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	Workers Vanguard No. 859	25 November 2005

Fight Government Repression!

PDC Rallies

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! Hands Off Lynne Stewart! Hands Off Assata Shakur!

This fall, a series of rallies against government repression, initiated by the Partisan Defense Committee, drew hundreds of union members, activists, students and socialists. Held in New York on September 15, in Chicago and Berkeley on October 1, and in Los Angeles on October 8, these united-front events helped broaden support, particularly in the labor movement, for the causes of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Lynne Stewart and Assata Shakur—fighters against oppression victimized by the racist capitalist “justice” system.

Participants discussed the need for massive protest against the government’s all-sided attacks on democratic rights. As the PDC—a legal and social defense organization associated with the Marxist Spartacist League—pointed out in its leaflet building for the rallies:

“The bloodthirsty U.S. government’s frontal assault on democratic rights is being carried out under the pretext of the bogus ‘war on terrorism.’ Basic rights, won through the hard-fought class struggles of the 1930s union organizing drives and the social struggles of the 1950s through the early 1970s—in the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War protests, for women’s and gay rights—are being run through the shredder by the Bush administration with the full agreement of the Democratic Party. Political opponents face being imprisoned with no right to an attorney or a trial. The government asserts the ‘right’ to disappear and torture its opponents—to lock them up and throw away the key.”

The leaflet stated that the Mumia, Stewart and Shakur cases “must be rallying points for labor, blacks and defenders of civil liberties.... Their fight is a fight for us all.” Passing the bucket at the four events raised some $2,750, which was divided between the defense committees for Mumia and Stewart.

Leftist attorney Lynne Stewart is facing years in prison for her vigorous legal defense of Islamic fundamentalist cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. Her conviction threatens the Sixth Amendment right to an attorney (see “Lynne Stewart Speaks at NYC Rally,” WV No. 855, 30 September). She is scheduled for sentencing along with her co-defendants, Mohamed Yousry and Ahmed Abdel Sattar, on January 20 in New York City. Stewart’s speech in New York was videotaped and played at the West Coast rallies.

Assata Shakur, former member of the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army, and two companions, Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli, were ambushed by New Jersey state troopers in 1973. The troopers immediately opened fire, killing Zayd Shakur, and one of the cops was killed with a bullet from a police revolver. The two remaining militants were convicted of killing the cop and their own comrade. While Sundiata Acoli has been in prison for over 30 years, Assata escaped prison hell in 1979 and eventually fled to Cuba, where she still resides.

Addressing Assata Shakur’s case were Brother Sadki “Shep” Ojore Ougbala of the N.Y. Hands Off Assata Shakur Coalition and Dara Cooper, Hands Off Assata Campaign/Chicago Coalition. In her NYC speech, Stewart recalled that years ago she, like many others, had a sign on her door reading, “Assata Shakur Is Welcome Here.” She added, “Now if you put that on your door, you could be accused of materially aiding terrorism.” In May, the federal Department of Justice and state of New Jersey raised the bounty on Assata Shakur’s head to $1 million, while the Feds added her name to domestic and international “terrorist” lists.

Mumia Abu-Jamal, America’s foremost class-war prisoner, has been on death row for over 23 years, falsely convicted of killing a cop. Mountains of proof of his frame-up and the conspiracy that put him in prison have been compiled for the world to see, including the confession of Arnold Beverly, that he, not Jamal, killed Daniel Faulkner in 1981. But the capitalist rulers want to see the execution of the ex-Black Panther Party spokesman, MOVE supporter, award-winning journalist and outspoken voice for all the oppressed. Over the past two decades, the PDC and Spartacist League have fought to bring this case into union halls and workplaces from the U.S. to South Africa, seeking to mobilize the social power of the working class to free Mumia and abolish the racist death penalty.

