed their version due to police pressure.</p>
<p> On March 15<sup>th</sup>, 1990, Judge Peter J.
McQuillan from the Supreme Court of New York, annulled
the previous judgment on the fact that the prosecution
had concealed evidence that could exonerate the
defendant.</p>
<p> </p>
<br>
Video shows how the US government viewed the Black
Panthers group
<p> The same court also denied the request for a new
trial, determining that the federal government should
pay a compensation of US$400,000 to Wahad. This
decision, made in 1995, was followed by another one,
five years later, forcing the city of New York to pay
another US$490,000 due to moral and material damages.</p>
<p> Soon after that, the state parliament repealed the law
that allowed a revision of final judgments in case of
testimonial evidence omission.</p>
<p> "We used to live and continue to live in a police
state," says Wahad. "Democratic freedoms are only
guaranteed to those who do not threaten the system.
Otherwise, as happened to the 60's and 70's movements,
the answer will always be an extermination policy."</p>
<p> <em><strong>Português:</strong> <a target="_blank"
href="http://operamundi.uol.com.br/conteudo/reportagens/42545/Programa+secreto+do+fbi+coordenou+repressao+politica+nos+estados+unidos.shtml&SyAxxOu=="><span>Programa
secreto do FBI coordenou repressão política nos
Estados Unidos</span></a><br>
<strong>Español:</strong> <a target="_blank"
href="http://operamundi.uol.com.br/conteudo/babel/44874/Programa+secreto+del+fbi+coordino+represion+politica+en+los+eeuu.shtml&SyAxxOu=="><span>Programa
secreto del FBI coordinó represión política en los
EE.UU.</span></a></em></p>
<p><em> <strong>Read more articles of the USA Political
Prisioners Series:</strong></em></p>
<em><br>
<a target="_blank"
href="http://operamundi.uol.com.br/conteudo/babel/42652/Former+prisoners+organize+solidarity+towards+current+political+detainees.shtml&SyAxxOu=="><span>Former
prisoners organize solidarity towards current
political detainees</span></a><br>
<a target="_blank"
href="http://operamundi.uol.com.br/conteudo/babel/42651/I+am+a+revolutionary+and+an+optimistic+says+former+black+panther.shtml&SyAxxOu=="><span>'I
am a revolutionary and an optimistic', says former
Black Panther</span></a>
<p> <span><strong>You may also like the 1st stallment
of the series:</strong></span></p>
</em><br>
<em><a target="_blank"
href="http://operamundi.uol.com.br/conteudo/babel/40707/united+states+hide+information+about+its+political+prisoners.shtml"><span>United
States hide information about its political
prisoners</span></a></em><br>
<em><a target="_blank"
href="http://operamundi.uol.com.br/conteudo/babel/40711/a+man+who+no+longer+wanted+masters.shtml"><span>A
man who no longer wanted masters</span></a></em><br>
<em><a target="_blank"
href="http://operamundi.uol.com.br/conteudo/babel/40710/the+black+panthers+were+the+60s+vanguard.shtml"><span>The
Black Panthers were the 60’s vanguard</span></a></em><br>
<a target="_blank"
href="http://operamundi.uol.com.br/conteudo/babel/40718/a+list+of+54+political+prisoners+in+the+united+states.shtml"><span><em>A
list of 54 political prisoners in the United States</em></span></a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>