I N T E R N E T ' S  M A O I S T  BI-M O N T H L Y

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         THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

     MIM NOTES 116                 JUNE 15, 1996



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.



WORLD MOBILIZATION TO DEFEND THE PERUVIAN 
REVOLUTION


***The Peruvian comrades abroad who asked MIM to 
cease our work supporting the Peruvian revolution 
have retracted this request. While MIM works to 
reach greater clarity in our relationship with the 
Communist Party of Peru (PCP) and a better 
understanding of what work they would like done to 
support their revolution (aside from the most 
important task of building revolution in our own 
country), MIM prints the following statement and 
hails the development of this advance in the 
support for the peoples war in Peru.***

WORLD MOBILIZATION COMMISSION
CALL FOR MOBILISING FOR STRUGGLE

The undersigned reaffirm our most fervent support 
and solidarity with the victorious People's War 
that the Communist Party of Peru is leading since 
1980. We are convinced that the Peruvian revolution 
is a first class contribution to the world 
proletarian revolution. The armed struggle taking 
place in Peru is an example of true combat against 
imperialism and revisionism. And in this context, 
we salute the great revolutionary condition and the 
fundamental role of Chairman Gonzalo, the leader of 
the PCP and the revolution.

PERU: CALL FOR MOBILISING FOR STRUGGLE

Since 1993, the Peruvian regime in cahoots with US 
imperialism has intensified their misinformation 
campaign against the People's War, against the PCP, 
and against Chairman Gonzalo. The counter-
revolutionary objective is to isolate the Peruvian 
revolution and create the conditions for their 
commission of barbarous crimes against the war 
prisoners, and to be able to destroy entire 
populations in order to kill in mass the militants 
and supporters of the revolution. This is a Psycho-
social warfare strategy in which they have enlisted 
the support of capitulationists, infiltrated agents 
and groups and personalities disguised as 
"revolutionaries" and "big time Maoists".

The present political situation, at the national 
and international level, compels all who are truly 
willing to lend their militant solidarity with the 
Peruvian revolutionaries, to unify our efforts 
under the common objective of defending the 
Peruvian revolution from the imperialist onslaught, 
and the activities of revisionism and opportunism.

With this aim in mind, we submit the following 
document to your consideration:

BRIEF INTRODUCTION:

The forces of imperialism, revisionism and 
opportunism, have, in various occasions and using 
multiple strategies, attempted to destroy and wipe 
out all traces of good will towards the People's 
War and the Communist Party of Peru (PCP). In order 
to succeed, a revolutionary process needs 
favourable public opinion, and concretely, it needs 
a movement of support and solidarity from the 
revolutionary organisations and parties, as 
Chairman Gonzalo has already noted. This is one of 
the reasons why the enemies of the Peruvian 
revolution have dedicated ample resources to the 
infiltration and undermining the support movement 
for the Peruvian revolution. In foreign countries, 
a number of individuals and organisations appear 
from time to time claims themselves to be the 
"representatives of the PCP", and proclaiming 
themselves as the "greatest Maoists on earth", 
while in practice they carry out activities aimed 
at undermining this support while at the same time 
trying to exact capitalist profits from the 
revolution.

These enemies of the Peruvian revolution have 
adopted varied masks and draped themselves in 
different guises. At times, they perform their 
abject tasks in the open, and sometimes they work 
underhand without showing their true face.  Here 
are two concrete examples illustrating these 
counter-revolutionary phenomena: The first relates 
to those individuals who played a role in making 
propaganda for the police fraud of "peace 
agreement" in 1993. The second, relates to those 
who claim to "support the people's war" and even 
express their opposition to the "peace letters' 
fraud", but who in practice are working for the 
same strategic designs of US imperialism.

Revisionists and opportunists, together with those 
agents directly linked to the Peruvian police's 
Secret Services, share the same objectives:

1.  To depict the PCP as an organisation weakened 
by an acute internecine and "life or death" 
struggle centred around "two lines" regarding the 
"peace" fraud.

2.  To deny that the "peace letters" plot is a 
police fabrication engineered by the National 
Intelligence Service of the Peruvian state (SIN), 
and supported by US intelligence experts.

3.  To depict Chairman Gonzalo as a vulgar 
capitulationist who, from inside his cell, is 
leading the "peace agreement" plot.

4.  To deny and obscure the analysis and position 
of the Communist Party of Peru regarding the "peace 
agreement" plot which was from the word go 
repudiated and denounced by the Party as a counter-
revolutionary fabrication engineered by US 
imperialism and its lackeys. They also try to slur 
over the spirited defence by the Party of Chairman 
Gonzalo's revolutionary integrity.

5.  To promote the disorganisation of the 
international political movement in support of the 
armed struggle and the PCP, and to lead it into a 
quagmire.

FIGHTING OPPORTUNISM THROUGH TO THE END

A principle of Marxist theory teaches us that in 
order to fight imperialism with success and from a 
position of advantage, it is necessary to 
distinguish clearly between enemies and friends. 
That once the class enemy is clearly identified, we 
must fight it through to the end. It is true that 
the capitulationists and police agents (abroad) 
were represented by the heads of the Peru People's 
Movement (MPP), and they were fought against and 
smashed without qualms. They were unable to resist 
the burden of the People's War, and currently (in 
Peru and abroad) they have no longer any 
significance in the Peruvian process, existing only 
as figments of the imagination in Fujimori's plots.

On the other hand, the revisionists and 
opportunists were represented - and still are - by 
the leadership of the International Committee of 
the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (Co-
Rim), and by the heads of the International 
Emergency Committee (IEC). This current, isolated 
and despised by the true friends of the People's 
War and the PCP, are crawling like snakes loudly 
hissing their "support for the people's war" and 
even screaming that their "red flag is flying over 
Peru". Adopting this phoney revolutionist position, 
they are attempting to continue to profit from the 
People's War. This is precisely what now must be 
stopped. We must not allow vulgar opportunism to 
continue to capitalise and profit from the heroic 
struggle of the Peruvian revolutionaries.

The opportunist leadership of Co-RIM, is the main 
cause of immobilism in the international movement 
of support for the People's War in Peru. Since 
October 1993 their nefarious activities have been 
geared to paralysing any show of support for the 
People's War and to cast doubts upon the 
revolutionary condition of Chairman Gonzalo. Both 
bureaucratic organisms, the Co-RIM and the IEC, are 
not in any way politically and morally capable to 
call upon the masses and political organisations to 
the defence of the Peruvian revolution.

No working class individual would listen to or 
follow the calls of an eclectic leadership who took 
a conciliatory position towards the police fraud 
for over a year and a half and kept during that 
time secret relations with the promoters of the 
police and capitulators' plot abroad, a leadership, 
moreover, that took steps to pigeonhole documents 
of the PCP.

No political organisation abroad can take seriously 
the proclamations of the International Emergency 
Committee (IEC), while the bureaucracy in charge of 
that organism is the same bureaucracy in charge of 
the Co-RIM. No one with elementary political sense 
would want to offer their support and solidarity to 
Chairman Gonzalo if this must pass through the IEC, 
an organism in whose "leading body", three 
individuals who are working and coordinating 
actions with the Peruvian government remain.

UNITE ON THE BASIS OF UPHOLDING THE REVOLUTIONARY 
PRINCIPLES

Given the ideo-political considerations above, we 
issue this call to set up and organise a WORLD WIDE 
MOBILISATION COMMISSION (WWMC) to defend the 
Peruvian revolution. This organisation would be 
directed linked to the Peruvian process and will 
undertake the task of organising, guiding and 
promoting all activities in support of the Peruvian 
revolution abroad. Its tasks would be geared to the 
following objectives:

1.  To defend the life of Chairman Gonzalo and his 
powerful Thought.

2.  To defend without reservations the People's 
War, the Communist Party of Peru (PCP) and its 
leadership.

3.  To defend the life of the war and political 
prisoners.

4.  To defend Maoism as the new, third, and 
superior stage of Marxism, within the context of 
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism taken as a unity in 
development.

5.  To struggle against imperialism, revisionism 
and opportunism and all counter-revolutionary 
forces.

6.  Work towards convening and implementing a WORLD 
CONFERENCE to congregate political parties, support 
groups, mass organisations and fronts, as well as 
personalities who sympathise with and support the 
People's War in Peru. To appoint an Organising 
Commission to this effect.

BRUSSELS, 10 MARCH, 1996


* * *


CHIPPEWA YOUTHS STABBED, BOATS SUNK: ONTARIO 
RESPONDS WITH INACTION

Over the past year, anti-First Nation violence has 
escalated in the First Nation territories that 
Canada considers its own. On paper, Ontario 
recognizes the rights of the Chippewa people of 
Nawash to exploit the fish in provincial waters. In 
practice, the settlers of Ontario are waging a 
campaign of terror to attempt to prevent the 
Chippewa from exercising those supposed rights. 
These incidents have included the stabbing of four 
First Nation youth, the sinking of a fishing boat, 
and the burning of a tugboat that was later sunk. 
Because the attacks have taken place off the 
reservation, Ontario has jurisdiction. It has yet 
to bring charges against anyone for last summer's 
crimes. MIM knows that justice will not come from 
Kanada; only when the Chippewa determine their own 
fate will the violence end.

