This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
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         THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

  MIM Notes 150               NOVEMBER 15, 1997



MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the 
world's oppressed majority, and against the 
imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in 
the service of the people. support it, struggle 
with it and write for it.


IN THIS ISSUE:
1.  WELFARE REFORM CREATES NIGHTMARE FOR OPPRESSED CHILDREN
2.  FORCED ASSIMILATION MOVEMENT GAINS GROUND IN CALIFORNIA
3.  LETTERS
4.  AMERIKAN IMPERIALISM IN PERU: ECONOMY GROWS -- BUT NOT
    FOR MASSES
5.  U.S. ALLOTS ANOTHER $50 MILLION TO SUPPRESS COLOMBIAN
    REBELS
6.  MASSACHUSETTS PASSES DEATH PENALTY
7.  SO-CALLED ALTERNATIVE PAPER ALLIES WITH CAMPUS PIGS IN
    PHONY CRIME HYPE
8.  ANOREXIA ON THE RISE IN ASIA
9.  PIRAO STUDIES KWAME NKRUMAH'S EXPERIENCE
10. STATE DEPARTMENT PUBLISHES LIST OF TERRORIST
    ORGANIZATIONS-- REVOLUTIONARIES BEWARE!
11. NIGERIAN MILITARY IN SIERRA LEONE:
    DOING IMPERIALISM'S DIRTY WORK AT A HIGH PRICE
12. CHUCK D. SPEAKS: "DON'T BE SHEEP!" 
13. TWO LONG HOURS OF HISTORICAL REVISIONISM:
    SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET MOVIE REVIEW
14. CAMBRIDGE CENSORS THE MASSES' INFORMATION
15. PAPERS TIGERS
16. UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS





* * *


WHAT IS MIM?

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a 
revolutionary communist party that upholds 
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, comprising the collection 
of existing or emerging Maoist internationalist 
parties in the English-speaking imperialist 
countries and their English-speaking internal 
semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging 
Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties 
of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of 
the U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of 
MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-
speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM.

MIM is an internationalist organization that works 
from the vantage point of the Third World 
proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans, 
but world citizens.

MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups 
over other groups: classes, genders, nations.  MIM 
knows this is only possible by building public 
opinion to seize power through armed struggle.

Revolution is a reality for North America as the 
military becomes over-extended in the government's 
attempts to maintain world hegemony.

MIM differs from other communist parties on three 
main questions: (1) MIM holds that after the 
proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, 
the potential exists for capitalist restoration 
under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within 
the communist party itself. In the case of the 
USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death 
of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's 
death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in 
1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural 
Revolution as the farthest advance of communism in 
human history. (3) MIM believes the North American 
white-working-class is primarily a non-
revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it 
is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in 
this country.

MIM accepts people as members who agree on these 
basic principles and accept democratic centralism, 
the system of majority rule, on other questions of 
party line.

"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is 
universally applicable. We should regard it not as 
dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is 
not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases, 
but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of 
revolution."
-- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208


* * *


WELFARE REFORM CREATES NIGHTMARE FOR OPPRESSED CHILDREN

by MC44

A couple of weeks before the much-hyped White House 
conference on child care in October, the Washington Post ran 
a long investigative report about the disgusting, unsafe 
state of subsidized day-care centers in the District of 
Columbia. Private day care facilities that operate with 
government money are going to be ex-welfare recipients' only 
choice for child care when they are forced off welfare to 
look for poorly paid service jobs in the vicious scheme to 
move people "from welfare to work." In the next few months, 
welfare reform is going to send about 4,000 District 
children into these centers.(1)

Clinton's new plan calls for a small amount of federal 
money, $250 million over five years, to be used to allegedly 
improve the child care. The plan would include a scholarship 
program for providing better training and higher wages for 
child care workers and a system of criminal background 
checks for people working in child care facilities. The 
average child care provider earns $6.89 an hour.(2) 
Typically, this program is pitched with an anti-crime spin 
and aims to improve the quality of child care for middle 
class families. It is supposed to address recent studies 
which indicate that poor quality child care is widespread. 
What the new plan does not address, in D.C. or anywhere, is 
the lack of child care available to ex-welfare recipients, 
the people who need it most, or the structural reasons that 
D.C.'s centers are in the miserable shape they're in.

Operating with an expired license is among the problems in 
D.C. day care centers cited by the Post. The Post estimated 
that 180 centers in D.C. were in this situation and that no 
licenses have been revoked for any reason in the last couple 
of years. Another problem the Post cited was "overcrowding, 
infestation by roaches and rats, inadequate adult 
supervision, [and] filthy cots and kitchens."(1)

Imperialists always blame their neo-colonial puppet 
governments for the suffering of the oppressed. This kind of 
report about failing city services is routine in Washington, 
D.C. Like with other neo-colonial governments, MIM has no 
interest in defending the D.C. government except to say that 
the bigger problem is national oppression:  in this case the 
political domination of the city's oppressed-nation 
residents as well as the inadequate resources the U.$. 
provides to the D.C. government. In the welfare reform case, 
the more the federal government creates an incentive for 
corrupt poverty pimps to profit off the poor, the more the 
imperialist media will complain that the oppressed are 
unable to govern themselves.

D.C. has long had a system for using tax money to support 
care for poor children. But with welfare reform, these 
already inadequate facilities are going to be in more demand 
without being better funded. "For more than a decade, the 
city government has not increased what it pays subsidized 
day-care centers. For instance, the District pays $21.10 a 
day per infant -- less than half the metropolitan average. 
Many centers refuse to take 'DHS' kids." (so-called because 
"the Department of Human Services is responsible for 
selecting the centers that get public money for poor 
children.")(1)

A recent study found that while "the average family [in the 
United Snakes] spends 8% of its income on child care," poor 
families, those who earn less than $14,000 a year, spend 
about 25%. This is "despite the federal government's $3 
billion a year in block grants to states to subsidize child 
care for the poor."(3) Even with the block grant money, the 
study showed that "only one in 10 children who are eligible 
for those funds is receiving them, leaving many states with 
thousands of families on their waiting lists."(2)

Post reporters described numerous child care facilities in 
Washington, operating without licenses, in which children 
were underfed and where chipped paint and mouse feces 
littered the walls and floors, adult caretakers were absent, 
and one case in which a three-year-old was almost poisoned 
to death from chemicals he apparently ingested in the 
accessible and unsupervised laundry room.(1) Defending their 
paltry fines of these centers, city administrators insist 
that their only other choice would be to close the centers 
in violation -- thus cutting back even further on the amount 
of available space for D.C. kids to go.

Now money that used to go directly to welfare recipients 
from the Federal government is supposed to go to locally 
administered child care facilities that are dangerous to the 
health and well-being of oppressed children. It wasn't 
enough money as welfare, and it's not enough money as state 
block grants for subsidized child care.

This transfer of responsibility from federal to local is a 
classic case of neo-colonialism, and underscores the need 
for independent institutions of the oppressed and national 
liberation struggle for the Black nation. Welfare reform 
promises to create a new industry for poverty-pimps -- 
collecting insufficient government money to operate sub-
standard child care. The Post quoted one day-care center 
director saying that she has been getting calls from 
"aspiring day-care providers. ... 'What with welfare reform, 
they've heard you can make some money.'"(1)

The Washington Post story concludes with a "success" story 
of a womyn who, disgusted with the center that was available 
to her through city subsidy, raised money through a 
scholarship to an expensive private facility in a rich white 
neighborhood. The reporter "admires her tenacity" and 
implies that with all the structural and savage inequality 
in the city, mothers who really care will make it work out 
for their kids -- all 15,000 currently in the system and all 
4,000-plus of them that will enter the D.C. child care 
market in the next few months as a result of welfare 
reform.(1)

Welfare has always cornered wimmin into making choices 
between even relatively-low paid jobs that price them out of 
the public assistance market, or collecting welfare. Welfare 
reform has extended that so-called choice to teenage wimmin 
living at home -- which is now a requirement if they want to 
collect assistance checks. But they are now ineligible to 
collect if their mothers make too much money. This is 
supposed to strengthen family bonds. MIM recognizes this 
tactic by the oppressors as collective punishment.

Under socialism, children will be raised in a collective, 
publicly-supported environment, and the class background of 
their parents will not affect the quality of care they 
receive. The twin forces of gender and national oppression 
will not force wimmin to make choices between unemployment 
or working illicit jobs while raising children on a measly 
government subsidy -- and having to work in the capitalist 
market while sending their children to unsafe day care.

NOTES:
1. Washington Post, October 6, 1997, p. 1, 12.
2. Washington Post, October 22, 1997, p, 1 
3. CNN Interactive, Oct. 23, 1997.



* * *



FORCED ASSIMILATION MOVEMENT GAINS GROUND IN CALIFORNIA

by MC12

California voters next spring will vote on a ballot 
initiative that will virtually ban Spanish language 
instruction to hundreds of thousands of Latino students in 
public schools. Almost everyone thinks it's good for 
children to learn English, as does MIM, but the question is 
whether young children will be in classrooms where English 
is the language spoken by teachers and other students. 
Critics of the proposal, and MIM, believe that taking away 
Spanish language instruction makes it harder for Spanish-
speaking Latino children to learn, and worsens their chances 
of graduating and getting good jobs.

MIM adds that taking away Spanish instruction is also 
forcing assimilation, dividing children from their parents, 
communities, and national identities, and weakening the 
capacity of Latinos to organize for self-determination. We 
also think English-speakers, especially children, should 
learn as many other languages as possible.

The proposal, which will probably be on the ballot in June 
1998, reads in part:  " all children in California public 
schools shall be taught English as rapidly and effectively 
as possible. All children in California public schools shall 
be taught English by being taught in English. In particular, 
this shall require that all children be placed in English 
language classrooms." The proposal allows exceptions, but 
makes these very difficult. If children already do well on 
English tests, or they are older than 10, or they have 
"special needs," then and only then can individual parents -
- only by visiting the school to fill out forms -- request 
Spanish instruction for their children. Then, if there are 
less than 20 such parents in a school, the school can 
transfer them instead of providing a Spanish classroom.(1)

The bill's sponsor, Ron K. Unz, a multi-millionaire 
capitalist in the software industry and a former Republican 
candidate for governor, says parents will be able to get 
waivers if they want them (2), but proponents, including 
reactionary columnist George Will, say the law would 
"virtually end" bilingual instruction, which is exactly what 
they want.(3)

MIM has two arguments for Spanish instruction.
First, making children learn all subjects outside their 
native language puts them at a disadvantage. This is the 
same issue as with the Black English debate. The children 
from oppressed nations have to learn two things at once, 
which is more difficult. Opponents of bilingual education 
say that high drop-out rates for Latinos prove that 
bilingual education doesn't work, but MIM counters that all 
forms of oppression in Amerikan society work against Latino 
children, so you can't pin their problems on one particular 
policy. As the National Committee for Language Rights says, 
"The fact is Bilingual Education works if implemented 
properly but it has been sabotaged by entrenched 'English 
Only' elements that dominate California's public educational 
system."

Second, taking away Spanish weakens Latino prospects for 
national self-determination. And that's exactly the point of 
the proposal's proponents. George Will, who calls bilingual 
education the tool of "anti-American Americans," says it is 
part of the "multicultural" agenda, which is "the doctrine 
that a common culture is 'oppressive,' and that Americans 
should be disaggregated into groups, each cultivating its 
cultural distinctiveness, resisting assimilation in the name 
of 'diversity.'"(3) Will picks on the liberal version of 
multiculturalism, but he is right that bilingual education 
leaves open the door for anti-Americanism, which MIM and 
proponents of national liberation for Amerika's oppressed 
nations support. MIM does not support "multiculturalism" per 
se, but rather we argue that strong national identity is 
necessary for national liberation struggles of the kind 
needed to end national oppression at the hands of Amerika.

