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Index This Page
Who Killed Martin Luther King Jr.?
Sinister Scenarios Behind the Media Lies About Mumia
International Action Center on Mumia
True Story of the 1849 California Gold Rush
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Marines Transporting "Refugees" on bus during the Urban Warrior exercises in Oakland after Jerry Brown's Police Assault on Sit-In
U$ (NATO) Bombers taking off to Bomb Yugoslavia from Airbase in Italy
'Arab' Rioters in Monterey during Urban Warrior
Belgrade shelter from U$ (NATO)
Labor Camp in Salinas, California
Kapitalist China Coal Miner 1999
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Who Killed Martin Luther King Jr.?
Revolutionary Worker #958, May 24, 1998
On April 24, 1998, 30 years after the killing of Dr. King, the accused assassin James Earl Ray died in a prison hospital in Nashville. The official story is that Ray was a loner who shot King in Memphis on April 4, 1968 and escaped out of the country. And after Ray's death the national media insisted, once again, that there is "no evidence" of any high-level conspiracy. In fact, there are many reasons to believe that Dr. King was killed by an organized conspiracy and that powerful forces within the ruling class were involved.
James Earl Ray was a small-time, white racist, stickup man. In April 1968 he had been on the run for a year, after escaping from a Missouri penitentiary. Yet the authorities claim that Ray stalked King methodically from one city to another and arranged to have plastic surgery in Los Angeles. They expect people to believe that Ray simply shot King at the Lorraine Motel, and then climbed in his distinctive white Mustang and drove out of Memphis--even though King was under close federal surveillance. Ray traveled from Memphis to Atlanta, to Canada, to England, to Portugal, back to England and then was arrested on June 8 on his way to the white racist African state of Rhodesia--traveling with two false Canadian passports, registered under different names. And yet people are told this was done without accomplices, financial help or a larger organization.
Facts from Memphis
Gerald Posner recently wrote a book, Killing the Dream, intended to debunk "conspiracy theories" around King's death. However, this book is useful because of what it can't deny: According to Posner 12 or 14 government agents were packed into a firehouse on the day King was shot at the Lorraine Motel--less than 150 feet away from both King and the assassin. FBI agents and military intelligence agents were watching every move of King's group, and were assisted by Black Memphis cops who could identify figures of the local Black community. Two Black firemen were transferred from that firehouse--so they could not alert King about these secret government activities.
When the assassination happened, the Memphis police did not set up roadblocks on the avenues leading out of town (as they ordinarily do in such cases). They did not even issue an "all-points bulletin" for surrounding areas until long after the assassin escaped.
Posner also reports that the first person to reach Dr. King after the shooting was an undercover Memphis police officer, Marrell McCollough. This is similar to the way an undercover New York cop was the first person to reach Malcolm X after he was assassinated. Posner reports that McCollough subsequently went to work for the CIA.
Within minutes of the assassination, someone reported over a CB radio that a white Mustang was driving through north Memphis shooting at people. Meanwhile Ray drove out of town to the south. Police claim that this CB call was a teenage prank. But many people believe it was an accomplice helping Ray escape.
Ray always denied he shot King and claimed he was hired for a gun-running operation by a man called Raoul. According to Ray, this Raoul promised to get him out of the country but then set him up as a fall guy. These claims were never explored in a public trial. Ray was pressured into pleading guilty. Judge Battle, who presided over that hearing, later said he too doubted that Ray acted alone.
The FBI and the Struggle
within the Ruling Class"King himself was murdered, not to eliminate a real leader of the oppressed but as part of the same intense struggles within the ruling class that cut down those he was most close and most beholden to, the Kennedy brothers, John and Bobby. And now that King and the particular intra-ruling class struggles that he was caught up in have passed, the ruling class as a whole seeks to turn his death to their political advantage by using it to promote the myth that he must have been for the poor and oppressed, or else why did the mighty cut him down?"
Bob Avakian, On Saviors, Realism
and Working within the SystemBy 1963, the Kennedy White House had realized that the Civil Rights struggle of Black people was not going to just fade away. They decided to promote "moderate" forces within the movement to help contain the people. King was important in their plans--he had emerged as a leader of mass struggle, and yet was clearly rooted in the more middle class sections of the Black community.
King's approach was to target the Jim Crow policies of local Southern power structures, while seeking to ally with forces within the larger ruling class. He hoped that the federal government would "protect" the Civil Rights movement in the South, and he criticized the FBI for working closely with the local white racist police. As part of this approach, he called on the masses of people to demand entrance into the U.S. system (rather than questioning it or overthrowing it). King opposed the growing tendency of Black people to identify with anti-imperialist forces around the world, like the rising struggle of Palestinian people against the U.S. ally Israel. These politics convinced President John Kennedy that King would be useful for containing the struggle of Black people. Kennedy invited King to the White House and personally asked him to help keep radical forces out of the movement.
At the same time, the Kennedy White House unleashed the FBI to spy on King--as well as more radical forces within the movement. Over the next years, the FBI expanded its COINTELPRO operation into a sweeping campaign to destroy, divide, neutralize and isolate political forces that they considered a threat to the system.
Attorney General Bobby Kennedy personally approved FBI wiretaps to make sure that King stuck to strategies and associations that suited ruling class interests. The FBI gathered tapes of King's sexual activities--a tactic they had refined for controlling people through blackmail and destroying them through public scandal.
In the following years, the struggle of people all over the world rose to a high tide, and inside the ruling class there was intensifying conflict over how to deal with it (as well as over other issues). Powerful forces in the ruling class believed that even nonviolent figures like King encouraged the struggle of the masses. And they believed that it was dangerous to promote and work through such "responsible" forces within the movement. FBI head J. Edgar Hoover was clearly part of that ruing class camp. In Hoover's view, anyone legitimizing protests and demanding change was a danger.
In November 1963, John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, and Lyndon Johnson rose to power. This shows the intensity of the conflicts inside the ruling class. Within months, Hoover and the FBI were attempting to use their secret tapes to destroy Martin Luther King. They leaked rumors about King's sexual activity to the media and rival forces within the Civil Rights Movement. In one famous COINTELPRO operation, FBI agents sent King a tape with an anonymous letter suggesting that he commit suicide.
By 1967 the struggle of Black people and students was continuing to radicalize. King's philosophy lost influence as radical new leaders emerged. In the "long hot summer" of 1967 tremendous rebellions shook inner cities across the U.S., and Johnson assigned military intelligence agencies to assist the FBI in domestic surveillance of the emerging Black liberation struggle and anti-war resistance.
Sections of the U.S. ruling class were still determined to co-opt and channel the increasingly radical struggle. Bobby Kennedy announced he would run for President. Dr. King, too, broke with President Johnson and, like Bobby Kennedy, came out against Johnson's approach in Vietnam. With Bobby Kennedy's endorsement, Dr. King proposed a poor people's encampment in Washington, DC for the summer of 1968--so that the explosive struggle of the people could be channeled into controllable forms by creating a prominent forum in the Capitol and in the '68 election campaign. Other forces in the ruling class were extremely hostile to these approaches--believing that the Black masses of Washington, DC might prove impossible to control.
In this period, Hoover and the FBI included Dr. King in their discussion of figures to "neutralize." On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. The following month, his ruling class ally Robert Kennedy was assassinated after winning the California presidential primary.
Who in the ruling class approved King's assassination? Did they have some right-wing racist circle carry out the hit, using Ray as the triggerman? Did military or FBI assassins pull the trigger, and set up Ray to take the blame?
The full answers may lie buried in the archives of the FBI until the day when the people drag them into daylight. But clearly, powerful forces--including the head of the FBI--believed that King should be "neutralized." Posner writes that the FBI knew about dozens of plots to assassinate King, but they did not warn King of such plots. And there is no record that they ever moved to break up such operations. The FBI had recruited many operatives and informants within the Klan and white racist circles, and repeatedly used these networks to attack the Civil Rights Movement. It is quite possible that the FBI unleashed or "allowed" such forces to kill King.
There is evidence that James Earl Ray may have had ties to a wealthy racist lawyer in Missouri, John Sutherland, who in 1968 was offering $50,000 to anyone willing to assassinate Dr. King. Ray was in the Missouri penitentiary at that time, and then escaped. After the King assassination, when Ray was captured in England, his brother Jerry Ray reportedly told police, "If I was in his position, and had 18 years to serve and someone offered me a lot of money to kill someone I didn't like anyhow and get me out of the country, I'd do it."
There are many reasons to believe that there were organized forces behind the killing of Dr. King, that the FBI or other government forces had a hand in it, and that the system has worked for 30 years to cover this up.
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This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
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Write: Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654
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Page 14—Revolutionary Worker—October 31,1999
Deconstructing Vanity Fair
Sinister Scenarios Behind the Media Lies About Mumia
by C. Clark Kissinger
The following article by C. Clark Kissinger
was written in September of this year.
As you know, this fall is a critical mo-
ment in the fight to save the life of Mumia
Abu-Jamal. With his appeal going to the
federal courts, the battle enters its final
stage. Vanity Fair magazine chose this junc-
ture to publish an article claiming to present
the “real inside story” on Mumia Their
article was capped off with a claim by a
former volunteer for the Philadelphia
Prison Society, that Mumia had confessed
to him. As part of an organized media cam-
paign, ABC’s 20/20 and the Associated
Press also carried the alleged “confession”
stoly at the same time.
In July I published an article refuting
some of the most blatant factual distortions
in the Vanity Fair piece, and exposing the
long-standing ties of its author to
Philadelphia’s power structure. (See “A
Myth Repeated: A Reply to Vanity Fair and
the F.O.P.”, RW#1015. Also available on-
line at: www.mcs.netkrwor) Subsequently,
the “confession” claim was thoroughly
refuted by written documents from the per-
son making the claim. But as always hap-
pens, the sensational chaige got massive
publicity while the refutation was heard by
few.
The “confession” hoax was not the heart
of the Vanity Fair article, however. So I am
taking the time now to “deconstruct” the
approach of the Vanity Fair article, and look
more deeply at what it sought to do. I hope
you find this useful.
Analyzing the 20/20 Program
Both 20/20 and Vanity Fair tiy to provide
arrative framework for their respective
diences to guide how those audiences
ll understand what they hear about the
se. Let’s look at 20/20 first.
To make their narratives more compell-
ing, both 20/20 and Vanity Fair provide
"characters.” 20/20 draws its heroes and
villains somewhat crudely. Its narrative is
relatively simple: A young policeman, just
starting his life, is tragically gunned down.
he open-and-shut case is quickly disposed
of by a jury. But a charlatan lawyer,
gether with frivolous Hollywood
elebrities who don’t really know or care
bout the facts, twists this into an intema-
ional cause celebre. The defense has noth-
ngbut a few easily dismissed technicalities
to harp on, but they seize on anything to
argue for Mumia Abu-Jainal’s innocence.
20/20 paints a movement made up of
paranoid Black militants, impressionable
students, and foreigners with an anti-
American bias. Pitted against this
“juggernaut” is the lonely widow of the
officer, working alone at her computer writ-
ing 100-page documents, subject to abuse
and vilification by this movement and by
Jamal himself
In this narrative, the main characters are
the widow (the hero) and attorney Leonard
Weinglass (the villain). Ed Asner and Mike
Farrell are cast as dilettantes with a cause.
Mumia himself is relegated to a strange
role—an offstage character around whom
the action pivots, but whose persona and
motivations are never clearly delineated.
Sam Donaldson plays both narrator and
open-ntnded tough-guy journalist. He is
supposed to guide the audience’s emo-
tions—sympathetic to the widow, barely
able to contain his incredulity at the absur-
dities he encounters from the lawyer, and
impatient to see the sentence carried out
and the noble widow given closure.
This 20/20 show was first shown at the
end of last year. But it clearly did not ac-
complish its aim of slowing down the
momentum of the movement to stop
Mumia's execution. A Rage Against the
Machine concert and large-scale teach-ins
in the Oakland public schools showed the
potential for the movement to reach out
quite broadly. The success of the “Millions
for Mumia” demonstrations on April 24
probably surprised Mumia's would-be ex-
ecutiners. The Evergreen State College in-
cident clearly stung them. So the 20/20
piece was updated and run again in July.
Vanity Fair—A More Refined
Strategy of Attack
But the Vanity Fair article represented a
new development. I think they are finally
starting to realize that a big attraction of the
Mumia movement is Mumia himself. The
statement of Evergreen State College Presi-
dent Jane Jervis put it well. “Abu-Jamal
deserved inclusion [as a speaker at the
Evergreen graduation ceremony] because
he has used his free speech rights to gal-
vanize an international conversation about
the death penalty, the disproportionate
number of Blacks on death row, the
relationship between poverty and the
criminal justice system.”
So Vanity Fair appears in July with a
refined strategy. More sophisticated
audiences require more motivations and
subtlety to make the case against Mumia
believable. Vanity Fair does at least three
things differently than 20/20—and one
thing similar The similar thing is their
treatment of the widow Maureen Faulkner.
The different things are these:
First, they actually mention some of the
key issues surrounding the case. They ac-
knowledge that, “After reading the trial
transcript, one could reasonably conclude
that, in terms of fairness, there were some
potentially troubling developments.” They
cite questions about the impartiality of the
judge, questions about whether Mumia’s
right to defend himself was violated.
“There was the possibility [sic] that the
resources allotted by the court for Abu-
Jamal’s representation, roughly $14,000,
were simply inadequate by any standard,
since he was facing the death penalty."
They gently say, "There was the question
of why witnesses who meight conceivably
have been helpful in advancing the defense
theory that another person had shot
Faulkner were never called.”
There are reasons, according to Vanity
Fair, why people might have qualms about
the trial and the political situation in
Philadelphia surrounding it. Well-docu-
mented brutality and corruption in the
Philadelphia police department are referred
to, but as part of an effort to debunk
Mumia’s credentials as an anti-police
brutality reporter. It establishes that the
author, Buzz Bissinger, knows that the Phil-
ly cops have a dark underside. Of course,
Bissinger acknowledges all this only so that
he can say that despite the justness of these
concerns, the fact remains that Mumia
killed Faulkner. By doing so, he hopes to
disarm a more savvy audience.