The Nawash have attempted to bring attention to 
police inaction around these cases by issuing a 
call for help from Kanada's Minister of Indian 
Affairs. However, the Ministry declined to get into 
a turf war with Ontario, leaving the Chippewa to 
deal with the pigs they trust least.

Chief Ralph Akiwenzie of the Chippewas of Nawash 
has made a correct analysis of the situation: 
"Ontario's police cannot, or will not, protect the 
people or property of the Chippewa; and all actions 
taken against the Nawash will go unpunished." The 
Newspaper Indian Country Today correctly recognizes 
the internationalist connections of the Chippawas 
struggle. It paraphrases a lawyer who points out 
the similarities to the refusal of local law 
enforcement to follow the United Snakes' own laws 
toward its internal colonies in the South of the 
1960s. MIM would add that no reference to history 
is necessary to see the similarities between the 
Black nation and First Nations. Both face constant 
violence from settlers that goes unpunished.

Three years ago, a provincial court ruled in favor 
of a priority indigenous right to fish around the 
Bruce Peninsula. It was a reaffirmation of the 
Kanadian constitution, and directed the province to 
take a "new approach" to assuring First Nation 
rights: Ontario was to not only allot the Nawash a 
good share of the fishery but would also have input 
in how the fishing was managed. In lieu of an 
agreement, the waters have been chaos.

The Nawash want to reach a fishing agreement to 
avert more violence, but Ontario won't sit down at 
the negotiating table. The Nawash want an agreement 
that would favor species of fish that they 
traditionally use, rather than the current ones 
which favor hatchery species. But negotiation seems 
unlikely. Ontario recently notified the Nawash that 
they will be issued a communal fishing license 
which will greatly restrict their rights according 
to the Kanadian constitution.

The Kanadian constitution will not protect the 
Chippewa of Nawash or other First Nation peoples. 
Only real self-determination will be a defense.

NOTES: Indian Country Today May 7-14, 1996, pp. 1-2


* * *


LETTERS TO MIM

CRIMES AGAINST THE PEOPLE AREN'T POLITICAL

Dear MIM,

i am a worker in the New Afrikan Independence 
Movement. i like your journals and am happy to find 
much unity in your literature and work. i disagree, 
however, with your assertion that "all prisoners 
are political prisoners". i had a nice letter all 
composed, but fell victim to a glitch, so forgive 
me for mixing my commentary with quotes from both 
"Injustice System Convicts Another Latino Youth" 
(MIM Notes, 113) and the NEW AFRIKAN P.O.W. 
JOURNALS. You say that "all prisoners are political 
prisoners" because, "The criminal justice system 
targets oppressed nationals, arresting them at a 
higher rate and giving them much harsher sentences 
than their white-youth counterparts..." (and) "No 
oppressed national can be given a fair trial in the 
United Snakes' court system. Every facet of law 
enforcement, from the pigs to the definition of 
crime to sentencing guidelines, is about protecting 
white-nation domination...". 

All this is true, but it "simply point[s] out the 
objective colonial relationship" which New Afrikans 
and other oppressed nationals have to the u.s. 
empire. We cannot forget that "even reactionary and 
counter-revolutionary elements within the nation[s] 
are objective colonial subjects..." [BOOK TWO -- 
TOWARD CLARITY ON CC'S, PP'S, & POW'S, pps. 24-25]

In BOOK SEVEN, "On Transforming the Colonial & 
"Criminal" Mentality", We see an attempt to "lay 
out the true, proper, and NECESSARY criteria for 
Political Prisoners: PRACTICE is that criteria. On 
the bottom line, Political Prisoners are 
revolutionaries; they are conscious and active 
servants of the people. Political Prisoners direct 
their energies toward the enemies of the people -- 
they do not commit "crimes" against the people." 
(p. 21)

Finally, "...so far as the struggle is concerned it 
must be realized that it is not the degree of 
suffering and hardship involved as such that 
matters: even extreme suffering in itself does not 
necessarily produce the PRISE DE CONSCIENCE 
required for the national liberation struggle." 
(Amilcar Cabral, REVOLUTION IN GUINEA, p. 63)

again, i apologize if the tone of this is pedantic, 
dry, or academic, but i do think that it's 
important to enter into this dialogue with y'all. 
... 
in unity & struggle

(p.s. -- if you should choose to print this letter, 
please respect my use of 'i' & 'We', as this is an 
important aspect of our understanding that "the 
community is more important than the individual", 
and that We "believe in collective struggle" and in 
"fashioning victory in concert with our brothers & 
sisters".)

MIM RESPONDS: Thank you for writing to MIM. It 
seems we have much unity. We certainly understand 
that the relationship between Amerika and the 
oppressed nations within its borders is a colonial 
one, but are not content to let that (correct) 
analysis tell the whole story of prisoners. MIM 
says that all prisoners are political prisoners 
because we recognize the process by which some 
people are classified as "criminals" for stealing 
cars -- and some are classified as legitimate 
government leaders for stealing whole countries as 
a political process. We mean to call attention to 
the criminality of the oppressors in this 
formulation. So principally we are dealing with the 
difference between the giant crimes of the 
oppressor and the lesser crimes of the oppressed.

But it's true that prisoners who've given or risked 
their lives in the struggle are in a different 
category still, and MIM recognizes that. It's why 
we agitate specifically about the frame-up and 
imprisonment of Mumia Abu-Jamal (for example) and 
support the movement to free him. We recognize that 
campaigns around political prisoners like Mumia are 
important for exploiting contradictions with the 
enemy and actually winning on their terms 
(unlikely). But also for the revolutionary movement 
outside of prison to learn from the examples and 
leadership of prisoners.

So we'll continue to insist that no matter what the 
"crime," the more than one million people behind 
bars in Amerikkka are there because of the 
political superstructure that supports imperialism, 
and are in that sense political prisoners. We also 
recognize that many ordinary prisoners who were not 
activists before they got to prison have become 
very political once they got there, which accounts 
for the high demand among so many prisoners for 
revolutionary study material. But all that won't 
stop us from acknowledging heroes of the people 
too. Keep in touch! 

BUCHANAN RIGHT ON THE JEWISH QUESTION?

***This is part of a long theoretical letter. Part 
of it was printed last month and more is printed 
here.***

Dear Comrades,
[I]t is true that there are many reasons that 
Buchanan sucks, and I do not berate MIM for 
criticizing him, but his opposition (at least claim 
of opposition) to Zionism and international Jewish 
banking is not among them. It is one of his very 
few good qualities. These elements are prominent 
figures in the exploitation of the third world and 
ought not be defended by Maoists. Criticize 
Buchanan for the many things he gets wrong, not the 
few things he gets right.

Comradely Yours,
A friend in the south

A RAIL COMRADE RESPONDS: In this letter and your 
previous one, it seems like you've essentialized 
Jews and failed to differentiate between Zionists 
and Jews. For instance you write " Work at 
universities... mostly produces Jews, anarchists, 
environmentalists, pacifists, New Age scum and 
other elements which are not genuinely leftist..." 

In your list, you've included Jews who are defined 
by birth and not political ideology with groups 
that are entirely defined by a chosen ideology. 
While it is good to criticize individuals and 
groups according to their chosen ideology, it is 
wrong to criticize people by birth. You cannot 
choose to be born Jewish any more than you can 
choose to be born a man, a Palestinian or Black. 

Genuine communists criticize ideologies like 
Judaism or Zionism and not ethnicities. Also, while 
MIM and RAIL criticize Zionism, we do it with the 
understanding that U.S.-backed imperialism and not 
Zionism is the principal contradiction in the 
Middle East. We would criticize Amerikans as 
strongly as Israelis, and Amerikan imperialists as 
strongly as the "international Jewish banking" 
community which you separate for condemnation. Why 
do you make this distinction? Do you think Jews 
have essential or universal characteristics? Is 
Zionism worse than Amerikan imperialism? Are Jews 
less likely to join genuine communist movements 
than Amerikans, Europeans or Japanese?

It is improper for a communist to defend Pat 
Buchanan when it comes to opposing Israel or 
"Jewish banking" because Buchanan's slanders are 
anti-Semitic, i.e. based on criticizing Jews as 
people and not as Zionists, their chosen ideology. 
Since Buchanan is pro-imperialist when it comes to 
Amerika, his anti-Zionism is completely 
hypocritical and given his following most likely 
based on racist essentialization of Jews. What sins 
is Jewish banking guilty of that the Rockefellers 
didn't initiate? Why separate Jewish bankers out 
from Episcopalians?


* * *


ISRAELI ELECTIONS SHOW DIVISIONS OVER "PEACE TALKS"

At press time, the votes in the Israeli election 
for Prime Minister are almost all counted and Likud 
Party candidate Binyamin Netanyahu has declared 
victory in a very close race against current Prime 
Minister, Labor Party candidate Shimon Peres. Peres 
ran on a platform of continuing the bogus "peace 
talks" with the Palestinians, which would 
eventually mean giving up a small bit of land, but 
no real self-determination for the Palestinian 
nation. Netanyahu wants to keep all land, and take 
an even harder military line against the Arabs and 
Palestinians. Liberal Israelis are mourning the 
death of the sham peace process along with Peres's 
defeat.

