Workers Vanguard No 700 - 06 November 1998

7/29/2019 Workers Vanguard No 700 - 06 November 1998

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WfJRIlERS " . ' I J 'R ' oeNo. 700 ~ X - 6 2 3 6 November 1998

PennsylvaniaSupreme:Co-.rt J I I ~ Q , l J l d S : ' R a ' c i S 1 F l ' a M e . i Q p

The following statement was issued bythe Partisan Defense Committee onOctober 30, the day the PennsylvaniaSupreme Court announced its frame-upruling against Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is now underimmediate threat of death by the state'sexecutioners. Mumia Abu-Jamal is aninnocent man, an eloquent and outspoken opponent of -racism and injusticewho has been hounded by the Philadelphia police and FBI since the time he

Urgent Statement of thePartisan Defense Committeewas a teenage spokesman for the BlackPanther Party in the late 1960s. Jamalremained in the cross hairs of the cops ashe went on to become a renowned journalist and supporter of the MOVE organization in the late 1970s. Continuing thedecades-long political vendetta againstJamal, this morning the PennsylvaniaSupreme Court issued a 71-page rulingendorsing each and every aspect of hisracist frame-up and false conviction forI 457""25274 81030 7 I

New York City, October 31: Emergency protest called by POC drew range oftrade-union, left and defense organizations.the 1981 killing of Philadelphia policeman Daniel Faulkner.This judicial ruling has been preparedby a sinister campaign by the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police and itssupporters. To grease the skids to theexecution chamber, these forces recentlytook out a full-page advertisement in theNew York Times (14 June) and othermajor newspapers around the country.Only days before the ruling, the NewYork Post (25 October) ran a rabid editorial raving against Jamal as a "cop killer"who should be put to death. The purposeof this racist crusade is to manufacture aclimate of "public opinion" for the legallynching of Jamal. We cannot l ~ t thishappen! ,Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge haslong vowed to sign a new death warrant assoon as the state Supreme Court rulingwas announced. In 1995, it took a massive campaign of international protest,including by trade unions representing

millions of workers from Italy to SouthAfrica, to stay the hands of the executioners when Ridge had signed an earlier warrant for Jamal's death that summer. WhileJamal's attorneys fight to wield everylegal weapon they can in his defense,what is urgently needed right now aremass mobilizations particularly drawingon the power of the multiracial working class to demand: Freedom now forMumia Abu-Jamal! Abolish the racistdeath penalty!It is no accident that the PennsylvaniaSupreme Court ruling was released onlydays before the upcoming elections-asRidge campaigns for another term asgovernor-amid a heinous, murderouscampaign of bigotry against homosexualrights and the right to abortion, and asboth the Democratic and Republican parties promote the speedup on death rowsaround the country. The "right-to-life"terrorists who assassinated Dr. BarnettSlepian last week are the same forces

who howl for racist legal lynching. Onlythis week, a 29-year-old black man, Jeffrey Blake, was released from prison inNew York after his 1991 murder conviction was shown to be based entirely onfabricated testimony. I f New York Statehad had the death penalty at the time ofBlake's frame-up, this innocent manwould likely not have lived to see hisexoneration.The crusade to kill another innocentman-the most prominent death rowprisoner in America today, Mumia AbuJamal-is precisely designed to sanctifythe state's machinery of death. Jamal'scase throws a spotlight on what the barbaric, racist death penalty in the U.S. isall about.In a demonstration of flagrant bias, thePennsylvania Supreme Court ruling dismisses as "incredible" every piece of testimony by witnesses testifying on Jamal 'sbehalf and every piece of evidence submitted by Jamal's defense team. At thesame time, they find totally "credible"every action and piece of testimony bycontinued on page 5


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~ i H ( P a r t i ~ u De f eu e.. /o . . . . . . t e e

-- .._. -CLASS-STRUGGLE DEFENSE NOTES81111t1 PDC Holltlll, A"elllffl' C/t/,,--Wt/, P,I'fllle,,!"The class conscious worker accords to

the class war prisoners a place of singular honor and esteem" (Labor Defender,September 1926). With these words,James P. Cannon, the founder and firstsecretary of the International LaborDefense (lLD) expressed the class solidarity which animated the ILD's work onbehalf of those imprisoned for fightingthe exploitation and oppression of thiscapitalist society. It is in this tradition thatthe Partisan Defense Committee is holding its 13th annual Holiday Appeal funddrive for today 's class-war prisoners.

This campaign helps to sustain thePDC's monthly stipend program for 16class-war prisoners and provides extrafunds for holiday gifts for them and theirloved ones. This is not an act of charity,but rather the duty of fighters againstinjustice to those inside prison walls aswe struggle for their freedom.

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! This December will mark 17 years ofMumiaAbu Jamal's imprisonment. Former BlackPanther, well-known journalist, "Voice ofthe Voiceless," MOVE supporter-Jamalwas framed up on false charges of killing

The Red Month of NovemberNovember 7 (October 25 in the old Rus

sian calendar) marks the anniversary of the1917 Bolshevik Revolution, which was finally undone by capitalist counterrevolution in1991-92 after decades of Stalinist betrayal.Writing shortly after the execution of anarchist labor militants Sacco and Vanzetti in1927, International Labor Defense (ILD)founder and later Trotskyist leader JamesTROTSKY P. Cannon observed that November also LENINmarked the anniversaries of he execution ofthe Chicago Haymarket martyrs in 1887 and of other American working-class militants. In the tradition of Cannon's ILD, the Partisan Defense Committee today seeks tomobilize labor in the urgent fight to free death row political prisoner Mumia AbuJamal. Such struggles are key to forging an international revolutionary party to leadnew October Revolutions and put an end to racist capitalist repression for good.A red stream runs through the month of November, marking in its course many struggles of the working class of this country, here with defeat there with victory, always with

inspiring record of working class courage, exemplary in its noble devotion to the causeof the oppressed, magnificent incidents of solidarity and self-sacrifice, instructive milestones along the difficult road to liberation. It is a record to sharpen the hatred of laborto jailors and assassins, to increase the respect and pride we have for our fighters ....In the Sacco-Vanzetti case, the I.L.D. brought out with cameo clearness the mainlines of its program. The first of these was unity of all working class forces. In the SaccoVanzetti conference it initiated could be found an all-embracing reflection of all elements in the labor movement: Communist, Socialist, Anarchists, Syndicalists, membersof the American Federation of Labor and of the I.W.W. and other independent unions,and scores of fraternal organizations. Even when slanderous attacks were launchedagainst the I.L.D. and attempts made to split the united movement, the InternationalLabor Defense continued to forge forward with patient persistence for unified action.Secondly, the reliance upon the class movement ofthe workers. We pointed out incessantly that the Sacco-Vanzetti case was an instance of class persecution and not an accidental case of the "miscarriage of justice." We drew therefrom the conclusion that onlyby the class action of the workers for whom Sacco and Vanzetti were being groomed todie could save them from such a fate. The history of the many Sacco-Vanzetti cases ofthe past decades in this country confirmed our belief that militant workers could expectno "justice" from capitalist courts and judges, and that their vindication could be guaranteed only by the workers' movement....Let the working class of America ring with our fighting slogan: Build a wall of labordefense against the frame-up system! We want to make the third annual conference ofInternational Labor Defense a sounding board for this militant appeal.Red November is for our heroes and martyrs, for our battles and for our victories!On with the glorious struggle for liberation, for the freedom of the workers from theprisons of capitalism and from the greater prison which is capitalism!

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-James P. Cannon, "The Red Month of November,"Labor Defender (November 1927)

! ' ~ ~ . ' ! ~ . ' ! ! J ! ~ ! ~ ! ~ r ! . ! . EDITOR: Len MeyersEDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Jacob ZornPRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan FullerCIRCULATION MANAGER: Jane PattersonEDITORIAL BOARD: Ray Bishop (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Helene Brosius, George Foster,Liz Gordon, Frank Hunter, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour, Alison SpencerThe Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (FourthInternationalist).Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276-0746) published biweekly. except skipping three alternate issues in June, July andAugust (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3-week interval in December, by the SpartacistPublishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 3t8, blew York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861(Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377. GPO, New York. NY 10116. E-mail address:[email protected] subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York. NY. POSTMASTER: Send addresschanges to Workers Vanguard. Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116.Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.The clOsing date for news in this issue is November 3.No. 700 6 November 1998

a Philadelphia cop and sentenced to diefor his political beliefs and defiance ofthe racist capitalist orderNow, the rejection of Jamal's appealby the Pennsylvania Supreme Courtplaces him in grave danger. Pennsylvaniagovernor Ridge long ago vowed to sign adeath warrant for Jamal in the event ofsuch a ruling. We must not let them killMumia! In the summer of 1995, it took amassive campaign of protest-by deathpenalty abolitionists, labor and antiracist fighters internationally-to staythe executioner's hand. We aim to mobilize the power of the multiracial workingclass not only to free Mumia but to putthe state's killing machine out of busi-.ness for good,

Jerry Dale Lowe is a United MineWorkers member framed up on federal

WV PhotoJerry Dale Lowe

charges in the July 1993 shooting deathof a scab contractor in Logan County,West Virginia. The scab was part of a convoy leaving the mine, shot in the back ofthe head from the direction of the bosses'thugs, Lowe was singled out authorities because he was a militant defender ofthe picket line. For the "crime" of defending his union, Lowe was sentenced tonearly eleven years in jail in Ashland,Kentucky with no possibility of parole.

Ed Poindexter and WopashitweMondo Eyen we Langa are former BlackPanther supporters and leaders of theOmaha Nebraska Committee to CombatFascism. Victims of the racist FBI COINTELPRO operation, they were framed upfor an explosion in 1970 which killed acop, Both were convicted on the basis ofperjured testimony and sentenced to life.The Nebraska Board of Pardons refusesto lessen the sentences so that they can beconsidered for parole. Poindexter is atLino Lake, Minnesota and Mondo is atLincoln, Nebraska.