The Los Angeles Times has conducted a poll that found more 
than 80% of people support English language instruction, 
including more than 80% of Latinos.(4) MIM doesn't know how 
the poll was conducted, but organizers against the measure 
say those numbers will change once people find out the 
details of the proposal. That seems likely, but MIM is not 
surprised to see that a large number of Latinos in 
California support assimilation. The forces pushing in that 
direction are strong:  getting into the Amerikan middle 
class is a dream for many people. And some have succeeded:  
in 1996, 3.8% of families classified as "Hispanic" had 
incomes over $100,000 (compared to almost 12% of whites).(5) 
However, many more are poor, especially immigrants, 
farmworkers, and other workers in the jobs the whites won't 
do for themselves.

Those who support national self-determination for oppressed 
nations need to try to persuade as many of their compatriots 
as possible that national liberation is better than 
assimilation. At the same time, we have to be prepared to 
lose many members of oppressed nations to assimilation, and 
instead make alliances with other oppressed nations, 
especially those around the world who are even more likely 
to oppose Amerikan imperialism.

MIM opposes the "English for the Children" campaign with its 
intent of forced assimilation for Latinos in California. 
More information about the campaign is available from the 
National Committee for Language Rights, Comite Nacional Pro 
Derechos de Idioma, at http://www.aztlan.net/Bilingual/ or 
P.O. Box 4282, Whittier, California 90607.

NOTES:
1. http://www.aztlan.net/Bilingual/
2. Los Angeles Times 29 Oct. 1997.
3. Washington Post, 26 Oct. 1997.
4. L.A. Times, 26 Oct. 1997.
5. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Current Population Reports, 
pp. 60-197, Money Income in the United States: 1996. U.S. 
Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1997.



* * *



LETTERS

WRITER CRITICIZES MIM'S LINE ON KENYA

Dear Comrades,

"No investigation, no right to speak" -- Mao Zedong

I have read with grave concern your recent article on the 
situation in Kenya (October 1, 1997, p.5). Of the nine 
quotes listed at the end of the article, all are from 
bourgeois sources based in the USA. Not one Kenyan source 
was directly quoted. No attempt was made to obtain objective 
information. What makes you so certain these sources are 
telling the truth about Moi's regime? Don't these sources 
hand an interest in making imperialism's allies look good 
and imperialism's enemies look bad? Is it your view that any 
movement that cloaks itself in the banner of "democracy" is 
progressive? Surely you remember how less than ten years 
ago, scoundrels under this banner disbanded the Soviet Union 
and placed eastern Europe firmly in the grip of Western 
Imperialism (whether or not it was state-capitalist before 
is beside the point, it would certainly not exonerate these 
"democrats")! Surely you know that this multiparty nonsense 
in Kenya was only started in 1992 when the American and 
German ambassadors threatened to cut off aid to Kenya if it 
were not done!

If the imperialists supported establishing a multiparty 
system in Kenya in the first place, if they now threaten to 
freeze a $220 million loan unless Moi "cleans up his act", 
and if the press repeatedly prints stories of Moi's alleged 
atrocities, it seems likely that the imperialists are 
supporting a multiparty system.

If the imperialists are supporting this multiparty system, 
and if Moi is resisting the imperialists, then whatever kind 
of son-of-a-bitch Moi is, he's our son-of-a-bitch! If MIM 
insists upon taking positions without access to objective 
information, it should instinctively take the position that 
is opposed to that of the imperialists, not the one whose 
support is drummed up in the media. History has shown that 
Communists and imperialists are almost never on the same 
side of an issue. So, either take heed of Mao's advice and 
keep your mouth shut unless you do an investigation (a real 
investigation, not gathering a collection of bourgeois 
lies), or take Engels' advice and consider what stupid thing 
you have done when the bourgeoisie expresses agreement with 
you.

You have done the same thing in opposing the government of 
Myanmar, and so join the bourgeoisie and its liberal allies. 
At best this is irresponsible pandering to liberals, at 
worst it is turning Maoism into its opposite for the sake of 
popularity on campus.

Comradely yours,

 -- a friend in the southwest October, 1997

MIM RESPONDS: We firmly believe that without investigation 
we do not have the right to speak and for that reason we did 
extensive investigation for the article in MIM Notes on 
Kenya. It is true that the only sources cited are bourgeois 
sources, but in fact we also sought information from Kenyan 
sources and from the leftist press. And we stand by the 
conclusions we reached based on the information at hand.

The information we obtained, even from the bourgeois press, 
makes it very clear that Kenya receives a tremendous amount 
of foreign aid from the imperialists. As the article stated, 
over the past decade this has totaled more than $8 billion. 
This is not a sign of a government that opposes imperialism. 
In fact, Kenya is dependent on imperialist financial 
support.

It is a common practice of the IMF to demand that countries 
receiving aid comply with certain conditions. In the case of 
Kenya, the article pointed out that these demands are not 
about opposing Moi's political control of the country but 
about creating even better conditions for imperialist 
financial development in the country by making it easier for 
foreign businesses to operate in Kenya.

While this letter writer is correct that those demonstrating 
for so-called democracy will not always be on the side of 
the people, and will frequently just be calling for free 
market capitalism, the oppressed people's genuine desire for 
peace and democracy should not be ignored. In China under 
Mao, there were no large demonstrations against the 
government for being too repressive and undemocratic. This 
is because the people recognized that the government was 
acting in their interests. Only after Deng Xiaoping took 
power did we see these large demonstrations for democracy 
(much of which was a rally for free market capitalism and 
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.) In the Kenya article, MIM 
was very clear that the protests going on now are just aimed 
at reforming a corrupt system rather than overthrowing 
imperialism, but MIM does not support the imperialist puppet 
Moi against the people.

We invite this letter writer or any other reader to provide 
us with some evidence that Moi is not a member of the 
comprador bourgeoisie, working for the imperialists, 
controlling his country through military dictatorship and 
offering its resources and people up to the capitalist 
corporations for profit.

MOTHER THERESA NOT A SAINT OF THE PEOPLE

Dear MIM: 	I was told that mother Theresa was a good person 
who eased human suffering. Upon her deathbed, those silent 
about her in life have set in motion the wheels to stop her 
from achieving sainthood. The best article (i.e. most in 
depth) I've seen so far is on the MIM site at 
. It is 
imperative, as Satanists, that we be armed with a backpack 
full of mud to anyone who would try and set up that mythical 
"Ideal Christian." Good work, MIM, on exposing one of Baby 
Doc's (Haitian Dictator) many friends.

--A Midwest Satanist writing to friends including MIM 

October, 1997

MIM RESPONDS: While MIM is not a Satanist organization, we 
do agree with this attack on the mythical ideal Christian. 
There is a related article in this issue of MIM Notes 
following up on the reactionary policies of Mother Theresa. 
It is a Maoist materialist analysis that allows us to come 
to these correct conclusions and we urge all who agree with 
our analysis on issues like this one to struggle over larger 
issues of Maoist theory:  it is only armed with a correct 
theory that we will arrive at a correct analysis and 
practice.



* * *



AMERIKAN IMPERIALISM IN PERU:
ECONOMY GROWS -- BUT NOT FOR MASSES

by MC206

In 1994, the Peruvian economy was "the fastest growing 
economy on the planet."(1) The Fujimori regime likes to use 
this statistic to praise its economic development plans, 
which amount to luring in foreign investors through massive 
privatization, allowing more profits to be taken out of the 
country, etc. However, once we look beyond the bourgeois 
paper economic indicators, the reality is that very little 
development has taken place in Peru. Foreign investment may 
be up, but foreign investors -- principally large monopoly 
firms -- are investing mostly in short term projects or 
projects which involve resource extraction.

For example, the Yanacocha gold mine made an estimated $317 
million in 1996, but less than $4 million of that went back 
into the communities surrounding the mine -- and most of 
that $4 million was spent on roads leading to the mine. 
Yanacocha is run by an Amerikan firm, Newmont, in a joint 
venture with the Peruvian company Buenaventura.(1)

If local communities did not see much in the way of returns 
from this foreign investment, they did see a fair amount of 
environmental destruction. The Yanacocha mine uses a process 
called heap-leaching, a form of strip mining which involves 
large amounts of lethal cyanide. Local rivers, once full of 
fish, are now dead. A local resident claims that several 
people died after drinking water from plastic containers 
used by the mining company.(1)

Newmont is also buying up land around the mine, and in some 
cases, outright stealing it. Newmont paid as little as $42 
per hectare of land to some farmers, despite the fact that 
speculation has driven the price of land around the mine up 
to $2000 per hectare.(1)

More than half of Peru's foreign income comes from mineral 
exports such as gold and oil. Imperialist-run organizations 
like the United Nations and the World Bank (which insures 
Newmont's profits in case of a mining disaster but does not 
insure the local communities (1)) claim that the export- and 
debt-driven economies they press on Third World nations are 
part of "sustainable development."(2) But an economy based 
on extraction of local resources by foreign firms for 
foreign markets is not sustainable and develops nothing.

The existing Peruvian state is a puppet for its foreign 
masters. The Fujimori regime has welcomed the foreign 
monopoly capitalists with open arms, and given them every 
possible encouragement to invest in Peru. But the poverty, 
hunger, and unemployment persist in Peru. Only a state truly 
controlled by representatives of the basic masses in Peru -- 
the workers and peasants -- can provide the opportunity for 
economic development which truly serves the people. Only 
such a state can prevent the imperialists from dominating 
the economy.

The people of Peru, led by the Communist Party of Peru (PCP, 
or Sendero Luminoso, as it is often called in the bourgeois 
press), struggle daily against the Fujimori puppet regime 
and its u.$. masters. For the last 17 years they have waged 
armed struggle to topple that reactionary government and put 
in its place a revolutionary government led by workers and 
peasants. MIM does not claim to represent the PCP or its 
line -- instead we exercise our internationalist solidarity 
with the PCP and the people of Peru by exposing the crimes 
of u.$. imperialism.

NOTES:
1. Covert Action Quarterly, Spring 1997, pp.11 - 17.
2. See "U$ capital feeds on Peru," MIM Notes 147, 1 Oct 97.



* * *



U.S. ALLOTS ANOTHER $50 MILLION TO SUPPRESS COLOMBIAN REBELS

by MC17

In October the United Snakes approved sending more than $50 
million in equipment to help Colombia's military fight 
guerrillas who are waging armed struggle against the 
government. Approval for the aid came through special 
presidential authority and is contingent on confirmation 
that the units getting the material have not been accused of 
violating human rights.(1) The military will provide this 
confirmation itself. This means that to get extra money from 
the U.$., the Colombian military only has to promise that it 
is not violating human rights. This is how seriously the 
United Snakes takes investigation into human rights abuses 
by its allies. The only true accounting of the crimes of the 
military can be made by the people, not by the imperialist-
fed lackey military. For this reason MIM fights for national 
self-determination of all peoples.

U.$. military assistance to Colombia supposedly ended in 
1994, after the General Accounting Office found that such 
aid had gone to units accused of violating human rights and 
that it was being used to fight guerrillas instead of drug 
traffickers. But it is clear that the Amerikan government is 
not genuinely concerned with the Colombian military's 
brutality; if it were, an assurance of respect for human 
rights from that same military would not be good enough to 
reinstate aid. Whether or not the 1994 aid cut was a farce 
to publicly distance U.$. imperialism from drug-tied 
Colombian President Samper is of little importance to MIM. 
While we watch the imperialists' public relations stunts and 
are wary of their lies, we are much more concerned with 
their bank rolls, as monetary investment and armed force 
tell the true story of imperialism. Clearly the fact that 
the Colombian military can now promise to be good in 
exchange for $50 million means that any so-called aid cut-
offs have nothing to do with concern for the Colombian 
people or for democracy. The united snakes is happy to have 
the Colombian military attacking the Colombian people and 
their rebels, so long as imperialist business continues as 
usual.

More recently, Colombia was not certified as a drug war ally 
by the United Snakes, supposedly making the South American 
country ineligible for aid. Drug war certification is used 
by the u.s. to increase its control over various Third World 
colonies by manipulating them politically. But even this 
certification is not financially meaningful since most U.S. 
aid to Colombia is for drug eradication and seizure, and 
that money--$70 million--is exempt from the ban on aid.(2) 
To beef up Colombia's war on drugs the United Snakes donated 
12 Bell UK-1H helicopters, worth $20 million, to Columbia 
earlier this year. Also this year, Amerika gave Colombia 
$120 million in arms aid. This move appears to be aimed at 
convincing other countries in Latin America to advance the 
so-called war on drugs and gain more aid from the United 
Snakes.(3) In real life, the war on drugs is an excuse to 
use bigger and more dangerous weapons against the people of 
the Third World, as a means of forcing them to submit to and 
to allow their countries to be subjected to imperialist 
exploitation.


