Under Lock and Key RAIL Radio Program for Feb 19 1999

Imprisoned Black Panther Party member wins new trial only to have
his hopes of freedom dashed

Assata Shakur speaks on Mumia Abu Jamal

LA District Attorney pursues case against Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt)

Robert Meeropol speaks on the repression of revolutionary leaders

Welcome to Under Lock and Key, news and commentary about prisons
from the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League. The U.$.
incarcerates a greater percentage of its population than any other
country. The rate for imprisonment of Blacks is 4 times that of
apartheid South Africa, and the U.$. sends more Black men to
prison than college. The purpose of this program is to educate
about, and inspire activism against, the Amerikan lockdown.

Amerikan Injustice prevails:
Imprisoned Black Panther Party member wins new trial only to have
his hopes of freedom dashed

"I'm gonna weather this, and one day we'll all sit down and laugh
about it. We'll laugh about how we beat the oppressor."

This was the revolutionary optimism of former Black Panther Albert
Woodfox in the face of his second conviction on murder charges by
a nearly all white jury on Dec. 16 in Louisiana.

Woodfox's earlier conviction for the 1971 killing of a white
prison pig at Angola Prison was overturned in 1992. Angola, often
called the bloodiest prison in the u$, has an inmate population
that is 77% Black. Angola was built on the site of a former slave
plantation, named after where its slaves where stolen from.

This "retrial" and its outcome are just as sorry as Woodfox's
original railroading at the hands of the criminal injustice system
on the imperialist plantation known as amerikkka.

The Prosecution's plan for the retrial was to put the Black
Panther Party, not Woodfox, on trial. The Louisiana authorities do
not acknowledge the Panthers' history of establishing children's
breakfast programs, working for safer neighborhoods, and inventing
the practice of "copwatching." Instead, Assistant Attorney General
Julie Cullen believes the stabbing of the guard was a hate crime.
"I think it was a racially-motivated Black Panther murder," she
said. Cullen introduced evidence of political statements Woodfox
once made, such as spelling "America" with 3 k's as well as
denouncing "fascism" and "pigs." To Cullen, such statements
constitute evidence that Woodfox committed murder

Attorney General Kullen's intent was to play to the mainly white
jurors' well founded fears of the Black national liberation
movement. She repeated several times that Woodfox had used the
term "pigs" in referring to prison guards, that he had written
that "pigs should be killed", and that he had once raised his
shackled hands, shook his chains, and said, QUOTE "I want you to
see what these racist, fascist pigs have done to me."

It was clear that the Black Panther Party and revolutionary
politics were on trial. The government knew that continued
imprisonment for this leader of the people can be achieved by
proving that the Panthers and revolutionaries are threats to the
system of white nation hegemony. The government knew that the
conviction was not dependent on proof that Woodfox killed the
guard.

In the first week of the trial, Kkkullen introduced several
righteous statements from Woodfox regarding the revolutionary
Black national struggle.

"Revolutionaries "should constantly reevaluate the lines between
being a liberal or being a revolutionist."

and

"It is the job of the revolutionary forces in this country to
manufacture revolution instead of trying to avoid it, to do
otherwise is the act of an opportunist."

The "crime" which sends most prisoners to this plantation is being
part of the international proletariat that is a revolutionary
threat to the slave master imperialists and their white middle
class shock troops. Demonstrated proletarian leaders are
especially singled out  for extermination to demoralize any
national liberation movements before they challenge this bogus
colonial empire. So it is no surprise that this system returns a
verdict  that sends Woodfox back to solitary confinement at Angola
after he has spent the last 24 years there. He will join  his
Panther comrade and codefendant, Herman "Hooks" Wallace, who has
been in solitary for 26 years and is still  fighting for a new
trial.

The jury carried out its reactionary role and ignored:

1. The fact that the state produced no physical evidence  linking
Woodfox to the "crime,"

2. All physical evidence that was produced pointed to  Woodfox's
innocence,

3. One of the state's "eyewitnesses", a known snitch, was  proven
to have been paid off for his testimony, which the  state had
previously denied,

4. The state's only other "eyewitness" took the stand during  the
retrial and admitted he had seen nothing of the  killing.

It's no surprise that these and other important facts of the case
didn't figure into the verdict. As with the  amerikkkan injustice
system generally, the point is to protect the white settler nation
and its privileges against  its internal colonies and their
revolutionary national aspirations. So the point in this trial,
which the jury got, was the heavily armed pig presence in the
courtroom. The point was the pig judge who denied most every
defense objection and sustained most every prosekution objection.
The point was the prosekutor oinking on and on about Woodfox's
leadership role in the prison Panthers, his righteous
revolutionary statements, and his consistently correct spelling of
amerikkka "with three k's."

With this reactionary judge allowing the prosekutor to introduce
bundles of hearsay "evidence" as well as "evidence" that was
clearly prejudicial to Woodfox, there are ample grounds for
appeal. Our duty is to support the legal struggle for this leader
and to build public opinion for his release while exposing the
reactionaries who keep him under lock and key.