Jaan Laaman and Ray Luc Levasseur, arrested in 1984 and '85, are radical activists with a shared history ofopposition to racism and imperialism.They were sentenced to-45 years to lifeunder RICO conspiracy laws on allegations of bank expropriations and bomb-

WVPhotoJamal Hartings targeting symbols of U.S. imperialism in the late 1970s and '80s. Jaan Laaman is at Leavenworth, Kansas and RayLuc Levasseur is ih the high-tech Administrative Maximum (ADX) torture chamber at Florence, Colorado.

Hugo Pinell is the last of the SanQuentin 6 still in prison. A militant antiracist, he was a leader of prison rightsorganizing along -with George Jackson,who was murdered by prison guards in1971. Pinell has languished in prison forover 30 years. He is currently serving alife sentence at the notorious Pelican Bayprison in Crescent City, California.Eight MOVE members are in their 21 styear in prison. They were sentenced to30-1 00 years after the 1978 police attackon their Philadelphia home, falsely convicted of killing a police officer. Theyare Chuck Africa and Michael DavisAfrica, Graterford; Debbie Sims Africa,Janet Holloway Africa and Janine Phillips Africa, Cambridge Springs; EdwardGoodman Africa, Camp Hill; DelbertOrr Africa and William Phillips Africa,Dallas. Tragically, another MOVE prisoner, Merle Africa, died in prison onMarch 13.

Jamal Hart, Mumia's son, was sentenced in February to 15 Y2 years onbogus firearm possession charges. Hewas targeted for his prominent activismin the campaign to free his father.Although Hart was initially chargedunder Pennsylvania laws, which wouldhave meant a probationary sentence,Clinton's Justice Department took overthe case in order to have Hart thrown inprison. He is not eligible for parole.Send Your Contributions Now!

All proceeds from the Holiday Appealwill go to the Class-War Prisoners Stipend Fund. Send your contributions to:PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal St. Station, NewYork, NY 10013; phone (212) 406-4252.The PDC is a class-struggle, nonsectarian legal and social defense organization that champions cases and causesin the interests of the whole of the working people. This purpose is in accordance with the political views of theSpartacist League.

8elleRt '0' Clt/II-Wt/, P'/IOlle'lOrganize for Jamal's Freedom. i . r . f i 4 . i w 9 r ~ i ! r x Friday, December 45 to 9 p.m.

AFSCME District Council 170775 Varick St. (at Canal)

For more information:(212) 406-4252

, , ~ h l ~ g 9 J i i Sunday, December 63 to 7 p.m.

UE Hall37 S. Ashland (at Monroe)

For more information:(312) 454-4931

Q a y A ~ ~ J Sunday, December 61 to 4 p.m.

ILWU Local 34 Hall4 Berry St., San FranciscoFor more information:(510) 839-0852

SPONSOR: PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE

Get Your Copy ofCLASS-STRUGGLEDEFENSE NOTES!

Just Out!No. 26

Winter 1998-9950 (16 pages)

Order from/make checks payable to:Partisan Defense CommitteeP.O. Box 99Canal Street StationNew York, NY 10013-0099

Pdr f iS i l u .Defen8eU '. c:::O....u i f t eeIli!Nj:pi;l@ij!iill#J#?MiiUeU:1Nwnbw28 so, . . . . . . W ...... l__ K1

Free Mumia AbU-Jamal!Abolish the RacistDeath Penalty!- . . . , .

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Workers Revolution Will Avenge Reign of TerrorPinochet: Mass Murderer

of Chilean Workers, Leftists

photos APPinochet (seated) with other Chilean military killers as troops round up leftists in Santiago during 1973 coup. Right: Relatives of Pinochet's victims demandjustice at London protest last month.NOVEMBER I-The "arrest" of General Augusto Pinochet in London twoweeks ago was celebrated by mass outpourings of the victims of the formerChilean military dictator. On October 25,some 35,000 protesters gathered in theChilean capital of Santiago to demandthat the butcher finally receive somemeasure of justice. Among them wererelatives of the many thousands torturedand "disappeared" under the reign of terror ushered in by the September 1973military coup. But the misplaced hopethat Labour prime minister Tony Blair orU.S. president Bill Clinton-spokesmenfor the imperialist bourgeoisies whichserved as Pinochet's patrons-couldbring this mass murderer to justice wereshattered only three days later.On October 16, a British court hadordered that Pinochet be placed under"arrest"-i.e., that a police guard be stationed outside the posh London medicalclinic where he had gone for treatment.The court's action came in response to arequest from a Spanish judge that Pi nochet be extradited to stand trial there forthe murder of Spanish nationals duringhis reign of terror. On October 28,Britain's High Court overturned thelower court, ruling that the mass murderer could not be brought to trial forcrimes committed as a "sovereign" headof state. Pinochct was immediatelygranted bail and will likely soon be jetting back to Santiago.The whole exercise has been rife withcynicism and hypocrisy on the part of allthe capitalist governments involved. Thenotion that the Madrid regime, heirs ofthe fascistic Franco dictatorship, couldbring a right-wing dictator to justice isbizarre. The Blair government, despitehyping an "ethical foreign policy" whichhas fooled no one so much as Labour'sfake-left camp followers, squirmed fromthe moment Pinochet was detained.Indeed, the Chilean strongman hasrepeatedly visited Britain for cozy chatswith former Conservative prime ministerMargaret Thatcher without facing even ahint of government censure, much lessarrest. Pinochet's successor, the government of Christian Democratic primeminister Eduardo Frei-which grantedimmunity to Pinochet, even anointinghim a "senator for life"-predictablyopposed the detention. This tool of theInternational Monetary Fund, Wall Street6 NOVEMBER 1998

and Washington howled about an affrontto its "national sovereignty."More ominously, spokesmen for"human rights" imperialism proclaimedthis "An Arrest That Serves as a Warningto Other Tyrants"-as a London Inde-pendent (19 October) editorial wastitled-invoking "super-sovereignty" tojustify the seizure of any foreign rulerdeemed out of step with Washington orLondon. The Independent argued that"the long arm of international law"should now also reach out to abduct Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic. In the U.S.,Congressional Republicans screamed forthe arrest of Cuban leader Fidel Castrothe next time he visits New York for aUnited Nations gathering. This is no idlethreat, as U.S. imperialism showed whenit invaded Panama eight years ago toseize and imprison out-of-favor strongman Manuel Noriega, a former CIA"asset," on "drug charges.", Su.eh cyniql justifications for imperialist "law and order" were echoedby self-described "revolutionaries" whohave made their peace with the capitalistorder. The French section of the fakeTrotskyist United Secretariat (USee),the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire(LCR), bemoaned the failure of the government of Socialist prime ministerLionel Jospin to "proceed with the arrestitself' and lamented how other "statecriminals" like Milosevic are treatedwith "impunity" (Rouge, 22 October).This grotesque appeal to the criminalimperialist bourgeoisie which perpe-

Pop Front ImperilsChilean Workers

1976 NYC proteston third anniversaryof rightist coup.Spartacist Leaguewarned from outsetthat popular frontwould pave the wayfor bloody defeat.

trated mass slaughter from Indochina toAlgeria is not surprising given the LCR'slongstanding support to Jospin's Socialists in and out of power.Pinochet and his many henchmen andpatrons will receive the swift justicethey deserve only when they are broughtbefore a workers tribunal which includessurviving victims and comrades of thosetortured and slaughtered by the Chileanbourgeoisie. That requires forging aChilean Bolshevik party-steeled againstthe class-collaborationist popular-frontbetrayal which paved the way for Pinochet's reign of terror-to lead the proletariat, rallying behind it all theoppressed, to power. Only workers revolution, extending from Chile throughoutthe Americas-including in the belly ofthe imperialist beast-can avenge thehorrendous crimes perpetrated on workers and leftists by the U.S.-backed Pinochet dictatorship.Popular Front: Not a TacticBut the Greatest Crime

Pinochet's arrest came barely a monthafter the 25th anniversary of the 11 September 1973 coup which overthrew the"Popular Unity" (UP) government ofSocialist Party (SP) president SalvadorAllende and killed Allende along withthousands of militant workers and leftists. The two events have occasioned aspate of articles, books and films whichby and large idolize Allende and glorifyhis perspective of a nationalist and parliamentary "Chilean road to socialism."