ELECTIONS A FARCE OF DEMOCRACY


On 26 October, regional elections were scheduled in 
Colombia. People were supposed to choose state and local 
officials across the country, but tens of thousands of 
Colombians sat out the elections in response to a call for 
an armed boycott by the two largest rebel organizations in 
Colombia: the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the 
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Mainstream media reported that in the weeks leading up to 
the election roads were bombed, dozens of candidates killed 
and thousands more were scared into withdrawing. It appears 
that the general strategy of the rebels was not to kill the 
candidates but instead to persuade them to withdraw, by 
either ideological or physical force. Many candidates were 
kidnapped, taken to the countryside, and then lectured by 
the rebels who attempted to persuade them not to participate 
in the system. The National Liberation Army kidnapped two 
election observers from the Organization of American States 
on 23 October. The OAS sent 35 officials to monitor the 
election in regions that have had increased violence 
surrounding the elections.(4)

More than 200,000 police guarded the voting stations, but 
they were unable to convince the people to show up to vote. 
Police said road traffic was down 80 percent all over 
Colombia on election day.(4) Mainstream press is claiming 
that people boycotted the election only out of fear but this 
ignores the reality of the conditions for the majority of 
the people in Colombia. With poverty rampant and 
particularly bad outside the cities, support for the rebels' 
program has a strong material basis. The ELN and FARC 
control over 40% of the countryside. 

At least one million Colombians, of a total population of 36 
million, had nobody to vote for on Sunday because so many 
candidates pulled out of the elections in fear of the 
rebels. Even if people in some regions had wanted to vote, 
all the candidates for their areas had pulled out of the 
race. (5)[Please tell me if this second sentence is not what 
you meant.] This is no real difference between having no 
candidate to vote for and choosing among candidates whose 
only differences are in the names of the parties they 
represent. But the lack of elections in some places led to 
international condemnation of the rebels among people who 
think that choosing among exploiters in an election 
represents real democracy.

There are no real differences between the two major parties 
in Colombia's elections--the Liberals and the Conservatives-
-even the bourgeois press reports admit this. In areas where 
elections are canceled, the government plans to appoint a 
military mayor, further evidence that this mockery of 
democracy only an attempt to fool the people into thinking 
they were participating in politics.(5) All candidates 
pulled out of the elections in more than 120 towns, so all 
of these towns will have military mayors appointed as 
well.(6)

In their stiffest challenge to the government in more than 
30 years of fighting, the guerrillas badly embarrassed 
President Ernesto Samper's comprador government. "I hope 
Colombians exercise their right to preserve democracy," the 
president said after voting in Bogota. "Ballots are the guns 
of democracy and votes are the bullets." But there is no 
real democracy in Colombia under the dictatorship of 
imperialist puppet Samper. His military's bullets are very 
real and are used to kill those opposed to his government as 
well as the people who support the rebels. Samper is a 
lackey both to imperialism and to the drug traffickers. He 
was elected in 1994 with $6 million in contributions from 
the Cali drug cartel, so clearly he is beholden to the 
interests of the drug lords whose aim is to exploit the 
people of Colombia as they get rich serving drugs to wealthy 
buyers in the First World.(4) U.$. economic and military aid 
are further proof that no elections under Samper or his 
cronies will be free and fair. Amerika gives aid as a means 
of securing its rights to labor and raw material extraction. 
The aid the U.$. government gives to Samper and his military 
hounds is a contract for the exploitation of Colombia's 
people and natural resources.

Both the ELN and the FARC are waging armed struggle against 
the imperialist-backed Colombian government. MIM supports 
genuine struggles of the people waging wars of national 
liberation. From the literature that MIM has read by and 
about them, both organizations appear to be focoist. 
Focoists follow the incorrect line of sensational military 
actions rather than waging People's War; the focoists expect 
to gain adherents through military inspiration instead of 
building independent power and support among the population. 
But MIM can not make a complete analysis of the forces 
fighting the government in Colombia without further study of 
their theoretical writings and strategies. We can say with 
conviction that we oppose imperialism, and particularly 
United Snakes imperialism, in Colombia and we support the 
peoples right to self-determination. Armed struggle is the 
only way the people will bring down the imperialist-
supported government and we stand with the Colombian people 
in their struggle for true democracy.

NOTES:
1. San Jose Mercury News 25 October, 1997.
2. CNN US News 1 March, 1996.
3. 
http://www.eurosur.org/rebelion/internacional/colombregalos.
htm 26 May, 1997, Estados Unidos regala armas a Colombia. 
Bogot. Agencia Informativa Plsar/Adolfo Mena. Rebelin. 
4. Associated Press 26 October, 1997 14:49. 
5. SunSpot, Baltimore MD 20 October, 1997.
6. Tampa Tribune 25 October, 1997. 



* * *



MASSACHUSETTS PASSES DEATH PENALTY

On October 29th, the Massachusetts House passed a law making 
the death penalty an option for juries in a wide range of 
murder cases. The Senate had already passed the law, as it 
had three times since 1994. Acting Governor Paul Cellucci 
has promised to sign the bill. The passage of this bill was 
inspired by the anti-crime frenzy that followed a recent 
spate of brutal murders, including that of a 10-year old 
boy.

There is no evidence that the death penalty or any other 
action by the capitalist state affects the crime rate. The 
state representative who cast the deciding vote, Nancy 
Flavin of Easthampton, admits this:  "I know it's not going 
to deter crime, I know it's not going to be equal 
justice.... I know in my heart of hearts it's not going to 
change or reduce crime in Massachusetts...."

Massachusetts has not formally used the death penalty since 
1947, and now joins 38 states in having a death penalty. 
This law passed by a vote of 81-79, despite last minute 
efforts by death penalty opponents to create a "tough on 
crime" alternative to the death penalty.

The alternative would create life sentences with no 
possibility of commutation by the governor (parole has 
already been eliminated for people convicted of first-degree 
murder) and require that the prisoner do this time in a 
maximum security prison. It would also mandate victim 
restitution, the requirement that prisoners somehow pay the 
victims or families of victims for their crimes. Usually 
this means forcing the prisoners to work in the prison for 
slave wages which are then taken and given to some victim 
restitution program.

Public opinion polls show that a majority of Amerikans 
support the death penalty for murder, but they also support 
guaranteed life-long torture. So long as there is some form 
of severe torture involved, Amerikans don't care whether an 
alleged criminal's life is ended in an electric chair of in 
a cage for the rest of his/her life. But public pressure for 
the death penalty by activists taking advantage of the 
recent murders in Massachusetts had a strong influence on 
this vote in the Massachusetts House.

Massachusetts has had the death penalty off and on since 
1947, but no one had been formally executed in that time. 
Massachusetts is the same state that executed Italian 
Anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti for a 1927 murder they didn't 
commit. In the 1980s, Governor Dukakis offered a 
hypocritical apology, but that doesn't do any good for 
Sacco, Vanzetti or the radical anarchist movement they 
organized.

MIM strongly disagrees with many of the opponents to the 
death penalty who support life-long torture instead of 
execution. These death penalty opponents -- who include 
legislators and much of the mainstream anti-death penalty 
movement -- disagree with one type of repression and want to 
see a different one used. Such a position is no friend of 
the oppressed except as a possible temporary ally against 
the death penalty. But such an alliance is very dangerous, 
because these positions still fan the flames for settler 
revenge.

These opponents of the death penalty stress that murders are 
"savages" and "less than human." While most murders are of 
acquaintances and romantic partners, the crimes that get the 
settlers all riled up are the much rarer stranger murders. 
Focusing on cases such as men luring away a young boy to 
kill and then rape him distracts from the much more common 
killings that occur within the family itself. This 
misdirection is led by and protects the patriarchy, where 
the rule of the family is supreme. Furthermore, such a focus 
ignores the larger systemic murder and genocide that the 
Amerikan government carries out on Third World nations and 
the internal colonies each day.

We must recognize that the death penalty in Amerika is used 
as a symbolic act of retribution and revenge in high-profile 
cases and as a weapon of terror in Amerika's war against the 
Black, Latino and First Nations within its borders. MIM is 
not a pacifist organization and we recognize that there will 
be violence even under socialism as we struggle to eliminate 
all violence. For this reason we do not dismiss the possible 
use of a death penalty under socialism when dealing with 
enemies of the people. But we must oppose the use of the 
death penalty by the imperialist state as part of our 
struggle against the injustice system itself.

NOTE: Boston Globe 20 October 1997; Springfield Union-News 
20 October 1997.



* * *



SO-CALLED ALTERNATIVE PAPER ALLIES WITH CAMPUS PIGS IN PHONY 
CRIME HYPE

The September 18 Valley Advocate newspaper launched a pig-
inspired attack on oppressed nation students, accusing them 
of gang involvement. The Advocate is a self-labeled 
alternative paper published in western Massachusetts. The 
president of the Hampshire College campus police, Alan 
Lambert, recently went to the Advocate with stories that the 
college administration was covering up rising crime and not 
properly equipping the cops. Lambert is also peddling 
stories of gun-toting and drug-dealing gang members invading 
the campus and recruiting. Lambert wants to increase campus 
police and expand its powers. His rhetoric lays the basis 
for a later campaign to arm the campus police. Hampshire 
College pigs are currently not armed.

The anti-gang rhetoric of Lambert and the Advocate 
criminalizes the oppressed. It builds reactionary public 
opinion for further repression of oppressed nation students 
on the Hampshire campus. If the white students and their 
parents are afraid of Latino students, then the cops will 
have a freer rein. A Hampshire student reported other 
Lambert incidents, including a rumor -- confirmed by the 
director of Public Safety -- that two years ago Lambert was 
watching oppressed nation students inside their rooms with 
his car's spotlight. Lambert wasn't disciplined, but 
apparently he thinks Hampshire pigs should be doing this on 
a regular basis.

On September 30, the Dean of Students office organized a 
meeting to discuss the Advocate articles and Lambert. The 
first administrator gave a speech pledging a "commitment to 
diversity" and issued a vague promise to increase the 
numbers of "minority" students beyond the current 10-11%. 
(Currently, about 20% of Massachusetts high school students 
are oppressed nationals.)

Demanding increased enrollment of oppressed nationals is a 
positive reform that MIM supports. Of course, MIM recognizes 
that such a reform will not end national oppression, and it 
can be taken away at any time, as long as the revolutionary 
movement remains weak.

The administrators also said that they don't want to see 
cops have guns on campus, and students cheered. Again MIM 
agrees that cops on campuses should not have guns, and 
encourages students to organize independent of the 
administration against the arming of campus cops.

Some students at the gathering put forward demands for 
sensitivity training or for more cops "of color." MIM argues 
these are dead-end reforms because the problem with the 
police is the social role pigs play systematically. 
Different pigs' tactics or social origin do not change the 
role that individual pigs play in systematic national 
oppression.

There is also plenty of evidence to suggest such programs do 
not work. Amerika has picked up on this demand for more 
Black representation in police departments around the 
country, and it has not made a substantial difference in 
police violence against oppressed nationals or changed the 
fact that oppressed nationals are imprisoned at higher rates 
than whites.

Most campuses in North America are relatively over-policed 
considering the amount of bourgeois-defined crime that 
happens on the campuses. Hampshire College is a quieter 
campus than most, having only 1200 students in a rural part 
of Amherst. But its part-time police force is the same size 
as the full time force of Smith College, a wimmin's college 
of twice as many students in the nearby city of Northampton.

The over-policing of campuses serves two roles. First, 
campus pigs can be called on to repress a politically 
volatile population, especially the oppressed nation 
students. Second, the campus cops serve as public relations 
for white students' parents. White parents expect their 
daughter or son to be perfectly safe.