Mumia provided the rallies with taped greetings and a commentary on the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Addressing Mumia’s cause in NYC was Pam Africa of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Monique Code read a statement of support for the rally from Mumia’s son Jamal Hart. Imprisoned since 1998 on bogus firearms possession charges, Jamal was targeted for prominently speaking out in defense of his father. Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel for Mumia, spoke in the Bay Area. Mumia’s sister Lydia Barashango traveled from Philadelphia to speak at the Chicago and Los Angeles rallies (see article page 6). Jonathan Piper of the PDC, who was a member of Mumia’s defense team from 1990 to 1999, also addressed the Chicago rally.

The West Coast forums were chaired by the PDC’s Valerie West, who had worked with Stuart Hanlon and others in defense of framed-up Black Panther Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt). Geronimo fought for 27 years to prove his innocence before winning his freedom in 1997. West particularly aided him against attempts by state prison authorities to punish him for continuing to struggle for his freedom. In her remarks, West made special mention of a Spartacist League/Spartacus Youth League lawsuit against the FBI over earlier “terrorism” guidelines. In 1984, the government conceded the central point of our legal challenge: that Marxist advocacy cannot be equated with violence or terrorism. This was a modest but genuine blow to the government’s efforts to criminalize leftist political dissent. The broad repressive sweep of the current “war on terror” makes it all the more urgent to mobilize in defense of its victims.

Mobilize Labor’s Power!

Based on the need to mobilize labor, blacks and defenders of democratic rights independent of the capitalist parties, the PDC-initiated rallies were in stark contrast to the dime-a-dozen liberal-reformist “Anybody but Bush” gatherings that serve to reinforce Democratic Party lesser-evilism. United-front defense actions can be catalysts for the open political debate and militant struggle needed to combat the rulers’ war on black people, immigrants, women and labor. In taking up the cause of the class-war prisoners, the trade unions will be striking a blow against the very capitalist state whose purpose is to repress working people and minorities. It is through such struggles that the working class will develop the consciousness to wield its social power and organization in a revolutionary fight to smash the murderous, racist capitalist state and replace it with a workers state. The Spartacist League seeks to forge a revolutionary workers party to lead the workers in this battle.

In motivating a class-struggle approach, PDC rally moderators stressed that while all legal avenues must be pursued in cases that are in the interests of the entire working class, no faith must be placed in the “justice” of the capitalist courts. As Rachel Wolkenstein explained in NYC: “Class-struggle defense means mobilizing the social power of the working class with its allies to create the type of pressure needed to obtain Mumia’s freedom, overturn Lynne’s conviction and defend Assata from the bounty hunters” (see article page 5).

The rallies featured speakers from unions representing thousands of workers. The Berkeley rally was addressed by Brian McKeever, Vice President of Local 9 of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, whose strike against Northwest Airlines is important for the entire labor movement. Jack Heyman, Executive Board member of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 10, also spoke there. New York speakers included James Webb, President Emeritus of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, who has spoken out for Mumia for many years; Cleo Silvers of 1199ers for Peace and Justice, the Communist Workers Organization and Workers to Free Mumia; and Chris Silvera, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 808 and chairman of the Teamsters National Black Caucus. Mike Elliott, UAW Local 551 Education Committee chairman, spoke in Chicago, while the Los Angeles rally featured Henry Walton, host of the KPFK radio program “Labor Review.”

From the podium and the floor, discussions brought out the critical difference between a class-struggle strategy and one based on appealing to the capitalist state and political parties. On the West Coast, Don Cane of the Bay Area Labor Black League for Social Defense addressed the recent split among the AFL-CIO tops and called for a political fight against all wings of the labor bureaucracy:

“Both Sweeney’s AFL-CIO and Stern’s Change to Win Coalition forsake class struggle in support of the capitalist profit system and are tied, hand and foot, to the capitalist Democratic Party. They whine to the capitalist government for concessions to help them silence the ranks of American labor. They will barter with the Republicans for votes and flirt with the capitalist Green Party, too, as they pander to the racism and chauvinism that divides the workers. The multiracial revolutionary workers party must fight for trade-union independence from all capitalist parties and defend the economic interests of all workers with resolute struggle.”