The Allende regime and the 1973 coupwere defining political events for a generation of leftists around the world. The UPwas a "popular front," a bourgeois coalition of Allende's SP, the Stalinist Communist Party (CP), the bourgeois Radicalsand several minor petty-bourgeois parties. The historic, crushing defeat of theChilean working class at the hands ofPinochet's butchers was a tragic exampleof how the popular front disarms the proletariat and sets it up for bloody defeat.In "Chile After the Coup" (WV No. 42,12 April 1974), we wrote:"It is necessary to drive home to socialistmilitants and the working masses thatthe death and destruction wreaked by theSeptember coup were the product of theStalinists' and social democrats' counterrevolutionary policies of 'peaceful transition to socialism' and 'popular front'with sectors of the bourgeoisie."These lessons had already been purchased in the blood of the proletariat onmore than one occasion, most notablyin the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s,when a "people's front" government verysimilar to the Chilean UP likewiseserved to demobilize and suppress revolutionary struggle by the masses, whowere pressing for expropriation of industry and land to the peasants. Writing onthe eve of the Spanish Civil War, Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky stressed:"The question of questions at present isthe People's Front. The left centristsseek to present this question as a tacticalor even as a technical maneuver, so as tobe able to peddle their wares in theshadow of the People's Front. In reality,the People's Front is the main questionof proletarian class strategy for thisepoch. It also offers the best criterion forthe difference between Bolshevism andMenshevism."-Leon Trotsky, "The DutchSection and the International"(July 1936)The experience of the Chilean UP, whichwas supported by much of the left internationally, amply confirmed Trotsky'sstatement. And that experience is no lessrelevant today, as far more right-wingsocial-democratic and bourgeois "popular front" formations have been installedto administer capitalist governmentsthrough much of West Europe-againwith the avid support of a gamut of fakerevolutionary groups-to enforce antiworker austerity and anti-immigrantracism.Allende's UP was elected in .1970 on acontinued on page 8

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NYC Emergency United-Front Protest

Within hours of the announcementthat the Pennsylvania Supreme Court hadrejected Mumia Abu-Jamal's legal appealagainst the frame-up conviction whichsent him to death row, the PartisanDefense Committee issued an urgentstatement denouncing the decision andcalling for an emergency protest the nextday outside New York City'S CooperUnion. The PDC immediately contactedtrade unions and other organizations inthe NYC area with the aim of buildingthe broadest possible mobilization todemand: "Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! Abolish the racist death penalty!"The PDC's non-sectarian, class-struggle defense strategy is based on theunderstanding that the social power to F" ' : ' . iBRE f \ ~ WlTfl

organizations agreeing with the demandsof the demonstration can speak in theirown name, carry their own slogans anddistribute their literature. In addition tospeakers from the PDC, the SpartacistLeague and the Spartacus Youth Club, theprotest was addressed by South Africananti-apartheid fighter and fornler politicalprisoner Dennis Brutus and by representatives from the Coalition of Black TradeUnionists, the Free Mumia Abu-JamalCoalition and the Black Radical Congress(BRC). Other speakers included a supporter of the Worker-communist Party ofIran who had himself suffered years inprison under Khomeini's reactionaryIslamic terror, as well as supporters ofthe International Socialist Organization

and its politicians. This kind of "unity"hurts the cause of the labor movementand the fight for Jamal's freedom byobscuring the enemy-the capitaliststate-and lulling the working class withillusions that the state can somehow be"pressured" into doing the right thing.That is why open political debate 'andsharp polemics are crucial.To fight for Jamal's freedom, forexample, the ISO's view that cops andprison guards can be part of the workersmovement must be defeated. The ISOhas also supported intervention by thecourts and Justice Department into theTeamsters and other unions in the nameof fighting "corruption." The labormovement is increasingly threatened

WV PhotosLeft: POC-initiated protest at Cooper Union. Right: March called later in the day by Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition.fight capitalist repression and oppressionlies with the working class which produces the wealth of this society. While thePDC supports pursuing every legal avenue in Jamal's defense, in actively championing Jamal's cause for over a decadewe place all confidence in the power ofthe working class and no confidence in ajudicial system which is part and parcelof the capitalist state apparatus.The first speaker at the protest, PDCcounsel Rachel Wolkenstein, one ofJamal's attorneys, read Mllmia's statement from death row denouncing thecourt decision and declared: "This courtdecision was a frame-up decision. It wasa decision endorsing a racist frame-up, apolitical bias that is engendered by thenature of the capitalist justice system,which is capitalist injustice."This protest, the first significant actionin response to the court decision, wasorganized as a united front, in which all

(ISO) and the Internationalist Group.Many of the groups and individuals whojoined the protest were participants in aconference at Cooper Union marking the150th anniversary of the CommunistManifesto.In initiating labor-centered, unitedfront defense actions for Jamal, we aimto infuse the multiracial working classwith the consciousness of its historicinterests in fighting for all of labor andthe oppressed against the entire capitalistsystem. Such actions allow not only forthe greatest possible unity in struggle butalso for the free debate of contendingstrategies and programs, which is vital toadvancing the cotlsciousness of theworking class and anti-racist youth.Too often, "unity" is bandied about asa pretext to censor and suppress theMarxist views of the SL, in order tobuild impotent liberal coalitions aimed atappealing to the capitalist government

Protest Supreme Court Frame-Up Ruling!

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Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now! Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!aERKEl-eY

Tuesday, November 10, 12 nOQnSproul Plaza, U.C. BerkeleyFor more information: (510) 839-0851

BOSTONTuesday, Novem!>er 3, 4:30-5:30 p.m.George Sherman Union, Boston UniversityFor more information: (617) 666-9453

CHICAGOThursday, November 5, 12 noonOutside Cobb Hall, University of ChicagoOrganizing Meeting:Tuesday, November 3, 6 p.m.Cobb Hall, Room 104For more information: (312) 454-4930

l-O$ANGEt.esThursday, November 5, 12 noonMeyerhoff Park(in front of Kerckhoff Hall)UCLAFor more information: (213) 380-8239

:NEWXORK...Tuesday, November 10, 1 p.m.Main Building, WashingtonSquare East and Washington PlaceNew York UniversityFor more information: (212) 267-1025

... SAN.fRANIS(:O.To be announcedCall: (415) 777-9367

and hogtied by having the class enemyin its own house, through government intervention and through the unionmisleaders' "organizing" of cops, security guards and prison guards. With courtcontrolled and c o p ~ i n f e s t e d unions, theworking class cannot effectively fightthe racist cop frame-up of Mumia AbuJamal which is just one instance of awhole system of racist capitalist oppression. Cops out of the unions! Government hands off the labor movement!It is also necessary to defeat throughopen political debate arguments like thatmade by BRC speaker Sam Anderson that"white radicals" should "organize" inracist strongholds like Howard Beach inNew York City. In portraying such racistenclaves as emblematic of the "whiteworking-class community," Anderson'snationalist demagogy reinforces theracial divisions fostered by the capitalistrulers to maintain their system of exploitation and accepts the defeatist notion thatthe multiracial labor movement cannotand will not be mobilized in Jamal'sdefense. The ruling class has singled outJamal for its vendetta precisely becausethis former Black Panther and MOVEsupporter represents defiance of their

whole system of oppression and exploitation. It could not be clearer that blackrights and workers rights must go forwardtogether or they will be thrown back separately. The trade unions are one place inthis deeply racist society where there isany real racial integration. It is preciselythe unity of the working people, organized at the point of production, that giveslabor its tremendous potential leverageand the power to achieve revolutionarysocial change.We Trotskyists fight for class unity inaction and no-holds-barred politicaldebate, in the best traditions of theMarxist movement before the syphilis of

Stalinism poisoned the left with gangsterism and censorship in the service of"unity" with one' s "own" capitalist class.At the Cooper Union protest, leadingISO member Sherry Wolf took themicrophone to call for "unity" anddenounce "sectarian splits and divisions." All leftists who have been on thereceiving end of the ISO's often violentpolicy of censorship and exclusionismcould only rejoice if the ISO were toreally cease-its sectarian practices.Notably, neither the ISO nor any otherfake-left group addressing the protestuttered a word about how the Democratsare no less fervent than the Republicansin beefing up the repressive forces of thecapitalist state, including the speedup ondeath row. The reformists and nationalists place their hopes in the supposedneutrality of the capitalist state-particularly in its Democratic Party face. Thiswas evident in the main banner at aprotest later that day in midtown Manhattan, which featured the call for a "newtrial" to free Jamal. The whole history ofthe racist vendetta against Jamal, notleast the Pennsylvania Supreme Courtruling, amply proves that the racist 'Justice" system completely rigged againstthe working class and the oppressed. Thedemand that this innocent man, the victim of a horrendolls frame-up by thecops and courts, be tried again in thesame racist capitalist courts buys intoillusions in a "justice" system which presumes that all blacks and leftists areguilty. We say: Free Mumia now!We publish below excerpts from the SLand SYC speeches at the PDC-initiatedprotest.

* * *Jane Kerrigan, Spartacist League

Yesterday's ruling by the PennsylvaniaSupreme Court is simply yet another pagein the vendetta against MlImiaAbu-Jamalthat's been waged by the Philadelphiapolice, by the FBI and into which thewhole machinery of the capitalist statehas been thrown, including its machineryof death. Mumia is an innocent man.Mumia is an eloquent spokesman for allthe oppressed. Mumia is the "voice of thevoiceless," and it's that voice that theynow want to silence through death. Thisunderlines what the racist death penaltyin this country is all about.In 1995, there was a mass mobilization of protest internationally, whichdrew on the power of unions with millions of members from South Africa toItaly to the United States. That is whatwe urgently need to mobilize today,because it is in the hands of the multiracial working class that there lies thesocial power, not only to free Mumia,but to free us all from a system whichcondemned Mumia to death and whichevery day kills countless others on thestreets, through police terror, massunemployment, lack of medical care, theabolition of welfare. The racist rulers ofthis country-Democrats as much asRepublicans-have created a climate ofreaction, which was brought home in themurder of Matthew Shepard, a younggay man; which was brought home in theassassination of the courageous Dr. Barnett Slepian. Now they want to killMumia to sanctify their state machineryof death. We must stop them!In a message from death row in 1993,Mumia powerfully captured the contradiction of a ruling class that mustenforce its rule through terror. He startedby pointing out that the Clinton Democrats were out-Reaganing Reagan andout-Bushing Bush, that these were thetwo parties of capital. And he continued:"The extension of the death penalty todozens of new crimes is not a reflectionof a secure state, but a state swimming ininsecurity ... As they scuttle the Constitution and create judges fit for a star chamber, they loosen the very ground onwhich they stand, quickening their fall.This government, which bombed babiesin Philadelphia and in Baghdad, whichmows down babies in Somalia, is sowingthe seeds of their own destruction. It isa time, not for confusion, but for opportunity, to transform wh