There is no evidence that police levels have any effect on 
the crime rate. For example, where have cops ever stopped 
sexual assault? The great majority of sexual assailants are 
wimmin's sexual partners -- not strangers in the bushes. 
Cops -- with or without guns -- can do nothing about this 
problem endemic to patriarchal society. The solution is in 
struggling to end the patriarchy, not in giving 9mm Glocks 
to campus pigs.



* * *



ANOREXIA ON THE RISE IN ASIA
SMASH PATRIARCHY TO END ANOREXIA

The prevalence of anorexia in south Korea increased 
dramatically recently and is close to the prevalence in the 
united $tates. Anorexia was "unheard of in Korea a decade 
ago." In 1990, 7 out of every 1000 south Korean college 
wimmin were anorexic. Experts estimate that the rate has 
risen since then. The rate for wimmin ages 18 to 35 in the 
u.$. is about 10 per 1000.

Anorexia can be fatal, and intense dieting by teenagers can 
weaken resistance to disease and can increase the risk of 
certain diseases (such as osteoporosis) later in life.

"Over the past five years, the self-starvation syndrome has 
spread... to Seoul, Hong Kong, and Singapore... Cases have 
also been reported -- though at much lower rates -- in 
Taipei, Beijing, and Shanghai. Anorexia has even surfaced 
among the affluent elite in countries where hunger remains a 
problem, including the Philippines, India, and Pakistan." 
Anorexia was first documented in Japan in the 1960s, and the 
incidence of anorexia among Japanese wimmin today is about 
the same as among Amerikan wimmin.

The increase of anorexia in east Asia is correlated with the 
growth of relatively prosperous middle classes and the 
arrival of western-style advertising and decadent consumer 
culture. In Singapore, a hot selling designer t-shirt bears 
the following words:  "I've got to get into that dress. It's 
easy. Don't eat... I'm hungry. Can't eat breakfast. But I 
ought to... I like breakfast. I like that dress... Still too 
big for that dress. Hmm. Life can be cruel." In south Korea, 
the most fashionable clothes are often "made in only one 
size that is the equivalent of an American size 4." "They 
make it just one size so only skinny girls will wear it and 
it will look good," said Park Sung Hye, editor of a Korean 
fashion magazine.

Alongside the fashion industry, the diet and weight-loss 
industry profits from and promotes the craze to be skinny. 
"In Hong Kong, 20 to 30 types of diet pills are in common 
use, including variations on the 'fen-phen' combination of 
[drugs] that was banned in the United States last month for 
causing heart damage..."

Patriarchy is profitable, so any attempt to advance a 
country's economy through capitalism will reinforce and 
expand patriarchy. All of the countries listed above -- 
China since 1976 included -- are firmly on the capitalist 
path. In the case of the Philippines, India, and Pakistan, 
capitalist development has been a failure all-around. In the 
case of the so-called four tigers -- south Korea, Taiwan, 
Hong Kong, and Singapore -- capitalist development remains 
tenuous. Even among the middle classes of these countries, 
who have arguably benefited from their exceptional 
development, capitalism and imperialism sow seeds of 
discontent. Middle class young wimmin and men from these 
countries will rebel against the culture and system which 
teaches them to be passive and seeks to keep them that way. 
Many will link up with the proletariat in their country, 
recognizing that the proletariat is leading the struggle to 
change the system oppressing them all.

Socialism has proven to be the most effective weapon in 
combating patriarchy. We can see this by looking at the 
experience of China. Under socialism, there was no 
prostitution, no money was wasted on decadent and anti-
wimmin fashion advertising, and wimmin held leading roles in 
the economy and the state. Today, after more than twenty 
years of capitalist restoration, prostitution has returned, 
fewer wimmin hold high-level political positions, and even 
the practice of wife-selling has returned in the 
countryside.

NOTES: Los Angeles Times, 18 Oct 97.


* * *


PIRAO STUDIES KWAME NKRUMAH'S EXPERIENCE

by PIRAO chief

Kwame Nkrumah considered himself a military leader evolving 
into an ever better party leader and Marxist scientist of 
Pan-Africanism. We studied his posthumous letters to an 
assistant of his named June Milne based in England. The 
letters were published in Kwame Nkrumah: The Conakry Years 
His Life and Letters.

Although June Milne was based in the imperialist countries, 
it is clear she played an indispensable role to Nkrumah, who 
made her the owner of all his written work through his Will 
upon death.

Milne played no direct military role herself, but she was a 
concrete example of many things that the people of the 
imperialist countries can do to speed up the advance of 
communism. She arranged food and medical supplies for 
Nkrumah. Above all she saw to the publication of his works.

The posthumous letters of Nkrumah are an eye-opener in 
several regards to the MIM-led People's Internationalist 
Rear-Area Organization (PIRAO). Above all, PIRAO learns to 
have a materialist view of Nkrumah, not as a hero of 
incredible and thereby magic powers but someone who had 
concrete problems to solve like our own. For instance, 
although he liberated the first Sub-Saharan country from 
colonialism and then served as president of Ghana, none of 
the major western publishing houses would publish his books!

In fact, left-leaning or revisionist publishing houses such 
as International Publishers or Lawrence & Wishart occupied 
much of Nkrumah's and Milne's attentions in his final years 
in exile. Milne did much of the work to edit Nkrumah's work 
and collect up galley proofs for Nkrumah to give his final 
approval to. Then Milne spent much time chasing around 
progressive publishers for money and deals to publish the 
books and then bookstores to sell them. Nkrumah set up his 
own independent institution of the oppressed, the PANAF book 
publishers. It is now an imprint of Zed Books which 
published the book of which we speak in 1990.

Eye-opening is the fact that Nkrumah's publishing efforts 
all had very humble beginnings. During his life, he never 
managed to sell more than a few thousand copies of any of 
his books. 1,000 to 3,000 were common numbers of discussion. 
Some governments took it upon themselves to publish his 
works;  the Chinese for instance translated his works into 
Chinese for the Chinese people. However, in terms of the 
French and English-speaking world, Nkrumah's efforts were 
humble. The youth of the 1990s who think that the 1960s were 
just incomparably different and better should realize that 
they too could match and surpass the institution-building of 
the 1960s, and it would not be an impossible feat.

This shows that PIRAO's own efforts may seem small to some, 
but in actuality, the independent publishing efforts that 
PIRAO can support can easily rival those of Nkrumah. People 
in the imperialist countries can at least support 
independent publishing if properly challenged and if they 
realize that no one else is doing the work.

Nkrumah himself quoted Napolean on the reason for his 
military successes:  "Someone asked Napolean the reason for 
his war successes. He replied:  'First money; second, money; 
third, money.'"(p. 199) People in the imperialist countries 
who think they cannot do anything to advance the 
independence of nations and the cause of communism just 
because they are not at the front-lines are obviously wrong. 
People from all walks of life can make unlimited 
contributions to the revolution. They can build the 
infrastructure we call the independent institutions of the 
oppressed and often they do not have to leave their 
professions to do so.

MIM's third cardinal principle on the labor aristocracy is 
especially useful in PIRAO's struggle to contribute to world 
revolution. While he spent much time criticizing those he 
felt initially too attracted to capitalism such as Stokely 
Carmichael, and he insisted on putting class above race, 
Nkrumah also believed like MIM that the working classes of 
Amerika and western Europe are embourgeoisified. 
Furthermore, he also opposed the Peace Corps and managed to 
kick them out of part of Africa. This is an important 
combination of thoughts for PIRAO.

We refer to these facts, because we have crossed paths with 
many who would like nothing better than to be Peace Corps 
volunteers with Marxist rhetoric. Many of these people end 
up in Non-Governmental Organizations or sitting around 
waiting for some large hand-out to carry out their idealist 
programs. The well-meaning intentions of these cloudy-minded 
people in the imperialist countries is at root parasitism.

People who are or could easily be petty-bourgeoisie end up 
sucking in salary for some cause in which the money should 
be going to Third World revolutionaries. This would not be 
so bad except that there is no easier place to be self-
supporting than in the imperialist countries. If we in the 
imperialist countries are not self-reliant and contributing 
to the struggle internationally, then we just are not doing 
our jobs in the international scheme of things. Too many 
comrades or allies are would-be Buddhists or Quakers fearing 
involvement in the dirty-work of PIRAO and they restrict 
themselves to spiritual discussions.

Recently, a comrade wrote to PIRAO to inform it that a large 
donation intended for PIRAO was diverted through parasitic 
politics. Originally the donation had internationalist 
intentions, but someone claimed that someone locally within 
U.$. borders was oppressed and more deserving of the money. 
Hence, PIRAO did not receive the money intended for it.

The revolutionaries of the world including Nkrumah are and 
were defamed by the imperialist press in newsprint by the 
ton. We in the imperialist countries have not yet done our 
share to counteract just the propaganda onslaught.

We in the imperialist countries are not in an effective 
place to contribute blood to the struggle, but that does not 
limit the possibilities of overall contribution to 
revolutionary struggle. PIRAO is here to challenge the 
imperialist country masses to take up a special 
understanding of self-reliance and contribute their share to 
the advance of worldwide communism.

It is not that we want an exaggerated share of people's 
earnings to go to revolution either. That is not the point 
anymore than pure ascetic spirituality is. Idealists may be 
idealists for making no concrete contributions while only 
talking or they may be idealists for trying to give away all 
their worldly possessions. The point is to learn to create 
and expand independent institutions of the oppressed so that 
concrete contributions to revolutionary struggle always 
increase each year.



* * *



STATE DEPARTMENT PUBLISHES LIST OF TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS-- 
REVOLUTIONARIES BEWARE!

by a comrade

On October 8, 1997 the united snakes' state department 
published a list of 30 foreign terrorist organizations, 
pursuant to the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty 
Act of 1996. (See sidebar for list.)

Groups as varied as Aum Shinrikyo and Kahane Chai and the 
Communist Party of Peru are on the list of designated 
terrorist groups. The state department did not designate the 
IRA, presumably because Sinn Fein and the government are 
currently in so-called peace negotiations. Since the list 
can always be amended, we can assume the IRA will be back on 
if the negotiations break down.

Amerikan citizens are exposed to a fine and/or ten years in 
prison for giving any material aid to any of these groups 
(except for medicine and religious materials).

Non-u.s. citizens are subject to deportation, largely on the 
basis of secret evidence, without an opportunity to defend 
themselves. The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty 
Act works in conjunction with the new Illegal Immigration 
Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) to deal 
especially harsh punishment to settler-labeled illegal 
immigrants. The IIRAIRA makes many misdemeanors and petty 
crimes deportable offenses -- even if they were committed 
years ago and the person has already served prison time! 
These people are now subject to deportation proceedings, and 
this could very well include people who have connections to 
foreign imperialist-labeled terrorist organizations.

Also, banks must freeze all funds known to belong to any of 
the listed organizations. The law further provides that the 
banks (based on their belief) can freeze the assets of 
individuals (including u.s. citizens) if the bank believes 
that such individual is an agent of any of the listed 
groups.

MIM and other revolutionaries must be vigilant about keeping 
informed of any changes to the list, and actions taken by 
the government under the Anti-Terrorism Act. MIM supporters 
must realize that if MIM is designated as an "agent" of any 
foreign terrorist organization, MIM's assets could be frozen 
and our revolutionary work would be seriously jeopardized.

