<html>
<body>
<font size=3><br>
<b>Building a Political Prisoner Support Movement<br>
By Dan Berger<br><br>
From <i>Left Turn Magazine</i> issue 20 <br>
<a href="http://www.leftturn.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.leftturn.org<br><br>
</a></b>Political prisoners, if largely unacknowledged, are at the crux
of debates over incarceration. Their presence testifies to the ongoing
legacy of social problems, which in itself is central to the cycle of
crime and punishment. As the anti-prison movement continues to grow in
strength and stature, the question of political prisoners demands
attention because these movement veterans remain part of current
endeavors for social justice. Their lengthy incarceration, including many
with life sentences, speaks to the vengeful mindset governing
imprisonment in the US. Parole is almost uniformly impossible even after
decades of incarceration and despite their having met all the
requirements for release.<br><br>
Supporting and working for the release of political prisoners is at the
heart of building movements where activists look after one another and
accept collective responsibility. The state uses the imprisonment of
political leaders as a bludgeon against movement victories. Their
incarceration is a reminder of the strength of radical mass movements. As
a result, political prisoners serve collective prison time, for all those
who participated in the movements from which they emerged.Now is a
critical time for the political prisoner movement. The end of 2005
brought several setbacks. White anti-imperialist Richard Williams, who
had been facing severe harassment since 2001, died after twenty years in
prison on December 8. Five days later, in a sobering reminder that the
state neither forgets nor forgives, California governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger denied clemency to Crips founder Stanley Tookie Williams,
based largely on the fact that Williams found redemption in politics and
dedicated one of his books to a series of radicals, mainly Black people
who had served time in prison like George Jackson.<br><br>
The US continues to fight for the extradition of Gary Freeman, an
African-American man arrested in Canada in 2004. Although Freeman had
been living there for decades, the US government maintains Freeman is a
former Black Panther Party member wanted for the attempted murder of a
Chicago police officer in 1969. The rational used against Freeman is
similar to that used against five former Panthers in the San Francisco
Bay Area, who all served time in jail in 2005 for refusing to cooperate
with a grand jury investigating thirty-five-year-old crimes. Several of
the men were tortured as Panther activists in the 1970s by the same
police officers now overseeing the resurrected murder investigation.
<br>
<br>
<b>Sobering reminders<br><br>
</b>Federal authorities arrested seven people in four states on December
7, in conjunction with Earth Liberation Front actions dating back to
1998. Three of those arrested are cooperating with police to lessen their
sentences, one was found dead in his cell of an apparent suicide, and the
remaining three face life imprisonment in a 65-count indictment that
named eleven activists all but three of whom are in custody.<br><br>
With no release date in sight for ex-Panthers, former members of the
American Indian Movement, and others still in prison after more than
thirty years, these new arrests should prove a sobering reminder of the
states willingness to incarcerate political prisoners forever. Without a
vibrant movement to free those who have already been imprisoned for
decades, new political prisoners are likely to suffer a similar
fate.<br><br>
Despite these setbacks, 2005 also brought some victories and renewed
protests. December saw a long-awaited victory for Mumia Abu-Jamal, who
will now have a hearing in front of the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals
but Mumia remains on death row even after his death sentence has been
stayed. December began with days of action in New York, Philadelphia, and
San Francisco in solidarity with political prisoners worldwide. The five
former Panthers turned grand jury resisters were released from jail in
November triumphant in their non-cooperation; although it is unclear
whether the expiration of this particular grand jury will also spell the
end of harassment for these activists. Thousands of people throughout
Puerto Rico, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Bay
Area protested the September 23 FBI assassination of former political
prisoner Filiberto Ojeda Rios, a leader of the clandestine indepentista
group Los Macheteros, who had been living quietly under an assumed name
in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico.<br><br>
While the US denies the existence of political prisoners, it pursues a
vengeful policy of lifelong incarceration. To acknowledge the political
basis of their incarceration would further expose the depths of social
problems that these militants have committed their lives to fighting. The
veneer of US democracy and tolerance requires that dissidents be branded
as criminalsor terrorists. Working to free political prisoners goes hand
in hand with exposing the faade that the US is a country where injustice
is minimal and solved through electoral politicsone point necessitates
the other.<br><br>
<b>Demanding amnesty<br><br>
</b>Most governments routinely release political prisoners every decade
or so, and political internees are often incarcerated together or allowed
increased family visits, in tacit recognition of the political nature of
their crimes. Not so in the US, where amnesty is a forbidden term. The
FBI, Police Benevolent Associations, US Parole Commission, and similar
entities, have routinely lobbied hard to prevent parole, even when people
meet all standards for release (e.g., good records, jobs available upon
release, community support). <br>