Of course, there are many problems that
Bissinger does not address. He steers clear,
for example, of ballistics evidence on the
trajectory of the bullet that shot Mumia that
shows the prosecution scenario to be im-
possible. Even if Faulkner were shot first
(for which there is no evidence), the
prosecution scenario would have him
wheel around after being shot in the back
and stand above Mumia to fire the bullet
that entered him heading downward. Fur-
ther, various witness statements changed
dramatically between the time they were
first given to police to the time of trial. And,
not only were there important witnesses not
called, but one key witness, a police officer
whose report refutes the claim that Mumia
confessed the night of the shooting, was
“on vacation” and kept unavailable to tes-
tify.
The point is this: The burden of proof
rests on the prosecution. If their scenario is
impossible, if their witnesses are not
credible, if they have not assembled ir-
refutable physical evidence—end they have
not in this case—then the accused is not
guilty. Moreover, if errors in procedure
have been committed that are so grave as to
deny the defendant due process, then ac-
cording to the rules of the court system, the
trial must be thrown out.
Vanity Fair tries to say that it doesn’t
matter that the Philadelphia District
Attorney’s office is world-renowned for
racism and corruption.. It has been inves-
tigated numerous times by federal
authorities for this, and made a cover-story
for TIME magazine. According to Vanity
Fair it doesn’t matter that the Philly D.A.’s
office has been caught using instructional
videotapes on how to exclude Black jurors,
which is, by the way, illegal. Eleven Black
jurors were dismissed from Mumia’s jury
pool. It doesn’t matter that hundreds of
people have been released from jail based
on an investigation in 1995 of the regular
Philadelphia police practice of framing
people and planting evidence. It doesn’t
matter that one of the very sane cops who
was exposed for these practices was ex-
posed for his role in trying to get someone
to make false statements to incriminate
Mumia Most recently Len Weinglass has
cited the case of Matthew Connor, another
case that Mumia-prosecutor Joseph McGill
called “open and shut.” Connor spent 12
years in prison before the truth came out.
The second difference with 20/20 is that
Bissinger and Vanity Fair bring Mumia
himself front and center. This begins with
an attempt to debunk Mumia’s bona fides
as a reporter. Bissinger understands that the
true story of Mumia has actually been key
to the way this struggle has developed.
People look at the man’s life—from the
Black Panther Party to his years as a jour-
nalist and now to his time on death row--
and they see someone who’s devoted his
life to fighting for justice. They read his
writings today and have no trouble under-
standing both how he could have been a
very compelling journalist and why his
brand ofjournalism could earn the hatred of
the authorities. So people figure that
whatever happened on that night, that the
police and courts were going to get Mumia
by hook or crook. At minimum, most
people cannot reconcile the life of Mumia
with the prosecution scenario and charge of
murder in the first degree.
Bissinger responds with a cynical
counter-scenario, well-suited to a cynical
age. Bissinger labels Mumia’s conviction
and sentence as a good career move on
Mumia’s part! Bissinger wants people to
see Mumia as someone who lost direction
at a certain point and, in a not very subtle
racist slant, a Black man just too irrespon-
sible to make it. He tried the patience of his
long-suffering employers one time too
many, and finally came “apart personally
and professionally.” Bissinger paints
Mumia as extremely unstable, perhaps on
drugs (“he seemed high all the time,” one
anonymous source says), a guy who had
carried a gun for 2 1/2 years, a time-bomb
waiting to go off who happened to go off on
a well-meaning, nice cop like “Danny”
Faulkner. Then, once in prison, Mumia
begins anew “career," one in which he is
lionized by the mighty.
Here Bissinger is trying to supply a
plausible explanation of Mumia’s behavior
that would fit the prosecution scenario. It is
worth noting that all of Bissinger’s Mumia-
detractors are anonymous. Bissinger chose
not to use a three-hour interview he con-
ducted with Philadelphia journalist Linn
Washington. Washington’s close knowl-
edge of Mumia and the case put the lie to
Bissinger’s portrait.
The third new thing Bissinger does is the
news hook of the story: he introduces a new
character—Philip Block Bloch is pre-
sented as someone with liberal leanings,
someone drawn to Mumia in many ways,
but still someone whose conscience finally
compelled him to “come forwaid.” Not an
easy decision, Bloch says, as he still
respects Mumia and hopes that he doesn’t
get executed. But truth is truth, and so he
had “to come forward.”
Bloch is important to the article for two
reasons: first, he is supposed to be the final
piece of evidence. But Bloch also fills an
important symbolic function. He is sup-
posed to be the stand-in for the reader—the
reader who may have been attracted to
Mumia, may have doubts about the case
against him, may not wish to see him ex-
ecuted, but who—unlike the callous
celebrities—has finally seen the light and
decided to side with Maureen Faulkner.
Note how Bloch’s conversation is
framed—the alleged -“calumny” against
Maureen Faulkner is what drives him to go
public (in Philly papers Bloch said that had
Faulkner been single, he probably never
would have “gone public”). These angles
have all been deepened as Bloch became a
celebrity himself in Philadelphia, all the
while claiming to have been Mumia’s
“friend.”
Bloch makes a another noteworthy state-
ment in Vanity Fair on why he came for-
ward. He says that “I see the level of hatred
that’s being amused in people towards the
police. And I think it’s just crossed a line.”
My observation is that the movement for
justice for Mumia has focused a good deal
on the travesty of Mumia’s trial, and not on
brutality by police. We don’t talk enough,
in my opinion, about the brutality inflicted
on Mumia that night. One thing that has
changed in the past few years is the grow-
ing movement against police brutality. This
movement has given voice to the families
of people killed by the police, and has
begun to point to a problem of epidemic
proportions. Bloch now describes this as a
motivating factor for his “coming for-
ward.”
Whatever his motivations, Bloch’s story
does not hold up. Linn Washington writes,
“I question Bloch’s allegation, especially
since I sat in the same place Bloch says he
sat when Mumia made his indirect confes-
sion.... I interviewed Mumia inside these
cubicles at Huntingdon and Mumia refused
to talk freely inthe cubicles because he said
prison authorities planted hidden micro-
phones to eavesdrop. During the interview,
I asked Mumia a question regarding the
shooting of Faulkner. He refused to respond
giving two reasons: (1) his lawyers told him
not to discuss that incident; and (2) the
cubicle was bugged. Mumia is no fool. By
the time of Bloch’s visits in 1991-1992,
Mumia was a veteran of many battles with
prison authorities and was well aware of
their tactics, like bugging these cubicles.”
Since the Vanity Fair article appeared, we
have uncovered a letter that Bloch sent to
Mumia many months after the “con-
fession” conversation supposedly took
place. In the letter Bloch writes, “So, it is
possible to get justice from a jury. Not al-
ways, but sometimes. So, when you get a
new trial I think there is a good chance of
acquittal.” Bloch also signed an ad for
Mumia in the Harrisburg Patriot News in
1995. The ad called on people to “Take a
Stand for Mumia,” the signatories declar-
ing, “We care about Mumia because there
is compelling evidence that points to his
innocence.” These are hardly the actions of
someone privy to information of Mumia’s
guilt.
Maureen Faulkner—
Pointwoman for a
Reactionary Crusade
Yet Bloch’s symbolic importance be-
comes clearer when you see that it is he
who leads the reader to the final focus on
Maureen Faulkner. She is portrayed as suf-
fering alone, “putting out the fires of hell,”
while Mumia is living the life of Riley.. .on
death row!
A few things that need to be said here.
First, the portrayal in Vanity Fair not
withstanding, Maureen Faulkner is not out
there alone. She is the spokesperson for
powerful forces who have a whole agenda
for society that includes intensified police
powers, gutting of defendants’ rights, and
stepped-up use of the death penalty.
Second, I think Maureen does have to be
accountable for what she is doing. She has
willingly become the pointwoman for a
crusade to kill a man railroaded in a kan-
garoo court, as well as for the larger agenda
of racist mass imprisonment and state-
sponsored murder bound up in his case.
Third, Mumia has a right to due process,
and Maureen Faulkner does NOT have a
right to prevent him from getting it in the
name of “closure.”
I feel there are a number of questions that
need to be addressed by these people cam-
paigning for Mumia’s execution, especially
those who claim to be great authorities on
the trial transcripts. I think we need to know
what they think of the jury-picking prac-
tices in Philadelphia and at Mumia’s trial
itself. We need to know what they think of
Judge Sabo—his record overall and his
conduct at Mumia’s trial in particular. We
need to understand whether they consider it
to be judicial or prosecutorial misconduct
when critical witnesses and evidence are
hidden from the defense.
We also need to know their views on the
death penalty. Do they find it alanning that
61 percent of those on death row in Penn-
sylvania are Black when Black people
make up only 10 percent of the state’s
population? What do they think about the
fact that 55 percent of Pennsylvania’s death
row is made up of people from Philadel-
phia, while Philadelphia holds only 15 per-
cent of the state’s population. And, beyond
Pennsylvania, what do they think about the
80+ people nationally, who have gotten off
death row in recent years only because they
had a chance to prove their innocence after
their regular trial was over?
Time is short in the fight for Mumia’s
life. As is the case with everything worth
fighting for, we expect it to be just that—a
fight. But to win, we must face every attack
and turn it around. If Vanity Fair (and the
accompanying stories on 20/20 and AP)
brought knowledge of Mumia to many
more people, we must reach those many
people with the issues and the truth. 0
______________________________________________________________________Revolutionary Worker 12-19-99 Page 11
A Rage Experience
by C.J.
There was what you could call high energy in the van: 17 people under 22 (plus this reporter), on a 2-hour trip to: a) the greatest conceit of the year? b) the greatest canceled concert of the year? c) a police riot? d)all of the above? No one could say for sure.
But people were ready for anything as we cruised from New York City to Philadelphia. Rage Against the Machine was playing a stop on the tour for their new CD "The Battle of Los Angeles." This CD, just released November 4, is a trip itself-a breathtaking journey from the sweatshops of L.A. to the rebel camps of Chiapas to the U.S. killing fields in Iraq and back to L.A.just in time for a rebellion.
Tonight, Rage was playing the First Union Center, a giant arena in Philly, home of death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and the site of numerous ugly threats from the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), who have launched a nationwide campaign against Rage and other artists who speak out against the execution of Mumia.
Over the past month the Philly FOP had threatened to "stop traffic" going to the concert and launch a boycott against the First Union Center and anyone booking it. To their credit, the arena recently issued a statement saying they don’t feel it’s appropriate to choose artists to perform there based on their political beliefs.
I was traveling with members of the Youth Network of Refuse & Resist!, a group which has been invited by the band to set up tables at their shows, along with Leonard Peltier’s support group, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia, and Students Against Sweat Shops.
Between tapes of Hendrix, Rage and WuTang, people strategized: How to explain what’s happening with Mumia now? How to deal with the police? "The FOP represent death for Mumia, they represent lies, intimidation, repression," one youth said, "We represent life for Mumia, the youth, the future, resistance, truth, justice.. . .This band has a right to say what they want, and we will defend them."
*****
At the December 3 Rage concert in Nassau, Long Island, fans were kicked out and physically assaulted by uniformed cops simply for having a Munria flyer in their pocket.
A few days earlier in Worcester, Massachusetts, a town outside Boston, 400 off-duty cops confronted Mumia supporters outside a sold-out Rage show.
Concert-goers were threatened if they refused to take the anti-Muinia flyers of the police. And when two women led the crowd in a chant "Brick by brick, wall by wall, we’re gonna free Mumia Abu-Jamal," they were arrested by a riot cop in a ski mask and charged with disorderly conduct. As they were dragged off, the masked man told another cop, "These two were the loudest." True Rage fans, the women bailed themselves out and returned to the concert.
At the same show, 35 more concert-goers were arrested, and the Boston Globe reported that one woman had her arm pulled out of its socket by police.
Police spokesmen claimed that none of this harassment had anything to do with the cop protest or the politics of the band.
Zack told the sold-out crowd of 14,500 in Worcester: "Cops have been following us around all over the country saying we support cop killers. Let’s make it completely clear. We don’t support killers, and especially not KILLER COPS. We do support innocent brothers and sisters being framed up in prisons all over this country, people like Mumia Abu-Jamal." In a brilliant comic move, Rage had four dozen Dunkin Donuts delivered to the protesting cops.
*****
Across the country, the FOP are using their position and privileges as the. armed enforcers of the state to undertake an unprecedented national political campaign against artists who speak out against the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal. With so much at stake, the thoroughly unrepentant attitude of Rage is just plain thrilling. David, a member of New York City Youth Network told the RW: "This boycott adds a new dimension to the crimmnalization of a generation. Now, for just maldng known your political beliefs or even simply attending a Rage conceit, you’re treated like you’ve committed a crime." But he adds, "Every time the cops attack like this, it just blows up in their face, because more people are politicized."
Artists in various scenes-including Chumbawamba, $Money Mark, Edward Asner, Ozomatli, Culture Clash, Dread Scott, Boots of The Coup, Danny Hoch and Ossie Davis-have signed a statement by the Artists Network of Refuse & Resist! which says in part: "We artists condemn the police attacks on musicians for their political beliefs....This kind of censorship will not be tolerated." Interestingly, when the FOP has been challenged to public debate, they run from the spotlight like roaches. Tom Morello reported that the FOP were slated to appear on an ABC TV news program a couple days before the Philly gig. But when members of Rage volunteered to join them on-air, FOP canceled the whole thing. They pulled the same stunt in Nashville when a Mumia supporter from Fiske University was scheduled to debate them on a local station. Meanwhile, with the help of a Nashville radio DJ, the Youth Network of R&R! sent out their own press release and were interviewed by several members of the local media and a national internet news service. This battle is a lot more two-sided than the FOP may have planned on.