Amerika's list of alleged terrorist groups:
Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) 
Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) 
Armed Islamic Group (GIA) 
Aum Shinrikyo (Aum) 
Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) 
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Hawatmeh 
Faction
(DFLP)
HAMAS (Islamic Resistance Movement) 
Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA) 
Hizballah (Party of God) 
Gama'a al-Islamiyya (Islamic Group, IG) 
Japanese Red Army (JRA) 
al-Jihad 
Kach 
Kahane Chai 
Khmer Rouge 
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) 
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) 
Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front Dissidents (FPMR/D) 
Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK, MKO) 
National Liberation Army (ELN) 
Palestine Islamic Jihad-Shaqaqi Faction (PIJ) 
Palestine Liberation Front-Abu Abbas Faction (PLF) 
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) 
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General 
Command
(PFLP-GC) 
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) 
Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17 November) 
Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) 
Revolutionary People's Struggle (ELA) 
Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso, SL) 
Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) 



* * *



NIGERIAN MILITARY IN SIERRA LEONE:
DOING IMPERIALISM'S DIRTY WORK AT A HIGH PRICE

by MC45
written 28 October 1997

In late May of this year, the elected government of Sierra 
Leone was displaced by a military coup. Shortly following 
the coup, Nigeria sent troops into Sierra Leone in an effort 
to reinstall President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. Nigerian troops 
are in Sierra Leone to make Africa safer for imperialism. As 
MIM Notes goes to press, the Economic Community of West 
African States (ECOWAS) has reached an agreement with the 
Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), the group which 
seized power in Sierra Leone, to restore power to Kabbah. 
While this agreement may resolve the current fighting, it 
does nothing to alleviate the relationship between 
imperialism and west Africa, specifically Sierra Leone.(1)

General Sani Abacha's military government in Nigeria carries 
on a diseased relationship with U.$. imperialism in which 
Amerikan monopoly capital steadily invades Nigeria while 
arming the Nigerian police forces to defend monopoly 
interests, and sanctioning Nigerian military actions against 
neighboring African countries. Amerika wants the military 
coup leaders out of power in Sierra Leone because this 
instability is bad for imperialism and because the coup 
leaders' criticisms of Kabbah's corruption may indicate that 
they will strike at U.$. interests in Sierra Leone.

In situations like this one where there is no clear 
proletarian pole, the masses suffer most as a result of the 
fighting and they have little or nothing to gain from its 
outcome. The only possibility is to turn this instability 
into a revolutionary opportunity, one in which a force which 
genuinely holds the people's interests at heart can gain 
power while the factions of the bourgeoisie are fighting 
each other. MIM believes that only through genuinely 
independent proceedings will the peoples of both Sierra 
Leone and Nigeria resolve their governmental conflicts and 
the economic problems that go with them. We focus on the 
U.$. role because it is our responsibility to rally people 
within United Snakes borders to support an end to 
imperialism in Sierra Leone and Nigeria. This is our most 
effective means of supporting the peoples of these countries 
in expelling imperialism from their borders.


NIGERIANS STAY POOR WHILE U.$. MONOPOLY GETS RICH


As a neo-colony of England, Nigeria is a poor country with 
overall poor living conditions for its people, but Nigeria's 
military government is profiting tremendously from the 
imperialist sponsorship that comes with opening the 
country's oil resources to foreign extraction. For this 
reason, the comprador government is willing to do a great 
deal to ensure the stability of imperialist control of its 
part of the African continent -- up to and including 
invasions and military action in neighboring and nearby 
countries.

The CIA World Factbook describes the Nigerian economy as 
"oil-rich" but this is only a statement on the proportion of 
the Nigerian economy which revolves around oil, not on the 
income oil provides to the people of Nigeria. The infant 
mortality rate there, which is an important measure of the 
people's health, is 72.4 deaths per 1,000 live births, which 
is more than ten times the U.$. rate of 6.7 per 1,000.(5) 
People living within u.$. borders should not support the 
unequal economic relationship between these two countries 
and the disparities in standard of living it creates.

Even while Nigeria's military pays tribute to Amerikan and 
European imperialism by intervening in countries all over 
Africa, Nigeria's people are suffering in poverty just as 
the peoples of the countries invaded by the Nigerian 
military are suffering.


$HELL IN NIGERIA


Nigeria's oil economy made big headlines when the Ogoni 
people, led by martyred activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, forced $hell 
Oil to close operations in Ogoni land. Saro-Wiwa's brother, 
Dr. Owens Wiwa, pointed out at a talk in Boston last Spring 
that the Nigerian government has stepped up repression of 
the Ogoni since $hell stopped operations in Ogoni territory. 
He also pointed out that in spite of her progressive veneer 
in domestic politics, U.$. Senator Mosley-Brown supported 
Abacha's dictatorship in a visit to Nigeria.(2)

The managing director of $hell Petroleum Development 
Corporation of Nigeria ($PDC) claims that "Shell Nigeria 
remains committed to the long-term future of the country and 
its people," and that "[$hell] believe[s its] most crucial 
role is helping Nigeria overcome its economic problems and 
creating wealth that will give the people of Nigeria a 
better living standard and open up for them more options for 
progress and development."(3)

But these nice-sounding sentiments have little to do with 
the reality of a multi-national corporation (MNC). Because 
$hell's focus is on making profits and expanding the 
company's production, it cannot hold improving the Nigerian 
economy as a priority. Advancing the Nigerian economy would 
have to include some level of self-sufficiency -- production 
aimed at feeding the people of Nigeria rather than exporting 
natural resources to bring in great monetary wealth. The 
presence of $hell and other MNCs in Nigeria, the direct arms 
of imperialist intervention, keeps the Nigerian economy in a 
subservient position.

$hell's involvement in Nigeria extends beyond pure 
economics. Observing the common practice of MNCs operating 
in Nigeria, $hell regularly buys weapons for the 
Supernumerary Police (commonly known as the "spy") force of 
Nigeria, so that the spies can "guard the company's 
residential, office and industrial areas and major 
production centres and provide escort duties in areas of 
high risk."(4)

$hell Nigeria's director has complained about his company 
being singled out among multi-nationals when all foreign 
companies operating in Nigeria employ the same practice of 
arming the spy force to protect their exploitation of 
Nigeria's natural resources. MIM opposes this practice 
generally as a direct and specific manifestation of the 
brutality of imperialism. While we agree that there is no 
reason to single $hell out in principle, because monopoly 
capitalism and imperialism are generally bad for the 
proletariat, we do find it convenient that $hell has 
suffered particular attention. $hell's responses to attacks 
on its practices in Nigeria have brought out additional 
details of imperialist workings in Nigeria and this is good 
for MIM because it provides more material direct from the 
exploiters on why Amerikans should organize to oppose U.$. 
imperialism.

$hell justifies arming the spy force saying that "crime in 
Nigeria frequently involves the use of arms" and that its 
company guest houses are often robbed.

MIM does not see these incidents as proof that $hell needs 
military protection, but as proof that $hell has no business 
extracting Nigerian oil. If MNCs and their high-level staff 
are victimized more than the general population, it is 
because they are so much wealthier than the general 
population and so robbing them is more lucrative than 
robbing the average Nigerian citizen. $hell executives are 
so wealthy because they are involved in the direct 
extraction of wealth from Nigeria. MIM supports long-term 
reparations and self-reliant rehabilitation for the long-
term. But in the short term, we cannot mourn the loss of 
cash and jewelry from thieves who have stolen their riches 
from land that isn't theirs. Our sorrow is that such minor 
incidents as these are clearly not sufficient to convince 
$hell to leave Nigeria entirely, and these thefts only give 
$hell rationale to further arm itself against the masses.


U.$. OUT OF SIERRA LEONE


Sierra Leone, with a population much smaller than Nigeria's 
-- an estimated 4.8 million people in 1996 -- is in even 
worse shape from the perspective of the people's health. The 
infant mortality rate there was estimated at 135.6 deaths 
per 1,000 live births in 1996 -- compared to a rate of 72.4 
in Nigeria, while the life expectancy was only 47.5 
years.(5) With two-thirds of Sierra Leoneans employed in 
agriculture, and most of that sector being devoted to 
subsistence farming, the population cannot get enough to eat 
to keep one-tenth of babies alive through their first 
birthdays.

In true neo-colonial fashion, Sierra Leone's principal 
industries are mining, light manufacturing (beverages, 
textiles, cigarettes and footwear) and petroleum refining. 
Minerals make up 87% of the country's exports, while Sierra 
Leone imports food (38%), machinery and equipment (44%) and 
fuels and lubricants (18%). MIM says this is a true neo-
colonial-style economic structure because the manufacturing 
Sierra Leone does do is inadequate to support its production 
needs, and even though two-thirds of the people farm, they 
are unable to produce enough food to feed the country.(5) 
Neo-colonialism creates an unequal dependent relationship in 
which the imperialists suck out raw materials to increase 
wealth in the First World, and the colonized country is left 
importing food and the very machinery it needs to help 
imperialism extract raw materials.

Regardless of the intentions of either the elected or 
current military rulers of Sierra Leone, the people of this 
country will not be helped by continued foreign 
intervention. Cessation of fighting is a good thing if it 
means that the masses will no longer be victimized by the 
crossfire, but anti-imperialists must continue to oppose all 
continued U.$. and U.$.-proxy interference in Sierra Leone.

NOTES:
1. U.S. Information Agency 24 October, 1997.
2. MIM Notes 135 1 April, 1997.
3. "Operational Information," $hell Nigeria, 
http://www.$hellnigeria.com/ab$hell/ops.html
4. "Firearms--the $hell position," $hell Nigeria, 
http://www.$hellnigeria.com/news/prl12.html
5. CIA World Factbook.



* * *



CHUCK D. SPEAKS: "DON'T BE SHEEP!" 

Chuck D., rap artist and political speaker, gave a lecture 
at Harvard University on October 20 concerning issues in his 
new book, Rap, Race, and Reality. The focus of his talk was 
on attacking mass media and the control that it gives 
corporate Amerika over the people in the u.s. Unfortunately, 
his ideas and criticisms weren't as revolutionary as some of 
his lyrics with Public Enemy.

A main point of the lecture was that corporations can 
dictate reality through the media. The images that are 
portrayed on TV and in ads have a great affect on Amerikan 
culture and what people in the u.s. aspire to be. 
"Corporation shave such a robotic hold on the minds of not 
only Americans, they are now dictating reality." He 
criticized Amerikans for their individualist view of the 
world that allows them to separate themselves from reality 
and live in their own world, which is justified by 
corporations. This effect plays a role in the pacification 
of the imperialist nation. Part of this analysis by Chuck D 
suggests that the masses in Amerika are stupid and this is 
why they don't see through the mass media. But this ignores 
the reality of Amerikan imperialism which has created a huge 
labor aristocracy that has an interest in supporting 
imperialism because it materially benefits the labor 
aristocracy as well as in the imperialists.

Chuck also spent time talking about the history of the Black 
community in relation to music and the media. He pointed out 
that individual black communities within the u.s. were 
isolated from each other through the late 80's, resulting in 
separate cultures. He said that the unity became widespread 
after rap music hit the mainstream, and Blacks began to 
appear in music videos. But he was clear that this was only 
a positive opportunity for the first couple of years when it 
was coming straight from the clubs. Modern mainstream rap 
has taken on the characteristics of all mainstream media 
with its focus on profit, unconcerned with any negative 
effects it has on society. He spoke of race and acknowledged 
that this concept was created by the racist ruling power and 
has no basis in reality. It is curious that he chose to use 
the term in the title of his book.

Apparently Chuck is now working for a major TV network and 
sees "hijacking" the video screen as a means of getting his 
message out. Though it would be ideal to be able to use 
television to propagate the revolutionary message, as long 
as it is controlled by the enemy they will not allow us to 
speak the truth. In fact, Chuck is a good example of this:  
he pitched a political late night talk show to Paramount who 
responded by saying that they liked his star quality but he 
had an agenda they didn't want to put on TV. We must resort 
to independent media, which has a much smaller base, but 
which we can control fully. Chuck took an opportunist line 
in saying that fliers will accomplish nothing in opposition 
to the powerful media of television. But history shows us 
that when the message is right, and the people are willing 
to support it, it doesn't matter that the opposition has 
millions of dollars more.

Chuck D. has been a revolutionary voice of the Black nation 
for almost a decade. But the radical ideas that justified 
Public Enemy's self-proclaimed name were somewhat lacking in 
this recent talk. He merely hinted at the fact that Blacks 
in Amerika are worse off than the white majority, ignoring 
the true nature of the system of oppression. So although he 
provided good information on the negative results of 
corporate controlled media, he failed to link it back to the 
system of imperialism that it is serving. Chuck D. failed to 
define the enemy and to put his topic in the light of the 
grand scheme. As a result, his suggestion for action is to 
write letters to station groups if you don't like what they 
are saying. This is where a lack of clear analysis leads:  
ineffective action. To fight the power, we must recognize 
who we are fighting and we must learn from history to take 
the most effective actions against that enemy.