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transformation of this society, the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of an egalitarian socialist society.In fighting to mobilize the power of themultiracial working class to take up thecause of Mumia's freedom, the Spartacist League and the Partisan DefenseCommittee seek to imbue the workingclass with the understanding that the capitalist state, its cops and its courts existto defend the class rule and profits of thefew, profits which are based on theincreasingly hideous exploitation andoppression of the many. There is no justice in the capitalist courts.What must oe, if we are to prevailagainst this state and its grisly executioners, is a new leadership of the labormovement which fights it out throughclass struggle, not the treacherous classcollaborationism of the current labormisleaders, who shackle the unions tothe class enemy, particularly through theagency of the Democratic Party. In taking up the fight for Jamal's freedom, theworking class will be striking a blowagainst an entire system based on brutalexploitation and rooted in the racistoppression of the black population inthis country. As Karl Marx wrote at thetime of the American Civil War, "Laborcannot emancipate itself in the whiteskin where in the black it is branded."The working people of this countryneed their own party, a revolutionaryworkers party that doesn't respect theproperty rights of the bourgeoisie, onewhich says we produced all the wealth ofthis country, we want it and we're goingto take it; a workers party which inscribeson its banner the fight for black freedom,

Grave Danger ..( continued from page 1)the Philadelphia cops. The PhiladelphiaPolice Department is so notorious for itsracist frame-up system that even the U.S.Attorney General filed a civil rights lawsuit in 1979 charging "widespread, arbitrary, and unreasonable physical abuse"of witnesses and suspects. In the last threeyears alone, hundreds of convictions inPhiladelphia have been thrown out onsuch grounds.The Court ruling also upholds everyaction by notorious hanging judge AlbertSabo, who presided over the originalfarce of a trial and the Post-ConvictionRelief (PCRA) hearings beginning in1995, with the absurd statement that "ourjudges are honorable, fair and competent." Sabo's pro-prosecution bias was soblatant that even the Philadelphia DailyNews (2 October 1996), which generallyserves as a mouthpiece for the Philadelphia Police Department, complained thatSabo's "heavy-handed tactics can onlyconfirm suspicions that the court is incapable of giving Abu-Jamal a fair hearing."Despite the rigged trial and hearings conducted by Sabo, a mountain ofevidence has come out demonstratingJamal's innocence and the tactics of lies,coercion and terror wielded by the Philadelphia District Attorney's office and thecops to secure Jamal's conviction. Atleast five witnesses from five differentvantage points told police that anotherman-not Jamal, who was found slumpedon the street after being shot in the chest6 NOVEMBER 1998

"UOJooCJ)

Coalition of BlackTrade Unionistsspokesman LesterGreen (far left), anti-apartheid fighterDennis Brutus.

a workers party which inscribes on itsbanner the rights of the desperate immigrants, the rights of all the oppressed inthis society.The fight for Mumia's life is urgentlyposed. We must mobilize all our forcesfor his freedom, for the abolition of theracist death penalty and for the abolitionof this entire system of brutal exploitation, oppression and death.Jacob Zorn, Spartacus Youth Club

The sinister forces that are whippingup a campaign against Mumia are alsowhipping up a campaign against blacksas witnessed by the racist lynching ofJames Byrd in Texas-against homosexuals, against women's rights. These arepart of an attempt to ratchet up exploitation-an attack that is carried out not justby the ultraright forces in the RepublicanParty but also by the Democratic Party ofBill Clinton, which has thrown blackwomen and children off welfare, whichhas carried out attacks against labor,which has carried out imperialist attacksabroad. Those who want to fight againstexploitation must have no illusions in theDemocratic Party.Look at the future that capitalismoffers youth today. A future, in this cityfor example, of armed police acting as"security" guards in the public schools,which are nothing more than holdingpens. A future of racist cops acting as anoccupying army in the ghettos and thebarrios, of anti-black and anti-immigrantattacks and of misery and exploitationif you're lucky enough to get a job. Ourfight to free Mumia is part of our fight toabolish the racist death penalty, part of

by Faulkner-:had run from the scene ofthe shooting. The prosecution's claim thatJamal's legally registered pistol was themurder weapon is refuted by the simplefact that there is no evidence at all thatJamal's gun was even fired that night,much less by Jamal. Another central pillar of the prosecution's case-that Jamalhad "confessed" to the shooting while inthe hospital that night-has likewise beenfully exposed as a lie. Indeed, there wasno report of said "confession" until morethan two months after the shooting.The Pennsylvania Supreme Court spitson the whole of this mass of evidence ofJamal's innocence. It also sneers at theclear evidence that black people weresystematically excluded from the jury inJamal's 1982 trial. Yet this was simplyanother instance of the racist jury-riggingwhich was shown t.o be widespread andcommon when a ten-year-old "training"videotape by the Philadelphia D.A.'soffice was made public in 1997.The frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal,rubber-stamped by today's ruling, demonstrates that there is no jiJstice in theracist capitalist courts. As we stressed inbuilding labor-centered protests duringthe summer of 1995 on the eve ofMumia's threatened execution, the socialpower to free Jamal and abolish theracist death penalty lies in the hands ofthe multiracial working class. Afterdecades of defeat, the labor movementhas demonstrated renewed combativity,from last year's UPS strike to the walk_out which shut down the GM empire thissummer. In taking up the fight forJamal's freedom, the working class wiII

"I Remain Innocent"Once again, Pennsylvania's highestcourt has shown us the best justicethat FOP money can buy. Ignoringright reason, their own precedent, andfundamental justice, they have returned to the stranglehold of death.

In their echoes of the tortured logicof Judge Albert Sabo, they havereflected a striking fidelity to theDA's office. I f t is fair to have a tribunal who are in part admittedly paid bythe FOP-and at least one justicewho can double as DA one day anda judge the next in the same casethen fairness is just as empty aword as "justice." To paraphraseJudge Sabo, it is "just an emotionalfeeling."In recent months the PennsylvaniaSupreme Court has upheld death sentences in cases where an impartialreading of transcripts or pleadingswould make an honest affirmation allbut impossible. They have ignored allevidence of innocence, overlookedclear instances of jury taint, and cast

the Spartacus Youth Club and SpartacistLeague's fight against racist capitalismin this country and internationally. Wesay that the only way to get rid of misery, the only way to get rid of the attackson youth and immigrants is through astruggle against racist capitalism and afight for socialist revolution.It is necessary for youth to mobilizebehind the power of the multiracial working class that creates the wealth in this .society and has the power to end capitalism and class exploitation. It is to thispower that youth must look, both to getrid of their own oppression and to fightagainst capitalist state terror, such as thataimed against Mumia.It's good that many different organizations representing different viewpointsare here today to join in the struggle tofree Mumia. And unity is absolutely necessary. But so is forthright political clarity and struggle within the left and the

be striking a blow against an entire system predicated on the brutal exploitationof labor and rooted in the racist repression of the black population. The fightfor black freedom is central to the emancipation of labor itself.All who are committed to the fight forMumia's freedom must mobilize in theunions, on the campuses, in communitiesacross the country and around the world.Join the protest tomorrow outsideCooper Union at Astor Place, Saturday,October 31, 1 30 p.m. Another protesthas also been called by the Free MumiaAbu-Jamal Coalition at Grand CentralStation, Park Ave. South and 42nd Street,at 4 p.m. tomorrow.Freedom now for Mumia Abu-Jamal!Abolish the racist death penalty!

The October 29 Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling against MumiaAbu-Jamal places the life of this courageous, eloquent spokesman for the. oppressed in i mmediate danger. Allfighters against racist repression, allopponents of the barbaric deathpenalty must join the fight to freeMumia now! Mobilize your unions,your student and community groups.Contact the Partisan Defense Committee. In New York: PDC, P.O. Box 99,Canal Street Station, New York, NY10013-0099; phone (212) 406-4252; Email: [email protected]: PDC, P.O. Box 802867,Chicago, IL 60680-2867; phone (312)454-4931. In the Bay Area: PDC, P.O.Box 77462, San Francisco, CA 94107-

a dead eye on defense attorneys' ineffectiveness. What they have done inmy case is par for the course. This is apolitical decision, paid for by theFOP on the eve of the election. It is aMischief Night gift from a court thathas a talent for the macabre.I am sorry that this court did notrule on the right side of history. But Iam not surprised. Every time ournation has come to a fork in the roadwith regard to race, it has chosen totake the path of compromise andbetrayal. On October 29, 1998 thePennsylvania Supreme Court committed a collective crime: it damned dueprocess, strangled the fair trial, andraped justice.Even after this legal legerdemain[sleight of hand] I remain innocent. Acourt cannot make an innocent manguilty. Any ruling founded on injustice is not justice. The righteous fightfor life, liberty, and for justice canonly continue. 31 October 1998

workers movement on what it's going totake to get rid o f oppression, to get rid ofcapitalist exploitation and to free MumiaAbu-Jamal. The International SocialistOrganization has time after time helpedsow illusions in the role of the cops, hassaid that cops can be won to the workingclass in struggle. The Spartacist Leagueand the Spartacus Youth Clubs say thatcops are the deadly enemies of the working class, and that the capitalist state mustbe smashed and cannot be reformed.Similarly, Jan Norden from the Internationalist Group got up here and talkedabout the need to free Mumia. But people should know that the InternationalistGroup's co-thinkers in Brazil are up totheir knees in bringing the capitalistcourts into the workers movement there.Workers and students must have no illusions in the capitalist class and in thecapitalist state. This is especially important now in the struggle to fiee Mumia.