*****
"Battle of Los Angeles" dropped at No. 1 on the charts and sold almost 1/2 million records in the first week-revealing a world of difference between the sensibilities of the fans and the censorship of FOP.
"Maybe the revolution will be televised after all," wrote the Denver Post music critic, (riffing on the ‘60s anthem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott-Heron). "These issues are usually avoided on the pop charts, removed from the lives of most American teens. But Rage’s battle cries of social justice are just what they want."
"It’s a ‘silent majority’ of music listeners out there who aren’t spoken to by the escapism that you normally find in pop music," Tom Morello told the Denver Post. "Our audience is a very intelligent one, and there are a lot of kids out there who don’t like what they see. In the same way that groups like Public Enemy and the Clash did for us, it’s music that resonates in a very different way."
We arrive at the show in Philly to fmd no FOP picket line-but loads of on-duty cops. The Youth Network crew are peppered with questions about Mumia from knots of four to five kids-the only ones from their school to brave the night. Thousands take leaflets or buy literature on Mumia’s case. The YN kids tell me that the vibe here is really different from the Rage show in Philly a couple years ago, when snarling jocks ripped up their flyers. Tonight they encounter a few hostile individuals, but no organized packs. The opening act is a cool young band called Anti-Flag from Pittsburgh, PA who specialize in thrash marches. In between short tight songs, they dis the FOP. Next up is Gang Starr, hip hop veterans with righteous hits going back 10 years. "What’s a rebel?" they ask the audience. "They’re the ones who aren’t afraid to live and die for what they believe in...." A roar goes up and the mosh pit goes wild.
Rage has asked Pam Africa from International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia to introduce the band. "Rage is unbending, they don’t kiss ass to no one, they ain’t intimidated by the FOP," Pam says. "It is my honor to be standing on stage with the mightiest rock band in the whole motherfuckin world."
A giant banner of the new CD cover unfurls behind the band-this time reading "The Battle of Philadelphia" Rage launches into "Testify," a complex track
launches into "Testify," a complex track from "Battle of Los Angeles" that seems to draw a connection between the U.S. bombing of Iraq in the Gulf War and the L.A. rebellion of 1992:
"I’m empty please fill me
mister anchor assure me
That Baghdad is burning
Your voice it is so soothing...
On the corner
The jury’s sleepless
We found your weakness
And it’s right outside your door."
This crowd already knows all the words to "Testify." Likewise with the next track, "Guerrilla Radio,-which is all over the radio (including stations that vowed never again to play Rage after their benefit conceit for Mumia back in January 1999).
"Contact I bighjacked the frequencies
Blockin’ the beltway
Move on DC
Way past the days of bombin’ mc’s
Sound off Mumia guan be free.."
The magic moment comes when the beat drops out and the entire arena whispers along with Zack:
"It has to start somewhere
It has to start sometime
What better place than here
What better time than now
All hell can’t stop us now!"
As all hell breaks loose in the arena, I am reminded of something Tom Morello said in an interview about the music and the politics: "It’s big rock, spelled r-a-w-k. But contained within it is this kind of virus. Some people come to the party for the aggression and the grooves and they leave with something else. Others are attuned to it to begin with." Before they dedicate their song, "Freedom" to Mumia, Zack asks the people, "What do you think the cops are so afraid of? Are they afraid of this music, this revolutionary music? Naaah. They’re afraid of you...You could free Mumia. This year."
Our crew is the last to leave, and as we all troop out to-the parking lot, squad cars are circling like sharks. We cram ourselves quickly into the van and head out The people won this round.
The battle continues.
______________________________________________________________________
U.S. CRIMES IN THE KOREAN WAR
THE MASSACRE
AT NO GUN RI
“The American soldiers played with our
lives like boys playing with flies.”
Chun Choon Ja, who was 12
in 1950 when she witnessed
the No Gun Ri massacre
“We just annihilated them.”
Norman Tinkler,
former machine gunner; U.S. Army
On July 25, 1950, U.S. soldiers of the
First Cavalry division rampaged through
the villages of Korea’s mountainous Yong-
dong county—ordering the villagers to
leave their homes. After only a month of
war, the U.S. forces were being badly
beaten and driven back by fighters of the
Korean People’s Army, who were advanc-
ing southward from the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea based in northern Korea.
The First Cavalry troops had just arrived
from Japan in those last days of July, but
they were already falling apart in panic. On
July 26, about 600 men of the First Cavalry
dug in near the town called No Gun Ri. A
column with hundreds of Korean villagers
approached the U.S. lines along a dirt road.
They were overwhelmingly women, older
men and children dressed in the traditional
white clothes of Korean farmers.
U.S. troops ordered the people to leave
the road and gather on the nearby railroad
tracks. The U.S. command called in an air
strike that strafed the people—killing 100.
The U.S. troops ordered the survivors
underneath a bridge, into a tunnel about 80
feet long and 30 feet high. The U.S. com-
mander consulted with his superiors and
moved his machine guns into position. As
night fell, he ordered his machine gunners
to open fire. For three days and nights, the
people were pinned down in that tunnel.
Hundreds died. People dragged the bodies
of the dead around them as protection. U.S.
riflemen killed people as they crawled out
to escape or find drinking water. One sur-
vivor, Chung Koo-ho, said many women
protected their children with their bodies.
Her own mother died on the second day.
Suddenly, on July 29, the U.S. troops
disappeared-fleeing before the advancing
Korean People’s Army. Three weeks later,
the revolutionaiy Korean paper Cho Sun In
Mm Bc reported that troops of the People’s
Anny had discovered “about 400 bodies of
old and young people and children.”
This war crime was part of the unjust war
the U.S. waged from 1950 to 1953 to con-
quer Korea and to threaten the newly vic-
torious Maoist revolution in China. Back
and forth across the Korean peninsula, the
U.S. forces and their UN allies fought the
Korean People’s Army and volunteers from
the Chinese People’s Liberation Anny. The
war ended witha major and historic setback
for the U.S.-which had been proclaiming
itself the atomic superpower of the world.
A Half Century of
Coverup and Suppression
For almost 50 years, not a word has been
said about this war crime in the U.S. press
or history books. For decades after the war,
survivors of the massacre lived under the
military dictatorship that the U.S. imposed
on southern Korea. In the 1990s, 30 deter-
mined survivors and family members
publicly accused the U.S. Anny’s First
Cavalry Division. They filed a petition with
the South Korean “Government Compen-
sation Committee.” The U.S. military
authorities answered that there was no
evidence that the First Cavalry was in the
area, or that they had ever shot at civilians.
The petitioners succeeded in getting
parts oftheirstory told in the media On
September 30, the story broke in the U.S.
when the Associated Press released a report
documenting the massacre—including eye-
witness reports of 12 U.S. war veterans
who were there.
______________________________________________________________________
SECRET
Headquarters 25th Inf Div
Sangju, Korea
27 July 1950
MEMO TO:
Commanding Officers, All Regimental Combat Teams AXL Staff Sections, This Headquarters
ALL Civilians seen in this area are to be considered as Enemy and action taken accordingly.
______________________________________________________________________
U.S. National Archives via Associated Press
The actual document from the U.S. command ordering troops to shoot at Korean civilians in the war zone.
------------------
(See issue for picture.)
Chun Choon Ja at the bridge where she and other refugees came under attack from U.S. troops in 1950.
-------------------
One former U.S. soldier, Eugene Hessel-
man, recalled his Captain saying:
“The hell with all those people. Let’s get rid of all of
them.”
Retired Colonel Robert M. Carroll,
who was a 25-year-old lieutenant at No
Gun Ri, recalled his riflemen opening fire
on the refugees: “This is right after we got
orders that nobody comes through, civilian,
military, nobody.”
After hearing of the AP’s findings, Pen-
tagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said the
U.S. military stood by its earlier state-
ment—that its researchers had no evidence
of any massacre of Korean civilians.
A Hidden Story of the
American Way of War
By denying the massacre at No Gun Ri,
the Pentagon is trying to hide the truth of its
brutal methods during the Korean War from
1950 to 1953. The No Gun Ri massacre
was, in fact, part of a campaign of genocide
launched by the U.S. military. As U.S.
forces were being routed in the opening
campaigns of the Korean war, the U.S.
command ordered soldiers to treat any
Korean person in the war zone as an
enemy—to shoot them down.
Why was the U.S. targeting the Korean
people themselves? Because the active sup-
port of the Korean people was a key reason
the revolutionary armies were defeating the
U.S. forces. Millions of Korean people
were determined to liberate their country
from foreign occupiers.
In the Nation magazine (Oct. 25), his-
torian Bruce Cumings reports that, by the
end of World War 2, the rural people of
Yongdong country had built a powerful
movement against the Japanese occupiers.
When Japanese imperialism collapsed in
August 1945, a Yongdong County People’s
Committee seized power from the Japan-
ese. Similar uprisings took place in many
parts of the country.
However, U.S. armed forces quickly
moved to occupy southern Korea. They
sent in “civil affairs teams” to take power
away from the local people in areas like
Yongdong. The U.S. occupiers quickly re-
armed the hated Korean traitors who had
worked as colonial cops for the Japanese.
Over the next three years, people in places
like Yongdong started to wage guerrilla war
against these new colonial masters. The
pro-U.S. police hunted down communist
activists in Yongdong and executed them.
In late June 1950, war broke out between
the U.S. and the Democratic People’s Re-
public of Korea which had been formed in
the liberated northern part of the country.
As battered U.S. troops fell back, the local
guerrillas liberated Yongdong county, deep
in the heart of the U.S. occupied zone. One
New York Times reporter wrote that there
were about 300 guerrillas, in and around
Yongdong, shooting the retreating Amer-
icans as they moved through.
By late July, as the front approached
Yongdong, the U.S. conunand ordered their
soldiers to kill civilians. The AP investiga-
tive team reports that the morning of the No
Gun Ri massacre, “the Eighth Army had
radioed orders throughout the Korean front
that began, ‘No—repeat no—refugees will
be permitted to cross battle lines at any
time.’ “ Two days earlier, First Cavalry
Division headquarters had issued the order:
“No refugees to cross the front line. Use
discretion in case of women and children.”
Maj. Gen. William B. Kean issued orders to
the nearby 25th Infantry Division saying,
“All civilians seen in this area are to be
considered as enemy and action taken ac-
cordingly.”
His staff members relayed this
as “considered as unfriendly and shot.”
The aerial strafing of refugees at No Gun Ri
was no isolated incident. The AP writes:
“Declassified United States Air Force mis-
sion reports from July and August 1950
show repeated air attacks on groups of
‘people in white.’”
The U.S. military had learned to fear the
anti-imperialist consciousness and revolu-
tionary organization of the Korean people.
The Massacre of Civilians was Routine,
Widespread and Officially Approved during
this war-as it has been in Every U.S. war
of conquest, from the murder of Native
peoples in the U.S., to the 1898 invasion of
the Philippines, to the 1965 invasion of
Vietnam... on down to the recent air war on
the people of Yugoslavia.
Bruce Cumings notes that the massacre
of No Gun Ri may nct have been the first
U.S. massacre in Yongdong county. He
reports that the Korean People’s Army
fighters entering Yongdong were told of an
earlier U.S. operation that forced 2,000
civilians into the mountains and killed
them—mostly from the air, though several
women were reportedly raped before being
shot. Cumings adds that a secret U.S. intel-
ligence memo has surfaced, addressed to
Maj. General Clark Ruffner, discussing the
formation of “assassination squads” to
hunt down and execute people identified as
leaders of the guerrillas. This same tech-
nique was widely applied by the CIA’s
notorious Operation Phoenix almost 20
years later in Vietnam.
In August 1950, Maj. General Hobart R.
Gay ordered his soldiers to blow up a
bridge over the Naktong River—killing
hundreds of refugees. His report on the in-
cident did not mention any civilian dead.
Later, along the same river, the men of A
Company, 14th Engineers had spent two
days setting 7,000 pounds of explosive on a
second bridge. The detonation order came
at 7 a.m., and according to ex-Sgt. Carroll
F. Kinsman of Gautier, Mississippi, “It
lifted up and turned it sideways and it was
full of refugees from end to end.” A simple
entry appears in the records, “Results, ex-
cellent.”
Since 1950, the Pentagon has tried to
deny the ugly truth of its war on Korea But
the people of Yongdong have not forgotten.
They want the world to know the vicious
nature of U.S. imperialism. And they
demand justice—for the dead and for the
living.
0
(See RW Issue for Picture.)
During the Korean War (1950-1953), Korean people help carry supplies to the Chinese People's Volunteer Army.
_______________________________________________________________________
October 31, 1999—Revolutionary Worker—Page 7
NOVEMBER 1999: LEONARD PELTIER FREEDOM MONTH
Lecnard Peltier has spent 23 hard years
in US. prisons—targeted, framed and sen-
tenced by the U.S.government. His spirit is
unbroken, but his health has worsened He
suffersfivm a painfull jaw condition, from
diabetes, a heart condition and from the
denial ofmedical treatment. The Parole
Commission fried to slam the door on
Leonard's case: In 1993 they denied him
parole and ruled that his case would not be
heard again for 15 years—in 2008!
This injustice is intolerable—and the
demand for his freedom is growing.
November 1999 is Leonard Pettier
Freedom Month with actions everyday in
Washington, DC.
The opening event on November 1 will bring
together veteran fighters of the Wounded Knee
occupation and Leonard Peltier & family with
Peltier supporters.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
Leonard Peltier was born on Turtle
Mountain reservation in North Dakota in
1944. His family came from the Anishinabe
(Chippewa) and Lakota (Sioux) peoples.
He says, “During harvest season, . . .my
whole family—grandparents, aunts, uncles,
and children—would migrate from Turtle
Mountain to the Red River Valley to work
in the potato fields.”