This is the first time that Israelis are directly 
electing their prime minister--it used to be that 
people voted for parties, and the prime minister 
would be the leader of the winning party. In this 
case, voters can vote for either Peres or 
Netanyahu, and also cast their votes for Knesset 
(Israeli parliament) members for many of the 
smaller parties in Israel, which is what happened 
on Wednesday, May 29. Both Labor and Likud lost 
about 10 seats in the Knesset, and those went to 
ultra-Orthodox religious parties and new Russian 
immigrant parties. These smaller parties vehemently 
oppose any "land for peace" deals, and the new 
prime minister will have to pander to these parties 
in order to gain the 61 (out of 120) required 
Knesset seats to form a majority government. 
Israeli Arab voters turned out in record numbers, 
casting their ballots for the Labor Party.

The bourgeois press is claiming that this 
incredibly close race, shows that Israelis are 
divided over the peace talks with the Palestinians. 
Ultimately Israel will win either way, even if 
there are more suicide bombings and if a small bit 
of land is given up for a Palestinian territory. 
But until imperialist Israel is smashed, it will 
have the financial and military support of the 
United Snakes, and will continue to control the 
Palestinians and their territory.

The majority of Palestinians live in the West Bank 
and Gaza, and are currently under the rule of the 
Palestinian Authority (PA), led by Yasir Arafat. 
The PA is negotiating with Israel, in the so-called 
peace talks brokered by the United Snakes, over the 
land on which the Palestinians live, but have no 
real control. Israel holds the major cards as far 
as what happens to the West Bank and Gaza, and 
under the current talks those territories will 
never grow into an independent Palestinian nation.

MIM knows that the division among Israeli voters is 
really meaningless for the Palestinians who want 
self-determination--their own land, nation, 
government, and army--above all else. MIM supports 
Palestinian self-determination, and recognizes that 
only revolutionary struggle will make this happen. 
No matter what the outcome of the Israeli 
elections, Palestinians are the losers until Yasir 
Arafat is pushed out of the way and a true leader 
of the people rises up to struggle against Israel, 
rather than negotiate with it, and lead the 
Palestinians to freedom.

NOTES: Washington Post May 30, 1996. p. A1.


* * *


MIM NEWS: PEOPLE'S FINANCE DEVELOPS

The people have taken ever more committed steps to 
financing the MIM-led revolutionary movement. 
Several exciting projects await support. An 
interesting idea can be found in the Workers Party 
of Belgium's (PTB) newspaper called Solidaire. The 
PTB sponsors people's bonds in which the party 
borrows money for projects and pays back interest 
rates higher than what the masses can get 
elsewhere, but lower than what the PTB would 
otherwise have to pay.

Here at MIM we too have the need for gathering 
financial support for projects that require up-
front financing.

*Approximately $3000 is needed to finance the 
reprinting of the Filipino book by Amado Guerrero 
titled Philippine Society and Revolution. This book 
examines conditions of the revolutionary struggle 
in the 1960s, most of which are still true today. 
It also connects the struggle in the Philippines to 
the Cultural Revolution and Maoism. MIM would like 
to give some of these books to the Filipino people, 
North American prisoners and also sell some 
ourselves. 

*Another $3000 is needed to publish a book titled 
The Political Economy of Counterrevolution in 
China: 1976-1989. This book makes a factual 
examination of the revisionist restoration of 
capitalism in China.

*$500 is needed to purchase copies of a book by 
Indian comrades reprinted from 1963 titled, "The 
Great Debate: The Polemic on the General Line of 
the International Communist Movement." MIM is much 
inspired by the efforts of the Indian comrades to 
reprint this book and would like to do its share to 
sell it. 

*$500 is need to buy a good quantity of the new 
selected works of Mao, beyond volume 5, also 
published by Indian comrades. 

MIM would also like to assist with the purchase and 
sale of Ludo Martens's book "Another View of 
Stalin" which is coming out in English soon and 
which MIM hopes to help expedite. Other books 
including Ludo Martens's book the Velvet 
Counterrevolution may be appropriate for 
distribution to prisoners along with MIM's written 
criticism of it. 

It is important not to let great books go out of 
print or sit unpublished. For this reason, MIM sees 
to its financial development. The more money we can 
muster up-front, the more we can see to timely 
distribution of revolutionary literature. In 
imperialist societies where we are not yet ready 
for armed struggle, we have a special 
internationalist duty to finance the books of our 
fraternal comrades. Anyone interested in assisting 
with finance can write to MIM. 


* * *


CORRECTIONS:

We apologize to our Irish comrades for the 
following paragraph that appeared in the April, 
1996 MIM Notes 111. "The bomb showed that with more 
than 2,000 officers from both MI5 and the police 
available for intelligence-gathering and 
infiltration, the British Security Forces have been 
unable to penetrate the higher levels of the IRA, 
or they are trying consciously to provoke discord 
in IRA ranks by claiming the ceasefire was still 
on." This paragraph should not have appeared in the 
story and is in error.

In MIM Notes 113, May 1, 1996, the article "Nisga'a 
land deal product of First Nation radicalism" made 
several errors of language that liquidated the 
nationhood of the Nisga'a. We should have referred 
to the Nisga'a nation as being geographically 
within Canadian borders, not as a "Canadian 
indigenous nation".

In MIM Notes 113, May 1, 1996, a sentence in the 
article "House votes to screw immigrant workers" 
read "As MIM Notes reported in November some farms 
prefer to employ welfare mothers, Mexicans or 
Puerto Ricans already within U.S. borders, while 
other growers and segments of the government prefer 
to import temporary laborers." MIM meant to say 
that the growers prefer imported workers, but that 
the government is split.


* * *


BOSTON GLOBE FUELS CRUSADE AGAINST "SEX OFFENDERS"

This May has marked unprecedented strides in the 
general movement toward repression of pig-defined 
sex offenders. "Megan's Law," mandating 
registration of pig-identified sex offenders, 
notifying their neighbors, and making that 
information available publicly, has been the rule 
in New Jersey for a year and is now being made 
federal. Here in Massachusetts, the crusade to 
demonize this group has been overwhelming. 
Outrageously reactionary Governor Weld has been 
accused of being soft on pig-defined sex offenders 
by both his "liberal" opponent in the senatorial 
race, Senator Kerry, and the "liberal" Boston 
Globe. 

All of this legislating and posturing will not stop 
the abuse of children, a group highly sexualized in 
this society. In a culture in which power is 
eroticized, children are common victims of sexual 
violence since they are the most powerless group in 
society. This sexualization of children is obvious 
in pornography and general media representation. 
The sex offender scare-tactics reinforce incorrect 
analyses of rape, including rape of children. This 
use of gender to beef up the police state is a 
trade mark of pseudo-feminism. Pseudo-feminists 
make gender the principal contradiction and ignore 
the ramifications the legislation they advocate has 
for oppressed national minorities.

The first sensationalist story in a recent series 
of the Boston Globe's campaign against sex 
offenders was printed on May 1. It told the tale of 
a man who had recently served a brief term for a 
sex offense who was accused of another, the rape of 
a fourteen year old girl. Never mind that he was 
not yet convicted, the Globe had already decided 
that he was guilty because he had a prior 
conviction. The bourgeoisie likes to pretend that 
the problem of child sexual abuse is one of 
deranged individuals who are destined for 
derangement their whole lives.

The neighbors of this man were convinced of his 
guilt, and of the primacy of past convictions in 
determining that. They were also quick to absolve 
themselves of any cultural unity with him. One man 
said "I had no idea he had a problem like that. I 
don't know what a man who did something like that 
is doing out." There is a great hypocrisy in a 
society in which child sexual exploitation is 
constantly portrayed in both pornography and 
mainstream media but people feel so uncomfortable 
talking about it that they use euphemisms like "a 
problem like that." It is an impossibility for 
anyone awake and alive walking down the streets of 
billboards to miss the fact that Amerika sanctions 
child pornography and unquestioned parental 
control. Those who uphold the system which protects 
speech for the powerful (which includes 
pornography) but decry the products of that speech 
cannot avoid hypocrisy.

The man, a community leader, continued with his 
erroneous understanding saying: "We are very upset 
about the situation. I just want the tenants to 
know we're doing everything we can to make this a 
safe place to live."(1) News flash: the vast 
majority of children who are sexually abused are 
abused by their own parents or other family 
members. The vast majority of them, *especially* 
those who are white, are never caught. If the man 
really wanted to make the place safe, he would have 
no choice but to work for the abolition of the 
patriarchal family and create real social 
responsibility for the care of children. Instead, 
he invents monsters to target and avoids the 
ninety-nine percent of child sexual oppression.

The Boston Globe used this story to support its 
conclusion that we need registration of pig-
identified sex offenders here in Massachusetts. The 
director of the American Friends Service Committee 
Criminal Justice program, Jill Brotman, has pointed 
out that telling sensationalist stories of child 
molesters is a deceptive technique used to vilify 
all pig-identified sex offenders: "All these bills 
are sold as child molesters but the population 
affected is very heterogeneous."(2) That group 
includes men who have been convicted of soliciting 
prostitutes, raping their wives, or statutory rape 
just across the magic age line. None of these are 
really the "threat to society" that the Globe says 
they are: these actions are fully in accord with 
patriarchal society. Additionally, not all of these 
groups pose the same threat to women and children, 
even assuming they are guilty as charged. 
The issues are very distinct gender issues 
threatening different groups, though you would 
never know it from reading the Boston Globe.