0462; phone (510) 839-0852.Urgently needed contributions forMumia's defense, which are taxdeductible, should be made payable tothe Bill of Rights Foundation, earmarked "Mumia Abu-Jamal LegalDefense," and sent to the Committeeto Save Mumia Abu-Jamal, 163 Amsterdam Avenue, No. 115, New York,NY 10023-5001. I f you wish to correspond with Jamal, you can write to:Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM8335, SCIGreene, 1040 E. Roy Furman Hwy.,WaYllesburg, PA 15370.. .

. WllArSl'BArESYlORBLACKURanON?Tr8tStcrrsm

rs..'ac" Narlonallsmf(eydocumeritsandartlcles.1955-1978

- - - ~ C o . , a o . 4 7 7 Q 1 > Q . " " I b r I < , H Y 1 0 1 1 ' -",.

$1.50 (72 pages)Make checks payable/mail to:Spartacist Pub. Co., Box 1377 GPONew York, NY 10116

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Court Hearings: New Evidence of Frame-Up,Racist Vendetta Sent Mumia to Death RowThe following article is reprinted fromthe Spartacist League publication BlackHistory and the Class Struggle No. 15(August" 1998).13 JULY-On 7 August 1995, MumiaAbu-Jamal was granted a stay of execution ten days before he was scheduled tobe put to death. What stayed the hand ofthe state's executioners was a massiveinternational campaign of protest enlisting broad sections of the labor movement,civil libertarians, leftists and youth, aswell as several heads of state includingNelson Mandela of South Africa andFrench president Jacques Chirac.At the time the death warrant againsthim was lifted, Jamal and his legaldefense team were in the midst of a battlein the courtroom of notorious "hangingjudge" Albert Sabo, fighting to reverseJamal's frame-up conviction and death

sentence for the 1981 shooting of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.Sabo, who presided over Jamal's original1982 "trial," predictably ruled againstJamal's appeal in a l54-page decisionissued on 15 September 1995, only fourdays after the closing arguments inthe appeal hearings. Further evidence ofJamal's innocence and of prosecutorialmisconduct presented in two liubsequentappeal hearings was also denied-by Saboin decisions that echoed virtually verba- .tim the prosecution's frame-up case.Jamal's appeal is now before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

With a decision expected to comedown any time now, the sinister forceswho want to silence forever the man whobecame known as the "voice of the voiceless" for his searing indictments of theracist brutality of American capitalismare again gearing up their campaign fordeath. On June 14, supporters of the Fraternal Order of Police (F.O.P.) and otherswho want to see Jamal dead took out afull-page ad on the back page of the Sunday New York Times "Week in Review"section raising a cry for Jamal's execution. As Jamal's lead attorney, LeonardWeinglass, wrote in a letter of responsewhich the Times refused to print:

6

"Since this sinister ad only repeatsold, discredited tales and completely ignores the evidence presented in Jamal'sappeals, one is left to ask, 'Why now?'The Pennsylvania State Supreme Courtis about to render a decision on Jamal'sappeal of Judge Sabo's predictable denial of a new trial for Jamal. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, who signedJamal's death warrant in June 1995, hasvowed to once again order Jamal's exe:cution should he lose his appeal. Anticipating the possibility of a repeat of

the massive protests that succeeded insaving Jamal's life in August 1995, thepro-death penalty and law enforcementforces now seem more determined thanever to defeat and deflect the strength ofthat movement."Throughout the winter and spring of1995, the Partisan Defense Committeeinitiated rallies in the United States andinternationally aimed at mobilizing support for Jamal. In August of that year,days before the death warrant was stayed,PDC-initiated protests for Jamal centeredon the power of organized labor wereheld in major cities across the U.S. Theseprotests were infused with the understanding that the social power of the multiracial working class must be mobilizedin Jamal's defense and organized according to the principle of non-sectarian,united-front defense. Now in this phase ofthe struggle-the crucial race against the

executioner's clock and the fight for

Jamal's freedom-our job is above all tobring to the international working classthe consciousness that the way out of thiswhole system of racist capitalist injusticeis the struggle for socialist revolutionthrough the instrumentality of a Leninistproletarian vanguard party which fightsas a tribune of the people.V. I. Lenin, leader of the victorious

Russian workers revolution in 1917,described the need for a party which, likethe Bolshevik Party, is able to "produce asingle picture of police violence and capitalist exploitation .. .in order to clarify forall and everyone the world-historic significance of the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat." The case ofMumia Abu-Jamal more than providesjust such a picture of police violenceand persecution and the impulse to genocide represented by the institutionalizedbarbarism of the death penalty, whichstands at the pinnacle of a legal apparatusof racist repression and capitalist injustice in the United States.The PDC pamphlet, The Frame-Up ofMumia Abu-Jamal, published shortlyafter a death warrant had been signedagainst Jamal in 1995, exposed, the travesty of justice which put this' innocentman on death row. As noted in thepamphlet's central article, the prosecution's frame-up case rested on threelegs: three eyewitnesses who identifiedMumia as the only person who couldhave killed Faulkner; the claim thatMumia "confessed" to the shooting as helay bleeding from near-fatal wounds inthe hospital that night; that Mumia's gunwhich was found on the scene was themurder weapon. Evidence and witnessesat the Post-Conviction Relief Appeal

(PCRA) hearing in the summer of 1995and two subsequent appeal hearings havethoroughly exposed the prosecution'scase as an assemblage of lies manufactured through police coercion of witnesses and the systematic withholding ofevidence of Jamal's innocence from thedefense.The Witnesses. The frame-up prosecution of MumiaAbu-Jamal began on 9 December 1981 atabout 3:55 a.m. near the corner of 13thand Locust Streets in Philadelphia. Policeofficer Faulkner had pulled over a VWdriven by Jamal's brother, Billy Cook,which was carrying another passenger.The cop began beating Cook, and thiswas witnessed by Jamal who was drivinga cab through the area at the time. Jamalstopped. the cab and approached thescene. Shots rang out, and when policeWV Photo

South African workers atJune 1995 COSATUprotest hold up flyersdemanding, "Save MumiaAbu-Jamal!"

arrived two minutes later, Faulkner wasfound critically wounded on the street.Nearby, Jamal was slumped on the curbbleeding profusely from a bullet hole inhis chest.At the scene, four eyewitnesses toldpolice they saw a black man flee. In thefollowing week, another eyewitness madethe same statement to the police. One ofthese witnesses even reported to the

Contents include: Mumia Abu-Jamal'sLife of Struggle Court Hearings:New Evidence of Frame-Up From Death Row,This Is Mumia Abu-Jamal"La Amistad andAmerican Law" The Frame-Up ofMumia Abu-Jamal For Non-Sectarian,Class-Struggle Defense! Death Row Speedup

Targets Minorities Ph illy Cops' Reign of Terror Desperation, Segregationand the "Ebonics"Controversy Down With "English Only"Racism! Coleman Young:From CIO Union Organizerto Overseer for Auto Bosses

police that he saw the actual shooting andthat a third man-not Jamal and not hisbrother-shot the police officer and ranaway. Yet the police coerced most of thesewitnesses to change their stories throughmanipulation-;-including the promise offavors-and outright terror, while theprosecution suppressed all evidence ofJamal's innocence and supplied falseinformation to the defense.At the 1995 PCRA hearing, one of theeyewitnesses, William Singletary, wascalled by the defense to testify. A decorated Vietnam veteran and Philadelphiabusinessman, Singletary was found at thescene by arriving police on the night of 9December 1981. At the 1995 hearing, itwas Singletary who testified that he sawanother man shoot the cop and run away.Singletary described how, after clearlystating his observations to the detectiveson the night of the shooting, he was heldfor hours at the Police AdministrationBuilding, where cops repeatedly tore upor threw in the trash the statements theydid not approve. Singletary testified thatfinally a Detective Green warned him "to~ r i t e what he wanted me to write," andthat "they would take me to the elevatorand beat me up." Singletary finally wrotea false statement denying he had seen theshooting. It was this statement that wasgiven to Jamal's attorney in the 1982 trial,in which Singletary was not called to testify. At the 1995 hearing, Singletary saidthat he was forced to abandon his business as a result of constant police harassment, threats and suspicious damage tohis gas station. Finally, he fled the city infear of the police and was only found byJamal'.s defense team many years later.Another eyewitness was Robert Chobert, a white cab driver who told a policeinspector at the scene in 1981 that theman who shot the policeman "ran away."The night of the shooting, Chobert reported to police that the shooter weighed225 pounds. This couldn't have beenJamal, who weighed 170 pounds and wasfound by the police slumped on a curb,bleeding from a shot fired by Faulkner.By the time he was called to testify at the1982 trial, Chobert had changed his storyto claim that Jamal was the shooter.Why Chobert would reverse his originalaccount became clear at the 1995 hearing, where he testified that at the time ofthe shooting he had been driving his cab

$1 (48 pages) Black History is sent to all Workers Vanguard subscribers.Order from: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

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testified that shortly after the shootingWhite had told her that "she was in fearfor her life from the police" who "weretrying to get her to say something aboutthe shooting." White was allowed to workthe streets as a prostitute for years without any harassment by the police. In1987, when White was facing felonycharges in court, Philadelphia homicidedetective Douglas Culbreth intervened toargue that she should be released fromjail without bail. She was released andnever showed up in court again.

James/Philadelphia InquirerMumia Abu-Jamal in 1969 as Minister of Information for Philadelphia BlackPanther Party.