Native people were supposed to be
defeated—and disappearing. But the strug-
gle continued. “Traditionalists” pulled
back into distant rural pockets to keep their
ways alive. Other Native people drifted into
urban ghettos where they mingled with
proletarians of other nationalities.
In the 1960s, Black people started shak-
ing the United States with powerful rebel-
lions. A new generation of Indian youth
woke up and formed the American Indian
Movement (AIM). Like the Black Panther
Party, they worked day and night to bring
hot, radical, anti-system politics to the
masses. Urban Indian radicals linked up
with the rez youth and whole communities
Peitier became a of "traditionalist" people.
Leonard Peltier became a leading activist
in that radical new generation.
Leonard told the RW about the condi-
tions that created AlM: “Poverty, discrimi-
nation. The injustices that people were
receiving in the courtrooms. The violations
of the Indian treaties made between two
sovereign nations—the United States gov-
ernment and Indian nations. The bigotry
that exists around Indian territories. The
unemployment which brings in the high
alcoholism rate and disease rate of the
reservations. In them days, it was just still
not illegal to kill an Indian. If you killed an
Indian, you’d be very unfortunate if you got
probation—most of them were released im-
mediately.
The FBI’s CO1NTELPRO (Counter In-
telligence Program) targeted leading ac-
tivists of AIM. One FBI document recom-
mended that “local police put leaders under
close scrutiny, and arrest them on every
possible charge until they could no longer
make bail.”
Peltier was attacked in a res-
taurant by two off-duty cops, beaten and
charged with attempted murder.
One cop said his job was “catching a big one
for the FBI.”
Wounded Knee 2 and the
Need for Armed Self-Defense
On the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Indian
reservations in South Dakota, AIM led
hundreds, in February 1973, to take over
the buildings at Wounded Knee. They were
blockaded by federal forces. The firefights
lasted over two months and brought AIM’s
struggle worldwide attention.
During the 36 months after Wounded
Knee, more than 60 AIM supporters died
violently on or near the Pine Ridge reserva-
tion. “The only way to deal with the Indian
problem in South Dakota,” said William
Janklow, then South Dakota deputy attor-
ney general, “is to put a gun to American
Indian Movement leaders’ heads and pull
the trigger.” The FBI arrested 562 AIM
supporters for participating in Wounded
Knee. 600 people were charged with sup-
porting the defenders.
With many of Pine Ridge’s core activists
underground, in jail or dead—elders asked
AIM members to organize self-defense
camps to protect the people. In 1975, the
Northwest AIM group, including Leonard
Peltier, set up a defensive camp. A 1975
FBI memo says: “There are pockets of In-
dian population that consist almost ex-
clusively of American Indian Movement
(AIM) and their supporters on the Reserva-
tion. It is significant that in some of these
AIM centers the residents have built
bunkers which would literally require
military assault forces if it were necessary
to overcome resistance emanating from the
bunker.”
The Shootout at Oglala
On July 26, combat-armed police started
massing near Oglala village—”GOONs”
of the local reservation government, BIA
police, state trOopers, U.S. Marshals, and
FBI SWAT teams. The Indians, including
Leonard Peltier, prepared to defend them-
selves. Amund noon on July 26, two FBI
agents drove straight for the AIM camp. It
is not clear how the shooting started. The
agents, Coler and Williams, got out of their
car and began firing. Members of the AIM
camp fired back. Coler and Williams called
for reinforcements.
It was the prearranged signal for all-out
federal assault. Three Indian youth shot out
the tires of the first reinforcements. The
whole police assault froze. Coler and Wil-
liams were caught in their own trap.
AIM rifles kept the feds at bay all after-
noon—as the people of the camp, including
Peltier, slipped away. After the firing
stopped, the Feds stormed in. Their point-
men, Coler and Williams, lay dead. An In-
dian, Joe Stuntz Killsright, was also dead.
Everyone else escaped.
The authorities unleashed the largest
manhunt in FBI history, with combat gear,
grenade launchers, helicopters, and track-
ing dogs. For three months, this “task
force” ran amok—storming into homes
and holding people at gunpoint. Grand
juries were convened. The media spread
FBI lies about “AIM terrorism.”
During this hysteria, the authorities
charged three AIM members-Leonard
Peltier, Bob Robideau and Dino Butler-
with killing the two FBI agents.
The Making of a Railroad
Peltier escaped to Canada, where he con-
tinued to organize. Butler and Robideau
were tried and found “not guilty” in July
1976. The all-white jury was shocked to
hear of the government terrorism on Pine
Ridge. After this, a 1976 FBI memo called
for directing “full prosecutive weight of the
federal government.. .against Leonard Pel-
tier.” Peltier was captured and illegally
smuggled back into the United States by
orders of then-Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger.
The authorities had no evidence linking
Peltier to the killing of the FBI agents. So
they manufactured it. And the trial judge
stopped the defense from exposing the
prosecution lies.
A mentally ill Indian woman, Myrtle
Poor Bear, was pressured by the authorities
to make statements implicating Peltier. In
fact, she had not witnessed anything.
At Peltier’s trial, an FBI agent swore that
he had personally seen Peltier near the two
dead agents. FBI lab experts claimed a shell
casing at the scene came from Leonaid
Peltier’s AR-iS rifle. These were deliberate
lies. The Court of Appeals later wrote:
“[the prosecution’s] theory, accepted by
the jury and the judge, was that Peltier
killed the two FBI agents at point blank
range.” Leonard Peltier was convicted of
two counts of first degree murder on April
18, 1977. Judge Benson ruled that Leonard
should serve two life sentences consecu-
tively. It was a complete railroad.
The Government Case Unravels
-The Railroad Continues
"As warriors of our nation we must show our people the spirit of Crazy Horse so they
may rise off their knees... Raise up with me
and resist the terrorist attacks of genocide
against our nation.’”
Leonard Peltier from prison, 1978
In 1979, the FBI tried to assassinate Pel-
tier in prison. Secret documents surfaced,
proving that the FBI manufactured the
“evidence” against Peltier. A 1975 memo
to the FBI director revealed that the firing
pm of the AR-15 rifle connected to Peltier
had not matched any shell casing supposed-
ly found at the scene.
By the late 1980s, Prosecutor Lynn
Crooks admitted that the government did
not know who shot the FBI agents. Crooks
said, “We did not have any direct evidence
that one individual as opposed to another
pulled the trigger.”
On October 5, 1987 the Supreme Court
refused to review the case. In 1993 the
federal courts denied Peltier’s appeal. They
argued that even if there’s no evidence of
“close-up killing,” Peltier was guilty of
“long-range aiding and abetting.” Leonard
told the RW, “The government has ad-
mitted in two courts of law at the Appellate
Court level that they don’t know who killed
the agents.... And now the government on
their most recent decision is claiming that I
am an ‘aider and abettor.’ Basically, that
was their theory—I was aider and abettor at
15 to 20 feet or 200 yards, about two foot-
ball fields away. They don’t know where I
aided and abetted—but I was on the reser-
vation.”
In other words, the federal court says
Peltier must spend life in prison for being
present as the AIM encampment defended
itself. The system wants someone punished
for the armed resistance at Oglala.
Leonard Peltier has become a symbol—
for millions—of Native resistance and U.S.
government injustice.
November 1999 is Leonard Peltier Free-
dom Month. Spread the word. Take a stand.
Resources:
Leonard Peltier Freedom Coalition, D.C.
202-857-1469
Leonard Peltier Defense Committee,
Kansas, 785-842-5774; web site:
members.xoom.com/freepeltier
Leonard Peltier’s new book Prison
Writings: My Life Is My Sundance has
recently been published.
RW Online at http://www.rwor.org/ for
background and updates on Leonard
Peltier
______________________________________________________________________
Page4 RCP Revolutionary Worker 12-19-99
U.S. imperialism and the "Great Game" for Caspian Oil
"A Cocktail of Oil and Politics-U.S. Seeks to End Russian Domination of the Caspian"
New York Times headline, November 20, 1999
"It is not just another oil and gas deal, and this is not just another pipeline. It is a strategic framework that advances America’s national security interests, It is a strategic vision for the future of the Caspian region."
Bill Richardson, U.S. Energy Secretary November 18, 1999
"Steal an apple, they call you a thief. Steal a country, they call you an emperor."
old saying
"Note to schoolteachers: Find the Caspian on the map, draw a circle around it, and show it to the children. Twenty years from now, or perhaps even 10, some of them may find themselves deployed there."
Paul Sfarobin, "The New Great Game," National Journal, Washington magazine for U.S. policymakers
On November 18, 1999 President Clinton was in Istanbul, Turkey-as four countries signed a malor new "intergovernmental declaration of intent." The grins on imperialist faces showed that this was a major step in U.S. plans to seize the oil fields of the Caspian Sea.
After years of U.S. pressure, intrigue and bribery, the regimes of Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan agreed to build a major new 1,200-mile pipeline from the Caspian Sea oil center of Baku to the ship-loading oil terminals of Ceyhan in southern Turkey. If this pipeline project goes ahead, oil that was once the most valuable resource of the former Soviet empire will reach the world through facilities controlled by U.S. imperialism and its allies.
In the 1992 Gulf War, the U.S. tightened its control over Persian Gulf oil. Now the U.S. is determined that any major new oil fields being opened to the world market will also be controlled by the U.S.
The U.S. is not interested in Caspian oil to supply its own internal industry. The U.S. is grabbing for control of the Caspian oil fields because other countries need this oil-and because the U.S. wants to control them. Other imperialist rivals-including Germany and Japan-are "energy poor" and need access to oilfields outside their borders. Most Third World countries are heavily dependent on imported oil.
Opening the Caspian Sea oil up, under U.S. control, will also give the U.S. more power over the Persian Gulf and Arab states in world affairs. It will have more power to play oil-producing countries off against each other.
In addition, by depriving Russia of control over these oil fields, the U.S. would be delivering a major blow to plans of the Russian ruling class-to re-emerge as a world class imperialist power. Cheap Caspian oil was crucial for operating the military bloc that the Soviet ruling class built after restoring capitalism in 1956. Losing that strategic oil would threaten today’s Russian imperialists with a permanent demotion-one they will not tolerate without a fight.
The intense bombing of Chechen villages is only one of several operations being carried out by Russian imperialism to keep its hand in the Caspian region.
The U.S. move into the Caspian is a power move that threatens and provokes other big powers. And at the same time, it is a sinister threat to the masses of people throughout the world.
This is a power grab by an oppressor who is determined to enthrone itself as the "single global superpower" well into the next century. It is an imperialist move to control the lives, resources, labor and future of hundreds of millions of people.
THE NEW "GREAT GAME" FOR CENTRAL ASIA
"The U.S. strategy toward Russia is aimed at weakening its international position and ousting it from strategically important regions of the world, above all, the Caspian region, the Transcaucasus and Central Asia."
Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev
The Caspian Sea contains two huge sets of oil fields. One stretches underwater- east of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The other is the Tengiz oilfields-far away on the Caspian’s northwest shore in the country of Kazakhstan. In addition there are massive amounts of natural gas scattered throughout the Caspian region.
The known reserves of Kazakhstan alone are larger than the oilfields of Nigeria or Libya-but the unexplored oil may be as much as five times larger-putting caspian oil fields in the same league as the fields of Iran or Kuwait.
With the success of tile Russian revolution of 1917, the oil-producing countries of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan became republics within the Soviet Union. The oil pipelines there all ran north-into. Russia. From 1917 to 1956, this oil was a key resource for the creation of the world’s first socialist economy. During World War 2, Hitler tried to seize the oil of Baku-and during this adventure his armies received their decisive defeat in Stalingmd. After capitalist fottes seized power in the Soviet Union in 1956, the Caspian oil became a glue holding together their empire and socialimperialist war alliance.
Alter 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed and its central Russian republic slipped into economic crisis, political tunnoil and military disarray. The former Soviet republics of the Caspian region declared independence. The oil and natural gas of the Caspian came "up for grabs." U.S. imperialism had long been plotting to carve off the Soviet Union’s whole Central Asian tier of non-Russian republics, and their oil reserves. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the U.S. imperialists went into full gear.
The British imperialist-poet Rudyard Kipling talked of the "Great Game"-the intense struggle during the late 1800s between Russian imperialism and British imperialism to control the resources and people of Central Asia-from Afghanistan to Turkey. After 1989, imperialist planners everywhere started talking about "the new Great Game."
Like arrogant conquerors, a consortium of 11 major oil corporations set up outposts on Caspian shores. Atlantic Richfield, Chevron, Exxon, Mobil, Pennzoil, Philips Petroleum, Texaco, and especially the new Anglo-American "powerhouse" BP Amoco spent billions of dollars buying up Soviet-era oil companies and drilling rights. The Clinton White House set up a high-level "interdepartmental work group"-run by the National Security Council-to oversee the larger geo-political U.S. takeover of the Caspian Sea.
The intrigue that followed has been done with very little public awareness in the U.S. These are operations worked out within the U.S. ruling class. U.S. imperialism made its moves using oil companies, semi-secret delegations, military connections and all kinds of funding of pro-western media. For ten years now, high-level networks of U.S. agents have been expanded, trained and activated throughout the countries of Central Asia.
PIPELINE, PIPELINE, WHO RUNS THE PIPELINE?
"The game’s called pipeline poker The Caspian is crazy. It’s landlocked. We can drill all the oil you ‘d ever need But can we get it out?"
Texas oilman in Baku’s "Ragin’ Cajun" bar
"We cannot help seeing the uproar stirred up in some western countries over the energy resources of the Caspian. Some seek to exclude Russia from the game and undermine its interests. The so-called ‘pipeline war’ in the region is part of this game."
Russian President Boris Yeltsin, 1998
The oil corporations are spending billions-producing oil rigs and hiring large numbers of people to extract oil from the Caspian Sea But when the millions of barrels start flowing out of the Caspian, how will they reach the world market? The Caspian Sea is landlocked, and far from any of the world industrial centers. This oil must be transported out of the region by pipeline-.through politically explosive and contested areas. Whoever controls the pipes ultimately controls the oil.