The second pro-registration piece in the Globe came 
the next day, this time accusing Weld of letting 
sex offenders out of prison eventually.(3) The 
Globe whined that Weld's scathing indictments of 
those incarcerated for these crimes did not jive 
with the fact that a minority of them do get 
parole. 

Weld has no grasp of the real situation, and so his 
statements don't mean much anyway. For example, he 
says "There's quite a lot of evidence that the 
recidivism rate is so high for sex offenders, 
particularly child molesters, that you're almost 
better off concentrating on bars as the form of 
treatment."(3) According to the AFSC's Jill 
Brotman, however, the recidivism rate for those who 
participate in programs is just 15%, a very low 
rate relative to many other crimes.(2)

But Weld does not really care about decreasing 
recidivism. Crime is a big industry for him. So he 
just resorts to criticizing programs on moralistic 
grounds: "Philosophically, I don't think treatment 
programs are terribly effective for sex offenders, 
particularly for sex offenses involving children. 
That's not where I'd put the bulk of my money if I 
had a limited amount of resources."(3) RAIL 
activists know this well: Weld would rather spend 
millions of dollars on transferring prisoners to 
Texas and building super-maximum prisons than on 
preventing crime, however defined.

The programs are not without their problems. They 
still focus on individual offenders rather than 
social reformation. However, their biggest problem 
is that taking advantage of the programs dooms an 
individual to a life of registration and 
notification, thus a never-ending sentence. In 
order to take part in the programs, they must sign 
a paper declaring that they are sex offenders and 
have a lifelong illness.(2)

There are very real penalties for failing to sign 
on when programs are available. One mother of a 
prisoner who was convicted of a sex offense he did 
not commit explained that her son cannot get parole 
because every time his case comes up he refuses to 
sign the paper declaring that he has this supposed 
disease.(4)

The bill in Massachusetts is ex post facto, meaning 
that it applies to people convicted before it was 
passed. That means that the school officials would 
be notified that children in their schools have a 
parent who was convicted of a sex crime and signed 
one of these papers to get parole 20 years ago.(2)

The third article in the barrage by the Globe was 
more of the same: using the boogey-man of the child 
rapist to justify big-brother political ends.(5) A 
Democratic State Rep out to get more support from 
patriarchs "was outraged" and complained: "I don't 
know of a more vicious crime than the rape of a 
child."(5) Jill Brotman pointed out, and MIM and 
RAIL have long maintained, that this is a skewed 
understanding. She asks: "Is a pedophile more of a 
monster than someone who drops a bomb on Iraqi 
women and children?"(2) The political definition of 
crime prevents an objective ranking of monsters 
except by material analysis which makes Amerikan 
imperialism the biggest raper, child molester, 
murder, and general criminal.(6)

As society portrays children in a way that is 
increasingly sexualized and violent, their abuse 
will continue to be endemic. But following the 
reactionary tide toward the boogey-man stranger 
child-molester and away from the far more dangerous 
family would be a great disservice to children. 
Instead, we must get the debate about prisons back 
on track when reactionaries harp about child 
molesters. We must insist on looking at the larger 
issues of the incarceration of huge numbers of 
people acting just as pornography and advertising 
preach and the society allows.(7)

NOTES:
1. Boston Globe, May 1, 1996, p. 19.
2. Jill Brotman, director of the Criminal Justice 
Program at the American Friends Service Committee, 
May 22, 1996. She and the mothers of prisoners 
spoke to this reporter after a meeting of the 
Coalition of Prisoner Families, which meets on 
Wednesdays at 6:30 PM in Cambridge. For more 
information, call (617)661-6130.
3. Boston Globe, May 2, 1996, p. 1.
4. Anonymous mother of a prisoner, speaking at the 
Coalition of Prisoner Families on May 22, 1996.
5. Boston Globe, May 3, 1996.
6. See the RAIL Prison Pamphlet, available for a 
dollar from RAIL PO Box 3576 Ann Arbor MI 48106.
7. See "The Oppression of Children Under 
Patriarchy" in MIM Theory 9: Psychology and 
Imperialism, available from MIM for $4.95.


* * *


AMERIKAN TROOPS STILL IN THE PHILIPPINES

Amerikan Marines stormed a beach near Manila last 
month as part of military exercises conducted with 
the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Two U.S. 
frigates, a submarine and an amphibious landing 
ship with a total of 1,500 American soldiers took 
part in the exercises.

The Filipino people have made it clear that they 
will not allow the Amerikan military to use 
Philippine territory as a base to launch attacks 
against them or other peoples. A mass movement led 
by revolutionaries recently forced the Philippine 
Senate to evict the Amerikan military from its 
Clark and Subic Bay bases. The recent military 
exercises and the negotiations around ACSA (an 
agreement which would re-open the Philippines to 
u.s. ships and troops) show that Amerikan 
imperialists are willing to force their soldiers on 
to Philippine soil whether the people like it or 
not.

The United Snakes has had a major military presence 
in the Philippines since it invaded the Philippines 
and launched a bloody war against the Filipino 
people in 1899. After the u.s. granted nominal 
independence to the Philippines in 1946, several 
unequal treaties between the United Snakes and the 
Republic of the Philippines guaranteed a direct 
u.s. military presence in the Philippines as well 
as indirect u.s. control of the Armed Forces of the 
Philippines (AFP). 

Amerikan imperialism needs its military in the 
Philippines both to control its Philippine neo-
colony and to control the South Pacific.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and 
the National Democratic Front of the Philippines 
(NDF) are currently waging a Protracted People's 
War against the u.s. puppet regime in the 
Philippines and the u.s.-supported AFP. Both the 
CPP and the NDF see their struggle as essential to 
the liberation of the Filipino people and as an 
internationalist 
duty.

NOTE: Reuters, May 6, 1996.


* * *


TURKISH MAOISTS UNVEIL VIDEO OF ARMED STRUGGLE

Cologne, GERMANY--Upon the 24th anniversary of the 
death of their founder-leader, I. Kaypakkaya, the 
Turkish Maoists of Turkey and T.Kurdistan (Turkish 
Kurdistan) showed the world a video of their 
organized armed struggle in Turkey. Over 5000 
Turkish people attended the showing at a sports 
arena in Cologne on May 18th.

With CIA aid, the Turkish regime tortured 
Kaypakkaya to death on May 18th, 1972. The 
Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist (TKP/ML) 
holds a commemoration ceremony every year in 
Germany.

The TKP/ML unveiled a video of determined fighters 
of the army led by the TKP/ML fighting in the 
mountains against the Turkish fascist regime. We 
learn that what really looks like an ordinary hill 
of snow is in fact a TKP/ML base.

Fighters train in the snow and icy water. In one 
scene we see fighters swimming in an icy stream for 
the purpose of training. The soldiers also climb 
ropes, do somersaults, run through snow, lie face 
down in the snow to avoid detection, practice rifle 
formations, fire missiles, track the enemy and 
study politics. It is difficult to convey the 
determination of this army in words, so MIM asked 
for a copy of the video and we hope to see a 
version dubbed in English soon, so that the world 
may be informed of the armed struggle in Turkey.

As in the case of apartheid South Africa where the 
state appeared heavily prepared and armed while 
widely hated, we believe the future of the Turkish 
fascist state is not very long. True, the Turkish 
revolutionaries cannot defeat the state in a 
frontal assault any time soon. On the other hand, 
whenever the hatred of the ruling class's state is 
so widespread and deep as it is in Turkey, it is 
only a matter of time before the regime finds 
itself with clay feet.

Stay tuned for more lengthy coverage of our Turkish 
Maoist comrades in an upcoming Maoist Sojourner.


* * *


UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS

AD-SEG ISOLATION INCREASED IN SOUTH CAROLINA

Greetings comrades,

Hope all is well for you on the front lines. Life 
inside is still a constant struggle to maintain the 
fight, but it only makes us stronger and more 
dedicated to rising above our oppression....

As for dealings at this camp, things are still on a 
downhill roll. As you can see from the enclosed 
memo, we now have even more hassles on 
Administrative Segregation (ad-seg) status.

[The memo reads in part: "Per the directive of Mr. 
William D. Catoe, Deputy Director for Operations, 
all solid steel doors and window flaps will be 
secured effective November 21, 1995" --MIM]

They claim that all cell doors and window flaps are 
closed for security, but it's not true. This is 
simply an attempt to eliminate conversation between 
us, and to try to make us suffer with limited air-
flow into our cells etc.

Because if we still desire to punish a pig it is 
not difficult. All we have to do is wait for chow, 
or get a roll of tissue or something, then do what 
you have to do, when they open the flap to serve 
you. So it's punishment for all South Carolina 
Department of Corrections lock-ups. But we can't be 
broken; we'll only get stronger.

--a South Carolina prisoner, Feb. 28, 1996


WHAT'S UNDER THE TABLE OF THE INDIANA PAROLE BOARD?

Just because a person is sitting in a position of 
authority does not make that person right without 
question. Frequently that person is more criminal 
and corrupted than the person he is sitting in 
judgment of.

The Indiana Parole Board's favorite reason for 
denial of parole is "nature and circumstances, 
seriousness of offense". Yet recently the Indiana 
Parole Board released the following prisoners: a 
man convicted of murder and sentenced to life, who 
while serving that sentence was convicted of 
kidnapping the warden and the warden's wife and 
children in an escape attempt; a man convicted of 
killing a police officer and sentenced to life, who 
while serving that sentence escaped from custody; a 
man convicted of murder and sentenced to life who 
while serving that sentence was convicted in the 
death of another prisoner; and a man who was 
originally sentenced to death.