Jenkins, who was a pivotal government informant in a 1995 investigationinto police corruption in Philadelphia's39th District, also testified that Whitewas a police informant. The use of policeinformants to frame up innocent people,particularly those who have been targeted by the government and the cops, isstandard operating procedure. In 1997,Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt)-who likeJamal was a former leader of the BlackPanther Party-was finally released fromprison after 27 years on evidence that thechief prosecution witness against himwas a government informant. This critical fact demonstrating the pro-policebias of this witness was not disclosed tothe defense during Geronimo's trial. InJamal's case, the prosecution has nowconveniently "disappeared White, claiming that she is dead without even providing fingerprints to demonstrate that thecorpse they claim is White is in fact her.

without a license while still on probationfor felony arson-specifically, throwinga Molotov cocktail at a public grammarschool. Chobert also admitted that prosecutor Joseph McGill had promised to"look into" getting his driver's licenseback. For the next ten years, he continued to drive without a license, unhindered by the police.Dessie H i g h ~ o w e r , a young black accounting student, also told police at thescene that he saw the shooter run eastdown Locust Street away from the scene.Deborah Kordansky reported seeing theshooter run in exactly the same directionfrom the window of her hotel room overlooking the corner of 13th and Locust.Later in the week following the shooting,Veronica Jones, a prostitute who was ata corner a block away from the scene,told police that she saw two black men"jogging" from the scene.At least five witnesses from five differ-, ent vantage points had told police thatthey saw the shooter flee the scene! Yetat the 1982 trial, only Hightower maintained his original true account of whathe had seen, despite the cops' attempts tointimidate him. Hightower was also theonly witness the police subjected to apolygraph test, which they falsely saidhe had failed. Deborah Kordansky didnot take the stand in 1982 because, asMumia's original trial attorney testifiedat the 1995 hearing, she "didn't likeblack people" and "didn't want to helpthe defense." At that hearing, Kordanskyacknowledged the veracity of those statements and that she had told police thatshe saw the shooter run away. Chobert, afelon who was more than susceptible topolice manipulation, changed his story.Singletary was coerced into making afalse statement, as was Veronica Jones.In 1996, Jones courageously came forward to present her true account l1t anappeal hearing in Jamal's case which wasordered by the Pennsylvania SupremeCourt. Here Jones testified that just daysbefore she was supposed to testify inJamal's 1982 trial she was visited in

jail-where she was facing serious felonygun charges-by Philadelphia policedetectives and threatened into retractingher eyewitness account. Jones was laterput on probation on charges that carried asentence of up to 15 years in prison. Shetestified at the 1996 hearing: "I. was toname Mr. Jamal as the shooter." Jonesrefused to do so, but at the 1982 trial sheretracted her true account of seeing twoshooters running from the scene.But the frame-up of Jamal doesn't endwith police coercion and manipulation ofwitnesses. Physical evidence demonstrating that another man-other than BillyCook, Jamal or Faulkner-was at thescene of the shooting was suppressed bythe police and the prosecution for morethan 13 years. At the 1995 hearing, itwas revealed that the police had found adriver's license belonging to a third person in a pocket of Faulkner's uniform onthe night of the shooting. The licensewas in the name of Arnold Howard. Atthis hearing, Howard testified that he andtwo other black men were taken into cus-6 NOVEMBER 1998

tody on the night of the shooting as suspects in the killing of Faulkner. Howardalso stated that police tested their handsfor nitrates-to see if they had fired agun-a test they allegedly never performed on Jamal!Despite Howard's ironclad alibi for hiswhereabouts, he was held for 72 hoursand then released. But, as he testified incourt in 1995, he had told the police thename of the man who had borrowed hislicense-Ken Freeman. A friend of BillyCook's who ran a vending stand withhim in downtown Philadelphia, Freemanwas also taken into custody the night ofthe shooting. According to Howard's tes-

The "Confession"Another central pillar of the prosecution's case, which was retailed again inthe F.O.P.'s advertisement for death in the

WVPhotoPower of labor must be mobilized in the fight to free Mumia Abu-Jamal:August 1995 protest initiated by Partisan Defense Committee in Oakland,California on eve of Jamal's scheduled execution.timony, Freeman was told by police thathe had been identified in a lineup by afemale witness. Freeman died mysteriously of a heart attack at the age of 34 inMay 1985, on the night after the bloody'police bombing of the MOVE communein Philadelphia which killed eleven blackmen, women and c h i l d ~ e n and destroyedan entire black neighborhood.In 1995, the defense attempted topresent Billy Cook, who has never beencalled to testify in Jamal's case. In an affidavit submitted to Judge Sabo, defenseattorney Rachel Wolkenstein said thatCook would testify that he had a passenger in his car that night and that the passenger had shot Faulkner. Cook, whofeared that he would be arrested or killedby the Philly cops if he gave testimonydefending his brother, would not appearin court because Sabo refused to providehim any protection from being jailed onoutstanding bench warrants. Cook thendisappeared. lWhile intimidating witnesses whocould demonstrate Jamal's innocence, thecops provided ample protection forthe prosecution's star witness, CynthiaWhite, after coercing her into giving falsetestimony. White, a prostitute, was theonly witness to claim to have seen Jamalwith a gun in his hand. Yet no other witnesses who were on the scene can evenrecall seeing her there. At a 1997 appeal- hearing in Jamal's case, another prostituteand friend of White's, Pamela Jenkins,

New York Times, is the claim that Jamalconfessed his guilt on the night of theshooting, after he had been criticallywounded and then nearly beaten todeath by the cops. The account of thissupposed "confession" was not even reported for over two months after theshooting. The original official policereport by Officer Gary Wakshul, who waswith Jamal the entire time from his arrestthrough his medical treatment, said that"during this time, the negro male made nocomments." Wakshul, who the prosecution claimed was unavailable to testify in

the 1982 trial, was subpoenaed by thedefense in the 1995 hearing. When askedabout the flat contradiction between hisoriginal report and his later statement thatJamal had confessed, WakshuJ incrediblyclaimed that he hadn't recognized the"importance" of Jamal's supposed confession until a "round table" meetingcalled by the District Attorney's office toorchestrate the cops' testimony. Hereprosecutor McGill solicitously askedpolice officers "to raise their hands if theyheard" Jamal corifess and Wakshul raisedhis hand.This was the first time this meeting ofthe cops and the D.A. was made public.Wakshul also gave the lie to the prosecution's argument that he was unavailable to testify at the 1982 trial. In 1995,Wakshul acknowledged that while hewas officially listed as being on vacationduring the original trial, he was at homein Philadelphia waiting to be called bythe prosecution to testify.Once Again on theNon-Smoking Gun

For the past 16 years, the prosecutionhas brazenly claimed that Jamal'slicensed .38 calibre gun was the murderweapon. At the time of the shooting, themedical examiner's report specificallysaid that Faulkner was "shot with .44cal[ibre]." The prosecution's own expertadmitted that neither the bullet fromFaulkner's head nor one recovered at thescene could be matched to Jamal's gun.Moreover, a copper jacket found at thescene could not have come from eitherJamal's or Faulkner's gun-evidencewhich again points to the fact that theshooter was a third man who fled thescene.Reports also show that the medicalexaminer had removed two pieces of leadfrom the wound in Faulkner's head.While the examiner had measured bothfragments and included this informationin his autopsy report, one of the bulletfragments mysteriously disappeared. Onlyone was received and examined by thepolice lab. No one from the prosecution'sside can explain what happened to themissing fragment, nor can they deny thesignificant impact it would have on findings regarding the calibre of the bullet.But most damning of all is the fact thatthere is no evidence that Jamal's gun waseven fired, much less by Jamal!At the 1995 hearing, a weapons expertwho himself was a former Philadelphiapolice instructor and former head of theircrime lab, testified that he found itincredible that the police had failed toconduct any of the standard tests to tell ifthe gun had been recently fired by Jamal.Considering the tight gang mentality ofthe police, it is all the more incrediblethat they didn't conduct such tests inorder to pursue the killer of one of theirown. Or maybe they did and subsequently buried the results that demonstrate Jamal's innocence.Another new eyewitness, Marcus Cannon, who was walking up the street atthe time of the shooting, saw two whitemen who appeared to be part of a streetscene jump into action with guns drawnlike undercover cops and rush toward thecontinued on page 9

JUSTICE ,. IILICE .FICERDlNB FIUIDER

Philly cops screaming for, Mumia's execution besiegehospital workers union hall in1995. Sinister ad in New YorkTimes (14 June 1998) markedescalation of cop vendettaagainst Jamal.

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Pinochet ...(continued from page 3) .platform promising widespread nationalizations against the backdrop of animmense upsurge in class struggle. Landless peasants were increasingly occupying the vast landed estates while the number of workers strikes-particularly bythe powerful copper miners, steel workers and railway employees -skyrocket ed.Violent repression by the cops and military failed to check the explosion of classstrugglt;!. The most notorious of the massacres was the March 1966 killing ofeight copper miners by troops under thenColonel Augusto Pinochet.In order to take office, Allende struckan agreement with the Christian Democrats, the dominant bourgeois party. In a"Statute of Constitutional Guarantees,"Allende vowed not to touch the militaryofficer corps and to outlaw workers militias. Socialist and Communist Party leaders constantly preached confidence in thesupposed "neutrality" of the "democratic" military. But Marxists understandthat the capitalist state at its core is arepressive apparatus--C0{5s, military, andthe prison system-which serves todefend private property and the class ruleof the bourgeoisie. The Chilean armedforces, far from defending the "constitutional regime," spearheaded the counterrevolutionary drive that brought Pinochetto power.As the social tensions in Chile sharpened, the country was increasingly polarized between the working class and thecapitalists. The UP government suppressed peasant land seizures and sentriot cops to suppress workers demonstrations and strikes, but its inability toresolve the deepening social crisis onlyfurther infuriated the bourgeoisie. Asthe gulf between the two fundamentalclasses widened, Allende's policies of"moderation" drove the desperate pettybourgeoisie to seek a "radical" solutionin the camp of reaction. This laid thebaSIS for the rapid growth of fascistgroups like Patria y Libertad, mass rightwing demonstrations, and the politicalatmosphere for the military coup. Thereactionary mobilizations were activelyaided and stoked by a massive CIA"destabilization" campaign.In the face of the right-wing offensive,the UP government tried vainly toappease the capitalists while stepping uprepression against the workers. After a1972 "bosses' strike" by truck owners andshopkeepers, Allende brought militaryleaders into the government and promulgated a law which permitted raids by themilitary in search of arms. This law wasused against the unions, occupied factories, and workers parties, while the fascists built up their arms stockpiles. Thecountry was in a prerevolutionary situation, as cordones industriales (workers committees)-embryonic dual-powerformations-emerged in the industrialcenters. As the putschists actively plottedagainst him, Allende named GeneralPinochet, one of the foremost "constitutionalist" officers, as head of the armyand brought him into the government.Both politically and literally, the Socialists and Stalinists disarmed the proletariat and set it up for the "White terror"to come.