Russia proposed to build a new northern pipeline parallel to the old pipeline from Baku to Novorossisk-and to expand companion pipelines from Tengiz to Novorossisk. Iran proposed a southern pipeline over its territory-from Baku to the Iranian oil terminal on Kharg Island. This mute would make the Caspian Sea into a hinterland of the Persian Gulf-and would secure the position of Iran and other Persian Gulf countries in the center of the world oil economy. Some oil companies supported this Iranian plan because the Iranian route was estimated to be the cheapest. They also argued that this pipeline would give them more power within Iran-strengthening imperialist control over that important country.
The U.S.-and specifically the Clinton White House-was determined to oppose any "north/south" pipelines. The White House adopted a plan, cooked up by longtime ruling class strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski, to create an "east-west" pipe which would bypass both Russia and Iran.
The U.S. intends to strip Russia of control over this oil. And the U.S. wants the Caspian oilfields to be completely independent of the Persian Gulf-to diminish the importance of Persian Gulf states in the world economy.
The U.S.-proposed pipeline would start in Baku-tiaveling west through Azerbaijan. It would deliberately take a detour around Armenia-a country allied with Russia. The pipeline would circle into Georgia, and then travel southwest across Turkey. Most of its length would be through the Kurdish areas of Turkey-where there has been ongoing aimed struggle against the Turkish oppression of Kurds. And the pipeline would end in a port near Ceyhan on the eastern Mediterranean. U.S. planners propose a second pipeline-for natural gas-traveling over 1,000 miles from Turkmenistan to the Turkish city of Erzurum.
Page 5 RCP Revolutionary Worker 12-19-99
TURKEY: REGIONAL AGENT FOR IMPERIALIST OPERATIONS
Turkey was put center stage by this U.S. plan in two ways: First, Caspian oil would be passing through Turkish territory. Second, in the maneuvering to develop the Ceyhan pipeline, Turkey’s government and military has been assigned the task of infiltrating and politically influencing Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan-the "Newly Independent States" (NIS) that will be producing the oil.
Turkey was chosen for this because it is considered a "reliable ally" of the U.S. and Germany-it is firmly dominated by U.S. and German imperialism and overseen by a fascist military that operates within NATO. In addition, the majority population of Turkey is closely related-by language and culture-to the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, including the peoples of Azeibaijan and Kazakhstan. For five years, the U.S. has pressured the Caspian regional governments to endorse the Baku-to-Ceyhan route and has pressured the international oil monopolies to finance it. Meanwhile, it has renewed its support for the Turkish government’s military and political campaign to suppress the Kurdish people-whose lands in Turkey are designated as the route for the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline.
One of the main reasons that the U.S. attacked Serbia last year was to prevent Turkey from being drawn into the Balkan wars. When Yugoslavia first started to fall apart in the early 1990s, U.S. Secretary of State Baker said, "We don’t have a dog in that fight"-meaning that there were no U.S. interests tied up in the fighting between Serbia and Croatia. But Turkey has close ties with Albania-and when the Balkan fighting spread southward into Kosovo, the U.S. got involved-to guarantee that Turkey would not get drawn into a larger war with its neighbors, Greece and Bulgaria. The U.S. wanted Turkey to focus on its assigned task: pacifying Turkish Kurdistand and infiltrating former Soviet Central Asia. [See "U.S. Predators Stalk the Balkans: The imperialist motives behind the NATO war on Yugoslavia," RW #1002, April 18, 1999, RW Online: www.mcs.net/~rwor]
KA-CHING, KA-CHING
"For the oil companies, the chosen route must be profitable. But for the Clinton administration, the prime concern has been strategic."
New York Times, November21, 1999
From the beginning, the major oil monopolies of the world had deep misgivings about the White House plan for a BakuCeyhan pipeline-which, on paper at least, they were expected to fmance. They were concerned that the Baku-Ceyhan route was the most expensive route proposed-possibly exceeding $4 billion, almost twice the estimated cost of the Baku-to-Kharg route, proposed by Iran.
The oil companies were also concerned that the volume of oil passing through the the Baku-Ceyhan route might not be enough to make it profitable-especially if oil prices stay low and other pipelines are also built in the Caspian region. In November 1998, Russia, Kazakhstan and Chevron agreed to build a $2 billion pipeline from Tengiz to the Russian port of Novorossisk. Would the larger Tengiz oilfield send its oil out through Russia, leaving the Ceyhan route with only the Baku output?
The U.S. government was determined to bring the oil companies "on board"- saying that the pipelines of the Caspian could not be decided by the narrower "kaching, ka-ching" calculations of U.S. and European bankers and oil companies. The U.S. government insisted that there were global, geo-strntegic interests at stake here-specifically, who would control the energy resources of the world.
The Clinton White House operated like world class gangsters, pulling strings and making threats-to make all the other pipelines "disappear" and make the Ceyhan pipeline profitable for the western oil capitalists.
AN OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE
First the U.S. government simply and firmly ruled out any Iranian pipeline. They announced they would not lift their embargo on Iran-and they would not allow major U.S. companies to participate in any major projects there. That was the end of the Iranian pipeline. Then the Russian plans for the northern pipeline "suddenly" ran into huge problems: War broke Out in Chechnya and Dagestan-border areas of Russia where oil from Baku travels on its way to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossisk.
War broke out in Dagestan in August 1999-just as the aging Baku-Novorossisk pipeline broke down and the Russian oil corporations were tiying to move Baku’s oil through Dagestan by rail. Then the fighting spread from Dagestan to nearby Chechnya. The Russian army initiated a brutal campaign to crush resistance and pacify the region. About 200,000 Chechens are refugees, as many as 4,000 may be dead, and much of this small nation has been devastated.
Meanwhile plans for northern Russian controlled oil pipelines have been torpedoed by this fighting-during exactly the time frame when the oil companies have to decide on which pipeline to begin building. There is no documented evidence that the U.S. unleashed and armed the Muslim secessionist forces of Chechnya. But clearly the timing of this new war has been very useful for U.S. plans in the Caspian.
The Russian Defense Minister has accused the U.S. of wanting the "permanent smoldering of a manageable armned conflict" in this region.
Meanwhile, with U.S. support, a new
Page 14 RCP Revolutionary Worker 12-19-99
PIPELINE
Continued from page 5
pipeline was opened between Baku and the Georgian port of Supsa in April 1999. This pipeline will carry the Baku oil that was previously passing north through Chechnya and Dagestan. The opening of the Supsa pipe means that oil will be able to flow out of Azerbaijan-regardless of whether Russia regains control of Chechnya or not.
This Supsa pipeline is small, and cannot carry the massive output expected by 2004-but it will handle much of the production until the Ceyhan pipeline is in place. This new Supsa pipeline is especially useful in providing for the oil needs of Ukraine, and helping the U.S. pry the Ukraine (a large country with extremely important industrial and agricultural production) further away from Russia.
Finally, the Turkish government cynically announced that they had "discovered" major environmental problems with letting huge oil tankers pass through the Bosphorus straits-the mouth of the Black Sea which they control. In other words, Turkey is threatening to stop oil-tankers from Novorossisk, which quickly made investors wary of building a pipeline that ended in Novorossisk.
After all these developments-the only pipeline that seemed practical was suddenly the U.S.-backed Baku-to-Ceyban route. The oil companies and the Caspian oilproducing countries had been presented with "an offer they could not refuse."
THE ISTANBUL AGREEMENT
In November 1999, a conference of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) gathered many government representatives to Istanbul-and by then the U.S. government had, quite simply, forved the key regional governments to give the imperialist oil companies the guarantees and finance that these oil monopolies wanted. A new agreement was finally possible, and Clinton flew in for last minute arm-twisting.
The governments of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan agreed to officially back the Baku-Ceyhan route.
Turkeys government promised to pay all construction costs over $1.4 billion for the Turkish pipe segment This meant that, the Ceyhan route was suddenly as cheap, for the oil companies, as the Iranian route would have been.
Kazakhstan promised that in the next century it would send 20 million tons of oil a year through a new, proposed, underwater pipe to Baku and from there on to Ceyhan.
Russian plans for a Tengiz-Novomssisk pipeline were knocked back.
In short, the imperialist oil companies were guaranteed protection from cost overruns, and were guaranteed that the Ceyhan pipeline would get most or all of the production of the Caspian. The cost of these "guarantees" would (presumably) come out of the wealth of these regions. And the whole package was backed and blessed by the U.S. godfathers themselves. The plan is now in place to have this new pipeline ready by 2004-when huge new oil installations now being built in the Caspian region are expected to start sending I million barrels a day to Ceyhan.
THE PLOT THICKENS
"Domination on the Black and Caspian seas...is a vital interest for the whole southern half of Russia. If Russia's horizons ended on the snowy summits of the Caucasus range, then the whole western half of the Asian continent would be outside our sphere of influence and...would not long wait for another master."
Russian General Rostislav Fadeev, 1850s, at the start of the first "Great Game" for Central Asia
"Chechnya is just the beginning of what we're going to face in this region. Russia is not going to sit back quietly as from its perspective the United States tries to ‘undermine its vital strategic interests there.
Martha Brill Olcott, U.S. thinktank expert on the Caspian region, New York Times, Nov. 19, 1999
"‘Central Asia may not yet be in crisis, but it may just be a short bus ride away' said Gavin Graham, regional manager for Royal Dutch/Shell Group. Without naming Russia and Iran, he told an oil and gas conference in Turkmenistan that regional rivals can conspire to keep margins in landlocked Central Asia unprofitable."
Wall Street Journal
"It seems Clinton has for a minute forgotten that Russia has a full arsenal of nuclear weapons... It has never been and never will be the case that he will dictate to the whole world how to live... We will dictate to the world. Not him alone."
President Boris Yeltsin, defending Russia’s reconquest of Chechnya, December 9, 1999
The Istanbul agreements opened the door for the multi-billion-dollar fundraising for the Baku-to-Ceyhan pipeline. That capital must be raised by October 2000, and the construction must start soon after that, if this pipeline is going to be ready by 2004 -when major new production of oil is expected in the Caspian region. However, there will be counter-moves by the Russian imperialists-seeking to retake their chair at the table and seeking to sabotage the completion of the Ceyhan route. The Russian military intends to pacify Chechnya and surrounding regions-and reestablish a viable overland pipeline route through Russia. And, Russia is strengthening its military presence in the Caspian region itself-reportedly sending new MIG jet fighters and air defense missiles to its base in Armenia.
In addition, the Baku-Ceyhan route requires a strong pro-western government in the Caucasus country of Georgia. The U.S. currently has such a government there-headed by President Eduard Shevardnadze, who was the Soviet foreign minister under Gorbachev. But now, toppling his government has become a high priority for Russian operations in this region. In 1998 alone, Shevardnadze faced an armed insurrection, a major secessionist movement and a commando-style assassination attempt.
"Permanent smoldering" in Georgia suits Russian imperialist interests-just as "permanent smoldering" in Chechnya suits U.S. imperialist interests.
NATO GUNS IN THE CASPIAN
For now, the "new Great Game" for the Caspian has largely been carried out using dollars and strong-arm diplomacy. But the major powers understand well that the futare of this region may ultimately be decided by guns-in coups and warfare. And, for that reason, the U.S. has conducted a huge but unpublicized campaign of drawing the Central Asian countries under its militaiy wing.
Several former Soviet allies in Eastern Europe have been openly recruited directly into NATO’s war alliance-but the U.S. has pursued a slightly different course in Central Asia. Six years ago, NATO created a militaiy sub-alliance called "Partners for Peace" (PFP)-and under that arrangement has been training, arming and deploying military forces around both the Caspian and Black seas. The difference between NATO and PFP is, as one NATO official put it, "razor thin."
Through PFP, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have formal militaiy liaisons at NATO’s Supreme Headquarters. Under NATO auspices, PFP has created a joint Central Asian Peacekeeping Battalion (CENTRASBAT)-which is the embryo of a NATO-led military force in the region. During the 50th anniversary conference of NATO, in April 1999, an anti-Russian alliance, GUUAM, was formed out of the former southern Soviet republics-Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova.
Azerbaijan and Georgia have developed especially close military ties with NATO. The U.S. and Turkish militaries have been supplying both countries with NATO-compatible weapons. Azerbaijan has signed a mutual defense treaty with Turkey and a "defense cooperation agreement" with the U.S.
Under PFP, 4000 military officers from Caucasian countries have received military training in Turkey-a majority of them from Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani soldiers participated as part of a Tuikish Army battalion during the Balkan war. It was the first direct deployment of a Caspian unit by NATO.
At the same time, Turkey-a notoriously brutal and repressive state-has been training thousands of pro-western government officials, legal prosecutors and police for the ruling classes of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.
In 1997, NATO organized naval exercises -Operation Sea Breeze- on the Black sea-making a statement about who controlled that sea and the oil traffic that crosses it.
As Russian troops were leaving Georgia, the flagship of the U.S. 6th fleet entered the Georgian port of Poti. There have already been over a hundred different joint NATO-Georgian military programs and activities.
Common NATO-Georgian military exercises were held around the oil port of Supsa in Georgia during 1998. In May 1999 the U.S. army held joint maneuvers in Kazakhstan-which were officially called "international disaster relief exercises."
That same month, Turkmenistan officially ended the agreement allowing Russian troops to patrol its southern border with Iran and Afghanistan.
In Azerbaijan, top presidential adviser Vafa Guluzade caused a furor in February 1999 by proposing that the U.S. set up a NATO airbase on the Apsheron Peninsula outside Baku. Though the Russian and Iranian governments immediately objected, the U.S. government simply said the plan was not currently under consideration
Then, in November, a leader of the Azerbaijani parliament proposed that NATO form a special unit to protect the BakuCeyhan pipeline. That same month, besieged Chechen President Maschadov called for NATO intervention against the advancing Russian troops in his country.