A prominent focus of the rallies was the social disaster in the Gulf Coast region, a racist atrocity that threw a harsh light on the grotesque inequities of the U.S. capitalist system. As Don Alexander of the New York Labor Black League and Spartacist League Central Committee said, “Hurricane Katrina has ripped away the tattered facade of the U.S. government as ‘of the people, by the people, for the people,’ exposing the racism, venality and ineptitude of the White House gang. It also demonstrated the utter irrationality and anarchy of the profit-driven capitalist system.… The capitalists are not fit to rule. The workers have to fight to run this world” (see WV No. 855, 30 September).

Chris Silvera, who has long been a supporter of Mumia’s cause, had just returned from a tour of the Gulf Coast. Silvera recounted the desperation he had seen there and spoke to the need to defend workers’ gains and the fight for jobs and social service programs. However, Silvera said nothing about the class struggle needed to wrench such gains from the capitalists. Instead he called on everyone to turn out for the October 15 Washington, D.C. “Millions More March” led by the sinister Louis Farrakhan. Spartacist speakers and supporters responded by exposing the “Million Worker March Movement” (MWMM) led by Silvera and other left-talking union officials. While it claims to stand for the “class independence” of the workers, the MWMM made its mark last year by rallying in D.C. two weeks before the elections in a thinly veiled attempt to get workers disaffected with the two capitalist parties to vote for John Kerry. At the time, Silvera called the action “a crucial vehicle for voter mobilization.”

It is a sign of the demoralization of the labor misleadership that, coming off Kerry’s defeat, its “left” components are doing the donkey work for the anti-working-class, anti-Semitic, anti-woman bigot Farrakhan. With the Bush administration facing massive outrage over New Orleans and growing opposition to the bloody Iraq occupation, several black Democrats, along with Bill Clinton, supported Farrakhan’s rally in a bid to further the Democrats’ electoral fortunes (see “‘Progressive’ Union Bureaucrats and Farrakhan: A Cynical Lash-Up,” WV No. 856, 14 October). Notably, the “Millions More” organizers did not play a taped message for the rally that Mumia had provided from death row.

It is the class-collaborationist program of all wings of the labor officialdom—politically expressed centrally through its support to the Democrats—that blocks the mobilization of the multiracial proletariat in its own class interests. As Don Cane put it, “The victims of New Orleans need more than tears and charity. We demand massive public works; jobs at union wages; safe, decent housing; education and health care for all. These would be the demands of a multiracial revolutionary workers’ party.” Cane continued: “Black workers are key. They are a key component of the industrial working class. Armed with a class-struggle program, they can open the road to struggle against this system. When black workers see their own leadership capacity, they will have no more use for the reverends: the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the Reverend Al Sharpton and the Minister Louis Farrakhan.” As Cane pointed out:

“Farrakhan was a sworn enemy of the martyred Malcolm X in life; but with the militant Malcolm forever silent, Farrakhan is promoted to the undeserved position of militant. The anti-Semitic demagogue Farrakhan is calling for a march commemorating the tenth anniversary of the 1995 Million Man March. The 1995 march placed black people—and black men, in particular—on their knees begging for ‘atonement’ for the sin of being oppressed and poor. It was an act of appeasement toward America’s racist exploiters.”

Labor: Fight for Mumia’s Freedom!

Labor’s role in the struggle against racist capitalist repression also came up in regard to the fight for freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal. In his presentation in the Bay Area, ILWU Local 10 representative Jack Heyman criticized the SL and PDC for not fielding contingents at the 24 April 1999 “Millions for Mumia” demonstrations and for not commending the union’s West Coast stop-work meeting on behalf of Mumia the same day. He also raised our dismissiveness toward the 1997 Neptune Jade “community picket line” at the Port of Oakland, which was aimed at stopping the unloading of a scab ship in solidarity with Liverpool dock workers in Britain. We had already acknowledged our tactical mistakes in “A Hard Look at Recent Party Work and Current Tasks” (WV No. 841, 4 February).