The nagging problem for imperialism, of course, is that it digs
its own grave. Albert Woodfox was radicalized and became a
revolutionary as a member of the oppressed Black nation. These
Amerikan krackers have no choice but to bomb, assassinate, and
incarcerate the Third World to continue their plunder of people,
land, and resources. But this oppression always breeds
revolutionaries. Geronimo Pratt says this about the Angola Two:

"Albert Woodfox and Herman "Hooks" Wallace are very dear to me
because they come from my home state of Louisiana. The Louisiana
chapter of the Black Panther Party was one of the best chapters we
organized and they were some of our best, most disciplined
soldiers. They were the kind of soldiers that never cried out for
to anyone for help, even though they were facing life
imprisonment. I can personally attest to the highly disciplined
and dedicated nature of these two askaris"

After 2 decades in solitary confinement, where he is allowed out
of his cell only 1 hour a day, Woodfox remains a leader by
revolutionary example and a testament to the fact that leadership
of the revolution will be forged in the heat of the struggle
against the white settler oppressors.



All Things Censored Mumia CD Assata track 29. 1:36

Assata Shakur was a leader of the Black Panther Party and Black
Liberation Army. She escaped a bogus prison sentence and is now
living in exile in Cuba.

LA District Attorney pursues case against Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt)

Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti continues attempts to
re-imprison former Black Panther Party leader Geronimo ji Jaga
(Pratt). Geronimo was framed and convicted for a murder he did not
commit in the early 70s. He spent 27 years in prison before the
Orange County Superior Court overturned his conviction. Garcetti
appealed this decision earlier this year and presented oral
arguments to the California Court of Appeals on December 15.

The FBI and Los Angeles law enforcement framed Geronimo with the
help of an FBI informant, Julio Butler. Butler claimed that
Geronimo confessed that he had killed Caroline Olsen on December
18, 1968. This lie formed the basis for the original indictment
and played a key role in Geronimo's trial.

Last year, conservative Orange County Superior Court Judge Everett
Dickey called Butler a liar and found that the prosecution had
withheld important evidence from Geronimo's defense attorneys.
Among the information withheld were the facts that Butler had been
an FBI informant for three years and was an informant for the LA
District Attorney's office at the time of the original trial.
Dickey threw out the original conviction and freed Geronimo on
bail.(1)

Garcetti claims that even without Butler's testimony the evidence
against Geronimo is "overwhelming."  What is this overwhelming
evidence?

It's the eyewitness testimony of Olsen's husband as well as
ballistics on the alleged murder weapon. Olsen's husband
originally identified another innocent man as the killer on the
basis of his voice, and later -- two years after the murder --
switched to accusing Geronimo on the basis of his QUOTE "intensive
eyes." Recent scientific studies have shown that eyewitness
testimony is frequently swayed from the truth because of human
error and suggestions by police and prosecutors.(2)

The ballistics testimony of LAPD investigator DeWayne Wolfer
equally shows the madness of a system controlled by the
imperialist pigs instead of the people. A California appellate
court earlier ruled that Wolfer had "negligently provided false
demonstrative evidence in support of his ballistics testimony."
Another forensic scientist said Wolfer's testimony lacked
"credibility in the minds of most forensic scientists." The LAPD
and FBI will stop at nothing to ensure that revolutionary leaders
are stopped from organizing. Garcetti's claims of overwhelming
evidence against Geronimo are bogus. The Revolutionary Anti-
Imperilaist League and this program will work to expose the
current round of lies. But genuine justice will only be possible
when the oppressed masses control the laws, enforcement and the
trials.

In addition, there is clear evidence that Geronimo was in Oakland
attending Black Panther Party meetings the night Caroline Olsen
was murdered in Santa Monica. Oakland is more than 300 miles from
Santa Monica. Kathleen Cleaver testifies that Geronimo was in
Oakland at the time of the shooting, and retired FBI agent Wesley
Swearington said the FBI knew that Geronimo was there because the
Panthers were under surveillance and their phones were tapped.
When Geronimo's defense requested the logs of the FBI's phone
taps, however, the FBI reported that the logs from the night of
the murder were "missing."(3)

We present these facts to illustrate in detail the political
nature of the case against Geronimo. The original trial was not
about discovering the truth about Geronimo's innocence, and
neither is Garcetti's appeal. Rather they are about providing a
justification to take a revolutionary activist off the street and
try to break his will to resist. Representatives of the injustice
system admitted as much during Geronimo's many parole hearings.
Despite no major desciplinary actions against him, Geronimo was
consistently denied parole, because in the words of one parole
board member, QUOTE "he remains a revolutionary man."(2)
Consequently the innocent Geronimo spent 27 years in prisons for a
crime for which the average time served is under eight years.

The FBI's framing of Geronimo was part of their covert war on the
Black Panther Party and other revolutionary organizations during
the 60s and 70s, called the Counter Intelligence Program or
COINTELPRO. COINTELPRO involved intimidation, phone taps and
surveillance, active efforts to create suspicion and hatred within
organizations, false convictions of activists for non-political
crimes, and assassinations, as in the case of Black Panthers Fred
Hampton, Bunchy Carter, and John Huggins.

All Things Censored Mumia CD Robert Meeropol track 25 1:21

This has been Under Lock and Key, a weekly Revolutionary Anti-
Imperialist League program about prisons. For more information,
contact: RAIL PO Box 712 Amherst MA 01004, or email
RAILRadio@mim.org.