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Scant weeks later, Pinochet led thereactionary' coup, unleashing one of thebloodiest waves of terror in the history ofLatin America. To accomplish their goal,the annihilation of the organized workersmovement, the generals carried out areign of terror that left thousands dead.Untold thousands more were thrown intoconcentration camps where many werehorribly tortured, and up to 100,000 wereforced into exile, where they continuedto be hounded and assassinated byPinochet's thugs and imperialist secretpolice agencies. In order to increasethe profits of domestic and foreign capitalists, Pinochet's reactionary regimemoved to reduce the working class to anear-starvation level of existence, imposing brutal austerity policies designed by"neo-liberal" University of Chicagoeconomist Milton Friedman and his"Chicago Boys."For a Trotskyist Party-For Workers Revolution!

Virtually alone on the left, the Spartacist League argued from the outset against support to Allende's classcollaborationist coalition. Immediatelyafter the 1970 elections, we warned(Spartacist [English-language edition]No. 19, November-December 1970):"It is the most elementary duty for revolutionary Marxists to irreconcilablyoppose the Popular Front in the electionand to place absolutely no confidence init in power. Any 'critical support' to theAllende coalition is class treason, pavingthe way for a bloody defeat for theChilean working people when domesticreaction, abetted by international imperialism, is ready."

Cuban Stalinist leader Fidel Castro,idol of Jack Barnes' ex-Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the U.S.,actively promoted Allende and his "parliamentary road," admonishing Chileancopper miners to work hard.er since theirmines had been nationalized and evenhobnobbing with Pinochet in Santiagobefore the coup. Today, Barnes' Militant(2 November) vituperates against the"flagrant abuse of .the national sovereignty of Chile" posed by the arrest ofPinochet.The centrist USec, with which thereformist SWP was then linked, actedas a left tail on the popular front. Inthe mid-1960s, the Chilean USec joinedwith a number of Stalinist and socialdemocratic groups in forming the Castroite Left Revolutionary Movement(MIR), which hailed Allende's electionIIIEFcoPinochet, embraced -gas "constitutiOnalist" .3

!!l. military leader,meeting withPresident Allendeonly one monthbefore September1973 coup. Earlierthat year, popular-front governmentunleashed cops tobreak up Santiagoprotest by 4,000strikers from EITeniente copper mine.

Teachers throughout Chile protested last month to demand wage increase.Defying intense repression, miners and other workers have waged repeatedstruggles against starvation austerity.as "a step forward for the masses"(Punto Final [Chile], 13 October 1970;see "Chilean Leftists on Allende," WVNo. 29, 28 September 1973). In the early1970s, a new USec group emerged inChile which, while calling for the formation of workers militias and consolidation of the cordones industriales, likewise fostered illusions in the Allenderegime, appealing to it to extend thenationalizations. Until just before the1973 coup, the USec refused to characterize the UP as a popular front, insteadlabeling it "a reformist government of

Qs::I:""gDuring 1982Falklands/Malvinaswar, Britishimperialistsperpetrated mass

murder with sinkingof Argentine shipBe/grano. Capitalistgovernment ofLabour primeminister Tony Blairwill not bringPinochet to justice.

a multi class character" in which the reformist workers parties ~ u p p o s e d l y had"hegemony" (Revoluci6n Permanente[Chile], 15-31 August 1973):Behind this verbal sleight-of-hand laya program of capitulation to the popularfront. As Trotsky insisted in the case ofthe Spanish popular front in the 1930sin which the Stalinists and social democrats were likewise "hegemonic"-eventhe presence of the "shadow" of the bourgeoisie in such a class-collaborationistformation is sufficient to ensure its bourgeois character. When reformist partiesenter such coalitions, the contradictionbetween their proletarian base and procapitalist program is suppressed, and anyelectoral support for them, however critical, is flatly counterposed to Marxistprinciples. In any case, a governmentcomposed even exclusively of reformist

parties-like Blair's Labour governmentin Britain-is a capitalist government.More recently, the social-democraticInternational Socialist Organization (ISO)-linked to Tony Cliff's SWP in Britain-has retrospectively promoted the"left" credentials of the Allende popularfront. A flyer for an October 8 ISOforum in New York City crowed, "Afterelecting Allende, a Socialist, as President, the Chilean people began to takecontrol of the land and the factories."The leaflet amnesties the reformist misleaders by placing all the blame for thedefeat of the "revolution in Chile" onPinochet and the CIA. An article in theISO's Socialist Worker (25 September)cynically criticizes leftists in Allende'sChile for having "put their hope in convincing the government to be more radical." But that is precisely what the Cliffites themselves do, from support toBlair's Labour government in Britain totheir recent liquidation into RifondazioneComunista in Italy, a key prop of thepopular-front government there until acouple of months ago.The impact of the catastrophic defeatinflicted in 1973 remains evident inChile today. Despite the transition to a"parliamentary democracy" in 1990,Pinochet retired as head of the armedforces only this year and workers strikesand protests continue to be met with brutal repression. Two months ago, policeassaulted a demonstration in Santiagomarking the anniversary of the coup,killing two people. When 800 coal miners held a protest in the capital againstmass layoffs last year, they too wereattacked by riot cops with tear gas andwater cannon. National unions are illegal-the average union has only 62members-and collective bargaining islimited to individual workplaces. Nonetheless, copper and coal miners havedefied the police-state repression to wagedesperate struggles in defense of theirlivelihoods in recent years.The Chilean "economic miracle"touted by imperialist ideologues hasm ~ a n t crushing poverty for the workingclass and the oppressed. While a handfulof the semicolonial elite cruises aroundin Mercedes limousines, 45 percent ofworkers lived below the official poverty line in 1994, and real wages have

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NewEvidence...(continued from page 7)site of the shooting. Pamela Jenkins alsotestified that there were several policeofficers present at the time of the shooting. Yet the presence of these cops or thesubstance of what they witnessed hasnever been released by the prosecution tothe defense.Racist Frame-Up Machine: TheCops, the Courts and the D.A.The blatant frame-up of Mumia AbuJamal throws into sharp relief the wholenature of the capitalist state as a machinery of repression and violence in defenseof the propertied rich minority that rulesthis society against all of the exploitedand dispossessed. Judge Albert Saboknown as the "king of death row" forhanding down more death sentences thanany other sitting judge in the U.S.-presided over all the appeals hearings, as hehad over Jamal's 1982 trial. His proprosecution bias was so blatant that eventhe Philadelphia Daily News (2 October 1996), which generally serves as amouthpiece for the racist Philly cops,complained that Sabo's "heavy-handed

Philadelphia Daily NewsPhilly COpS brutalize Delbert Africain 1978 siege of MOVE's PoweltonVillage home.tactics can only confirm suspicions thatthe court is incapable of giving AbuJamal a fair hearing."At 'the 1995 hearing, Sabo deniedJamal's defense any discovery, quashedover 25 defense subpoenas and mle_d outthe presentation of any evidence on several defense claims. When Rachel Wolkenstein objected to the quashing of anyevidence of racial bias in the applicationof the death penalty in Philadelphia, Saboordered her to be handcuffed and thrownin jail. A week later, Leonard Weinglasswas fined $1,000 for taking "too long" to

continued to drop. Women are subjectedto particularly savage oppression: aboretion is outlawed under all circumstances,even to save a woman's life. Pinochet'sdismantling of social security in favor ofa privatized pension scheme in 1981-touted as a model by opponents of SocialSecurity in the U.S.-meant a massivetransfer of wealth from the working classto the domestic bourgeoisie and theimperialists. U.S. insurance giant Aetna,for example, controls over half of thecountry's second-largest pension fund.Meanwhile, over one-third of Chileanworkers don't qualify for any retirementbenefits at all.With the growing global financial crisis threatening to engulf South Americaand the horrors of Pinochet's reign ofterror again under the spotlight, Chilecould turn into a powder keg of socialstruggle. Notably, the utterly reformist6 NOVEMBER 1998

constitutional rights. This decision-thefirst and only acknowledgement by anyjudge that Jamal's rights had been violated by the state-is now being appealed.Abolish the RacistDeath Penalty!

Susan ScharyCourt artist's depiction of defense attorney Rachel Wolkenstein beingdragged to jail in handcuffs on orders of "hanging judge" Sabo duringJamal's 1995 PCRA hearing.