For the moment, the U.S. and NATO seem to be riding high. But there are already forces within the U.S. ruling class asking whether the U.S. can really expect to back up the major military and economic commitments it has made far away-right on the southern borders of Russia. And they are openly saying that if U.S. soldiers are going to be prepared to kill and die in any new war for the Caspian Sea-the U.S. government must already now start creating public opinion about the importance of this region.
WHY DO WE CALL THEM IMPERIALISTS?
"The strategic value of the Caspian has been there from the beginning-it never was just about oil"
Zbigniew Brzezinski, U.S. ruling class architect of the New Great Game
"Why do we call them imperialists? Because they exploit and oppress people all over the world They have developed an empire and they will do anything to try and preserve it. It is the same people robbing and exploiting, degrading and humiliating us every day that are doing that same thing, and want to do more of it, to the people all around the world That~ why we call it imperialism, because thatc what it is."
Chairman Bob Avakian,
Revolutionary Communist Party,USA
The U.S. masks its operations in talk of freedom and human rights. This is true in the Caspian too. U.S. politicians talk of training the people of the region in "U.S. style democracy"-while sending them fascist Turkish trainers.
The U.S. talks about ending the Russian military abuse of Chechen people-while energetically supporting the Turkish military abuse of the Kurdish people.
The U.S. talks about bringing "free trade" to the world and "knocking down barriers"-while spending billions of dollars in semi-secret plots to control the oil trade of the world, and seize control of the oil reserves of the Caspian.
The U.S. is taking advantage of a rival imperialist’s moment of extreme weakness. Russia is deeply in debt, gripped by a paralyzing economic and political crisis- and its military (though heavily armed with nukes) is having great difficulty reasserting control in regions that are officially within Russia.
The New York Times called the current White House policies "flogging the halfdead Russian bear." But if and when this Russian bear emerges from its crisis, it will be determined to reverse the U.S. takeover of the Caspian. There is already an angry demand rising from the Russian ruling class fora government and military that can aggressively reassert their imperialist interests in the Caspian region. Events in the Caspian region may reveal that there are other imperialists in the world-in Europe or Japan-who do not consider it in their interests for the U.S. to so tightly control all the major oil sources in the world. In one sense, U.S. expansion in the Caspian is part of the outcome of its victory in the 1980s "Cold War." But in another sense, it is setting the stage for inter-imperialist rivalries and conflicts in the next century. Meanwhile, the robbery of wealth, wholesale corruption of governments, threat of reactionary war, foreign exploitation of working people and massive environmental damage-all of these developments reveal the intensely reactionary role that the imperialists, of all these "great powers," are playing in this region. The wealth and future of Central Asia are being fought over by imperialists from the U.S., Europe and Russia-whose interests have nothing in common with the oppressed people whe live and work them.
_________________________________________________________________________
From Revolutionary Worker ( www.mcs.net/~rwor ) January 16, 2000
Page5
Chicago Police Murder: The Cold-Blooded
"Disappearance" of Antione Thomas
The cops had put a hat on his head-to cover up the bullet wound. And he had tears on his
cheeks-showing that he was alive for at least some time alter the shooting. Antione was
shot around 6:30 p.m. But witnesses said that the cops sent away two ambulances. At 8
p.m., Antione was taken out in a body bag and put in a paddy wagon.
On the evening of December 27, the Chicago police stole the life of
20-year-old Antione (Antwan) Thomas in a stairwell at the 4022 S. State building, on the
north end of the Robert Taylor Homes projects. Antione was the filth Black person shot and
killed by the Chicago police in 1999.
Antione was a slightly mentally retarded young man who attended school
and was expecting to be a father in July. His friend K., his fist over his heart, said,
"It hurts right here. I was raised up with him...We’d be talking outside,
joking."
One person who was present at the shooting said that he, Antione and
two others were going up the stairs of the building when they came face to face with a man
holding a gun. Antione and his friends did not know that this was a plainclothes cop-part
of a police invasion of Robert Taylor Homes under the pretext of an "anti-drug"
raid. The witness said they were running back down the stairs, away from the armed man,
when they heard a shot. Then they realized that Antione was not with them. He had been
shot, the bullet going through the top of his head.
The cops immediately began to cover up their crime. The police would
not let anyone go up to where Antione was shot. J. recalled with anger, "We were
like, ‘Go on, get him, he’s shot.’ They said, ‘Nobody’s coming in
this building.’" At the front of the building, cops stood in a huddle. J. said,
"They plotted for an hour what their story
was going to be."
Detectives showed people a Polaroid picture of Antione’s body
after he was shot. The cops had put a hat on his head-to cover up the bullet wound. And he
had tears on his cheeks-showing that he was alive for at least some time alter the
shooting. Antione was shot around 6:30 p.m. But witnesses said that the cops sent away two
ambulances. At 8 p.m., Antione was taken out in a body bag and put in a paddy wagon.
The police never contacted Antione’s mother, Arvella Thomas. When
she learned of the incident and went down to the station, the police made her wait for two
hours before they would even talk to her. She and other family members were given the
runaround at the medical examiner’s office-then the police intimidated them into
leaving. The family was not able to see Antione’s body until the following afternoon.
The police concocted a typical story straight out of their book of lies
and coverups. They claim that the cops were at Robert Taylor to conduct an
"investigation" into narcotic sales. A police spokesman claimed thatthe cop who
shot Antione had "announced his office as a policeman." Then, according to the
police story, the cop "was confronted by several men who charged at him, causing the
officer’s weapon to discharge."
The day after the shooting, young men were seen distributing a flyer at
Robert
Taylor Homes saying, "Let it be known that this was a direct attack on the community,
retaliation for the shooting death of one officer Cenale, who was shot in this same
community not long ago." Four men are already locked up for the shooting of this cop.
And the police have used the incident to intensify the repression and terror against this
community.
One young man said that the police regularly storm the buildings with
their guns drawn: "They knock people down with their pistols out. There’ll be
shorties there by the elevator, and they be pointing their guns at the shorties."
This dehumanizing brutality usually goes on in the name of the "war on drugs,"
and is especially directed at young Black men. But everyone is a target in the eyes of the
police. As C. said, "They don’t have no respect for the community. They come in
your house. Your mother asks what they’re doing, they said, ‘B***h, shut the
fuck up.’" In one incident, the cops put a kid in the trunk of their car when no
one would ID a picture they had. A young man described the scene:
"They said. ‘OK, tell us his name, or shorty’s gonna ride with
us.’"
On December 28. Antione’s family and organizations opposing police
brutality held a press conference. Among the participants were the Oct. 22 Coalition and
Gwen Hogan, whose husband Kelsey was murdered by the Chicago police in August.
On two nights alter the shooting, 70 youth from the community took the
streets and marched to the police station to demand justice for Antione Thomas. The
tremendous anger of the people was clear at the police station, where youth spat on squad
cars and pounded on windows.
Antione’s aunt said, "It was wrong for them to kill my Black
baby... My 3-yearold grandson called him ‘my buddy.’ He’s asking,
‘Where’s my buddy?’ I’m going to have to sit down and tell him what
happened." Arvella Thomas said, "Why can’t we have this officer’s
name? We want him to come to us...tell me to my face what happened...I have to come to
grips with the fact that he’s not coming back.... [The killer cop] can’t face me
for the fact that it was unjustified."
_________________________________________________________________________________________
RW ONLINE:
The Heritage We Renounce
Gold and Genocide
True Story of the 1849 California Gold Rush:
Part 1
Revolutionary Worker #1039, January 23, 2000
On January 24, 1998, the state of California began a celebration of the 1848 discovery of gold in California. The three year commemoration, which began on the 150th anniversary of the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, will continue through the 150th anniversary of California statehood later this year.
Speaking before 9,000 people at the commemoration, Pete Wilson, California's governor at the time, said: "It's a great day. What a wonderful thing, to celebrate our past and be so grateful, no matter how we got here, no matter what our origins." Wilson, who, as governor, led vicious attacks on immigrants, continued with unintended irony: "It brought about an invaluable tradition--a tradition of people who came here from every corner of the earth. They were risk-takers, pioneers, people who blazed new trails, literally and figuratively."
This is the myth built around the Gold Rush--a story of rugged people from around the world, who ventured to California to make a fortune and succeeded through hard work and luck. It is the myth of a capitalist system that benefits all, where hard work is rewarded with riches.
Today, newspaper business pages refer to the growth of the computer industry in California's Silicon Valley as a "modern day gold rush."
But the real story of the Gold Rush is covered with the blood of thousands of victims. Writing at the time, author Henry David Thoreau called it "the greatest disgrace to mankind." For the indigenous native people, non-European immigrants, and African-Americans, the story of the Gold Rush is one of oppression, discrimination, and genocide.
California Before the Gold Rush
By the end of the 1700s, Spain had acquired a colonial empire in the "New World" that reached from the tip of South America up through South and North America, from the Mississippi to what is now California. One historian described an essential feature of this Spanish empire: "A cruel alchemy converted human wealth into material treasure by consuming hundreds of Indian lives for each ingot of gold and silver shipped to Madrid. A holocaust of slavery, atrocities and disease reduced New Spain's native population from 11 million at the time of Cortez [who conquered the Aztecs in 1519-1521<196>RW] to 6 million by 1550."
The main social institution created by the Spanish in California was a system of missions. Catholic missionaries enslaved thousands of Native people in 20 missions up and down the California Coast. The Native people built the missions, grew food for the colonists, and were subject to floggings, shackles, and imprisonment.
The death rate for Indians enslaved in these missions was appalling. Between 1790 and 1800 the Franciscan missionaries took in 16,100 Indians, of whom 9,300 died--a 58 percent death rate. By 1818 the percentage of Indians who died in the missions reached 86 percent.
In 1821, after 11 years of struggle, Mexico (which included present-day California) achieved independence from Spain. In 1834, Mexican Governor Jose Figueroa initiated a plan where most of the California Missions would be "secularized." Figueroa promised that half of the land would be allocated to the Mission Indians and half would be distributed to people given land grants. However, the promise of distributing the wealth of the Missions to Native people never materialized. Instead in a few years, almost all of the wealth of the Missions were sold or given to friends and associates of the governor. Many Indians after being freed angrily destroyed the Mission buildings where they had been confined.
A system of ranchos (large ranches), on land grants supplied by the governor, replaced the Missions as the main backbone of the California economy. By 1846, the governors and their deputies had given away 26 million acres to 813 applicants. The ranchos were provisioned with supplies and equipment plundered from the Missions and were staffed by Indians, who, like serfs, did all of the hard work. One rancho required the labor of 600 Indian servants. According to one historian, the ranchos were "a California cousin of the South's plantations."
California didn't become a U.S. state until 1850 and in 1840 there were only 400 U.S. citizens in California. But this didn't stop the U.S. from planning to seize California from Mexico. In 1845, on the night of his inauguration, U.S. President James Polk confided to his Secretary of the Navy that one of the main goals of his administration was to take California from Mexico. The U.S. doctrine at that time was known as "Manifest Destiny." This doctrine justified U.S. expansionism by saying that this was "God's will." In a blatant provocation, in 1846 President Polk sent U.S. troops in the recently annexed state of Texas into territory that was claimed by Mexico. When Mexico responded, the U.S. declared war on Mexico.
In the final battles of the War with Mexico the U.S. marched on Mexico City. A Mexican merchant, writing to a friend about the bombardment of Mexico City, said, "In some cases whole blocks were destroyed and a great number of men, women, and children were killed and wounded."
A U.S. soldier described what he witnessed when U.S. soldiers entered Mexico City: "Grog shops were broken open first and then, maddened with liquor, every species of outrage was committed. Old women and girls were stripped of their clothing and many suffered still greater outrages. Men were shot by the dozen...their property, churches, stores and dwelling houses were ransacked.... Dead horses and men lay about pretty thick, while drunken soldiers, yelling and screeching, were breaking open houses or chasing some poor Mexicans who had abandoned their houses and fled for life."
Mexico surrendered and, in 1848, was forced to sign the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, giving away about half its territory to the United States. And so, on the eve of the discovery of gold, California--occupied Mexico--became a U.S. territory.
The True Story of Sutter's Mill
High school textbooks about the history of California tell this story about the beginning of the Gold Rush:
On the morning of January 24, 1848, James Marshall was building a sawmill for his employer, John Sutter, when he discovered gold and forever changed the history of California.
However these facts do not even begin to tell the whole story. First of all, who was John Sutter and what was his enterprise all about?
John Augustus Sutter talked the Mexican governor into granting him 48,000 acres--76 square miles--of land in the Sacramento Valley. Of course the land "granted" to Sutter was already occupied. Two hundred Miwok Indians were living about 12 miles south of what became known as Sutter's Fort. Kadema Village was five miles west. Five miles north was the territory of the Maidus.
Indians did almost all of the work on the Sutter Ranch. Miwoks and Maidus built the fort, plowed the fields, planted wheat and other crops, tended the livestock, wove cloth, ran a hat factory and a blanket company, operated a distillery, worked in Sutter's tannery, staffed what was basically a hotel for visitors to the area, and killed deer to get food for them all.
If you visit Sutter's Fort today, guides and signs will tell you that the Indians were there voluntarily and were treated well. In fact, Sutter's system amounted to serfdom and verged on outright slavery. Heinrich Lienhard, one of Sutter's managers, wrote, "I had to lock the Indian women and men together in a large room to prevent them from returning to their homes in the mountains at night. Large numbers deserted during the daytime."
Sutter armed Indian men from nearby villages to steal children from more distant villages and sold the captives in San Francisco to pay his debts. Another writer wrote that Sutter "was fond of the young Indian women," implying that Sutter forced the Indian women into sexual relations.
In 1844 Pierson Reading, another of Sutter's managers, wrote, "The Indians of California make as obedient and humble slaves as the Negro in the south. For a mere trifle you can secure their services for life." The real situation was reflected in the testimony of one California Indian who wrote: "My grandfather was enslaved by Sutter to help in building the Fort. While he was kept there Sutter worked him hard and then fed him in troughs. As soon as he could, he escaped with his family and hid in the mountains."