* * *



TWO LONG HOURS OF HISTORICAL REVISIONISM
SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET MOVIE REVIEW

Seven Years in Tibet is the sanitized and romanticized film 
version of the self-promoting memoir of an elite Nazi who 
became a tutor and advisor to the spiritual and political 
leader of one of the last slave societies on the planet 
Earth. The elite Nazi is Heinrich Harrer, played by Brad 
Pitt, and the slave master is the Dalai Lama. It comes as no 
surprise to MIM that the Dalai Lama would embrace a Nazi, 
nor that Hollywood would use fascism and slavery to concoct 
an attack on communism.

The most important problems with this film are that it 
practically ignores of the role of Nazism and slavery and 
that it fabricates the positions and actions of the Chinese 
People's Liberation Army. Most bourgeois reviews of this 
film have focused on the fact that Harrer wasn't a good guy 
(abandoning his wife, engaging in frequent prison breaks 
from a British POW camp that jeopardized the escape plans of 
the other fascist POWs) or for turning the film into 
psychological thriller about Harrer's love for his abandoned 
son.(1)

After the film was completed, Harrer's Nazi past was 
revealed and few voice-overs in the film were changed to 
suggest that Harrer joined the Nazi party reluctantly to 
further his career, and that his sojourn in Tibet made him 
realize that Nazism is bad. Actually, Harrer joined the SA 
in 1933, and the SS in 1938. Harrer is no Schindler, but 
instead someone who joined a voluntary elite Nazi 
organization and held a rank the equivalent of sergeant. 
Harrer's memoir makes no mention of his Nazi past.(1)

Seven Years in Tibet shows Tibet as a peace-loving, non-
violent society, when it was in fact a brutal society of 
high lamas owning hundreds of thousands of serfs. The Dalai 
Lama's family alone owned 4,000 people.(2) As one former 
serf told journalist Anna Louise Strong on life before 
liberation:  "I was not much different than a yak."(3) 
Amongst the few correct things about this film is that it 
shows how isolated the high lamas were from the people, as 
we see the young Dalai Lama constantly watching his people 
from his palace with a telescope, and his advisors 
criticizing him for doing so. His advisors wanted the Dalai 
Lama to be even more cut off from the people.

Prior to 1949, Tibet had been considered a part of China. 
According to Strong, "No foreign power in seven hundred 
years has recognized Tibet as a separate nation or sent an 
ambassador to Lhasa."(4) While Tibet relatively autonomous 
in the period immediately prior to 1949, so was most of 
imperialist-weakened China as it had broken up into 
different pieces run by warlords.

In the film we see three Chinese People's Liberation Army 
generals fly to Lhasa to meet with the Dalai Lama. These 
generals are rude to everyone, and kick over a religious 
symbol created by a monk as a sign of peace and friendliness 
towards the generals. After the meeting, the lead general 
tells a Tibetan minister "Religion is poison."

Religion is used by ruling classes to justify oppressive 
systems and get the people to believe that they deserve 
their conditions. In the case of Buddhism, adherents are 
told that if they tolerate their position in society well 
enough, they may do better in another life. Religion is a 
reactionary idea that Communists should propagandize 
against, but the methods used by the People's Liberation 
Army in the film are not only historically inaccurate but 
proven ineffective at destroying superstition.

As Mao instructed in "Report on an Investigation of the 
Peasant Movement in Hunan" written two decades before the 
time covered in the film and a thousand miles from the 
location of Tibet, the Communists should "Draw the bow 
without shooting, just indicate the motions." As a footnote 
to this article explains:  "This reference to archery is 
taken from Mencius. It describes how the expert teacher of 
archery draws his bow with a histrionic gesture but does not 
release the arrow. The point is that while Communists should 
guide the peasants in attaining a full measure of political 
consciousness, they should leave it to the peasants' own 
initiative to abolish superstitious and other bad practices 
and should not give them orders or do it for them."(5)

Mao also explained that the nobility would otherwise use 
this alienation of the peasants' current ideology to rally 
them against the Communist Party and the revolution. But 
with careful political work the peasants will become 
impressed by the honest ways of the Communists and take up 
the revolutionary science of Marxism that puts the faith in 
the masses' own actions and not in gods or the location of 
their ancestors' graves.

The film portrays a surprise attack by PLA forces on the 
Tibetan forces in 1950. The reality was portrayed in an 
article about Tibet in MIM Theory 8:  "The PLA entered the 
city of Chambdo in 1950. This area plagued by fighting 
between Tibetan and Szechwan warlords, was not, according to 
most maps, part of Tibet. In 1950, however, the population 
was majority Tibetan. The PLA entry was anticipated by the 
Dalai Lama, so Tibetan troops were sent to meet and fight 
the PLA. The PLA quickly defeated the Dalai Lama's army in 
Chambdo. Many Tibetans, including some of the leadership of 
the Tibetan army, went over to the PLA side. The PLA was 
able to win support by explaining their intentions and 
through sharing what was happening in [other parts of] 
China.

"The PLA did not advance into Tibet until 1951, when an 
agreement between the Dalai Lama and the Central Government 
for the 'Peaceful Liberation of Tibet' was signed. The 
agreement set the terms of the transition for Tibet back 
into being a functioning part of China.

"Claiming the support of the Tibetan people, the Dalai Lama 
also claimed to support the agreement, in which China was to 
'leave unchanged the political structure, the powers of the 
Dalai Lama, the income of the monasteries' and was not to 
'use compulsion for reform.' Instead reform was left in the 
hands of the local governments and monasteries, who had 
agreed to begin reforming themselves." These agreements 
included things like abolished debts the serfs had owed for 
generations to the monasteries.(6)

Unlike what was portrayed in the text after the film, the 
Dalai Lama and the nobility dragged their feet at the 
reforms, especially land reform, and staged a number of 
rebellions. After a 1959 nobility-led rebellion, the Dalai 
Lama fled to exile in India. With the self-removal of the 
bulk of the nobility and their invalidation of the 1951 
agreement, serfdom was officially abolished and land reform 
was carried out in earnest.(6)

This nobility in exile serves as the nucleus of the "Free 
Tibet" movement. MIM of course does not support the state-
capitalist fascism of Deng Xiao-ping and Jiang Zemin, but we 
see it as preferable to a return to serfdom under the Dalai 
Lama. A better option would be a capitalism free of China's 
current fascism, and the best option would be for the 
genuine Maoists remaining within Tibet to lead a communist 
revolution against China and for an independent, socialist 
Tibet.

NOTE:
1. The "Hero" of Seven Years in Tibet, Holocaust, 
http:holocaust.miningco.com/library/weekly/mcurrent.htm. 
Citing: Dallas Morning News 12 Oct 1997, C3 and Julia 
Ferguson, "Dalai Lama's Austrian Tutor Says Was in Nazi 
Party," Reuters North American Wire 28 May 1997.
2. Great Changes in Tibet, Foreign Languages Press: Peking 
1972. p. 22.
3. Anna Louis Strong, Tibetan Interviews. New World Press: 
Peking 1959, p. 30.
4. Ibid, p. 74.
5. Mao Zedong, Selected Works Volume I, Foreign Languages 
Press, 1965. p. 46, 58(n).
6. MIM Theory 8. "The Liberation of Tibet: Revolutionary 
Advances and Counter-Revolutionary Claims" pp 92-95. $6 from 
MIM. This section cites Strong's Tibetan Interviews and 
Strong's When Serf's Stood Up in Tibet, New World Press, 
Peking 1960.  



* * *



CAMBRIDGE CENSORS THE MASSES' INFORMATION

Under Mayor Sheila Doyle Russell, Cambridge, Massachusetts 
has hired employees to tear down posters in Cambridge around 
the clock. MIM spoke with these employees on the street and 
verified that they were indeed City employees.

Priding itself on its unshakeable liberalism, Cambridge has 
proved that liberalism does not stop gentrification and 
sterilization of cultural life. The hiring of employees to 
tear down posters and write letters opposing postering shows 
that the City Government is right in line with the prison-
state economy of the country as a whole.

Contrary to bourgeois propaganda, in contrast, in the 
Cultural Revolution in China (1966 to 1976) under Mao, the 
government paid for the paper for people to put up posters 
("dazibao") on city walls. Such is necessary for real 
political life by the masses. Even in a rich country like 
the U$A, the people cannot afford to buy television and 
newspaper ads, so posters are a necessity. The Cambridge 
crackdown hits only those with no great financial means. It 
is thus a typical class struggle of the rich against the 
poor. The only time the poor will be allowed to speak is 
when they are told what to say in the rich man's 
publications with the rich man's editor checking up on it.



* * *



PAPER TIGERS

FIRST BRAIN DRAIN, NOW ARM CHARM?

by MC5

A Cuban baseball pitcher named Livan Hernandez is in the 
news. The U$ newspapers are making big hay, because he 
defected from Cuba in 1995 to play for the Florida Marlins. 
He has in the process won Most Valuable Player award in the 
1997 National League Championship for pitching two wins. 
Cubans everywhere are proud and the bourgeois media wants to 
capitalize on that somehow.

Various papers call the defection of Livan Hernandez a 
victory of capitalism over socialism. We find this a 
ridiculous accusation, not just because Cuba is not 
socialist, but state-capitalist.

Cuba was a poor country before Fidel Castro, and it would 
not have been able to keep Livan Hernandez either. So it has 
nothing to do with capitalism or socialism. A poor 
capitalist country can't compete either.

The founder of USA Today himself could not resist making 
propaganda, but while doing so he says that the Marlins gave 
Hernandez a four-year $4.5 million contract while 
ballplayers in Cuba get $20 a month. That has nothing to do 
with socialism versus capitalism. That has to do with a 
lower standard of living, something prevalent in the vast 
majority of other capitalist countries too.

In the U$A, even the pro-sports teams have salary caps and 
attempts at "parity," because they know the teams with the 
money win. If Castro had $4.5 million to offer Livan, would 
Livan have left Cuba? At least there would be a more even 
competition.

If anything, all the baseball and boxing success in Cuba 
shows that Castro has mobilized some capitalist success 
stories of his own. The important question is not how Cuba 
compares with a country that was always bigger and richer, 
but how it compares with old free-market Cuba.

Today, the U$A is so full of itself that it sends the 
professional athletes making millions a year to compete 
against athletes with much fewer training resources at their 
disposal. For example, the basketball Dream Teams sent to 
the Olympics showcase what can be done with a large 
population to draw recruits from and lots of money.

For every one Livan Hernandez, there had to 1000 pitchers 
not so great in Cuba. Cuba raised and trained Livan -- 
feeding and clothing him and others like him who failed 
while playing baseball. Now what does Cuba get for its 
success story? U$ propaganda. All Third World countries that 
have suffered the brain drain face a similar issue. It is 
not a capitalism versus socialism issue.

NOTE: USA Today 24 October 1997, p. 15a.


HOWARD STUDENTS WIN IMPORTANT VICTORY

Washington, DC -- The administration at Howard University 
applied to local authorities to take ownership of public 
streets in its vicinity. In the face of student resistance, 
the Mayor Marion Barry withdrew the university request.

The Advisory Neighborhood Commission and the General 
Assembly representing students also opposed it. "Students 
have voiced concerns that if Howard controlled the streets, 
it would erect a fence and institute check-points."

MIM agrees with the students that giving the city or the 
university all the power is not a good idea. The students 
also worried that Howard University administrators would 
gain power to arrest demonstrators on what used to be public 
property.(1) On the other hand, at the same time that the 
students were fighting Howard University, DC cops were 
arresting graduate students for drinking beer on their 
porches.(2)

Universities across the country have ignorantly and 
irrationally fallen into anti-crime hysteria -- hiring 
police and locking themselves away from the public. Thus, 
the university has become a microcosm of the U$A as a whole 
which is the world's leader per capita in imprisonment, when 
the university should be the one place where crime is viewed 
scientifically.

NOTES:
1. The Hilltop: The Nation's Largest Black Collegiate 
Newspaper, 3 October 1997, p.1 .
2. The InTowner September, 1997, pp. 1, 9.


