[Pnews] Pelican Bay - Our historical obligation: to pursue the total liberation of all oppressed people

Tue Apr 22 11:10:30 EDT 2014

    Our historical obligation: to pursue the total liberation of all
    oppressed people
    <http://sfbayview.com/2014/our-historical-obligation-to-pursue-the-total-liberation-of-all-oppressed-people-2/>

April 21, 2014
*http://sfbayview.com/2014/our-historical-obligation-to-pursue-the-total-liberation-of-all-oppressed-people-2/*

/*by Kijana Tashiri Askari*/

/"Whereas slavery, throughout its entire existence in the United States, 
is none other than a most barbarous, unprovoked and unjustifiable war of 
one portion of its citizens upon another portion -- the only conditions 
of which are perpetual imprisonment and hopeless servitude or absolute 
extermination ..." /-- Preamble to John Brown's Provisional 
Constitution, 1858

Since the inception of our first hunger strike in July 2011, I've been 
repeatedly asked, "Why did you risk putting your life on the line and go 
on all three hunger strikes?" My response has simply been this: We New 
Afrikans have a historical obligation to protect and serve the people 
through the crucible of forging a united front by joining forces with 
ALL like-minded individuals, regardless of race, color, creed or gender. 
Our historical obligation in particular is rooted in the year 1619 via 
the Trans-Atlantic slave trade from which the Abolitionist Movement, the 
Civil Rights Movement, the Black Liberation Movement and the New Afrikan 
Independence Movement were spawned.

Our historical obligation has left us with the choice of freedom or 
death, meaning that it is up to us to go about liberating ourselves from 
the torturous and oppressive political, social, cultural and economic 
living conditions that the ruling class has subjugated us to in solitary 
confinement for the past 40-plus years via U.S. colonial rule. Or we 
could have accepted the prescribed role of oppressed man and woman for 
the next 40-plus years, which would have assured our eventual demise! 
Note: We must never forget all of the women prisoners who courageously 
stood in solidarity with us.

Our beloved New Afrikan Sista Harriet Tubman clearly understood our 
historical obligation when she not only liberated herself from the 
confines of the slave plantation where she was kept but also returned 20 
times -- despite the danger of being recaptured -- via the mutual aid 
construct of the Underground Railroad to help liberate over 300 of her 
fellow slaves from the barbaric and diabolical culture of slavery, where 
rapes and lynchings occurred daily.

Our beloved New Afrikan Sista Assata Shakur also understood our 
historical obligation when she stated in an Emerge Magazine interview in 
May 2000 
<http://www.itsabouttimebpp.com/Underground_News/pdf/Emerge_Magazine_052000.pdf> 
in regard to what the BLA (Black Liberation Army) meant to her: "To be 
honest, I would be dead if it weren't for the people who took the risk, 
who said, 'We are going to have you come into our house. We're going to 
take care of you. We're going to protect you. We're going to struggle 
with you in whatever way we can. If it were not for those sisters and 
brothers, who took these positions, I would be absolutely dead."

Prior to our first series of hunger strikes in 2011, CDCR's genocide 
population control mandates were already in place and consisted of 1) 
the indefinite internment of prisoners in their solitary confinement 
torture chambers for absurd reasons, where prisoners are de-socialized 
and dehumanized in every extreme and 2) the regulation of prisoners to 
incommunicado status by accusing prisoners and our families of gang 
activity via the issuance of arbitrary and fraudulent stopped mail 
notifications stopping the mail that our families and friends in the 
community send to us.

These tactics are designed to criminalize and psychologically intimidate 
our families and friends to stop supporting us and to eventually abandon 
us. Thus, they advance CDCR's genocide population control agenda. Here 
is an example:

In 2008, my family attempted to assist in my liberation from these slave 
kamps (prisons) for my September 2008 Parole Board hearing. The 
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's Prison 
Intelligence Unit (PIU) sabotaged and criminalized my family's efforts 
by falsely labeling my beloved lil' sista Hannah Bastienne a gang member 
on account of her letter to inform me that members of the Black Panther 
Party were going to be attending and supporting a community event that 
she organized in order to raise awareness about my Parole Board hearing 
and status as a New Afrikan Black political prisoner.