I was convicted of second degree murder for a 
shooting death during a robbery, carried out when I 
was 16 years old. I have served 23 years of my life 
sentence. I have never tried to escape, nor have I 
killed another prisoner. Yet I am continually 
denied parole.

To deny me parole while freeing the men I listed 
above is a mockery of justice and a slap in the 
face to any progressive and humane human being. I 
have been denied parole for "nature and 
circumstances, seriousness of offense" for 
something I did as a 16 year old. How have these 
men been granted parole? Did these men bribe the 
Indiana Parole Board? Is the attitude of the Parole 
Board that "the worst come first"?

Since my confinement I am virtually without 
biological family. An attorney sat in at my 
November 17, 1995 parole hearing and listened as 
the Indiana Parole Board members mocked me 
concerning one of the prisoners they had released, 
who earlier had stabbed me in prison. At this 
hearing, the Chairman of the Parole Board, Joseph 
Smith, was not even present. Since he is African 
American, and I am African American, and the victim 
of my crime 23 years ago was white, racism may be a 
factor in the behaviors and actions of these parole 
board members. Smith is no longer chairman of the 
Parole Board.

I request the assistance of any person or 
organization active for the cause of justice. You 
can assist by writing letters to the Chairman and 
Lt. Governor asking for a rehearing and parole:

Chairman
Indiana Parole Board
302 W. Washington St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Lt. Governor Frank O'Bannon
100 North Senate Avenue
Indianapolis, IN 46218

In solidarity,
--an Indiana prisoner

CALIFORNIA, NEW JERSEY AND IOWA PRISONS CENSOR MIM 
NOTES

Salutations,

My esteemed comrades in struggle, I am forwarding 
this communique to inform you that MIM Notes #110 
was censored citing pages 1,5-7, & 12,
objectionable.

As you are aware, all material is now censored and 
this unauthorized institution exercises its 
discretion at determining what it appropriate or 
not. A consequence of struggle in which the beast 
seeks to suppress the undying voices of resistance. 
Please continue to forward papers until it becomes 
a futile endeavor. Continue to Build.

--a California prisoner, Apr. 17, 1996

Letters of protest can be sent to Pelican Bay State 
Prison, 5905 Lake Earl Dr., PO Box 7500, Crescent 
City, CA 95531.

Greetings,

My Brothers, Sisters, Revolutionary workers and 
Comrades-at-war, I greet you on this glorious day 
with the utmost respect and with the universal 
sign, "As-Salaamu-Alakium."

I just received my first edition of MIM Notes 
which, I truly find excellent, educational, 
resourceful and most of all very inspiring. But 
unfortunately and reluctantly, I must sadly report 
that the additional forward of MIM Notes will be 
confiscated. 

The New Jersey Youth Correctional Facility claims, 
"It's not authorized and it poses a threat to 
security."

What they failed to mention was: "We are afraid 
that the prisoners will organize."... But 
nevertheless, reluctantly I must respectfully 
request that you discontinue to mail me MIM Notes. 
My spirit will always be with the struggle of the 
Revolution.

--a New Jersey prisoner, Apr. 26, 1996

Letters of Protest can be sent to:
State of New Jersey Dept. of Corrections, Albert C. 
Wagner Youth
Correctional Facility, PO Box 500 Ward Ave, 
Bordentown, NJ 08505. Mail
Clerk: W. Guest.

Dear MIM,

I'd like to inform you that I am no longer allowed 
to receive your publications, by reason of 
retaliation. The prison has stopped me from 
receiving MIM Notes....

These actions are due to another prisoner's suit 
that has not yet been to court/trial yet regarding 
the prevention of receiving anti-right/capitalist 
publications (at the prison).

I enjoyed MIM Notes and appreciate the news that 
you provided through MIM Notes. Thank you much.

In struggle,
--an Iowa prisoner, Apr. 29, 1996.

Letters of protest can be sent to:
Iowa State Penitentiary, PO Box 316, Fort Madison, 
IA 52627.

PRISONER LOCKED UP FOR EXPOSING "TYLENOL 
TECHNICIANS"

Dear Comrades,

...in your letters from Under Lock & Key in the 
Mid-April 1996, issue #112, I saw myself. I am the 
person that one of my comrades wrote about....The 
one doing two years ad-seg time for a bag of 
chips!! ["South Dakota: Passing Snacks equals two 
years ad-seg time"--MIM]

As you probably already know, this was only a cover 
excuse to lock me down.

My problems started in late July of 1995. When I 
was lifting weights. As my comrade said, I am a 
fairly large man and had done a lot of time on the
iron pile.

An accident happened and 550 pounds fell on me, 
squashing me like a bug into the pavement. As a 
result of this accident I have two herniated discs 
that I know of. I have been refused even the 
simplest of treatments. It has been nine months now 
and I haven't even gotten a complete x-ray of my 
back.

Since the accident, I've been forced to live with 
the pain. Pain so bad that at times I've had to 
crawl around on my belly like a snake to get to the 
john. At one time the pain was so bad that every 
time I moved a certain way I passed out....

When I was able to make my way to Health Services 
to see the "Tylenol Technicians" and report my 
problems and the pain I was having, I was placed in 
Disciplinary Segregation.

Twenty minutes after seeing Health Service, I 
loaned a Brother-at-arms a bag of chips! Boom! That 
was their excuse to throw me in the hole.

I had been speaking out against the Health Services 
and the administration felt I was a threat to the 
security, but they had nothing to lock me up for. 
This is their "valid" reason to deny me medical 
attention and give me the proper treatment I need.

If I am housed in the administrative segregation of 
the prison, which I am, then I am a security risk 
and not allowed to see the doctors like the general 
population.

I am in with the Death Row inmates and treated the 
same as, if not worse than any of them. For 
borrowing a bag of chips! My only crime in here or 
violation of their petty rules is having a voice 
against the wrongs I see, and helping out fellow 
brothers down on their luck.

Well that is about it here. Keep up with the good 
work you guys are doing and may the powers that 
wish to repress you Fall!!

--a South Dakota prisoner, Apr. 26, 1996

P.S. My medical condition has not improved and as 
of Apr. 17, the day of my ad-seg review, I am still 
officially an unstable individual and security risk 
to the prison. I was told to do my two years in ad-
seg.

TENNESSEE PRISONER SACRIFICES HIS "X"

Dear comrades,

I was really happy to hear from you and to have 
received my issues of MIM Notes. I'm very sorry 
that I have taken so long in replying to you.

But I really have been going through some changes 
because of the "X" in my name. It is a political 
thing here in this prison. Since I have taken up 
the "X" in my name, prison officials have branded 
me a Communist, radical etc.

But through it all I remain strong in the struggle 
and will never give up. I had a talk with the 
warden and he has informed me that I may still 
receive my issues of MIM Notes as long as I remove 
the "X" from my name.

So please remove the "X" from my name, so I can 
keep getting my issues of MIM Notes. And know that 
I am always with you. Always in the struggle.

--a Tennessee prisoner, Apr. 25, 1996

A CALL TO UNITE AND QUIT UNICOR

Dear friends,

...I have been seriously thinking of means to knock 
the prison industry off its foundation. And the 
only way I can see it, is for prisoners to quit 
working for UNICOR [Federal prison industries --
MIM]. This would have to be a plan implemented 
through out all the U.S. prisons. I'm sure that the 
results would be devastating to the prisons 
themselves in six months or less.

Prisoners would have to gradually quit the UNICOR. 
Unfortunately the ones who are paying for 
incarceration, assessment, FRP, etc., would be hit 
the worst. They could be subjected to segregation, 
put on refusal status, or face being shipped to 
another facility. But you could only do this with 
so many prisoners. Mass shipment to me is highly 
unlikely especially with the prison space growing 
more scarce each day.

The prisoner would also have to use a backup buddy 
system. The backup friend, if you can find someone 
you trust, would receive money on their account, 
small amounts, to buy for that friend his personal 
needs at the commissary. If a person tried to stock 
up on many items before quitting UNICOR, if that 
person was to be shipped, they would lose 
everything, since everything is now being shipped 
home to your family. We have been receiving many 
women from other institutions and their attempts to 
stock up on items and clothing has backfired.

I realize that this would cause a lot of hardship 
for people. But as I see it, it would be a 
temporary setback, for a short time, in comparison 
to the many years that many prisoners have received 
on petty drug charges. I feel strongly that this 
plan will work. We need to pull together and knock 
the wheels off and take the money out of this slave 
labor operation.

Crack the foundation of the prison drug war. Quit 
UNICOR.

--a West Virginia prisoner, Mar. 18, 1996

PIGS HOLD THE TOILET PAPER IN SOUTH CAROLINA

**Below is a Policy Bulletin from Vaughn Jackson, 
Captain at South Carolina Department of 
"Corrections"' Kirkland "Correctional" Institution, 
to all Maximum Security Unit (MSU) prisoners:**

"MSU is experiencing a shortage of toilet paper in 
the unit. This is occurring because the toilet 
paper is not being used for what it is designed 
for. The paper is being wasted by cleaning the 
sink, and wiping the cell down instead of one's 
backside.