In his comments, Heyman dodged his own role in initiating the ILWU motion explicitly endorsing the April 1999 rally with its central demand for a “new trial” for Mumia, to which he added as window dressing the statement that Mumia cannot get justice in the bourgeois courts. We were correct not to endorse the April 1999 protest and other actions that subordinated the call to free Mumia to the demand for a “new trial.” The “new trial” slogan is based on the lie that the same capitalist courts that want to see him killed could deliver justice for Mumia. Working with the dubious International Bolshevik Tendency and its Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Heyman provided a left face for those who opposed raising the call for Mumia’s freedom. We sent large teams to the rallies. But in not building “Free Mumia” contingents, we weakened our political effectiveness in counterposing a class-struggle strategy to the liberal-reformist outlook of the rally organizers and exposing the maneuvering of Heyman. His role was in fact to aid the reformists whose reliance on liberal public opinion has demobilized protests for Mumia.

Responding to Heyman, an SL speaker explained that the protest organizers deliberately rejected the call to free Mumia in favor of the “new trial” slogan because they did not want to alienate people whose faith in the bourgeois justice system would not allow them to believe that “there could be this conscious political frame-up of an innocent man. In other words, they were pandering to the illusions of liberals in the nature of the racist capitalist system.” Many in the liberal milieu believe that Mumia may be guilty and oppose his conviction solely on the ground that he did not receive a fair trial. The comrade pointed out that Heyman obscured the fact that these slogans embodied different strategies and opposing class perspectives.

Mumia Abu-Jamal Is an Innocent Man!

In Chicago and L.A., Lydia Barashango, Mumia Abu-Jamal’s sister, spoke movingly of her brother’s character as they grew up together. She spoke of the impact this case has had on her family, which has been “on hold” for all these years—including men who have been driven out of Philadelphia and who live in constant fear of state retribution.

In NYC, Pam Africa urged everyone to get the affidavit by Rachel Wolkenstein reprinted in the September 2001 Partisan Defense Committee pamphlet, Mumia Abu-Jamal Is an Innocent Man! The pamphlet includes the confession of Arnold Beverly and other eyewitness accounts and declarations that confirm Mumia’s innocence. Pam Africa called it a “must-have” because it tells the truth about Mumia’s case. She told the audience, “If you want to be in this fight to free Mumia, get the Rachel Wolkenstein affidavit.... Arm the youth with some information about what is really happening with Mumia.”

Robert Bryan, Mumia’s lead counsel since 2003, told the Berkeley rally what Mumia had said to him that same day about his case:

“He said, Robert, it’s about the thousands of men and women on death row, which is not only in the United States but around the world. It’s about the many more thousands of people, certainly in the U.S. but around the globe, who are victims of human rights abuses. It’s about people who are discriminated against because of their politics, because of their gender, because of their sexual preference. It’s about the right of children not to go to bed hungry anywhere in the world. It’s about the right for people to have an education and not to be abused, particularly by governments such as the one in this country.”

Bryan noted that “when there were few people who were willing to stand up for Mumia, when there were virtually no organizations, there was the Partisan Defense Committee. And the Partisan Defense Committee started organizing, having rallies, raising the consciousness of all of us before anybody else was doing it.”

Speaking during the discussion at this rally, Wolkenstein described her battles with others on Mumia’s former legal team, namely lead defense attorney Leonard Weinglass and co-counsel Daniel Williams. Recounting that Weinglass and Williams had suppressed the evidence of Jamal’s innocence and ensured it was never introduced in court, Wolkenstein said: “All the issues that are raised around the Beverly evidence—and it’s much more than the confession by Arnold Beverly—have to be raised in the course of the mass movement which must be built. Because that evidence confirms in every way that this was a political prosecution, not only racist but political, and touches on the entire workings of the American capitalist legal system.” She continued:

“The legal betrayals of the case came from politics—the people who were supposedly doing the lawyering succumbed to a political view that they had to present Mumia in a way that would be palatable to the bourgeois courts. It was the political Marxist lawyers who were fighting to turn over every stone and pursue in the courts every bit of investigation that was possible, along with all the different constitutional violations.”

As Wolkenstein stated in conclusion, Mumia’s case shows “the total nature of the capitalist, racist frame-up system…. It’s a political frame-up, and it will only, only be a mass movement based centrally on the power of labor that will get him free.”