Sutter himself was unable to make the transition to the new economy and the rush of thousands of new settlers. The Indians fled the fort leaving no one to harvest his wheat. Miners plundered his livestock. His legal claim to the land was challenged and Sutter went bankrupt.
Genocide of Native People
No group suffered as much from the Gold Rush as California's Native peoples. Estimates of the number of Native people in the area that is now California, before the arrival of Europeans, range from 310,000 to 705,000. Even before the Gold Rush the population of Native people in California had fallen to 150,000 due to the Mission system and diseases introduced by Spanish and Mexican settlers. The remaining Indian population was decimated during the Gold Rush. By 1870 the number of Native people had plummeted to 31,000 according to the California census.
Some 4,000 Indian miners were reported prospecting for gold the summer following the discovery at Sutter's mill, usually working for white people. But new laws were quickly passed to prohibit the use of Indians in the mines. Then, the California government adopted a systematic policy of genocide.
In his January 1851 message to the California legislature, California Governor Peter H. Burnett promised "a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct." Newspapers cheered on the campaign. In 1853 the Yreka Herald called on the government to provide aid to "enable the citizens of the north to carry on a war of extermination until the last redskin of these tribes has been killed. Extermination is no longer a question of time--the time has arrived, the work has commenced and let the first man who says treaty or peace be regarded as a traitor." Other newspapers voiced similar sentiments.
Towns offered bounty hunters cash for every Indian head or scalp they obtained. Rewards ranged from $5 for every severed head in Shasta City in 1855 to 25 cents for a scalp in Honey Lake in 1863. One resident of Shasta City wrote about how he remembers seeing men bringing mules to town, each laden with eight to twelve Indian heads. Other regions passed laws that called for collective punishment for the whole village for crimes committed by Indians, up to the destruction of the entire village and all of its inhabitants. These policies led to the destruction of as many as 150 Native communities.
In both 1851 and 1852 California paid out $1 million--revenue from the gold fields--to militias that hunted down and slaughtered Indians. In 1857, the state issued $400,000 in bonds to pay for anti-Indian militias.
The Alta Californian newspaper reported on a massacre of Native People carried out by Captain Jarboe in 1860: "The attacking party rushed upon them, blowing out their brains and splitting their heads open with tomahawks. Little children in baskets, and even babes, had their heads smashed to pieces or cut open. Mothers and infants shared the same phenomenon.... Many of the fugitives were chased or shot as they ran.... The children, scarcely able to run, toddled toward the squaws for protection, crying with fright, but were overtaken, slaughtered like wild animals and thrown into piles."
On April 12, 1860 the state legislature approved $9,347.39 for "payment of the indebtedness incurred by the expedition against the Indians in the County of Mendocino organized under the command of Captain W. S. Jarboe in 1859." California's governor wrote a letter to Jarboe congratulating him for doing "all that was anticipated" and giving his "sincere thanks for the manner in which it [the campaign] was conducted."
In 1850 California passed the so-called "Act for the Government and Protection of the Indians." This act allowed any white settler to force any Indian found to be without means of support to work for him. Since Indians could not testify against white people in court, almost any Indian could be seized as a virtual slave under this law. Many settlers didn't even bother with the law and purchased Indian children outright. Fortunes were made off the sale of Indian women and children.
An editorial in the Marysville Appeal illustrates this practice: "But it is from these mountain tribes that white settlers draw their supplies of kidnapped children, educated as servants, and women for purposes of labor and lust...there are parties in the northern portion of the state whose sole occupation has been to steal young children and squaws ...and dispose of them at handsome prices to the settlers who...willingly pay $50 or $60 for a young Digger to cook or wait upon them, or $100 for a likely young girl."
In order to clear the way for white settlement, the U.S. Senate in 1853 authorized three commissioners to negotiate treaties with the Indian tribes in California. Eighteen treaties were negotiated. The Indian tribes agreed to give away millions of acres of land in exchange for the U.S. government's promise of protection and lands with adequate water and game to sustain them and their way of life. These lands would have contained about 7.5 million acres, or 7.5 percent of the land area of California. The Indians began moving to their new lands only to find out that the U.S. Senate had refused to ratify their treaties.
Instead of the treaties, the U.S. decided on "a system of military posts" on government-owned reservations. Each of these reservations would put into place a "system of discipline and instruction." The cost of the troops would be "borne by the surplus produce of Indian labor." No treaties were to be negotiated with the Indians; instead they would be "invited to assemble within these reserves."
Native people were rounded up at gunpoint and forced to march to the "reservations." In her poem, History Lesson, the Native American poet Janice Gould described the forced resettlement of Native People in Northern California: "The removal has taken two weeks and of the 461 Indians that began this miserable trek, only 277 have come to Round Valley. Many died as follows: Men were shot who tried to escape. The sick or the old or women were speared if they could not keep up, bayonets being used to conserve ammunition. Babies were also killed, taken by the feet and swung against trees or rocks to crack their skulls."
Indians on reservations were hired out to settlers to do the work of pack animals. A settler reported that in 1857: "About 300 died on the reservation from the effects of packing them through the mountains in the snow and mud...They were worked naked with the exception of deer skins around their shoulders...They usually packed 50 pounds if they were able..."
Although vastly outgunned and outnumbered, California Indians resisted the genocidal war being waged against them. One of the most famous acts of resistance was the Modoc War in the early 1870s. The Modoc left the reservation that they had been forced to live in and returned to ancestral lands in the lava bed region of Siskiyou County. Under the leadership of a Kentipoos, also known as Captain Jack, 150 Modoc warriors fought valiantly against over 1,000 U.S. troops. They were able to hold off the troops for months. After army howitzers and lack of water weakened the Indian forces, Captain Jack was captured and hung. The war left 83 U.S. soldiers dead and cost the U.S. over $1 million.
*****
"You: who have priced us, you who have removed us: at what cost? What price the pits where our bones share a single bit of memory, how one century turns our dead into specimens, our history into dust..."
Wendy Rose, Three Thousand Dollar Death Song, 1980 (Miwok/Hopi)
The real story of the gold rush is the story of the genocide of Native people, the theft of land from Mexico and crimes against many other sections of the people. These are crimes driven by the nature of a system that places the accumulation of wealth above everything else. Huge financial empires were built off of the gold rush, from families like the Hearsts to companies like Wells Fargo and the Bank of California. The truth is that the wealth of California's elite is dripping with blood.
To be continued
Part 2 of this article will look at the impact that the gold rush had on Spanish-speaking Californians, immigrants from Latin America and China, African Americans and its legacy of environmental destruction.
Sources for this article include:
A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn, Harper and Row, 1980
Gold, Greed and Genocide: Unmasking the Myth of the 49ers, Project Underground pamphlet, 1998
Rush for Riches: Gold Fever and the Making of California, J.S. Holiday, University of California Press, 1999
Lies Across America, James W. Loewen, 1999
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online http://www.rwor.org/ Write: Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654 Phone: 773-227-4066 Fax: 773-227-4497 (The RW Online does not currently communicate via email.)
RW ONLINE:
The Heritage We Renounce
Blood on the Gold
True Story of the 1849 Gold Rush, Part 2
Revolutionary Worker #1042, February 13, 2000
On January 24, 1998, California authorities began a three-year commemoration of the Gold Rush and California's statehood. A myth has been built around the Gold Rush--of rugged people making their fortunes on the American frontier, through hard work and luck. But in reality, the gold of California was washed out of river sands by the blood of many thousands of victims.
Part I of this series appeared in RW #1039 and is available on the web at http://www.rwor.org/.
When gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in 1848, the news spread in the East like a fever. Millions of Europeans had been drawn to the U.S. on the promise of "Free Land!"--but most found themselves in the hard life of a dirt farmer, not the leisured life of the propertied gentry. These were hard times for farmers in the Northeast United States--and many were facing bankruptcy and 12-hour days in the new textile mills.
But suddenly, a new promise seemed to arrive from the West. "Free Gold!"--it was supposedly "just lying there" in the rivers and hillsides of distant California, "for the taking."
One hundred thousand gold seekers flooded into California in 1849. About 80 percent of these miners were Anglo-Americans from the East--and the remaining fifth were immigrants from Mexico, China, Latin America, Australia and many countries in Europe. Black freemen came too, often arriving as sailors and deserting their ships.
These 49ers left lives and loved ones behind to make the difficult journey to California. But few of them "struck it rich."
Anglo-American 49ers found themselves serving as foot soldiers in an invasion for "Manifest Destiny"--helping to carve out coast-to-coast empire on the mainland of North America. The Native people, Mexican inhabitants, immigrants, and African-Americans faced suppression and displacement. And in the process, large numbers of the Anglo-American miners too were ruined, exploited, crippled, and even killed.
The Miners' Life
"You can scarcely form any conception of what a dirty business this gold digging is and of the mode of life which a miner is compelled to lead... We live more like brutes than humans."
letter from a miner
Dysentery was common because miners drew water from seep hole wells only two to three feet deep. Cholera struck San Francisco in 1850, 1852 and 1854, each outbreak claiming as many as 5 percent of the city's population. A San Francisco physician estimated that one-fifth of those who came West died within six months of arriving in San Francisco.
1852 marked the peak of gold production. After that, it was very difficult for individual miners to make significant profits in the gold fields. The average miner's take declined from $20 per day in 1848 to $10 per day in 1850, $5 per day in 1853 and to $3 per day in the late 1850s.
As the easily accessible gold was removed, the remaining gold required increasingly capital-intensive technology to extract--including the powerful water jets of hydraulic mining and deep mining. In 1853 it was reported that over $3 million was spent to divert a 25-mile section of the Yuba River. An historian wrote: "The new owners were what contemporaries called capitalists and the operation of this process sometimes meant a transfer of control from the working men in the foothills to the business and financial men in the cities."
The 1860 census reported that only one miner in 10 owned land or significant personal property. A historian concluded that "in a disproportionate number of cases the man was a propertyless miner... No longer living in camps, hoping to strike it rich, they now dealt in embryonic industrial slums, hoping for a living wage."
By the late 1850s a substantial majority of miners had become proletarians, working for wages while they enriched their employers.
Many worked in the quartz and hydraulic mines in California or in the silver mines of Nevada's Comstock Lode. Miners in the Comstock worked in 110 to 120 degree heat 2,000-3,000 feet underground, blasting out ore with newly invented explosives, suffering the dangers of cave-ins, lethal fumes and fires. There was no compensation for death or dismemberment in the mines--the dead were hauled out of the mines and new workers took their places.
A few were able to make vast fortunes out of the Gold Rush. These are the men whose names appear on street signs, universities, hotels and museums throughout the "Golden State." The railroad capitalists Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins and Collis Huntington used the Gold Rush to build even larger fortunes. William Ralston, whose Bank of California owned the Comstock mines, would hold huge banquets for fellow members of the ruling class, feeding hundreds of wealthy friends at a time, off of plates of solid gold and silver.
Labeled "Foreigners" in Their Own Land
In 1848, California was occupied, stolen from Mexico by military force and ruled over by a United States military governor. The process of "Americanization" of newly conquered California suited the U.S. ruling classes well--and the Gold Rush was encouraged from the White House itself. In December 1848, President Polk unleashed a stampede when he told Congress: "The accounts of the abundance of gold in the territory are of such an extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief were they not corroborated by the authentic reports of officers in the public service."
In 1848, before the Gold Rush, there were 14,000 Californios (the Spanish-speaking part of California's population). Skilled Mexican miners shared their technical skills with the newly arriving "green-horns" from the East, introducing Spanish mining terms like "bonanza" (rich ore) into English. By 1854 the population of California had increased to 20 times its pre-Gold Rush level.
The ruling class of the U.S. used this invasion to carry out an "instant Americanization" of California. And the dog-eat-dog workings of capitalism created deadly divisions among the miners.
With government backing, non-Anglo miners came under attack. U.S. General Persifor Smith declared that any non-citizen who mined for gold would be considered a "trespasser." In April 1849, vigilantes at Sutter's mill attacked Chilean, Peruvian and Mexican miners. On July 4, a mob killed Spanish-speaking miners and stole their property. One thousand Chilean miners fled to San Francisco hoping to find safety, but were attacked there by vigilantes called "the Hounds."
Spanish speaking people and immigrants were denied basic political and legal rights. An anti-vagrancy act was officially targeted at "all persons who [were] commonly known as `Greasers' or the issue of Spanish or Indian blood." A 1790 U.S. Federal law reserved naturalized citizenship to "white" people only--and it remained in force for almost a hundred years. During its first session, the California legislature announced that voting would be limited to white men who were citizens.
Many Californios were stripped of their lands--even though the U.S. had promised to respect their land rights. An elite class of Anglo-American landowners emerged, and California soon had the greatest concentration of land ownership in the United States. Meanwhile, the lynching of Latino people continued. One town earned itself the name Hangtown. The attackers counted on backing from the courts. One vigilante said: "Give them a fair jury trial, and rope them up with all the majesty of the law. That's the cure."
The testimony of Latino people, Black people, Indians and Chinese immigrants was not accepted in court. In one case, a judge said, "as both defendants are greasers, their oaths should not be taken as true."
Resistance
In 1850, the California Assembly passed a "Foreign Miners Tax," intended to drive Latino and immigrant miners out of the gold fields by demanding a huge amount of money. This tax stirred a revolutionary mood among the miners of Sonora, California. Some had just arrived from Europe's revolutionary upsurges of 1848--where the revolutionary working class had appeared on history's stage and the red flag had flown for the first time over street barricades.
In Sonora, 4,000 miners refused to pay the "Foreign Miners Tax." The next day, 400 American troops marched on the miners' camp. One soldier wrote: "Men, women and children--all packed up and moving, bag and baggage. Tents were being pulled down, houses and hovels gutted of their contents; mules, horses and jackasses were being hastily packed, while crowds were already in full retreat."
