Angry masses confront mass-murderer Ollie North

Oliver North's speech at the University of California, Santa Barbara on May 11 
sparked angry protests. Approximately 50 protesters banged on the doors and 
chanted slogans outside like "Ollie North Sucks! He Kills for American bucks!"

The speech, put on by the Campus Republicans, advertised North as a "Real 
American Hero" who would be speaking about Constitutional rights. On the one 
hand, that may seem ironic, because North helped organize and fund the Contra 
terror campaign, which deprived tens of thousands of Nicaraguans of life and 
liberty. But on the other hand, the justice, laws, and rights of the 
imperialists and their lackeys necessarily exonerate the crimes they commit 
against the masses. "[J]ustice is never anything but the ideologized, glorified 
expression of the existing economic relations, at times from the conservative 
side, at times from the revolutionary side. The justice of the Greeks and Romans 
[and much of pre-Civil War Amerika] held slavery to be just."(1)

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) and the Revolutionary Anti-
Imperialist League (RAIL) helped arouse and mobilize the masses for the protest. 
MIM also produced a flyer outlining North's crimes and linking them to Amerikan 
imperialism, which was well received and passed out by many local activists. 
Here is the text of that flyer:

"MIM doesn't ordinarily single out individual representatives of the imperialist 
United $tates government for comment. Oliver North is not a "bad seed" in an 
otherwise good system -- his actions on behalf of the U$ government served the 
system well.

"In 1986, Oliver North's crimes against the international proletariat were 
exposed in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. During the Reagan 
Administration, North facilitated the sales of United Snakes arms to the Iranian 
government in order to illegally funnel the profits to the murderous Contras, 
who were fighting the popular government in Nicaragua. The Contras used that 
money to kill more than 30,000 people.

"In other words, North gave weapons to a criminal gang that killed tens of 
thousands. In Amerika's courtrooms, crimes on a minuscule scale by comparison 
sentence California's oppressed nationals to prison for life. North, by 
contrast, escaped conviction on these acts, instead winning acquittals on all 
but a few charges. And those convictions were overturned, allowing him to resume 
his patriot hero status, and charge thousands of dollars for a boring lecture.

"Anti-imperialists charge North and the U$ government with the murder of 
thousands of Nicaraguans and the crime of overthrowing a popular government in 
that country. After years of U$ backed terrorism, under the imperialist threat 
of perennial attack if the Sandinistas remained in power, the Nicaraguan people 
voted the Sandinista government out in 1990. We also charge North with the crime 
of fueling the war between Iran and Iraq during the 1980s to serve the economic 
interests of the united $tates."(2)

North's $10,000 honorarium was partly paid for using students' fees, despite the 
controversy over funding political groups. The "Communities Confronting 
Capitalist Globalization" conference, held the previous month, did not receive 
as much funding because it was "too political," according to the committees in 
charge of student funds. We can learn two lessons from this.

(1) Student funds are a valuable resource. Getting them is a political struggle 
which requires both ingenuity and discipline.

(2) We cannot depend solely on these funds, because they are often too tenuous 
and come with onerous strings attached. This is another reason why MIM and RAIL 
build ITAL independent END institutions of the oppressed. The newspaper you are 
reading now would not exist, were it not for the financial and practical 
contributions of the masses and the fund-raising projects of the People's 
Internationalist Rear Area Organization (PIRAO).

Notes:

1. Engels, "The Housing Question" (1872), in: Selsam and Martel eds., ITAL 
Reader in Marxist Philospohy, END New York: International Publishers, 1963.

2. Flyer available online: www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/cal/ollie.pdf.