"Effective Sunday 2/11/96 - 2 rolls of toilet paper 
will be issued to you. If you don't have any 
tissue. If you have one roll you will be issued 
one. If you have 2 rolls you will be issued none. 
If by chance you need more during the week, you 
must fill out a request form, 
"--Signed, Captain V. Jackson, Feb. 7, 1996."

RCG1 responds,

This "correctional" institution is punishing 
prisoners for trying to clean their sinks and cells 
with the only materials available to them, "because 
the toilet paper is not being used for what it is 
designed for." The pigs re punishing prisoners for 
the pigs' own failure to provide prisoners with the 
necessary and desired cleaning supplies.

PRISON OFFICIALS STEAL LEGAL DOCUMENT

...While prison officials are not censoring 
material such as the MIM Notes, they are stealing 
legal documents with the same objective in mind: to 
keep the truth from as many as possible, to attempt 
to frustrate and discourage those willing to stand 
and fight by any means available, etc.

These prison officials allege that three pounds of 
legal documents sent to me on July 11, 1995 were 
misplaced (lost) due to a medical emergency. I say 
that is bullshit. But the United States District 
Court thinks that what said prison officials state 
is up to par and have dismissed my lawsuit as being 
moot....This shows the degree to which these pigs 
will go....

In struggle,
--a Maryland prisoner, Feb. 29, 1996

PRISONERS ARE SLAVES

...Yes, the guards are corrupt. I remember one time 
three weeks ago where two inmates got into a fight, 
one was Caucasian and one was Black. The white 
inmate never got a chance to hit the Black inmate. 
But when they were taken to the hole, the Black 
inmates' face looked as if he was hit repeatedly in 
the face with five pound dumbbells....

Last week a Black inmate informed a guard that he 
felt an epileptic seizure coming on and need to see 
the doctor. The guard said, "that's too bad," and 
he said the inmate would have to write a note to 
the clinic and see the doctor tomorrow. At that 
moment, the inmate fell to the ground, eyes in the 
back of his head and shaking convulsively, meaning 
he started having a seizure.

The media does not cover these things. Why? because 
prison doesn't allow surprises. They know ahead of 
time who is coming to visit the concentration camp, 
and therefore, make preparations so everything 
seems just like it does when you are on the outside 
looking in. Inside prison, the prisoners are 
slaves, the warden is the slave master, the guards 
are the overseers, the jobs are the product that we 
slave over.

In prison one makes 25 cents an hour, some much 
less. This prison has contract with big 
corporations. We make sofas, chairs, desks, 
nightstands, etc. for a quarter an hour. Then they 
are sold in stores for hundreds of dollars, but you 
wouldn't know this because you're on the outside. 
You probably don't believe that prisoners are 
slaves, but doesn't it make sense? I mean, we are 
treated like dogs. Matter of fact, if we were 
treated like dogs, it would be much better.

But for those who refuse to believe that slavery 
still exists in the United Snakes of Amerikkka, the 
Thirteenth Amendment of the of the United Snakes 
Constitution states: Section 1- "Neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude, EXCEPT as a punishment 
for crime whereof the party shall have been duly 
convicted, shall exist within the United States or 
any place subject to their jurisdiction."

Prison is wrong. It in no way helps an individual 
to stop committing crimes, but the opposite. 
Slavery is wrong....

--a Michigan prisoner, Apr. 5, 1996

VISIONS

If i could i would reach out
and touch the burning sun

i would glide across the moon
in slow motion...then run

i would gather up all my family
members under one roof

And share with them Afrikan
culture & stories that some
have forsook

At the wave of my hand i would
rid the crack from the ghetto
streets

And i would reach out to the
Motherland and pull her under
my feet

i would chase uncle sam until
the murderer had tired

Place a tire around his neck
and set it on fire

Arrest oppression and continue
to educate to liberate

Break the prison gates for the
politically conscious prisoners'
sake

And if i could i would bring
back all the great Afrikan
martyrs and encourage them to
lead the way

And allow our youth to enjoy
the beginnings of a new day

--an Indiana prisoner, Nov. 7, 1995. In memory of 
Ajamu M. Nassor 8/12/51 - 12/8/94

TEXAS PRISONER SPEAKS OUT AGAINST GUARD-INFLICTED 
TORTURE

...On Nov. 14, 1992, I was attacked and injured by 
[prison guards] Arthur Pina and Robert Vela. I was 
struck in the head and body, brutally lifted from 
the ground and dropped head first into the concrete 
floor during the conquest of these two attackers.

I was injured and in great pain, to the point of 
mental shock to my mind. Also during this attack I 
was afraid and in fear for my life as well as 
permanent health, as both attackers verbally made 
known their intent to do such.

Not only did both attackers isolate me, but further 
caused serious mental stress and anguish by 
threatening to take my life and injure me further 
if I spoke a word of my attack to anyone. At which 
time, others arrived to aid.

Arthur Pina is a prison officer who out of personal 
interest and deliberate intent, attacked me. He 
attacked me in retaliation for a past conflict 
which was stopped by a warden due to my family's as 
well as my own complaints about his daily abuse.

He has conspired with one Robert Vela to risk my 
life. I believe he has also attempted to take my 
life and intentionally cause serious bodily injury 
to me. Both to intimidate and punish me for "bad 
faith" and personal gain. Not only because of the 
out-of-duty actions against me, but also to ensure 
other friends of his attack and injure me. Because 
of his status and the intentional premeditated and 
trumped up story and investigation which he and 
Robert Vela used to hide the attack yet at the same 
time having me, after seeking help, attacked by 
several other of their friends.

Both of these attackers are shielding and falsely 
applying information to the records and going to 
find other friends who weren't present to write up 
incident statements.

But sworn to other officials on such, to insure me 
being locked away and isolated from witnesses and 
aid thereof because of the attacked nature and 
actions, treatments, punishments by others as well 
as other retaliation. 

I've suffered mental anguish, physical abuse, 
segregation and lose of property, in which due to 
constant fear for my life I've been placed in such 
terror. To where I'm under psychiatric care and 
medication and constant counseling with weekly 
treatment, and daily fear for my life and safety.

--a Texas prisoner, Mar. 5, 1996

POLITICIAN USES PRISONERS TO PRINT HIS CAMPAIGN 
LITERATURE

Dear comrades,

I'm sending you a copy of the McCollum Report [Bill 
McCollum, U.S. Representative, Eighth District--
Florida, Campaign Newsletter--MIM]. But best of 
all, I've posted through the Federal Security with 
evidence that Congressperson McCollum is violating 
the law by using prison labor in our print plant, a 
UNICOR Federal Prison Institute, to print 
newsletters for his political campaign. Friends, I 
am for the cause.

I can not risk mailing this to the press myself. 
Enclosed is a mail tag. The political campaign 
mails tags and prints transmittal forms showing the 
cost of the slave labor where federal inmates are 
printing for his political campaign. He is against 
Habeas Corpus and wants the death sentences carried 
out.

Please see that you print this and mail copies to 
CBS, NBC, or any newspaper which will print this. 
Federal prisons are working for the Congressman's 
political gain. This is the type of evidence the 
press is crying for. I could trust no one else to 
get the news out to the public. This information is 
high on the list of our struggle. These documents 
must get into the hands of the press.

--a Virginia prisoner, Apr. 16, 1996

MIM replies: We do not agree that the corporate 
media "is crying for" chances to expose corruption 
in Amerikkka's federal prison system. Instead, we 
build MIM Notes as an independent tool of the 
oppressed. Thanks for writing.


* * *


MIM WINS FIRST BATTLE AGAINST "MPP-USA" POLICE PLOT

As we go to press, MIM has foiled a police plot 
conducted in the leadership of the "MPP-USA," which 
stands for Popular Movement of Peru, U.S.A. branch. 
In May, the misleaders of the "MPP-USA" made the 
public mistake on the INTERNET of calling for the 
overthrow of Luis Arce Borja, the editor of El 
Diario International and a genuine leader in the 
People's War in Peru, most known for interviewing 
comrade Gonzalo at length in a famous PCP document 
that MIM has been distributing for some years now.

A year ago, MIM sent a message to the PCP (Peruvian 
Communist Party or "Sendero Luminoso") through 
possibly defective channels to tell it that at 
least one of the leaders of the "MPP-USA" was a cop 
and that another one or two people had serious 
problems of honesty. MIM stopped reprinting New 
Flag articles in Maoist Sojourner and adopted a 
policy of total silence on the New Flag. We waited 
for a PCP reply in the meantime. Many honest people 
criticized MIM for adopting silence on the New Flag 
in the year from May, 1995 to May, 1996.

MIM does not know how the PCP handled what MIM is 
trying to tell it, but a centrist Peruvian 
sojourner did get MIM's message without taking it 
seriously.  Finally, on May 1st, 1996, various 
centrist and wavering elements working with the 
infiltrator leader of the "MPP-USA" received some 
information that started them wondering. 
Previously, they had all been working together on 
the "Marxism List" to set up a pole of support for 
the People's War in Peru--all in fact following the 
MPP-USA leaders in denouncing MIM.