On June 9, 2010, my lil' sista Hannah Bastienne provided a sworn 
affidavit in support of my legal case, Harrison v. D.E. Milligan, et 
al., Case No. C-09-4665-SI (PR), where she stated: "I would like to say 
for the record that I'm upset that I was accused of such activities. If 
Investigator D.E. Milligan researched my background before his 
accusations, which he has access to, he would have found that I am a 
permanent resident of California since 1999 and that my background is 
clean, with a perfect record.

"I truly believe that if Investigator D.E. Milligan was highly 
concerned, he would have completed a background check on me and would 
have discovered that his claim was untrue. Investigator D.E. Milligan, 
in fact, would have found that my arranged meeting was in fact a 
'community reach-out' event. D.E. Milligan's false accusation was based 
upon that I had mentioned to Marcus that a former Black Panther had been 
invited to attend my meeting.

"From that information the investigator assumed I was affiliated with a 
gang and assisting and aiding Marcus to promote gang activity. The 
investigator also accused me of being related to the BGF (Black Guerilla 
Family), which at the time I had no idea what that was, being that I'm 
from England and not knowing the history of the BGF."

The above is a concrete example of how CDCR-PIU officials have escalated 
the continuum of their fascist policies and practices of criminalizing 
prisoners and our families and friends via psychological intimidation. 
This should serve as a reminder that our historical obligation is to 
protect and serve people like Hannah Bastienne through the course of 
pursuing the total liberation of all oppressed people!

And we must demand that the humanity of ALL be respected because 
intentionally falsifying allegations against law-abiding citizens is an 
inhumane practice that needs to stop immediately! Hence, I am asking 
that the community launch a letter-writing campaign to protest and voice 
your outrage over this contradiction and demand CDCR-PIU immediately 
cease and desist the criminalization of our families and friends in the 
community.

All letters need to be sent to Pelican Bay's Warden Clark E. Ducart and 
CDCR Secretary Jeffery Beard. Their addresses are

    * Warden Clark E. Ducart, P.O. Box 7000, Crescent City, CA 95531
    * Secretary Dr. Jeffery Beard, Department of Corrections and
      Rehabilitation, 1515 S St., Sacramento, CA 95811

I have also created the Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement First 
Amendment Campaign as a community-based infrastructure in order to 
protect the people from these types of human rights abuses. But 
unfortunately, it is still in its embryonic stage of development due to 
too many people paying lip service to the work that needs to be done, 
thus leaving a serious void of any real outside community support.

So I urge the people -- in particular those who have experienced a 
similar dilemma as our sista Hannah Bastienne -- to read the PBHRM-FAC's 
mission statement 
<http://sfbayview.com/2014/mission-statement-of-the-pelican-bay-human-rights-movement-first-amendment-campaign/> 
in order to raise your understanding about our work, which should 
motivate everybody to get involved. But don't just stop there.

After reading the mission statement, check out the "Survey questionnaire 
from the Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement First Amendment Campaign 
<http://sfbayview.com/2012/survey-questionnaire-from-the-pelican-bay-human-rights-movement-first-amendment-campaign/>." 
Then discuss it on Instagram, tweet about it to a friend and email a 
copy of these materials to a friend and ask them to do the same, as this 
is consistent with our legacy of "each one teach one" via the construct 
of mutual aid and cooperation.

I would like to thank the community for providing me with a minute of 
your time and hopefully the people of our communities will find it in 
them to act upon our historical obligation by coming to the aid of our 
family members and loved ones to protect and defend them against this 
type of tyranny, as there is truly no other alternative!

All power to the people who do not fear real freedom!

/Send our brother some love and light: Kijana Tashiri Askari (s/n Marcus 
Harrison), H-54077, PBSP-SHU, D3-122, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City, CA 
95532./

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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