The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal throwsa spotlight on the barbaric, racist deathpenalty in the U.S. A form of institutionalized state terror, the death penalty isdirectly descended from the system ofblack chattel slavery codified in theSupreme Court's Dred Scott decisionthat blacks "had no rights which thewhite man was bound to respect." Thedeath penalty is the Jim Crow lynch ropemade legal. Today, its victims are overwhelmingly blacks and Hispanics whoselives the ruling class of this countryconsider worthless. The centrality of thedeath penalty to the state's machinery ofrepression was baldly put in the D.A.'sreply to Mumia's motion for a stay ofexecution during his 1995 hearing: "Thedeath penalty .. is the highest exercise ofthe state's authority; and it should notlightly be disturbed." Revealing thestate's utter racist contempt for the life ofMumia Abu-Jamal, it grotesquely arguedthat: "The carrying out of a valid deathsentence cannot constitute irreparableinjury for purposes of requesting a stay"!

hand over autopsy slides. "Explaining"these blatant attempts at intimidation,Sabo told the defense, "Counselor, justiceis just an emotional feeling." A year later,when Veronica Jones came forward togive her true account of what shewitnessed at the scene of Faulkner's killing in 1981, she was arrested while onthe stand on an outstanding bench warrant issued more than two years earlier inNew Jersey!At every session of the 1995 hearings,a praetorian guard of armed Philadelphiacops organized by the F.O.P. occupiedone side of the courtroom. On the otherside were Jamal's family and supporters,who were subjected to search by a metaldetector and harassed by court guards.Outside the courtroom in July 1995,Philadelphia hospital and health careunion Local 1199C was besieged by 300gun-toting cops for daring to rent its hallfor a Jamal benefit.While hardly unique to PhiladelphIa,the coercion, intirrlldation and terror practiced by the Philly police force is notorious. In 1979, the U.S. Attorney Generalfiled a civil rights lawsuit against the cityof Philadelphia and the police department, charging a pattern of persecutionwhich reads like a litany of policepractices in apartheid South Africa. Thesuit cited "widespread, arbitrary, andunreasonable physical abuse," including"shooting nondangerous, nonviolent, fleeing criminal suspects" or "suspects whocease flight," "shooting criminal suspectswho make gestures or verbal commentswhile surrendering," and "physicallyabusing the witnesses (including victims)of shootings to discourage them from disputing the justification of the shootingfostered by the Homicide Division."

In the midst of Jamal's 1995 PCRAappeal hearing, Philadelphia was againrocked by further revelations of policecorruption, brutality and frame-up ofinnocent victims. In one case, they set upa 53-year-old black grandmother, BettyPatterson, on charges of cocaine andcrack dealing. The "evidence" was drugswhich were planted in Patterson's house

CP has recently registered significantelectoral gains.The Chilean proletariat has alreadypaid in blood for the reformist politicspreached by the CP and the social democrats. It is necessary to forge an authentically Bolshevik vanguard party of theproletariat-steeled in opposition tobourgeois nationalism and all mannerof class collaborationism--committedto the Trotskyist program of permanentrevolution. To avenge the crimes of thePinochet dictatorship, to sweep away thearrogant Chilean oligarchy and its bloodthirsty military protectors, to overthrow the yoke of imperialist domination requires a thorough-going socialistrevolution which places the proletariat-standing at the head of all theoppressed-in power as part of the fightfor proletarian revolution throughout theAmericas.

by cops attempting to frame up her sonsin a murder case. Patterson was jailed forthree years! In 1996, she won a milliondollar lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia. Since the start of what hasbecome known as the 39th Police District scandal, 300 convictions have beenthrown out and many innocent victims ofthis frame-up machine freed from prison.Hard on the heels of the cop corruption scandal came the revelations of apervasive pattern of racist jury rigging.The latest disclosure came right fromthe horse's mouth: Philadelphia DistrictAttorney Lynne Abraham. In a transparent election ploy against a rival for heroffice, Abraham released a ten-year-old"training" videotape showing an assistant D.A. giving a one-hour lecture-shotthrough with blatant racism-tutoringnew prosecutors in the "art" of riggingjuries, particularly to exclude blacks.While this training tape caused something of a sensation, what it revealed wassimply standard operating procedure. InJamal's 1982 trial, eleven blacks wereexcluded from the jury. Those who wereallowed to serve fit the racist criteriagiven in the D.A.'s video: blacks fromthe Deep South where, the D.A. argued,its "different way of living"-i.e. theheritage of virulent Jim Crow racism-would have instilled a "respect" forpolice authority. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Jamal's defensefrom including this blatant evidence ofjury rigging in his appeal.The trail in the frame-up of MumiaAbu-Jamal goes from the cops throughthe D.A.'s office and straight.up to theoffice of Pennsylvania governor TomRidge. In the immediate period beforeJamal filed his appeal papers in 1995,prison authorities opened and copiedprivileged correspondence between Jamaland his attorneys. The copies were forwarded to Ridge, who signed a warrant ofexecution three days before Jamal' s attorneys submitted their legal papers seekingthe overturn of his conviction. In late1996, a federal judge in Pittsburgh ruledthat the state had v.iolated Jamal's basic

After winning a stay in 1995, Jamalwarned of the danger that this would beused to dissipate and defuse the mobilizations that had stayed the executioner'shand. In his column titled "The Stay," hewrote:"The state of Pennsylvania still has everyintention of killing me-just not rightnow ...."Although many radicals and progressives expressed joy at news of the stay,other political analysts saw it as a clevermove by a clever judge who did whathigher courts would've done and, in sodoing, attempted to blunt the edge off ofa growing and militant anti-death penaltymovement, in Philadelphia and beyond,thereby stymieing a series of planneddemonstrations."Whatever the reasoning, let us utilizethis precious time to build a stronger andbroader movement, to not 'stay' one execution, hut to halt them all! Down withthe racist U.S. death penalty!"There are many who seek to mobilizeto demand a "fair trial" for Jamal. But

if anything, the case of Mumia AbuJamal-from the original 1982 trial tothe subsequent appeal hearings-starklydemonstrates that there is no justice inthe capitalist courts. While Jamal's attorneys fight to wield every legal weaponthey can in his defense, what is urgentlyneeded are mass mobilizations drawingon the power of the multiracial workingclass. In taking up the fight for Jamal'sfreedom, the working class will be striking a blow against an entire system predicated on the brutal exploitation of laborand rooted in the racist repression of the -black population. And in doing that theywill be taking steps down the road tothe emancipation of all of the workingpeople and oppressed through a victorious socialist revolution that smashesthe chains of capitalist exploitation anddegradation .

SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORYNational Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 (212) 732-7860

Boston Los Angeles OaklandBox 390840, Central Sta.Cambridge, MA 02139(617) 666-9453ChicagoBox 6441, Main POChicago, lL 60680(312) 454-4930

Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta.Los Angeles, CA 90029(213) 380-8239New YorkBox 3381, Church St. Sta.New York, NY 10008(212) 267-1025

Box 29497Oakland, CA 94604(510) 839-0851San FranciscoBox 77494San FranCisco, CA 94107(415) 777-9367

TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA/LiGUE TROTSKYSTE DU CANADATorontoBox 7198, Station AToronto, ON M5W 1X8(416) 593-4138

VancouverBox 2717, Main P.O.Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2(604) 687-0353

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Abortion...(continued from pag e 12)League speaker denounced the ChristianCoalition and other right-wing outfitswhich helped incite this atrocity. Shecontinued:"We Trotskyists fight for free abortionon demand, including access in areaswhere it is not presently available, aspart of the necessary struggle for free,quality health care for all. In this, as inall social struggles, we look not tothe reactionary bourgeois state but tothe ~ o c i a l power of the working class.

Women's liberation requires the overthrow of capitalism."Break with the Democrats!

It is precisely to the reactionary bourgeois state, particularly in its DemocraticParty face, that liberals and bourgeoisfeminists such as the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the NationalAbortion and Reproductive Rights ActionLeague (NARAL) look to defend women's rights. At the SYC protest, a NOWspeaker focused her remarks on gettingout the vote for New York Democra,ticParty Senate candidate Charles Schumer,an ardent ad vocate of the racist death penalty, in the November 3 elections. Andwith the exception of an SL speaker whodenounced Clinton's Democrats for axingwelfare for millions of poor and minority women and children, a NARAL protest in New York City two days earlierwas essentially a Democratic Party eJection rally.While Clinton won the presidency in1992 in good part because of his standon the formal right to abortion, the "pro-

choice" Democrat's devastation of welfare and the continuing assault on Medicaid have made any sort of health care,including abortions, even more inaccessible to poor and working women ..Thelatest budget bill signed by Clinton onOctober 21 promulgates or continuesa plethora of anti-abortion measures, including a ban on abortions ih -overseasmilitary hospitals, in the Indian HealthServices and under Medicare, denial of'abortion coverage for federal government workers and denial of public funding for abortions in Washington, D.C.and in federal prisons.Nearly six years into the Clintonadministration, fully 84 percent of allU.S. counties have no abortion facilities atall, while only 7 percent of all abortions

are now carried out in hospitals. Evenapproval of the inexpensive drug RU 486,which would enable women to have safe,non-surgical abortions, has been blockedby Congress. The ghettoization of abortion services in specialized, often isolatedclinics sets up both patients and providersfor harassment and worse. While remaining nominally legal, the right to abortionhas increasingly been gutted through acombination of legislative restrictions,such as parental consent rules and mandatory waiting periods, and outright terrorby Christian fundamentalist bigots. In anop-ed piece in the New Yark Times (28October) titled "The Doctor in the Bulletproof Vest," Pablo Rodriguez, medicaldirector of Planned Parenthood of RhodeIsland, described the daily horrors he andhis family face-from violent blockadesand "wanted" posters on his clinic door tomalicious vandalism like scattering roof-

New York University,October 29: SYCorganized speakoutcounterposed fightfor massmobilizations todefend abortionclinics to liberals'reliance on Clinton'sDemocrats.

ing nails on his driveway. Explaining thatsuch tomlents are typical for all abortionproviders, Rodriguez concluded:"The results are obvious. Abortion mayremain legal in this country, but therewill soon be so few providers that accesswill become limited and in some casesunavailable."Abortion is now taught in only 12 percent of all medical schools, and thenoften as an "elective" co

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Workers Vanguard No 700 - 06 November 1998