On that day, a person in Malmoe, Sweden noticed 
that someone working for the revisionist Co-RIM 
(Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist 
Movement) was distributing leaflets against Luis 
Arce Borja. This started a chain of events which 
caused the "MPP-USA" leaders going by the name of 
"Luis Quispe" to attack various wavering, centrist 
and honest proletarian elements in the movement to 
support the People's War in Peru.

On May 3, "Luis Quispe" started a provocation by 
asking if someone in his own camp was a "a plant of 
the intelligence services"? The suddenness of this 
change of opinion shows in that weeks earlier, 
Quispe was trying to defend the same person in the 
camp to MIM. On May 10th, a bogus Maoist in Detroit 
spoke for the New Flag against Luis Arce Borja, and 
said to Luis Arce Borja that he should just learn 
to live with the idea that no one will support his 
Worldwide Mobilization Call (WMC) to support the 
People's War in Peru (see reprint of the WMC in 
this issue).

Yet, on May 11th, a New Flag supporter rose to call 
for self-criticism from "Luis Quispe." Another New 
Flag supporter started referring to the New Flag as 
"lumpen"-led. At that time, some information about 
the financial support for the New Flag leader from 
pro-Cuban revisionists arose.

As of May 12, the centrist leader of the camp 
opposing New Flag leaders admitted he had only 
convinced two people of the error of their ways. At 
that time, he made a point of saying he was 
unwilling to "cry wolf" and call the MPP-USA 
leaders cops.

However, on May 15th, rhetoric heated up and lines 
started to harden. Another Maoist sympathizer lined 
up with Quispe, but so did a die-hard Trotskyist 
fool who criticizes all alliances. (He is the type 
who should note his collaboration with the 
bourgeoisie for having a bank account.) Quispe 
started becoming bolder, calling for the overthrow 
of Luis Arce Borja. Later he called Luis Arce Borja 
a "traitor" and said the "proof" was that Luis Arce 
Borja never distributed PCP documents from 1994 to 
1996.

A little over a week later, MIM pointed out that 
Luis Arce Borja's job was never mainly to circulate 
PCP documents, and that was true in the years 
before 1994 as well. Quispe was simply trying to 
fool the newer supporters of the People's War who 
didn't know that Luis Arce Borja is a journalist 
first and foremost.

On May 22, we have a response from Quispe about 
MIM's stand, and from then on the battle-lines 
became increasingly clear. On the one hand is 
someone who called for the split of MPPs (ordered 
by Quispe not to support the WMC) and the overthrow 
of Luis Arce Borja for no new reasons of any 
political importance. On the other hand, we had the 
camp that recognized that Quispe was someone who 
had infiltrated the movement after the arrest of 
Gonzalo, at a bad moment for the PCP. Quispe had 
gained credentials by doing translating work and 
editing of the New Flag. Now he was using them to 
gather information on a wide variety of 
organizations in imperialist North America, 
including Committees of Correspondence, CP-USA, 
SWP, PLP, WWP, RCP and MIM--while claiming to be 
buddy-buddy with all of them, unlike anything the 
real PCP would do.

It came to light that Quispe fabricated the 
positions of MIM for his own purposes, and created 
documents out of thin air for several people not in 
MIM, including CP-USA. For this kind of reason, MIM 
said it was important for the supporters of the 
People's War abroad to break with people like 
Quispe, whether they claimed to have PCP 
authorization or not. The PCP is not able to see 
everything that goes on abroad and so it's real 
supporters can't just sit back and watch its 
supposed representatives do things they hide from 
the PCP back home. People in the camp to support 
the People's War in Peru started to realize that 
despite our fundamental political differences, 
having cops in our midst could only cloud 
everything we were arguing over and that we had to 
unite to throw cops out, and then thrash out our 
differences and maybe even split over real (as 
opposed to cop-instigated) issues. For this 
purpose, the centrist leader spoke of MIM as part 
of "revolutionary unity." To unite with people even 
in revisionist organizations, MIM distinguished 
between "cops wearing revisionist masks" and 
revisionists.

There are many, many small things we should learn 
to overlook in each other for the purposes of unity 
in this movement and others. When it comes to 
fabricating positions, fabricating documents, 
double-dealing for the purposes of setting groups 
trying to support the People's War against each 
other while claiming to be for both by word-of-
mouth and for gathering intelligence--at that point 
we have to say, such a person is a fraud, not a 
representative of the PCP. Then we must find a way 
to let the PCP know the damage caused but also the 
tempering experience gained from such struggle.

As we go to press, MIM is happy to report that new 
converts have been won to the cause of smashing the 
police plot and only one person in the last week 
was remaining willing to put in a paragraph 
supporting Quispe. Some went so far as to say we 
should all ignore Quispe and continue talking about 
things like the national bourgeoisie, the labor 
aristocracy and theory issues generally, because 
"no one could possibly take him seriously."

There remains much work to be done to crush the 
police plot in the "MPP-USA" however. This "MPP-
USA" gained political prestige by working with MIM 
circles and among other supporters of the Peoples 
War in Peru and has done extensive work to 
infiltrate these circles, starting in 1993 by use 
of sugar-coated bullets. In fact, in 1994, Quispe 
named MIM a member of the "red fraction of RIM," 
which is the highest honor the PCP can bestow on 
MIM from the PCP's own political view. Fortunately, 
MIM never quite believed this character 100 
percent, and discovered him as caught up in a host 
of un-Maoist activities, including denouncing MIM 
as "counterrevolutionary" when he needed to 
depending on what audience he was speaking to.

MIM's Party Congress approaches this summer. MIM is 
already looking for greetings, ideological 
challenges and suggestions for its program for the 
middle-classes--semi-proletarians and petty-
bourgeoisie.

Now MIM would also like to hear from our comrades 
everywhere supporting the WMC and MIM's line. From 
our point of view, the main task of the WMC is to 
clear away some debris blocking the movement to 
support the People's War and also to be heard by 
the PCP-CC and then to follow the PCP-CC. Already 
the call has resulted in uncovering a major police 
plot lasting at least three years which was 
confusing the world's movement to support the 
People's War in Peru. More details will be 
forthcoming in Maoist Sojourner.

If the only thing the WMC does is to mobilize the 
masses to carry through in clearing out the police 
plot and raise our voices in support of the PCP so 
that it knows it does have supporters abroad, 
despite the confusion cops have sown, then the WMC 
will have justified its existence as far as MIM is 
concerned. If we succeed in globally mobilizing 
people with the proletarian line of Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism on questions of classes and 
international organization, the WMC may have a very 
bright future indeed.

(To reach the "Marxism List" with Netscape or some 
such browser, do an INTERNET search for "Marxism 
List." To reach it by gopher, go to 
jefferson.village.virginia.edu under public 
discussions lists under "spoons.")


* * *


KOREAN VICTIMS OF AGENT ORANGE STILL DENIED 
COMPENSATION

by MCB52

Back in 1984, Western soldiers returned from 
Vietnam won a $240 million settlement for harms 
caused by Agent Orange. Soldiers sent from southern 
Korea, however, were not included in the suit and 
are still struggling for some compensation for 
their suffering as a result of Amerikan brutality.

Amerikans have been aware for quite some time of 
the harms caused by defoliants used during the 
Vietnam War. But the extreme censorship under 
repressive military dictators in southern Korea has 
left those suffering from health problems including 
skin diseases, urological disorders, birth defects, 
and soft-tissue cancers in the dark until very 
recently.

Agent Orange was an herbicide sprayed on the 
forests of Vietnam in the late 1960s with the 
intention of destroying the foliage that hid 
communist troops from imperialist troops. In a 
spraying operation known as "Operation Range Hand," 
the US dumped more than a 11 million gallons of the 
poison on that tiny country. Its use was 
discontinued in 1971, but not before causing untold 
disease for Vietnamese people and the soldiers 
fighting there.

The country of "South Korea" was created by the 
United States following the Korean War fought to 
quell the communist revolution in Korea. This 
constructed country sent 312,000 troops to fight 
against the communist revolution in Vietnam. These 
troops constituted the second-largest foreign 
contingent in Vietnam, but those veterans were left 
out of the 1984 settlement for Agent Orange victims 
from the US, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada.

The right-wing newsmagazine *Far Eastern Economic 
Review* says "It isn't clear why the South Koreans 
were left out of the original settlement or why 
most veterans were not included in [the] 1984 class 
action suit." What that magazine chooses to ignore 
is the fact that puppets of the US do not make 
demands of their boss. Korean people are not deemed 
worth of compensation by Amerika, which poisons 
them in innumerable ways on a constant basis 
through its companies' destruction of their 
environment. 

The legal means Agent Orange sufferers are now 
using have successfully gained some health services 
from their government, but if they want real 
justice and freedom from poison they will have to 
overthrow imperialist domination entirely. MIM 
would focus on the suffering of the Vietnamese 
people who deserve compensation for the destruction 
of their health as well as their country. Agent 
Orange is just one example of the imperialists 
blatant disregard for human life and suffering. The 
Amerikan empire owes huge blood debts around the 
world and these debts will only be paid when 
imperialism has been overthrown.

NOTES: Far Eastern Economic Review, May 9, 1996, p. 
30.


* * *


PEASANT MASSACRE IN BRAZIL

Military police in the state of Para, Brazil, fired 
on 2000 peasants demonstrating for land reform on 
April 17, killing 23. The victims were members of 
the Movimento Sem Terra (Movement of Landless 
Peasants or MST). The Brazilian government's own 
investigator concluded that the victims were 
specifically targeted because of their organizing 
activities and executed.