The soldiers arrested two French miners described as belonging to "the Red Republican order." The next day, 500 French and German miners stormed into town shouting revolutionary slogans and demanding that the two French miners be freed. The government gave up trying to impose the tax.
Among the Mexican people, rebels like Tiburcio Vasquez and the legendary Joaquin Murieta rose up and received widespread support. At his trial Vasquez declared, "A spirit of hatred and revenge took possession of me. I had numerous fights in defense of what I perceived to be my rights and those of my countrymen. I believed that we were being unjustly deprived of the social rights that belonged to us."
Gam Saan Haak
In 1852, over 20,000 Chinese--Gam Saan Haak (Travelers to Gold Mountain)--immigrated to California, looking for gold and work. That same year, the California Assembly denounced "the concentration within our state limits of vast numbers of the Asiatic races."
In May 1852, the legislature passed a second Foreign Miners' License Tax--this time aimed at Chinese immigrants. The law required a monthly payment from every miner who was not a citizen. By 1870, California had collected $5 million from Chinese miners--accumulating between 25 and 50 percent of all State revenues. In 1855, a law was passed entitled, "An Act to Discourage the Immigration to this State of People Who Cannot Become Citizens Thereof." Seven years later another law was enacted--officially called the law to "Protect Free White Labor Against Competition with Chinese Coolie Labor and to Discourage the Immigration of Chinese into the State of California."
There were repeated attacks on communities of Chinese immigrants. Their homes and shops were often destroyed. Chinese people were lynched, scalped, castrated and branded. Their long traditional, braided queues were cut off to humiliate them.
In one Nevada town a Chinese laundryman was tied to a wagon wheel and driven through the town until his head fell off. One Chinese fisherman was branded, his ears sliced with a knife, his tongue cut out and then killed. On a single night in Los Angeles in 1871, 20 Chinese men were executed by lynching, burning or crucifixion.
By the 1860s, most Chinese immigrants had been forced out of the mines and most of them worked building the railroads. By exploiting the desperation of Chinese workers, railroad capitalists were able to lower labor costs by one third. The Chinese railroad workers carved roadbeds out of the sheer 1,400-foot wall of rock above the American River using primitive tools and explosives. Many died. Meanwhile, railroad capitalist Charles Crocker argued before a legislative panel that Chinese workers should never be allowed to become citizens.
In the 1870 census, 61 percent of the 3,536 Chinese women in California listed their occupation as prostitute. Some were sold by destitute families with a promise of marriage. On their arrival in the U.S., Chinese women were sold at open auctions on the San Francisco docks in full view of police. They were virtual slaves, locked up in small compartments. "My owners are never satisfied, no matter how much money I made," one Chinese prostitute wrote.
Black People in the Gold Rush
By 1860, over 4,000 free Blacks had arrived in California. Most Black Californians settled in the gold-bearing regions around the middle-fork of the American River. Black miners were often forced to work under the most deadly conditions--working in poorly constructed riverside mineshafts where many died in cave-ins.
The presence of Black people was hugely controversial. Many new arrivals were afraid that Black slaves in California would greatly suppress the wages of "free" working people--and so advocated a ban on any Black migration. The issue was debated longer than any question at California's constitutional convention in 1849.
A year later, in 1850, California entered the U.S. as a "free state"--where slavery was officially not allowed. Black migration was allowed, but laws prohibited Black people from voting, testifying in court, or serving in the militia. Like other "free states," California adopted a Fugitive Slave Law--which meant a slave entering California remained a slave, and required the state government to return runaway slaves to their masters. In reality, many working people in California, including Black people and Indians, lived and worked in slave-like conditions.
A powerful anti-slavery movement grew up in California. Black people held state conventions repeatedly in the 1850s. Many white people supported their cause--including 300 attorneys who signed petitions against the unjust anti-Black laws. A German man visiting California during the Gold Rush wrote that Black people in California "exhibit a great deal of energy and intelligence in saving their brothers," and were "exceptionally talented" in aiding runaways. In a landmark legal case, Archie Lee, a slave brought by his master to California, won his freedom. The case was financed by contributions raised by 4,000 Black freemen.
*****
The official myths of the United States have always promised poor people some quick way out of oppression. People are told they can "lift themselves up" without challenging the system or organizing--by becoming rich themselves!
The feverish news of "Free Gold in California" produced a flood of people into California. If "free land" had not made them rich, then surely nuggets of gold strewn across the landscape would do it.
This promise was hollow. Great fortunes were made in these heady years--but mostly for the huge mining barons, railroad magnates and merchant capitalists who held state power and the economy in their hands.
This promise of "Free Gold" was built on the same lies as the old promise of "Free Land." The land was never "free"--it was inhabited. And the capitalist system has always produced a greater and greater concentration of wealth while impoverishing the many.
In the frantic search for gold, the Eastern gold hunters found themselves confronting the Native people and Mexican people of California. The Gold Rush helped consolidate the U.S. conquest of the West Coast. It dispossessed the Mexican people and accelerated the genocide of Native people. And meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of the Eastern "49ers" either left the gold fields broke or were driven into wage slavery for the new capitalist class of California.
The story of the Gold Rush is a story from capitalism's early rise in the U.S. Today, there is feverish talk of a new Gold Rush--in high tech and stock markets--but once again, behind the hype, an upper crust benefits, while vicious measures target the poor, the immigrants and oppressed nationalities.
Over these 150 years, this system has never changed its nature--it still builds its fortunes by exploiting human suffering. And that is a lesson worth learning and sharing during this Gold Rush anniversary.
Sources:
Strangers from a Distant Shore: A History of Asian Americans by Ronald Takaki. Penguin Books, 1989
The Decline of the Californios: A Social History of Spanish-Speaking Californians 1846-1890 by Leonard Pitt. University of California Press, 1971
Mexicano Resistance in the Southwest by Robert Rosenbaum. University of Texas Press, 1981 The Black West by William Loren Katz. Simon and Schuster, 1987
A Golden State: Mining and Economic Development in Gold Rush California edited by James Rawls and Richard Orsi. University of California Press, 1999
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online http://www.rwor.org/ Write: Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654 Phone: 773-227-4066 Fax: 773-227-4497 (The RW Online does not currently communicate via email.)
_________________________________________________________________________
From:
http://www.rwor.org/a/v22/1052-059/1056/guncon.htm
The Problem with Gun Control
If Guns Are Outlawed, Only Oppressors Will Have Guns
Revolutionary Worker #1056, May 28, 2000
Hundreds of thousands of people gathered at the Mall in Washington DC on May
14, for a "Million Mom March Against Gun Violence." They demanded increased
government restriction on the sale and possession of guns. Specifically,
they demanded the passage of new laws requiring government licensing and
registration of handgun buyers.
There has been shock over the mass shootings like Columbine High. In the
inner cities, there is intense frustration and sadness at the mutual killing
among teenagers tied to the drug trade. There is anger at the reactionary
violence of the white supremacists, clinic bombers and right-wing militias.
And for many people, including many of the marchers, the argument seemed
like simple common sense: If guns are less available, there will be fewer
shootings, and children will be safer."
In fact, to many people, this appears to be a progressive struggle--it has
been portrayed in the media as a grassroots upsurge against powerful
lobbyists, selfish gun manufacturers and right-wing nuts. And the Mother's
Day march attracted participants who are veterans of the movements for
reproductive choice and civil rights.
But behind the "grassroots" movement on the Mall stand powerful forces
within the government, the ruling class and the police who are pressing hard
for disarming much of the population.
More and more forces within the ruling class (including the major police
departments) are calling for more centralized, uniform regulation of guns,
gun sales and gun ownership. They want to expand their central computer
records--to be able to pinpoint who has a gun and where it is stored. They
want to be able to deny anyone a gun if they don't fit a certain profile and
have not gone through a licensing process. They want to prevent civilians
from having automatic weapons that could challenge the armed forces of the
state. And they want to greatly stop the flow of weapons into the inner
city--so they want much closer regulation of gun shows and the transport of
weapons across state lines.
They know that this society is increasingly polarized between haves and have
nots--and that there is potential for great upheaval. And looking to the
future, they want large sections of the population disarmed.
So, it is important to think through what all this strengthening of
government powers would mean for the people. And from the standpoint of the
people oppressed by this system these gun control moves don't make any sense
at all.
Killed by the Dog-Eat-Dog
In the inner cities of the U.S., people are sick of the youth dying--over
nothing. It is heartbreaking, it is a waste of precious lives, and people
want it to stop.
But to end such problems we have to look at the causes. If we don't
understand the real workings of society, we will be tricked and misled.
The restructuring of American capitalism has robbed large sections of
oppressed people of hope, jobs and opportunity--and left many youth no way
to live except the drug trade. It is the workings of the capitalist
system--including agents of the CIA--that flooded the ghettos with heroin
and cocaine. The youth are hired on to sell it, and then the laws of
dog-eat-dog capitalism have thrown them into desperate wars to defend turf
from competitors. Gold chains = slave chains.
In short: the cause of shootouts, drive-by and so-called "gang killings" is
the capitalist system--both high finance and street-level Reaganomics. And
the so-called "war on drugs" has only unleashed an army of brutal, corrupt,
and murderous enforcers in the oppressed communities--resulting in thousands
of police murders and the criminalization of a generation. How will this
situation be solved by disarming the people and arming capitalism's
enforcers?
In the Black, Latino and immigrant communities, the police act like a
brutal, occupying army; and as long as the people there are poor and
oppressed, the police are going to brutalize the people. Does anyone really
believe that the cops will be more respectful toward the people, if everyone
is disarmed? Will the cops be more restrained about kicking in doors, if
they know that no one can defend themselves?
The media coverage over Columbine gave the hyped-up impression of a national
crisis and made many people afraid to send their kids to school. The
authorities used this climate to bring cops into many schools. Kids are
increasingly subjected to routine searches, drug tests and other violations
of privacy. Kids who show signs of alienation are targeted as potential
dangers. And major efforts have been made to increase parental control over
kids.
But the recent book Framing Youth--Ten Myths about the Next Generation
documents that in 1997-98, there were an average of four killings a month in
all U.S. schools, while six children a day were killed by their parents. The
male-dominated traditional family is a dangerous place--and only a profound
social revolution can solve this problem.
Why are white suburban kids picking up guns and killing their classmates?
What kind of ideology is behind this behavior and where does it come from?
It is the capitalist system with its look-out-for-number-one,
hate-anything-different, blow-away-anything-standing-in-your-way mentality
that has raised these kids. How will giving more power over life and death
to the capitalist state and the ruling class and their enforcers solve these
social problems?
Then there are the militias and the clinic bombers and the racists running
amok -- killing Blacks and Jews and Koreans and homosexuals and nurses and
doctors. All of these movements are tied to powerful forces in the U.S.
ruling class and military--and their ideas and organizations have been
encouraged by forces right within the U.S. Senate itself. So how is giving
the power structure and the capitalist state more control over guns going to
get rid of these reactionaries? Right now there are armed vigilantes running
around in Arizona trapping and shooting immigrant proletarians. Will these
proletarians be safer if only the "good, white citizens," the INS, and the
police have weapons?
Millions of people are sick of a world where people are divided into hostile
cliques or face each other from behind barricaded doors. They don't want a
world where every day conflicts can erupt into open gun battles. They don't
want the sick macho mentality of "make my day."
And together we can struggle for a future society where guns only exist in
museums, and school children will have trouble explaining why one human
would want (or need) to shoot another. But the question is how do we get
there? And who causes the senseless and reactionary violence in the world
today?
It is the capitalist system, with its endless struggle for wealth and
expansion, that has produced global "drive-bys" and an endless arms buildup.
The real "weapons of mass destruction" are not in the hands of kids in
Bed-Stuy, or South Central, or any other community. They are in the hands of
the war-makers in the Pentagon (and their counterparts in other countries).
And the ruling class of the U.S. are not talking about disarming
themselves--only the masses of people.
The same week that Hillary Clinton marched in Washington for gun control,
her husband announced a plan to provide $25 million in new bullet proof
vests for police. And announced that he would propose an additional $300
million into the domestic "war against terrorism"--which means, for example,
expanding Joint Terrorist Task Forces of FBI and local police in eleven more
cities.
When guns are outlawed, only the oppressors will have guns. And that is not
a good thing for the oppressed. The people have the right to defend
themselves against the murderous attacks of the police and the
reactionaries.
An Unarmed People Cannot Change the World
"The problem in the world today isn't too much violence; the problem is too
much counter-revolutionary violence and not enough revolutionary violence."
Bob Avakian, Chairman of the RCP,USA
We can't solve the drive-by shootings (or any other problems) by disarming
the people, and leaving them defenseless before those police who beat Rodney
King and murdered Amadou Diallo. To end the desperation of the youth, to end
the killings over a street corner, you need to target the injustice of
capitalism, the extremes of rich and poor, the lack of opportunity--you need
to target capitalism.
People need a new society, a new kind of economy, new hope. We need to
organize the people to fight for the power to change things.
The Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade has a beautiful symbol. It shows a
young fighter holding up an automatic rifle. And the message is pretty
clear-cut: Revolutionaries believe that weapons are a good thing--in the
hands of the conscious youth and oppressed people. Weapons in the service of
the revolutionary cause are tools of liberation.
To some people, this idea of an armed revolution in the U.S. may seem
far-fetched or extreme. But in fact it is a practical approach. Fundamental
change can only happen by overthrowing the power of the oppressors. And the
ruling classes know that they live by oppressing and exploiting billions of
people--that is why they have armies and police to defend their system and
power.
Throughout history, the great revolutionary movements have faced that fact
soberly. V.I. Lenin, the leader of the communist revolution in Russia,
pointed out:
"An oppressed class which does not strive to learn to use arms, to acquire
arms, only deserves to be treated like slaves. We cannot forget...that we
are living in a class society, that there is no way out of this society, and
there can be none, except by means of the class struggle."
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