MILLIONS DIE EACH YEAR FROM TREATABLE DISEASES

by MC206

"Waterborne and sanitation-related diseases [such as cholera 
and typhoid] kill well over three million annually and 
disable hundreds of millions more, most of them younger than 
five years of age," according to the November 1997 issue of 
Scientific American.

"Bacterial and viral diseases contracted by drinking 
contaminated water include... childhood diarrhea ailments, 
infectious hepatitis and poliomyelitis..."

"Around the world a billion people lack access to safe 
water, and 1.8 billion do not have adequate sanitary 
facilities. According to one estimate, providing safe water 
and decent sanitation facilities for all human beings would 
cost $68 billion over the next ten years -- an enormous sum, 
but equivalent to only one percent of the world's military 
expenditures for the same period."

On the one hand, this is yet another example of the enormous 
waste of imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism. On 
the other, it is an indication of the wonders that can be 
accomplished once imperialism is vanquished and economic 
resources are allocated by a state which acts in the 
interests of the majority of humanity.

Even without getting a share of the imperialists' military 
budgets, an oppressed nation which liberates itself from 
imperialism could allocate its own resources -- which 
otherwise would have gone into ephemeral projects designed 
to boost imperialist profits -- to solve basic problems like 
sanitation or health care. That is why the life expectancy 
in socialist China doubled from 1949 to 1976.


CINCINNATI ANGLES FOR REACTIONARY FIRST PLACE

by MC5

Cincinnati is building a reactionary name for itself. A 
voter initiative put through by determined chauvinists 
forbids Cincinnati from protecting homosexuals against 
discrimination. According to a USA Today article, this makes 
Cincinnati unique in the U$A, because in other cities the 
bigots have tried and failed.

Cincinnati has also been in the news in recent years for the 
baseball team owner Marge Schott who makes Nazi comments 
about Blacks and Jews and supporting Hitler from time to 
time.

We also remember Cincinnati for the Vincent Chin jury. The 
jury refused to convict a white of murdering a Vietnamese 
man despite witnesses and a confession.

MIM points this out, because such people are not inclined to 
change without armed revolutionary struggle. In some 
Amerikan cities, they attempt to put on a facade of 
integration and there is an effort at dialogue. However, we 
have to look at the labor aristocracy as a whole, and the 
places that we do not hear about are the ones like 
Cincinnati -- actively and consciously reactionary.

NOTE: USA Today 24 October 1997, p. 3a.


PROFITS BEFORE PEOPLE:  FALLOUT FROM FALLOUT

"Kodak discovered in the early 1950's (sic.) that some film 
was fogged before use, and it traced the problem to fallout 
from atmospheric nuclear tests." Ever busy to serve the 
capitalists, the U.$. Government warned Kodak of this 
problem, but it did not warn the public about the corn or 
milk also contaminated.

The National Cancer Institute estimates the fallout caused 
10,000 to 75,000 extra thyroid cancers between 1951 and 
1958.

NOTE: New York Times 30 September 1997, p. a18.


MOTHER THERESA OVERSAW GENOCIDE OF POOR

As we said in MIM Notes 147, Mother Theresa was no saint. 
More details are coming out.

Mother Theresa opposed having doctors diagnose her wards for 
curable diseases. She told Dr. Robin Fox, the editor of The 
Lancet -- a famous medical journal -- that she opposed 
materialism, which meant opposing medical science. She 
received millions in contributions for her work but refused 
medical facilities for her patients, while she herself went 
to the finest medical facilities in the West.

As a result, the Mother Theresa facilities meant death for 
those with easily curable diseases.

She also spoke against the Sandinistas while supporting 
death-squad government in Guatemala and Haiti.

Mother Theresa gained so much support for sweeping the poor 
under the rug into heaven that she started her own franchise 
which went beyond India. In New York City, she canceled a 
project for the poor to avoid having New York City pay for 
an elevator for the handicapped.

Mother Theresa said in speeches that she regarded the 
suffering of the poor as "beautiful" and something we should 
all learn from. Such is the role of religion. Mother Theresa 
struggled mightily to get the poor to accept their fates and 
came up with excuses for not struggling for material 
betterment of the poor. For this she received money from 
convicted swindler Charles Keating and other like-minded 
capitalists. In the case of Keating, she asked the judge for 
mercy in view of his gift to her work.

As long as people believe those who suffer the most end up 
in heaven, the ruling class is safe. That is why Mother 
Theresa received so much support.

NOTE: The Prism, PO Box 16025, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, 
October, 1997, p. 11.



* * *



UNDER LOCK & KEY

PRISONER CHALLENGES CENSORSHIP AND WINS

I did receive the MIM Notes and RAIL Newsletter that were 
sent to me a couple of months ago. Originally, the Nazi 
rejected it stating that is advocated violence and 
insurrection. They did this becauz the front page headline 
on one issue said something about PIGS.... Eventually they 
gave it to me, but not before I challenged the rejection.

...Right now I am suing them becuz I was raped by a kop last 
year. Evidently this is part of my sentence. It took a 
year's worth of letters, threats and bitching just to get 
the pig arrested. They tried to cover it up, intimidate me 
into silence, the jackboot routine. It wasn't until I found 
an attorney that they have given me some air.

They are gonna let the kop plead guilty to a lesser charge, 
and close the case quietly. This is the last thing I want, 
becuz unless and until the public is made aware of the 
brutal and dehumanizing conditions that exist in 
"correctional" facilities, the status quo will remain....

 -- A Michigan Prisoner, 7 August 1997


COLORADO PRISONERS BATTLE CENSORSHIP

I am writing to inform you that the administration has had a 
change of mind. I am aware that the minions of the beast are 
a mindless lot, and that from now on they are going to 
review each issue of MIM Notes before deciding if it will be 
censored or not. While this is not a big victory, it is 
encouraging that this gulag is on notice: That we/I will 
fight for our/my rights.

The material you sent via your letter on how to fight the 
prison censorship was very helpful. I plan to make copies 
and pass the information on to other comrades in the 
struggle within the beast....

 -- A Colorado Prisoner, 17 August 1997


CENSORSHIP VICTORY IN WASHINGTON STATE

...There have been several complaints filed in the various 
federal courts concerning Washington prisons censoring 
political, religious, bulk mail, non-profit mail, etc. One 
complaint filed in the Eastern District of Washington won 
big time....

Another complaint is pending in the Western District of 
Washington. I am of one the named plaintiffs in that suit 
and my chief issue is not being allowed the MIM Notes.
I'll keep you posted on the above. [This prison] is the pits 
which should be par for prison life.

In Struggle,

 -- A Washington Prisoner, 6 September 1997


PENNSYLVANIA PRISONERS CONTEST CENSORSHIP

I am writing to let you know that MIM is being censored here 
at SCI Greene. Because the Incoming Publication Committee 
states, it advocates violence, insurrection or guerrilla 
warfare against the government and institutions, which 
creates a present danger within the context of the 
correctional institution. I'm appealing this decision and it 
would be helpful if you contact the superintendent.

SCI Greene, Superintendent, Ben Varner, 1040 E. Roy Furman 
Hwy, Waynesburg, PA 15370-8090

Sincerely,

 -- A Pennsylvania Prisoner, 8 August, 1997


In July 1997, my MIM Notes were censored. SCI Greene is the 
most Super Max prison in Pennsylvania. This is the first 
time they ever censored my MIM Notes....

...At this very moment I'm in the process of appealing this 
unconstitutional censorship to the warden. I'm still waiting 
for a response ... Without a doubt, the warden is sure to 
uphold this diabolical decision of his subordinates.

This is just another tactic that the agents of the United 
Snakes "Porky Pig" brigade uses. Preventing the oppressed 
people from receiving essential information of pure facts 
... I also sent the appeal I filed.... 

 -- Another Pennsylvania Prisoner, 17 July 1997


PRISONER CHALLENGES CENSORSHIP AND DOC CAVES

I'm writing you in reference to MIM Notes that I was once 
receiving. Well as I wrote you before letting you know that 
the institution I'm in wouldn't allow your publication 
because it advocates the violent overthrow of the united 
snake government.

I filed a complaint with the department of corrections and I 
threatened to go public with them violating my 
constitutional rights and told them that I will "sue" the 
hell out of them.

So once again, they turned over my September issue of MIM 
Notes today. I was somewhat shocked that they gave in so 
easy, but then I was glad that I didn't have to take anymore 
measures. So please forward MIM Notes to me once again.

Thank you,

 -- A Third Pennsylvania Prisoner, 8 October, 1997


FEDERAL PRISONER FACES CENSORSHIP

Please find enclosed herein a Publication Rejection letter 
from ADX [Administrative Max] warden and Publication 
Rejection Notice from ADX inmate systems manager where in 
they state their Fascist reasons for intercepting my MIM 
Notes. Due to ADX's Draconian-Orwellian denial of my MIM 
Notes, I elected this request that you remove my name from 
you mailing list.

I will not ask your readers to write to the warden or 
politicians regarding the denial of MIM Notes in ADX, as MIM 
Notes has done in the past in other similar incident.

As far as I am concerned, Fuck writing to wardens and 
politicians. What I want is the right to vote, so we can 
bring about change. That is why I support the Boycott 
Wisconsin Campaign, which you could care less about.

You also told your readers to refrain from voting, and then 
with a twisted logic you told your readers to write to 
certain government around the world.

What also makes me suspicious of MIM Notes is that none of 
the staff members have printed their names and photos in MIM 
Notes as though you refuse to put your head on the chopping 
block.

I still believe that MIM Notes is doing some good, but as 
far as I know the MIM Notes could be printed and distributed 
by the CIA.

Thank you very much for hitting my hand with MIM Notes for 
the past few months! And for enlightening me on many 
matters!

In Struggle,

 -- A Federal Prisoner, 30 July 1997

MIM RESPONDS:  The censorship of MIM Notes is one way that 
Pig Oppressors attempt to further dominate prisoners. This 
is a way the pigs prevent prisoners from educating and 
organizing themselves. We have sent you a letter with tips 
to combat censorship and have honored your request to be 
taken off our mailing list. Often prisoners working with MIM 
fight and win legal battles to end or delay censorship.

Organized legal battles that are led by the proletariat can 
be fought to free up organizing space. These reformist 
battles are tools that we utilize to reach the masses. For 
instance, we are organizing to build support for armed 
revolutionary struggle to achieve socialism. If we cannot 
reach people, we can not complete larger tasks. So, if it is 
possible to use the oppressor's laws to free space for 
organizing for revolution, we do it. We fight winnable 
battles so that the resources of the masses are not flushed 
down a toilet. And as we fight winnable reformist battles 
which we decide to wage, we use that as an opportunity to 
point out the hypocrisy of Amerika's dictatorship of the 
bourgeoisie.

Currently, voting in the United $tates government elections 
is a vote of confidence in a thoroughly unjust repressive 
system. This government, created by capitalist oppressors, 
serves their interests at the detriment of the majority of 
the world's people. True democracy necessitates self-
determination of oppressed nations. Leading the masses to 
vote and spend resources on voting campaigns is a waste. 
Activists before have taken on this reformist battle, and we 
have learned from them. Either they degenerated, lost or 
wasted resources. IF it were possible, the end result of 
voting in a candidate from MIM means there is one rational 
materialist in a sea of bureaucrats working only in the 
interests of imperialism and settler nation domination.

Even though both practices are reformist, we make a 
distinction between winnable battles as described above and 
battles which do not aid in the struggle to build support 
for revolution. The end result of stopping censorship is 1) 
that people of Amerika's hypocritical contradiction with 
regard to freedom of speech and 2) we will then be able to 
send literature and information. The end result of voting 
would make us broke and only allow a candidate or two to be 
battling from within.

We will not end oppression or even make a dent in 
imperialism by voting. In fact, voting will just help to 
legitimize the system by telling people we believe it can be 
fixed from within. On the other hand, writing letters of 
protest are small battles that we can win within the system, 
while always putting this in the context of the need for 
revolution.

