[Ppnews] Systematic Injustice Against Sundiata Acoli

[Political Prisoner News]

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/04/systematic-injustice-against-sundiata_26.html


Systematic Injustice Against Sundiata Acoli

Systematic Injustice Against Sundiata Acoli - by Stephen Lendman

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 
lendmanstephen at sbcglobal.net. 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.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

posted by Steve Lendman @ 
<http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/04/systematic-injustice-against-sundiata_26.html>6:53 
AM




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