VIEWS OPINIONS
d
-
emembering the A tica rl
Ma sacre twenty year later
vic­
of Euro-centric
challenging
bite supremacy.
II
loyl
I
European dornin ti,on h
tern . c exploi . on und-
developnent of Africa and the Third
World to th benefit and enrichment
of Europe and th U.S.
Malcolm X once aid that of all
the crimes committed by Europeans
against Africans, the grea t crime
."�
Ron Daniels serves as President \
of the Institute for Community 0,..,
ganization and Development in'
Youngstown, Ohio. He may be co
tacted,at (216) 746-5747. '
'It is b tnr
hy money for hou ing in I r
w hour CI izen In th tr e
FOR CENTURlE'S Europe's
"claim to fMlle" h been the
lion of the absolute superiority of
European culture, ide and inven-
25 ye.W .. S OF· �FFlf2M�TlVE ACfiotl
l GoT 3 foltlT�
l:\\Ql£(2 otI
1", T'ST!
The twentieth anniversary of the
Attica Prison Massacre passed in
September 1991 without much at­
tention in the natiQrlal media. But all
who believe in justice and freedom
cannot afford to forget what hap­
pened at Attic Prison near Buffalo,
New Yode 20 years ago.
ALTHOUGH it is 20 years later,
e must still demand th justice be
According to Attorney Michael
E. Deutsch, co-counsel for the At­
tica victim , the United States Sec­
ond Circuit Court of Appeals' has
removed "the final obstacle to trial
on the cl action civil rights suit on
haJf of the 1,200 prisoners who
ulted, killed or wounded,
denied medical care, and brutalized
in the retaking of Attica prison on
September 13, 1971."
DEUTSCH STATED, "After
years of appeals and delay ,the suit,
which to hold four, who at the
time top supervisory officials,
liabll&-UX'I'llDiS1SIOII1er of Cm-ectioos
11 0. ald, Commander of the
ult force, Major John Monahan,
Prison Warden Vicent Mancusi and
his deputy Karl Pfeil will finally go
to trial this fall in Buffalo, New
.
on
I
\ _,
T
.......
r,
.... �
Benjamin F. ','
Chavis Jr. ' .'
...
...
"t
States when the Attica incident oc
curred. It w also during th h i
of America's immoral war ag .
Viet Nil'll.
S veral hundred m n and worn n from all over th Unit d State have
cended on W hington to lobby for a S10-billion ho in loan
n for rael.
While it i v ry likely th t Se tors Levin and Riegle from Michipn
ill be votin for the guarantee; and George Busb will in the end c
the guarantee, it i very very difficult for us to understand the rush on
the part 0 our 1 wm ers to b ck th e ho in loans for rael.
B h' Michigan campaign manager, Gov. John Engler,l tweekcut
90,000 people in this tate out of their monthly 189 i tance cbec
which for m t recipients went to p y the rent. a re ult, rise in the
r of bomel in chigan i predicted.
ccording to reports, tbe gre t number of people affected by the
ere Ingle women between the g 0 35 and 60; omen soo
t young for medicaid and with no children to quality them for AFDC.
. Som "experts" would have you believe that the 10 n guarantee to
, I 1 are in no way related to what Engler does in Michigan. Proponents
: even argu that th loan guarantee will co t the U.S. no money.
: Current law governing uch guarante require th U.S. to set ide
• $800 million -that' almost a billion dollars--to cover th $10 billion.
• Th t' even if the Israeli do not default on the loan.
If th y do default, the co t to U.S. taxp yers over a 30-year period
could be much as $117 billionaccording to Glenn Bering, a writer
I for th Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
, Bering call the loan guarantee "another avings-and-loan disaster in
• the making." He y, "Consideri� $at we spent only S9.3 billion on
dome tic job training $5.3 bilton on education, rael' request'
ludicrous. "
The qu lion of U.S. government support for Israel is inevitably tied
up with the question of race.
Thi i a fact for several reasons:
-The Israeli government's unwavering support of South Africa's
whit raci t government since Israel's founding.
-The Israeli government' treatment of Pale tinians fundamen-
tally inferior people who have no rights any Israeli i bound to respect.
-The joint efforts of Israel and South Africa over the years to defe t
or control Black liberation movemen in Africa.
-The fact that some of the most ardent supporters of Israel in the
U.S. government are also some of the most ardent foes of Black equality
in this country and everywhere else. ,
-By the fact that those same supporters of Israel are ready each and
every year to send billions to Israel while telling American poor there is
no. money for jobs, job training, education, housing or health care.
The power that can make Congress readily commit to backing S10
billion for housing in Israel while turning its own people out in the street
is not a power operating in this country's best interest and surely not in
Black folks' best interest.
Israeli housing minister Ariel Sharon, who accelerated the pace of
, Jewish settlement on Palestinian land is the same man who advised South
African military on how to combat 'Black freedom fighters in Angola
and Mozambique.
Sharon has more supporters in Congress for his efforts to remove
Palestinians than the homele in Detroit have for their efforts to get
afford ble, decent housing in'this country.
Black youths who see their government more interested in helping
Soviet Jew relocate to Israel (many of whom are doctors or ether skilled
profe ionals) than with helping American youths whose schooling and
opportunities are a cruel joke, increasingly will respond with anger ..
Whether or not the loan guarantees for Israel are finally provided
-and they most likely will be - Blacks in South Africa will receive
little or no help from this government; the poor in this country will be
told there is no money to help them; and Palestinians will continue to be
removed from land they have claimed for close to a 1000 years.
People who want things to be different have to vote. Only on election
day can this government b turned around to face and care for its own.
Black young people have to tum their anger into political power. There
i no other way.
African American. Of co in
1971, as it is in 1991,AfricanAmeri­
cans were vastly disproportionately
incarcerated in America's prisons.
The majority of Attica's 1,200
prisoners were African American.
There accoun ofhow York
prison guns rushed the prison once
the order Wg given, and se.-ched
for the I en of th inm and
then executed them with hotguns.
The facts of this m acre are too
gruesome to recount totally. But we
must not forget what h ppened at
Attica bee it was more than an
auk on a prUon. It t
on African American commu­
nity and OIl aU communi' who cry
out for justice.
BUT THE TRUTH h
ON SEPTEMBER 13, 1971,
hundreds of New York state 1roop­
ers, prison guards, and other police
officers violently stormed Attica
Prison in an Inned assault unparal­
leled in the history of penal institu­
tions in the United States. This
the 's response to the pro of
Attica's 1.200 prison against cruel
and inhuman treatment in prison
by prison authorities.
More than 2,200 lethal bullets
were fired into the prison by state
officials in I
Id by . , it iDDem
attack. The majority of the twenty- that some of the Attica plaintiffs will
nine inmate that were killed were get their day in court.
or
f . y.
PIe remember that Richard
still President of the United