<br>
The government has regularly pointed to the serious charges and prior
political affiliations of the prisoners as reasons for ongoing
incarceration even where it contradicts the normal functioning of parole
and release from prison. Thus, building an amnesty movement becomes a
priority.<br><br>
Although support for political prisoners is at the center of movements in
some countries, such is not the case in the US today. It was hard to be
an activist in the US in the early 1970s and not know about Huey Newton,
George Jackson, or the Attica Brothers. Today, political prisoners
languish largely outside the movements consciousness or action. Perhaps
it is because letter writing and lobbying are not activities
revolutionaries traditionally enjoy. <br>
<br>
Therefore, securing freedom for the many people who languish behind <br>
bars for militant actions taken as part of mass movements will require a
thorough challenge to the reigning political culture, as well as a
willingness by the radical Left to strategically engage in activities it
has generally eschewed.<br><br>
As months turn into years and years into decades, several political
prisoners have become ill. A few have passed away: Merle Africa (1998),
Albert Nuh Washington (2000), and Teddy Jah Heath (2001) all died of
cancer after more than twenty years inside. Even on their deathbeds, the
state remained intransigent about compassionate release or parole for
people who pose no threat to society. People are growing old in an
environment known for its malign neglect and medical malfeasance, with
the government consistently refusing parole because of the supposed
seriousness of the offense for which political prisoners are
incarcerated.<br><br>
Prison can be seen as an extension of the repression that drove many of
these people to undertake militant action in the first place. It is part
of the governments arsenal to destroy revolutionaries. Then as now, the
bulk of such repression is meted out against revolutionary people of
color, particularly Black and Native-American radicals. The reasons for
this are complexthey involve not just white privilege but the fact that
the government has taken a firm position against the release of any
political prisoner with a murder conviction. Due to the open levels of
confrontation between police <br>
and communities of color, these liberation movements often adopted
different tactics than white militants. But the states intransigence on
paroling those with murder convictions has repercussions for political
prisoners regardless of race - several white anti-imperialists are also
imprisoned for the deaths of law enforcement, seemingly with no recourse
to release.<br>
<br>
<b>State repression<br><br>
</b>Meanwhile, the US Senate investigating committee called the FBIs
<br>
Counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) activities little more than
<br>
a sophisticated vigilante operation that violated even the most minimal
standards of official conduct within a democratic society. Despite this,
no FBI agent who participated in the repression of legal social movements
has been imprisoned for his or her participation in the repression of
legal movements. Ronald Reagans first act in office was to pardon the
only two FBI officials convicted of COINTELPRO wrongdoing.<br><br>
The political incarceration of people who became active in the 1960s is
inextricably tied to state repression. Even when they committed illegal
acts or acts of which they themselves are now critical, their continuing
incarceration cannot be separated from the legacy of COINTELPRO. Even
now, movement veterans captured as a result of movement work in the 1960s
are paying for the states crimes through continued incarceration. The
ongoing imprisonment of Sixties-era activists together with a new breed
of political prisoners coming from an array of modern movements presents
a direct connection between the struggles of yesterday and those of
today.<br><br>
With public outrage over the Bush administrations illegal spying comes
the opportunity to raise the issue of political prisoners as longtime
victims of government repression. An administration on the defensive
increases its repressive apparatus, proof that its stranglehold on power
is maintained more through force than consent. Indeed, the treatment of
political prisoners has been used to establish precedents regarding
policing, prosecuting, and imprisoning any enemy of the state. The lack
of pre-9/11 resistance to the branding of leftist prisoners as
terrorists, the imposition of lengthy sentences, the use of isolation
units, and the media portrayal of dissidents as grave threats to
civilians, leaves us on weaker ground to fight this same repression now.
A movement to defend, support, and free political prisoners and
incorporating political prisoners into the work that we do is a necessary
step to building sustainable movements capable of achieving lasting
victories.<br><br>
There are serious challenges to this work, including limited resources, a
strategy that makes use of the legal system, public fear of left-wing
terrorists, and the difficulty of building working relationships among
the various movements who find themselves experiencing state repression.
But combating political incarceration, and supporting those in the cross
hairs of state repression remains central to creating a better future.
After all, the government doesn't forget who joins and organizes in the
movement why should we?<br><br>
<br>
<b>Dan Berger is a Philadelphia-based activist and author of Outlaws of
America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity (AK <br>
Press, 2006). This article is a revised excerpt from that book. Thanks to
Laura Whitehorn for editorial comments on this version.<br>
</b></font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
</font><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.freedomarchives.org</a></font></body>
</html>