So instead of voting, MIM advocates working for revolution. 
Revolution is the development of independent institutions of 
the oppressed to build a society in the interests of the 
oppressed and the seizure of state power through armed 
struggle. We would not go to such lengths if there were 
historical or material basis for winning power for the 
people without the loss of proletarian soldiers' lives.

The Maoist Internationalist Movement exposes the crimes of 
imperialists and helps build independent institutions of the 
oppressed. This is a more effective way to create real 
change and end the oppression of the world's proletariat. 

The articles in any issue of MIM Notes should allay anyone's 
fears that MIM is really with the CIA. The work that we do 
speaks clearly to the contrary. And our political line is 
very much counter to the interests of the government and in 
the interests of the international proletariat. The only 
possible defense that any organization can have against such 
an accusation is their line and practice. After all, the CIA 
is perfectly capable of coming up with a few pretty faces 
and names to print if they wanted to.

One last comment about security, MIM and RAIL do not print 
names because we have learned from the history of past 
revolutionary groups, like the Black Panther Party, who was 
fiercely attacked by the FBI's COINTELPRO. There is no 
reason to make it easier for the pigs to destroy the 
people's revolutionary struggle. In this anonymity there is 
accountability. The entire Party takes credit for and is 
held accountable for the political line and practice of the 
Party.


PRISONER FACES RETALIATION FOR FILING GRIEVANCES

... I have recently received 6 infractions within 24 hours, 
false charges of course, for retaliation of filing 
grievances. This facility is run and operated by a classic 
group of people as described in your zine. I continue to 
circulate all publications received by you to various 
prisoners. ...

-- A Florida Prisoner, 19 September 1997


ALMIGHTY VICE LORD NATION FIGHTS FOR JUSTICE

... I recently read a piece in the Under Lock and Key 
section regarding oppression by the South Carolina D.O.C. 
[Dept. of Corrections], against prisoners representing a 
segment of the religious and political organizations 
considered an off branch of the NOI [Nation of Islam] called 
the 5%ers.

Here in the State of Iowa, we as representatives of the 
Almighty Vice Lord Nation [AVLN], who conform to the 
Nation's Teachings and religious/political views, are also 
subjected to unjust policies and procedures. The [DOC's] 
Internal Affairs has openly targeted the top three 
Representatives [of the AVLN]. They have isolated one from 
general population under the label of Close Management. 
Another was transferred to another facility.

The vocal leader was kidnapped and given 3 years 
Administrative Segregation. The corrupt internal affairs 
department alleged that a confidential informant told them 
that "his group assaulted another inmate for disrespecting 
the Almighty V/L Nation", yet ample evidence clears him of 
being anywhere near the location of the alleged assault.

The Department of Corruption has not sanctions these 
atrocities, but has also designed a system to now target all 
Vice Lords incarcerated throughout the Iowa Penal System....

-- An Iowa Prisoner, 22 July 1997


PRISONERS UNITE VS. SOUTH CAROLINA PIGS

Now that the newly, once Texas Warden, has become the 
commissioner of SCDC [South Carolina Department of 
InCorrections], numerous confrontations between the general 
populations and the administration have taken place, both on 
a mental and physical level. All blame the commissioner and 
his newly implemented white supremacy agenda and polices. 
Many strange alliances have been formed in an effort to 
combat the oppressive forces and implementations of Michael 
Moore.

The 5% Percent Nation has a consolidated class action civil 
suit being litigated in the courts against SCDC, as do the 
Native Indians, Muslims, and Rastafarians. There are 
countless individual state and federal suits as well, 
challenging SCDC on a variety of get tough on prisoner 
policies.

Riots and escapes have dramatically increased at various 
institutions, bringing forth the implementation of control 
movement and a host of other policies. The policies are, in 
many cases, designed to break the resistance of various 
groups and prisoners in general. People of color and their 
individual religions, way of life, and their cultural 
practices are discouraged, attacked and labeled anti-
christian and anti-european, which is illegal.

KCI-MSU (Alias SUPER Max) is full of political/Religious 
prisoners of the aforementioned groups. Yes, it is 
institutionalized white supremacy at its height. But surely 
in the only state that flies the accused diversionary rebel 
flag atop the state house dome, one could expect no less....

 -- A South Carolina Prisoner, 23 July 1997


NEW CLOSE MANAGEMENT UNIT IN FLORIDA

... I am one of 1200 prisoners in Florida who have been 
leased to Privatization Prison (Wakenhut). (South Bay 
Correctional Facility).

A Close Management Unit has just been opened.

The food here sucks. The cops of Wakenhut security have 
lousy attitudes (95% of them). Clothes come back from the 
laundry wet and dingy. Counts last two hours. Telephones are 
owned by a Wackenut Corp. and are ripping off families, 
loved ones and attorneys. There is no warm water in the 
cells, no cold water fountain in dorms, just tepid water. 
Canteen prices are street prices or more. Medical is 
tantamount to no medical treatment. A lot of cops aren't 
certified. Food is served cold. Dish washers are not at 
correct temperatures per regulations, etc. These bad points 
definitely override the soft toilet paper and air 
conditioning in this dungeon for dollars.

... Keep up the struggle for true freedom.

 -- A Florida Prisoner, 19 August 1997


RAPID EXPANSION OF TEXAS PRISONS

My last thought concerns the vast expansion of TDCJ (Texas 
Department of Criminal Justice) in less than tree years from 
60,000 prisoners in 60 prisons to 130,000+ prisoners in 109 
prisons. These men and women are forced to work for free in 
the production of prison-made goods shipped to the other 49 
states. 42USC 1994 makes peonage, the forced labor of a 
person in payment of debt such as food and shelter a felony, 
yet Texas convicts mush work for free. 18USC 1781 prevents 
prison-made goods from shipment our of the state they were 
produced in to stop unfair competition with private 
businesses who have higher labor costs and must charge more 
for their products. 

By Amendment, Texas is the only state permitted to legally 
break this law. New York to California taxpayers must 
support the growing Texas prison system with their federal 
tax money and by permitting Texas' unfair business 
competition. I believe the purpose of the law was violated 
by Texas. Repeal this amendment! Help keep Texas prison-made 
goods inside Texas. Write to your newspaper and US 
Congressmen citing this law and ask why must your state 
support 109 Texas Prisons?

 -- A Texas Prisoner


EXPOSING TEXAS HARASSMENT TACTICS

Hey I'm writing you this letter to give you all a big scoop 
on my unit (Stiles) in Beaumont, Texas. A lot is being 
violated here such as low portions of food. 

...Also they have this system that Level 3's must get in a 
Dog position as the pigs call it "Feeding Procedure". We get 
on our knees with hands braced to the back of our head, 
while the pigs laugh and etc. Now they will refuse your food 
for not doing such a thing.

They have started making management cells, July 97, on 4 
sections, about 8 cells or more, for people who these pigs 
feel they need to retaliate on, and put them away with 
nothing.

Also they started gassing first before running in the cells 
of an inmate upon who they retaliate. These, redneck, all 
these pigs, wear black gloves, like if they're supposed to 
intimidate an inmate.

... So it has been pretty fucked up since they moved a lot 
of decent rank. Now they retaliate, by messing with your 
cells in unnecessary shakedowns, while they scatter 
everything everywhere on the floor, especially for inmates 
of the struggle....

 -- A Texas Prisoner, 10 July 1997


POETRY

WANTING TO BE FREE

Locked away from society, living in a cell twenty-two hours 
a day, it's every man's hell.

Expected to be strong and not to shed a tear, wondering if 
love will survive is my only fear.

My mind keeps on struggling to keep itself sane, but this is 
hard to do while dealing with misery's pain.

So I removed myself from the present and don't dwell upon 
the past, but pray for the future and hope it will come 
fast.

Until it does arrive and I can once again be free. I'm just 
another number wanting to be free.

-- A Pennsylvania Prisoner 11 August 1997


THOUGHTS OF A PRISONER

Endless days that count the years, no longer can I hold back 
the tears. Serving time behind a wall, with no one to visit, 
no one to call. Like a wild animal locked inside a gate, 
waiting patiently for my parole date. No reason to feel any 
sorrow, all I do is pray for tomorrow. Then one day the 
gates will swing wide, that boy that's now a man steps 
outside. As he leaves he looks behind, seeing the same wall 
holding his own kind. The broken promises, the empty dreams, 
the sorrow is stitched between the seams.

-- A Pennsylvania Prisoner 11 August 1997


MIM NOTES: THE MOST CENSORED NEWSPAPER IN THE U$A

We at MIM Notes are the most censored newspaper in the U$A, 
because so many prisoners ask for our paper and they cannot 
obtain it, because of prison administrations that forbid it.

Prison administrations often cite the coverage of prisons as 
the reason they give, but they have other bogus reasons they 
give. They deny us outside prison the free speech to address 
prisoners and they deny prisoners reading material, often in 
cases where prisoners do not find anything else very 
inspiring to read. For our efforts paying for literacy 
improvement in prison, MIM gets its literature including 
books thrown out by prison officials all the time. It only 
underscores the suspicions of people outside the walls that 
the real reason people end up in prison is not conforming to 
the white bread views of mainstream Amerika.

In order to firmly expose the agents of repression, 
prisoners, make sure you let us know of prison policies and 
practice of censorship. We are compiling a list of these 
nasty hypocritical prisoncrats that censor the news of the 
masses.


WANTED: PRISONERS TO WRITE REVIEWS OF BOOKS

MIM has a lot of non-revolutionary but political books that 
have been donated to our Books for Prisoners program. These 
books are worth reading and reviewing for MIM Theory. We 
have a range of topics and if you are interested in reading 
and reviewing one (or a few), feel free to specify your 
areas of interest. Along with these books we can often 
provide you with related information from past issues of MIM 
Theory to help with the reviews.


* * *


MIM ON PRISONS AND PRISONERS

MIM seeks to build public opinion against 
Amerika's criminal injustice system, and to 
eventually replace the bourgeois injustice system 
with proletarian justice. The bourgeois 
injustice system imprisons and executes a 
disproportionately large and growing number of 
oppressed people while letting the biggest mass 
murderers - the imperialists and their 
lackeys - roam free. Imperialism is not opposed to 
murder or theft, it only insists that these crimes 
be committed in the interests of the bourgeoisie.

MIM does not advocate that all prisoners go free 
today; we have a more effective program for 
fighting crime as was demonstrated in China prior 
to the restoration of capitalism there in 1976. We 
say that all prisoners are political 
prisoners because under the dictatorship of the 
bourgeoisie, all imprisonment is substantively 
political. It is our responsibility to exert 
revolutionary leadership and conduct 
political agitation and organization among 
prisoners - whose material conditions make them an 
overwhelmingly revolutionary group. Some prisoners 
should and will work on self-criticism under a 
future dictatorship of the proletariat in those 
cases in which prisoners really did do 
something wrong by proletarian standards.

***WHAT NON-PRISONERS CAN DO TO SUPPORT 
PRISONERS***

*1. Struggle with, work with, finance and join 
MIM. The best way to support prisoners is to overthrow 
the system under which capitalists profit from the 
exploitation of prisoners. History shows that the 
best way to do this is to build a Marxist-
Leninist-Maoist party. The oppressors will not give up 
their power without a fight.
*2. Finance MIM's prison work. Our biggest bill 
each month is postage. Most of the prison comrades 
who read MIM Notes have no way of paying for it. 
So if you have money, send what you can afford. Every 
cent helps, and stamps are as good as cash to us.
*3. Distribute MIM Notes and Notas Rojas. Bring 
the voices of prisoners and their supporters to as 
large and wide an audience of people as possible. 
Contact MIM for bulk rates and distribution tips.
*4. Start or join a prison support group. MIM can 
provide advice and resources to help you build 
public opinion for prisoners and their struggles.
*5. Fight censorship, beatings, torture and other 
fascist outrages. Under Lock and Key often 
features the addresses of prisoners' friends and enemies. 
Work with the friends and let the enemies know 
you're watching. (Don't expect to win the fascists 
to the side of humanity, however. See #1 in this 
list).
*6. Stay in touch. Keep us informed of pro-
prisoner work you do. Our readers might find it educational 
or inspirational.

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