\'IE\\,S &: ()pl�Hr\
As we h ve reminded our
consti nci in the p t, the f ct .
that Somalia up until 1991 w
taunch ally of U.S. foreign interes
in north rn Africa throughout the
Reagan-Bush era.
o TOT
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ON
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o M � � DE" I 'E.
R\C:�T TO KE.
�Cv' :-rAGe.. OF O\1-\e.RS.
�'< W-C\N e. O\1-\E.
FELLOW \0
BLU�F YOU'? /I
T WO and children
dying a they crawl helples lyon the
ground begging for a few crumbs of
food i n awful i ht to behold. Yet,
the world communi ty seems
incapable or unwilling to intervene
in Somalia on the ide of the,
oppre sed people of Somalia who
are being forced into irreversible
starvation.
"Genocide cannot be tolerated
now in Somalia were made in the
United States. But thi is not the first
time that this nation h hid i hand
of complicity in the suffering of
others, particularly in Africa.
Of the first order, however, we
would be remi if we did not y
directly and clearly to General
Mohammed Farah Adid and Mr.
Mohammed Siad Herse Morgan,
"Stop the fratricide in Somalia!
o COURSE, THERE are
ignificant exceptio , but in general
there i a growing feeling of
helples ne among many
African-Americans who think that
nothing more can be done.
We disagree with such a fatalistic
approach to Somalia. If the
African-American community does
not rally acros the nation to demand
992
WHAT DO YOU MEAN,
YOU HAVE NOTHING
TO BE THANKFUL FOR?
VA' COULD BE NEARLY
EXTINCT.
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. Copyright �1992 Kern oe.lgn Group Inc.
All Rights Reeer"ed
MUMIA
ABU
JAMAL
.0
.-
....
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L
,
Who owns
the land,
. owns the city
Lester's World @
was "suspended," and secret
tribunals, with hooded cronies,
handpicked by Fujimori, sat as
judges and prosecutors with the
public barred. .
The recent arres t of President
Abimael Guzman, Chairman of the
Central Committee of Sendero
Luminoso (officially named Partido
Communist de' Peru-Peru
Commiunist Party) occurred against
this backdrop of dictatorial rule. His
"trial" was by ajudge and prosecutor
in hoods, while he stood in a glass
cage and where the only questions
to the defendant had to do with party
ideology, and Sendero structure.
So "outre" is Sendero, and so
demonized its chairman, that many
of the West's alleged human rights
groups have been conspicuous by
their silence. Presumably, Guzman
is not a human, and thus has no
rights. .
A small group of German,
French, (and at least one American)
lawyers trekked to Lima's crumbling
city to observe, and afterwards
criticized the process as repugnant to
international law, and violative of
protocols of the U.S. requiring
public trials protective of the dignity
of the person. One lawyer, N.Y.'s
FROM
DEATH
ROW
Highland Park city officials have gone crazy.
This pest week they voted to give away - for freel-IS acres of
prime city property to St. Louis and Southfield developers.
, J I !hake t only are they . .
, y. I pend ci a,
, Jswveys.-;vhatever it takes�to prep e laid for the developers,
This shocking move comes only WCA:. afterthe voters in the city
approved a casim gambling vote. Did the officials forget? Or, do
they not uIXIerstaoo that should the state fall in behind the Highland
Park residents and okay gambling, that city land, especially prime
commercial pieces will become more valuable than they are now.
We tim it hard to believe that the city could not assemble some
African American investors who would willingly take the land-es­
pccially since the city is paying for all the upfront development
expense.
But tbere was no effort by city official to gooutin the community
and seek community involvement or ownership in the project.
It's a new time. The days are gone when officials could give tNlay
the store to lure outsiders back into the city. African Americans are
ready, willing and able to own, develop and build the project.,
The land belongs rightfully to all those hardworking taxpayers
who have struggled with the city's crime, excessive taxes and
eroding services. The poverty of the city residents earned the grant
money that is being offered to pave the developers' way.
Nor should the community listen to any pleas that the project is
too far along and "it's too late" to switch.
That is not the truth. A close study of the documents offered to
the council for their approval, reveals an outdated UDAG applica­
tion, that staff admits has to be amended aoo resubmitted. Nor, does
the applicationcontain any signed commitment from anyone.
African Americans may have been denied the 40 ac as and a
mule, but we sure aren't going to be ripped off forever.
o
••• #0 •
...... ., ......
for fear its fire of anti- West-rn,
anticapitalist revolution would
spread to other South American
countries - with majority or
substantial Indian populations.
Unlike many. other 'guerilla focos
that arose in South America ince the
1960s, Sendero had its deepest roots
in the Ouechua-speaking peasantry,
not in notoriously fickle students
with petit-bourgeois aspirations, and
in the outlying areas like Ayacucho,
not in the big cities, like Peru's
capi tal, Lima.
Classic Maoist theory taught
organizing in the countryside, not
ci ties, and there Sendero has been
true to form.
For almost a thousand years, the
South American land now known as
Peru was the seat of the massive Inca
empire, until the coming of the
Spanish conquistadors, led by
Francisco Pizarro, who in 1532
kidnapped the Inca Atahualpa, and
demanded, literally. a king's ransom
for him.
The Incas met Pizarro' ransom,
by filling a room wi th gold, to which
the Spaniards responded by
executing Atahualpa and enslaving
the Inca natives, to dig more gold.
Now, -over 4 and a half centuries
later, the Indians and Me tizos
(mixed people) who constitute the
vast majority of Peruvians (45% and
37%, respectively) still find
themselves at the bottom of a ocial,
political and economic heap, with
whi tes in positions of power, and the
brown majority in Illegal" ervitude;
with a white and foreign
intelligentsia, and a brown re ervoir
of workers and servants.
Since 1980, when the Maoist
guerillas Sendero Lumino 0
(Shining Path) launched it war
against the state, the West through
its agents and agencie in Peru, has
been angling for th liquidation of
the largely-Indian peasants' army,
IN THE 1990 elecuons in Peru, a
so-called political outsider, Alberto
Fujimori, won the presidential race,
and succeeded in turning Peruvian
political life upside down. In April,
Fujimori staged an autogolpe, or a
self-coup, closed the congress,
shuttered the courts, cen ored
newspapers, and arre ted hi
principal critics, all in the name of
the state's security (perhap , its
. "insecurity"), aying such measures
were necessary to battle Sendero,
Immediately, the Constitution
Leonard Weinglass, described their
ejection from the "Hall of Justice,"
so that international observers had to
give their opinions on the sidewalk.
,
IT IS PERHAPS ironic that
Fujimori, a Peruvian of Japanese
ancestry, would be the politician
who scrapped the Constitution and
international treaties, to enforce state
power.
. Over 50 years ago, the U.S. gov't
similarly crumbled its own
Constitution to imprison over
120,000 Japanese residents and
citizens in concentration camp.
Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of
War, John J. McCloy was quoted as
saying, when told the Japanese
internments were unconstitutional,
" ... if it's a question of afety for the
country, [or] the Constitution of the
United States, why the Constitution
is just a scrap of paper to me." (N.Y.
Rev.; 8 Oct. '92)
Fujimori would surely Concur.