Militant peasant organizations from around the 
world denounced the massacre. The Second 
International Conference of Via Campesina, with 
delegates from 40 countries, released the following 
statement:

"Once again, violence and assassinations are being 
used by the government in response to the just 
demands millions of landless farmers in Brazil, 
where land is more concentrated than practically 
anywhere else in the world. Barely 1% of rural 
landowners are in possession of 46% of the land, 
while 90% of all landholders possess less than 20% 
of all property. Furthermore, only a little more 
than 50% of all arable land is under cultivation, 
while some five million families of agricultural 
workers are landless.

"Since the concentration of land ownership brings 
with it the concentration of economic and political 
power, Brazil suffers from permanent conflicts 
between the landholding minority and the majority 
of the population, which has led to an unleashing 
of violence against rural women and men who are 
struggling to democratize the land."

MIM agrees with this analysis and would only add 
that Amerikan imperialism has an interest in 
defending the economic and political status quo in 
Brazil-in fact, Amerikan imperialism is responsible 
for the status quo. On the one hand, Amerikan 
agribusiness companies are themselves large 
landowners, exploit Brazil's natural resources and 
farmers, and depend on the political support of the 
large Brazilian landlords; on the other hand, 
Amerikan industrial concerns can hire the expanding 
"surplus population" very cheaply.

Amerikan imperialists also frankly admit that 
militarization of the Brazilian state and the 
repression of the masses are necessary to create a 
"stable investment climate." The CIA designed the 
fascist tactics of the Brazilian Military Police--
which include torture, "disappearances," and random 
terror--during the 1960s and 70s, when Brazil was 
ruled by an Amerikan-backed military government. 
U.S. puppet regimes like the Philippines and El 
Salvador later implemented these tactics as well.

The Peasant Movement of the Philippines (KMP) and 
the May First Movement (KMU) also denounced the 
massacre. The KMP and KMU are legal mass movements 
of peasants and workers respectively working to 
free the Philippines from the shackles of U.S. 
imperialism.

NOTE: Associated Press, April 24, 1996.


* * *


BLACK CHURCHES TARGETS OF TERRORIST ATTACKS: UNITED 
SNAKES PART OF THE PROBLEM

by MCB52

Since 1989, a new wave of terrorist attacks has 
struck Black churches across the South. One 
organization, the Center for Democratic Renewal, 
documents 57 cases of arson or serious vandalism at 
Black churches since January 1990. Half-ass and 
inadequate Federal investigations have been 
accompanied by the participation of Federal 
investigators in racist gatherings with local law 
enforcement. Though a couple of the overt racists 
were dismissed from the case, dozens remain. And 
the very notion that the United Snakes is solving 
the crimes against the oppressed is suspect as they 
deny the nature of the attacks as instruments of 
national oppression.

The head of the Congressional Judiciary Committee 
in charge of the investigations, Henry Hyde, says 
he is unsure whether the attacks are of a "racial" 
character. "You know, burning churches can be a 
statement by people who are angry at God, not 
necessarily trying to send a message to the 
parishioners or the pastor," he said.(1) He ignores 
the many cases which prove otherwise, for example 
the presence on a back door of a burned church the 
painted words: "Die Nigger Die!" and "White Is 
Right."(2) But Hyde invited plenty of white groups 
to testify at the Congressional hearing, for 
example the Kkkristian Coalition, and he excluded 
prominent Black groups like the National Council of 
Churches.(1) This shows his complete denial of the 
national character of the burnings. If the burnings 
are not anti-Black, why have no white churches been 
targeted?

Liberals have one response to that question. Dr. 
Joseph E. Lowery, president of the Southern 
Christian Leadership Conference, said: "We're not 
surprised by the feeble response to the church 
burnings. It just represents the 51st state in this 
nation: the state of denial."(3) What he fails to 
understand is the material basis of that denial: 
national oppression. The Amerikan government and 
the white-supremacist arsons are on the same side.

Revolution for national liberation is the only way 
such violence against oppressed nation people will 
end. Malcolm X stated in 1963; "How are you going 
to be nonviolent in Mississippi, as violent as you 
were in Korea? How can you justify being nonviolent 
in Mississippi and Alabama, when your churches are 
being bombed, and your little girls are being 
murdered, and at the same time you are going to get 
violent with Hitler, and Tojo, and somebody else 
you don't even know?

"If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong 
abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending 
Black women and Black children and Black babies and 
Black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us 
and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And 
if it is right for America to draft us, and teach 
us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is 
right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to 
defend our own people right here in this 
country."(4)

Falling far short of a revolutionary analysis, 
Jesse Jackson and other liberals are raising 
criticism of the Federal investigation. "There's a 
clear pattern and practice now, and there's not the 
vigorous pursuit of these arsonist terrorists that 
we deserve," he said.(1) MIM does not cheer-lead 
the investigators and urge them to do their job 
"better." Jackson is useful for exposing the 
hypocrisy of the United Snakes supposed devotion to 
"justice for all," but fails to understand that 
equal justice is not possible under imperialism.

The alliance between the Federal government and the 
arsonists has been illustrated in this case by the 
conduct of the investigators in the South. Federal 
officials admit that twelve of the Federal agents 
now investigating arsons at Black churches in the 
South attended one or more of the annual "Good Ol' 
Boy Roundups," where even they admit that "racist" 
activities "sometimes" occurred.(5)

Two of the agents were symbolically removed, but 
what of the rest of them?(2) And what about the 
other racist scum who are conducting the 
investigation? There will be no real resolution to 
these crimes against the people until the people 
have their own courts and their own power of 
sanction.

NOTES:
1. The New York Times, May 21, 1996, p. 12.
2. Los Angeles Times, May 5, 1996, p. 1.
3. The New York Times, May 22, 1996, p. 14.
4. Malcolm X, Message to the Grass Roots, Nov. 10, 
1963, Detroit, printed in Malcolm X speaks, George 
Breitman, ed., Grove Weidenfeld New York, 1990 p. 
7-8.
5. The San Francisco Examiner, April 3, 1996, p. A-
13.


* * *


PEOPLE'S CONFERENCE AGAINST IMPERIALIST 
GLOBALIZATION

The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan or BAYAN (New 
Patriotic Alliance), a multisectoral alliance of 
people's organizations in the Philippines will host 
a PEOPLE'S CONFERENCE AGAINST IMPERIALIST 
GLOBALIZATION on November 18-23 in Manila to 
counterpoint the Fourth Asia-Pacific Economic 
Cooperation (APEC) Leader's Meeting, which will be 
held November 25 in Subic Bay Freeport, site of the 
former u.s. naval base.

APEC represents Amerikan imperialism's attempt to 
consolidate its control in the Asia-Pacific region, 
which is the number one export market for the 
United Snakes. APEC pushes neo-liberal "free trade" 
policies, which leave Asian-Pacific neo-colonies 
backward, non-industrialized, and poor.

The theme of the BAYAN conference will be 
"Strengthen International Solidarity and Advance 
the People's Struggle against Imperialism." It will 
highlight Third World peoples' continuing struggle 
against U.S. imperialism and will be a venue for 
anti-imperialist organizations and individuals to 
learn from each other's experiences and struggles 
and identify areas of cooperation.

For more information, please contact:

People's Conference Secretariat
Attn: Dayling Java, coordinator
Rm. 214, FMSG Bldg., 1823 E. Rodriguez Ave.
corner New York St., Cubao, Quezon City, 
Philippines

* * *

ANTI-IMPERIALIST WORLD PEASANT SUMMIT

"Oppose APEC and Imperialist Globalization: Land, 
Food, Jobs, and Freedom for the Toiling Masses of 
the Soil!"

Imperialist policies like liberalization, import-
dependency, and export specialization have resulted 
in massive unemployment, chronic food crises, 
landlessness, the displacement of peasants, 
environmental destruction, and political rights 
abuses. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation 
(APEC) is a tool and symbol of these policies.

DEFEND THE EXPLOITED PEOPLES OF THE WORLD! Say NO! 
to imperialism's offensive to conquer the world.

STRENGTHEN LINKAGES with genuine anti-imperialist 
peasant organizations and people's movements and 
carry forward the struggle for a truly free, just, 
and democratic world.

PARTICIPATE in an historic international 
conference: The Anti-Imperialist World Peasant 
Summit (AIWPS) will be attended by delegates from 
peasant movements and organizations in Asia, Latin 
America, Africa, as well as solidarity 
organizations from Europe and North America. The 
program includes presentations and discussions on 
imperialist globalization and its effects on 
agriculture, the political and ideological 
offensives of imperialism, and case studies of 
peoples' resistance movements from around the 
world.

November 10-12, 1996
Quezon City, Philippines

For more information, contact:

AIWPS Convenors
c/o KMP
18 Alley 1 Road 6, Project 6
Quezon City, Philippines
Telefax: (632) 926-7449

The AIWPS was convened by the Kilusang Magbubukid 
ng Pilipinas (KMP, the Peasant Movement of the 
Philippines), the All Nepal Peasant Association 
(ANPA), the Bangladesh Agricultural Union (BALU), 
the Bangladesh Agricultural Farm Labor Federation 
(BAFLF), the Asia Peasant Women Network (APWN), and 
the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra.