Under Lock & Key

Yesterday, National Public Radio (NPR) aired an interview with a former prisoner in Iran to discuss the recent release of 5 Amerikan citizens from an Iranian prison. The focus was on the horrible effects of solitary confinement and how to adapt to being back in society.

In our 2008 survey of long-term solitary confinement in the United $tates, we found that there were over 90,000 people suffering in those conditions. It is strange for the NPR story to not have mentioned this problem at home as well, or how the oppressed people in this country fair after years in torture cells. The NPR report spoke of “death chambers” in the Iranian prison, yet the United $tates has electric and now injection chairs with viewing areas and what they call “death row” in prisons across this country (though only about a dozen states are actively murdering prisoners in recent years).

The United $tates has long had the highest imprisonment rate across the world. They even boasted a higher imprisonment rate of Black people than the internationally condemned apartheid regime in South Africa.

The one-sided depiction of prisons and solitary confinement in Iran on NPR revealed a strong bias in their reporting. Yet what was most shocking to learn was that these people coming out of Iranian prisons were being offered what sounded like a fully immersive program through the U.$. military for dealing with the mental anguish of being in long-term solitary confinement.

Really? Yet every year we have comrades who are released from the same conditions in this country with nothing but a parole officer watching over them, often sabotaging their efforts to maintain a job and build a new life. Tens of thousands of people every year are released from long-term solitary in the United $tates, either into general population prisons or to the streets, with no concern for their mental well-being from the state. Who the U.$. imperialists offer mental health services to is a political decision, and it is our politics that guide us to offer help to those the imperialists will not.

As of last week, the California Mandela Act (AB 280) passed a supermajority in the state house and senate, heading next to the desk of Governor Newsom. Newsom vetoed the Mandela Act just one year ago. An aspiring presidential candidate, Newsom is likely to reject the calls from the state legislator to stop this torture again. This is over a decade after the historic California hunger strikes that called for an end to long-term solitary confinement, leading to the 2015 Ashker vs. CDCR settlement where those sacrifices led only to individuals being released from the SHU, leaving the institution in place. [UPDATE: The bill has been stalled to negotiate with the Governor and will not be passed in 2023.]

For comrades currently suffering in torture cells in U.$. prisons, you can write to us for back issues of Under Lock & Key on solitary and materials from the American Friends Service Committee on dealing with isolation. For comrades who are getting out, who have spent long periods in solitary, our Re-Lease on Life Program attempts to offer mentoring, guidance and political engagement to ease the transition back into society. Meanwhile, we encourage everyone to get involved in the struggle to abolish long-term solitary confinement in this country completely.

Because over 100,000 people face torture in solitary in the United $tates every year with no imperialist Army programs for rehabilitation offered afterwards, we must develop independent institutions of the oppressed to address this material need among the oppressed masses in this country.

On 26 July 2023, Niger’s Presidential Guard arrested President Bazoum and declared the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Homeland (CNSP). On 27 July the military joined the coup in support of the new government. The coup has been denounced by the U.$., France, European Union, ECOWAS, and others. ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, is an organization of the comprador-bourgeoisie of 15 West-African states including Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and southern border of Niger. ECOWAS has threatened to invade Niger and restore the former government. Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and others have voiced support for the coup. Burkina Faso has declared that they would view an invasion of Niger as an act of war on themselves. What is to explain this web of contradictions and interests?

Since Niger’s independence in 1960 there have been a total of 4 coups. This has been viewed by bourgeois media as the inability of Niger to create a stable democracy on their own without the “aid” of the imperialist masters. This line coming from France is especially hypocritical as the one party system in Niger during 1960-1974 was in large part France’s doing, with the banning of parties such as the Mouvement Socialiste Africain-Sawaba (MSA). In reality, the independence Niger gained in 1960 is wildly exaggerated. Niger’s status as a French colony since 1922 has led many to believe that their liberation from this status represents a complete independence, as is enjoyed by the likes of France and Amerika. On the contrary, France and Amerika combined have over 2,500 troops stationed within Niger’s borders with billions invested in the construction and maintenance of military and drone bases. This is because Niger contains vast uranium reserves which are vital particularly in France’s energy supply. “Areva” was, before 2016, a state-owned French company operating in nuclear energy. Through a series of acquisitions, Areva became a major player in Niger’s uranium industry.

“AREVA’s two subsidiaries in Niger, Somaïr and Cominak, benefit from a number of tax advantages: exemptions from duties, VAT and even fuel taxes, which they use in massive amounts. A ‘provision for the reconstruction of mines’ also lets them set aside 20% of their profits which are therefore excluded from corporate taxes. In 2010, the two subsidiaries extracted a total of 114,346 metric tonnes of uranium in Niger, representing an export value of 2.3 trillion CFA francs (over 3.5 billion euros). From that sum, Niger was only paid 300 billion CFA francs (approximately 459 million euros), or 13% of the exported value.” (1)

On top of this, Niger uses the West African CFA franc which allows France significant control over the economy. This exploitation has produced revolutionary views among the people that the new government is seeking to pander to. The CNSP government gave an order for the French diplomats to leave the country and has echoed the anti-French sentiment in popular protests. We uphold the revolutionary anti-French sentiment of the people of Niger while also recognizing that this is a common tactic and method of the bourgeoisie in order to adopt and assimilate national liberation movements.

The purely economic exploitation of Niger is the form which imperialism takes that distinguishes it from colonialism. Because the market says that this trade is fair, and the market is ingrained in people’s minds as eternal, people assume that this is just the way it is and Niger will need to find some way to operate more successfully in the market. In reality, the terms of this trade benefit France at the expense of Niger; but Niger has no political-economic power to assert its own interests. The imperialist exploitation of their land and resources combined with the devastating health effects of uranium mining has produced a strong anti-imperialist movement which Amerika and France are attempting to deal with. Niger is a majority peasant country, which means that its anti-imperialist movement is of the new democratic type involving the national bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, peasantry, and proletariat, with the peasantry as the major reserve. The event of 26 July, as a coup led by pre-established powers, was a movement with the national bourgeoisie at the spearhead. If Niger is going to see liberation, the national bourgeoisie must be replaced by the proletariat at the vanguard.

The 4th Republic of France (1944-1958) retained its colonial rule over Niger. The contradictions of this rule collapsed the 4th Republic and forced colonialism into advanced imperialism. Rather than direct political rule, the 5th French Republic had to cede independence to its colonies and retain only economic control. The so-called independence of Niger is a facade. The instability in Niger and the consequently frequent shifting of power from one faction to another is the unfolding of the contradiction among the national bourgeoisie and the comprador bourgeoisie (and oftentimes factions within the two class forces as well). It will only reach its next qualitative stage through revolution: not power struggles of one section of the comprador regime by another. This is only possible through a dictatorship led by the proletariat of Niger in a new democratic united front alongside the peasantry, the progressive national-bourgeoisie, the petty-bourgeoisie, and lumpen-proletarians who have decided to join the revolution.

China and Russia have made statements regarding the situation that have led some to believe they are allies of Niger, or at least not explicitly opposed to the coup. “Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia called for all sides in Niger to show restraint, and for the fastest possible return to legal order.”(2) Aljazeera reported on a supposed Wagner Group statement that was explicit in support for Niger: “What happened in Niger is nothing other than the struggle of the people of Niger with their colonizers.”(3) “The Chinese government intends to provide good offices, play a mediating role so that a political resolution to the crisis in Niger could be found with full respect to countries in the region,” the ambassador said at a meeting with Niger’s rebel-appointed prime minister, Ali Lamine Zeine. (4)

Can Niger throw off Amerika and France by allying with China and Russia? Certainly the hystory of the struggle of the oppressed shows that the tactical utility of the contradictions between the oppressors is indispensable to the revolutionary struggle. But without scientific leadership these complex contradictions cannot be managed and alliance with one or another imperialist will result in a change of oppressor and not the overthrow of all oppression. We believe in the strength of the people of Niger, and the CNSP government may succeed in cutting french monopoly in the interests of the nation. This will heighten the contradiction, leading to the preconditions for war and contributing to the world conditions for another Great Inter-Imperialist World War as Niger struggles for allies. Imperialism, rotting alive for more than 100 years, is in a dubious position to survive such an event.

Long Live The People of Niger

Down With Imperialism

<sup>Notes:
1. Anne-Sophie Simpere, 19th December 2013, Areva in Niger: who is benefiting from the uranium?, Oxfam International
2. 31 Jul 2023, Situation in Niger is ‘cause for serious concern’, says Kremlin, Aljazeera
3. 28 Jul 2023, Russia’s Wagner boss appears to hail Niger coup, tout services, Aljazeera
4.05 September 2023, China Wants to Mediate Resolution of Crisis in Niger - Ambassador, Sputnik International</sup>

The No. 80, Winter 2023 edition of Under Lock & Key hosted an article titled “Sacrifice Behind Bars”, wherein a comrade expressed very heavy sentiments that I intend to magnify and address from a revolutionary perspective. The details of his mention were strikingly consistent with the circumstances and characters of the North Carolina prison system enabling an apparent conclusion that our obstacles as lumpen are, indeed, collective. To that extent I consider it necessary to re-evaluate our responsibilities as revolutionaries from within; as they are comparable to our revolutionary history as Marxist-Leninist-Maoists.

The central theme of the comrade’s message can be boiled down to one question he posed: “what are you willing to sacrifice?” The comrade illustrated his legacy of sacrifice to which he is honored and should know he’s not alone in that identical regard. However, for the new-coming comrade who may not understand his conviction yet and is attracted to his energy and posture; for the seasoned comrade who may be becoming burned out; for the growing comrade who may be struggling with understanding this political line; and for the critic, we must unify on the collective understanding of why sacrifice is necessary and how to measure the particular type of sacrifice to be offered for our revolutionary objective.

The author of that article asks the question of sacrifice to comrades on the streets and comrades within alike. Demonstrating his willingness to actualize guerrilla tactics amidst similarly situated individuals who have been compromised in exchange for goods supplied by the opposition makes it apparent that a revolutionary united front is diminished in that environment, to say the least. Essential to being compromised is the viewing that an individual – or a class – is not only without, but is desperate, moralless and to whatever degree, gullible. With respect to comrade’s mention of such individuals, we should not haste into judgment nor spring into belligerence without careful and scientific observation of our own perspective. It is not sound to conclude that it is an immaculate practice of social science for the opposition to infiltrate a mind that has never operated outside of its conditioning by that opposition. “Boy they got you good” etc. is not technically true if that person is underdeveloped morally, politically, and intellectually. Even if that person is from where you are from and have been through similar experiences. If you are a conscious revolutionary – conscious in the sense that you are aware of and intuit the frame of thinking employed by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong – then you are unique: especially coming from capitalist-imperialist Amerikkka. That’s nothing to pride yourself on in arrogance nor egoism, its to empower your desire to fulfill your responsibilities to those unconscious. Therefore, to be ‘revolutionary’ in its most rudimentary expression is to redirect the impulses to be inhuman as you usher in humanism.

If one is morally sound, intellectually competent, and has a desire for general welfare of others, then from those perspectives that one is enriched, if he/she/they have not sequestered the abstract and subtle impetus of the capitalist-imperialist nature of his/her/their cultural (and political-economic) domicile then even with the above virtues, in those contexts, what will be is a repeat of what Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels called in The Communist Manifesto ‘reactionary socialism’; the remnants of feudal socialism. This is to the extent and in the regard of issuing counter-narratives in sole order to arouse sympathy in those who aren’t as ‘enriched’ as you to behave in a way that secures your sense of comfort. The motivations are not comparable in that example and the circumstances are as night and day by juxtapose. However, by principle and mentality its enough to say that one could be more creative from a revolutionary vantage point.

Sacrifice of any sort is rooted in the intention for a net-positive future occurrence. Therefore, the theoretical objectification of that sacrificial act bears no weight on the immediate circumstances one experiences. To add on to the comrade’s thoughts, what you are willing to sacrifice depends on your measure of awareness of what is to come of it. The knowledge of the accuracy of what is to come is based on your ability to identify with the material circumstances – emphasis on the conditions that define them – of that situation as it relates to your theory, essentially, of the world. From a revolutionary perspective ‘the world’ includes others, so when we speak of practice, i.e., sacrifice, it is necessarily unbalanced without theory.

If the masses, even in the prison setting, are viewed to be slumbering it is not for the revolutionary to wake them with a cacophony of political rhetoric, especially if their slumber is characterized by the fanaticals of capitalist production. So, we do place a high emphasis on practice. It is that practice must be guided by theory. Lenin stated:

“Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” (V.I. Lenin, What is to be done?)

In his Selected Works Mao Zedong stated:

“Theoretical knowledge is acquired through practice and must then return to practice.” (Mao, On Practice: The Relation Between Knowledge and Practice, 1937)

Mao did not differ with Lenin in this regard, he magnified the principle of Lenin’s point. In real time this means to structure revolutionary practice in a manner that conveys the core principles at work in an action bound language that is interpretable to and for the observer all while being disciplined enough not to exaggerate your behavior as to make the demonstration unrealistic. The standard by which one can scale his/her/their proposed action is in one’s ability to become one with the reality of the situation; being cautious of personal biases and having rational and isolated conclusions about each component of the embodying manifest circumstance. The sum of this process is the base from which to determine what means of action to deploy. To that extent, we in prison have to be realistic without compromising our theory (i.e. political line), some of us have immense anger issues and if that is true for the proposed actor in a revolutionary demonstration then if the action to be had does require a use of force we must consider if that one is sufficient or not for the action. Use of force does not always mean complete annihilation or insurrection. Whatever is decided upon, the objective is to be clear and decisive. The actualizer must be disciplined enough to actualize the task without going too far and thereby jeopardizing the precision of the demonstration. Lenin and Mao actually had a revolution, so this frame of thinking is sound, its relevance here and now depends on our willingness to truly get with the program, i.e., Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

The answer to the comrade’s question to the world of sacrifice, should be proportional to the details of your circumstance and the individuals and lives it would effect; from a revolutionary perspective. Only a matter of intelligence compels the conclusion that revolution is sustained by an environment prepared for it. The blaze does not come before strenuous economic, political, financial, social, cultural, and theoretical preparation. Let us take the time we DO have and align ourselves with the correct theoretical knowledge.

North Carolina IS in the building. We have recently birthed a movement – S.W.A.P. (Serving With A Purpose) – which I am proud and honored to be a founding member of. S.W.A.P. is a N.C. prisoner-led organizational base empowered by the literary guidance of MLM and in unity with the United Front for Peace in Prisons; a United Struggle from Within initiative. Our halls of learning are open for all sisters, brothers, and non-binary comrades to partake in our programs and we are dedicated to organizing with comrades abroad on the basis of theory and practice – being MLM distinguished. We currently do provide a bi-monthly newsletter called Voice of the Lumpen, by which comrades may submit articles to be published, we host a penpal mentorship program with at risk youth both in facilities and those on the streets, we provide a jailhouse lawyer legal program called “Blue Skies Legal Initiative” where comrades can learn how to utilize legal provisions in a manner that furthers our political line, and are developing more programs as time progresses.

Organize, strategize, execute!

Death to capitalist imperialism!

SWAP 1625 S. Alston Ave. Durham, NC 27707

In the last month we have seen the state of Georgia bring RICO Act charges against Rudy Giuliani and others who worked with Donald Trump to steal the 2020 U.$. presidential election, as well as activists who were doing things as simple as handing out fliers opposing the construction of Cop City in Atlanta.

The Federal Racketeering and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) was enacted in 1970 as a tool to charge people with crimes when they were having other people do their dirty work for them. Each crime charged under RICO can add years to ones prison sentence. The Georgia RICO Act of 1980 covers more crimes than the federal version. The Georgia Act makes Racketeering a felony in the state.(1) Historically, we have had multiple readers who were victims of RICO Act charges brought during the Giuliani years in New York City, and more recently in the Atlanta area, for their leadership roles in lumpen organizations, the more typical target of RICO.

Rudy Giuliani earned fame as a federal prosecutor for getting Mafia bosses in New York City convicted on RICO Act charges. He then used his reputation to become a “tough-on-crime” mayor of New York City known for “cleaning up” the city. It was during Giuliani’s time as Mayor of NYC that the infamous case was brought against King Blood (aka Luis Felipe) under the RICO Act. King Blood was charged for murders committed while ey was already in prison and received the inhumane and unprecedented sentence of life in solitary confinement. All of King Blood’s First Amendment rights to communication were denied, allowing only communication with eir lawyer and immediate family. This was not typically something a judge could sentence, but was justified via the racketeering statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3582(d).(2) Decades later, King Blood still sits in a torture cage in ADX Florence, isolated from the world. While the RICO charges against Giuliani may provide some cathartic humor, the 79-year-old will not be facing anything like King Blood is doing.

Weeks following the Georgia RICO Act charges against Trump, Giuliani, et al., another set of RICO Act charges (and domestic terrorism charges) were made against 61 activists involved in opposing the construction of Cop City in Atlanta. This is a continuation of the state’s warfare against Stop Cop City, including the ludicrous money laundering charges brought against bail support fundraisers we reported on in the last issue of ULK.(3) In the recent RICO indictment, the date of the murder of George Floyd (25 May 2020) is cited as the beginning of the investigations around the so-called “racketeering.” In other words, the state was trumping up these charges against activists before there was a Stop Cop City movement. This is not about stopping any criminal conspiracy, it is about repressing any opposition to the use of lethal police force against New Afrika and oppressed people in general. It is a defense of the state’s right to wage violent war against New Afrika.

In a recent article, a comrade laid out the political nature of the law, debunking the myth that laws were developed as a way to impose morality or address inherent problems in society.(4) Rather law stemmed from the need to manage the division of humyns into classes. With Trump/Giuliani, we see the RICO Act law being used by the bourgeoisie to discipline other bourgeoisie who are threatening the image of bourgeois democracy. And in the case of the 61 activists they are using the same law to discipline youth and oppressed nations who are opposing more violent forms of state discipline.

When we go up against the courts, the police, or even the politicians, we must be prepared for war. The cops murdering us in cold blood is war. The courts and prisons putting us in torture cells for years is war. City governments in Atlanta and San Pablo, California funding cop cities where pigs can play war games is war. These more obvious forms of war, are part of political struggle. There are no rights, only power struggles. To engage in power struggles, requires giving the war two sides.

^*Notes:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_RICO_(Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations)_Act
2. Prison Legal News, 15 March 1999, Judicial Sentence of Life in Solitary Upheld.
3. A comrade, July 2023, “Law and the Courts of Late”, Under Lock & Key No. 82.
4. A comrade of Anti-Imperialist Prisoner Support, July 2023 “Atlanta Criminalizes Protest Against Cop City”, Under Lock & Key No. 82.*^

I am continuing the fight in the struggle. I am recently lied on by the oppressors’ corrupt gang unit here saying I was organizing an unauthorized group activity and that I’m a leader of the White Panther Movement. They also said that I was trying to organize a riot and take over the prison from the guards because I try to unite and educate. They don’t like it. So I am in solitary awaiting to be placed in SHU here in the corrupt Ohio Concentration Camps.

I am filing grievances against the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Corrections, because while in SHU we cannot order no books – not even legal books. Then last time I was placed in solitary they lost my legal book “self help litigation manual” and now they won’t allow me to re-order it at my own cost.

So the inspector has put fake tickets saying I threatened him, false. So know I am truly at war here.

Now in solitary they won’t allow no porter to my door to pass me a reading book or nothing. The library lady won’t bring me nothing either. So I’m in it.

“I hold that it is bad as far as we are concerned if a person, a political party, an army, or a school is not attacked by the enemy, for in that case it would definitely mean that we have sunk to the level of the enemy. It is good if we are attacked by the enemy, since it proves that we have drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves. It is still better if the enemy attacks us wildly and paints us as utterly black and without a single virtue; it demonstrates that we have not only drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves but achieved a great deal in our work.”

-Mao Tse-tung (1)

Behind the walls of Amerika’s gulags there will come a time when every serious revolutionary (whether ey are organized in a cell or party structure, or in a small collective or political study group with eir comrades) will draw the eyes of the pig surveillance apparatus for eir political activity and organizing. Some, those that are well read and practiced in security and counter-surveillance, will no doubt last longer than others without scrutiny; but with all simple channels of communication under heavy surveillance – from audio equipped security cameras, to monitored, recorded, and archived phone calls, to mail room pigs sticking their hideous snouts into your mail (not to mention those dealing with smart communications/TextBehind/etc.) – the pig administration and rank and file can and will monitor, censor, obstruct, and otherwise engage in their reactionary low intensity warfare against political agitation and those that would dare to educate and unite the oppressed masses against Our common enemy: the state, its lackeys, and all they stand for. So, in a very real sense the gulags of the United $nakes are exactly that: WAR.

As the contradictions between the oppressor class and the oppressed are inherently antagonistic in nature, and playing out in a myriad of ways upon this particular front. This is not to say, however, that these antagonistic contradictions with the enemy are solely resolved in isolation from the larger struggle against imperialism and U.$. hegemony and capitalistic exploitation. Indeed, these struggles are one and the same; inter-related with each other.

Thus, Our efforts to educate, organize, and mobilize the masses toward socialist revolution are viciously repressed by the imperialists and their lackeys. Though, as Mao stated in the above quote, it would be bad if the enemy weren’t making a concerted effort to attack Us. The simple fact that they are engaged in the assault against Us means they are worried if not downright fearful, that We may succeed in realizing Our and Our countless fallen comrades’ lifelong goal and dream that We’ve all been struggling and striving for: the destruction of patriarchal capitalist-imperialist empire through social revolution and the ushering in of communism throughout the world.

And yet, as Mao correctly warned Us,

“The imperialists and domestic reactionaries will certainly not take their defeat lying down and they will struggle to the last ditch.”(2)

In so doing, they will utilize all available tactics to sabotage Us and Our efforts. Within the gulags in Amerika, the oppressor has a wide range of tactics to quash dissent. Indeed, the U.$. gulag archipelago is itself a tool used currently and hystorically against communists, anarchists, and all those the oppressor sees as a threat to the status quo. Other familiar tactics used against the politically active range from blatant assassination (George Jackson, San Quentin Aug. 21, 1971), assassination by pig proxy (The Aug. 12, 2015 assassination of Hugo “Yogi” Pinell by white supremacist prisoners Jayson Weaver and Waylon Pitchford at New Folsom Prison (3)), (in)definite solitary confinement, snitch-jacketing, targeted mail surveillance and censorship, etcetera, etcetera ad nauseam.

However, these tactics cease being their main focus once they understand (and they obviously do) a key fact; as Steven Biko so succinctly put it, “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” The pigs are fully aware, as are the imperialists, that a docile, unquestioning mass of sheeple is easier to control than an angry, educated, politically-conscious mass of revolutionary militants. To that end, they do everything within their power to reproduce these brainless sheeple in mass quantities: pigs engaging in widespread chemical warfare upon the imprisoned lumpen by introducing and pushing mass quantities of drugs while simultaneously banning publications like MIM(Prisons)’s “Revolutionary 12 Step Program”(4); amassing huge lists of banned books, often for ridiculous reasons, and more often as an extension of political repression; small, if any portions of gulag facility budgets spent on books for the library (and nearly all mind-numbing selections at that); the introduction of tablets for use, along with TV’s, to zone out on and isolate, ignoring the world and the problems around you in sheer ambivalence; and finally (though not conclusively) the lack of truly helpful classes/programs offered, while offering Eurocentric, status-quo affirming programs to get those foolish enough to take them “all ready to head back to ‘minimum security’ (the so-called ‘free world’) to re-acclimate to the oppression and exploitation ey had sadly been content with living under anyway.”

Much to the dismay of the imperialists and their pig lackeys, there are those of Us that see through their attempts to incapacitate Us, Our movements, and Our struggle for a better world. And we are multiplying, regardless of what they throw in Our way, and no matter how many times they try to divide Us. No matter what the oppressor tries, they will be out maneuvered again and again by Our overflowing revolutionary love for the People. All because the oppressor cannot grasp a simple truth that was reiterated again and again by Our beloved comrade Fred Hampton before he was assassinated by Chicago pigs and the FBI on December 1969, that still proves true to this day: “You can kill a revolutionary, but you can never kill the revolution.”

<sup>Notes:
1. Mao Tse-tung, “To Be Attacked by the Enemy Is Not a Bad Thing but a Good Thing” (May 26, 1939), First Pocket Edition, pg. 2.
2. Mao Tse-tung, “Opening Address at the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference” (September 21, 1949).
3. Nate Gartrell, 14 September 2023, “Aryan Brotherhood pair charged in fatal stabbing”, San Jose Mercury News.
4. See: Triumphant, November 2022, “TDCJ’s Repression of its Political Prisoners Leads to Devastating Effects Among the Wider Prison Population,” ULK No. 80. and Texas Prisoner, March 2021, “TDCJ: Your Staff are Bringing in the Drugs, and it Must Stop,” ULK No. 73.</sup>

Occupation of Cabanas

On 4 August 2023, 8,000 military troops and police were deployed in the countryside province of Cabanas, El Salvador in part of the campaign to crack down on the MS-13 and Barrio 18 lumpen organizations (L.O.s) – many of whom have fled to the region from the cities.(1) One thousand police and 7,000 soldiers were deployed to set checkpoints blocking all roads leading in and out of the area.(2) The congress of El Salvador added new criminal codes as part of President Nayib Bukele’s war on the two organizations that will enact mass trials based on what area they lived in and which organization controlled that particular territory.(3) These actions are merely an expression of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s war on lumpen organizations operating in El Salvador.

The Anti-Gang Campaign Waged by the President

Bukele’s anti-gang campaign is best characterized as a set of “mano dura” (“iron fist”, i.e. tough-on-crime) policies. Said policies reflect an overall seven-phase plan offered to combat lumpen organizations known as the “Territorial Control Plan”. As of 1 August 2023, only five of the seven phases have made its way into the daily existence of Salvadoran society. Those five phases are outlined as follows:

1. Preparation: Increased military and police presence in municipalities with high degrees of L.O. presence.
2. Opportunity: Providing alternative opportunities to Salvadoran youth (e.g. legal labor) to sway said youth from joining L.O.s.
3. Modernization: Modernizing (or rather, militarizing) the national police.
4. Incursion: “Modernized” rehash of phase one.
5. Extraction: “Extracting” the remaining L.O. members continuing L.O. activities.(4)

While Bukele spits out anti-establishment rhetoric – painting emself as neither left nor right, criticizing both the dominant so-called left and right wing parties of El Salvador to do so, and claiming to offer “innovative” nonpartisan solutions that will take care of the societal ills plaguing the masses – eir politics and so-called solutions do nothing but feed into the development of a militarized far-right state.(5) In fascist fashion, Bukele exploited the concerns of the masses, offered them a scapegoat, and targeted symptoms rather than root cause to the contradictions that produce violence in Salvadoran society. Interestingly enough, Bukele seems to be fully aware of this and seemingly embraces it in an ironic fashion by self-appointing emself as the “World’s Coolest Dictator” on Twitter.(6)

One thing to make note is that the fascism of the Third World is imported from the First World. Bukele has had big rise through eir business career as a comprador-bourgeois businessman, and is now in the comprador-bourgeois state itself. The crisis of these lumpen organizations in El Salvador has shown that imperialism’s neo-colony of El Salvador cannot rule the way it did before, and therefore a comprador fascist movement has been exported onto it. While Bukele’s political support was far less overt and hands on than the likes of Pinochet of Chile and Syngman Rhee of southern Korea, the regime’s close ties to the Trump administration shows this trend. Bukele’s regime is now rejected by the left-wing imperialist faction of the U$A, the Biden administration.

The Old Ideas of Nuevas Ideas

We define fascism as the open terroristic violence of finance capital during a time of crisis when the bourgeois state cannot govern itself in the way it did before. Despite the constant police/military occupation of the ghettos, barrios, and reservations (alongside the great reversals of abortion rights); in the context of the United $tates, this has been the standard method of strategy exert rule onto the oppressed nations and uphold imperialist-patriarchy. Mass imprisonment, police/military occupation, and protracted low-intensity genocide are not the exception, rather the rule. We believe that when global political-economic crisis threatens U.$. imperialism, U.$. imperialism will start to crack out the real tests of open terrorism. It is out of that reasoning that the U$A cannot be considered fascist at this time.

On the other hand, it is arguable that the bourgeois state of El Salvador (due to the existing crisis of the two dominant L.O.’s: MS-13 and Barrio18) cannot rule itself the way it once did before, and with that – Bukele’s rise could be considered a fascist movement. In El Salvador (like many third world neo-colonies) the objective conditions of the bourgeois state is much weaker than in the U.$. The fact horizontal-structured L.O.s such as MS-13/Barrio18 are capable of causing intense crisis exposes this. Another big difference is the qualitatively different anti-people nature of the lumpen-proletariat class of the Third World compared to the First World lumpen. In this sense, Bukele’s political movement can be considered more fascist than Trump’s on the crisis aspect – although Trump’s mass base of imperialist country labor aristocracy is a much stronger fuel for a fascist movement than the crisis-jaded proletariat and petite-bourgeoisie of El Salvador who long for a single day where ultra-violent anti-people activities are no longer an expectation of daily existence.

Despite the strongman militarization and self-identification as the “world’s coolest dictator,” Bukele and eir government held secret meetings with the leaders of these organizations to lower the crime rates. The U.$. department of treasury states:

“In 2020, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s (Bukele) administration provided financial incentives to Salvadoran gangs MS-13 and 18th Street Gang (Barrio 18) to ensure that incidents of gang violence and the number of confirmed homicides remained low. Over the course of these negotiations with Luna and Marroquin, gang leadership also agreed to provide political support to the Nuevas Ideas political party in upcoming elections. Nuevas Ideas is the President’s political party and won a two-thirds super majority in legislative elections in 2021. The Bukele administration was represented in such transactions by Luna, the Chief of the Salvadoran Penal System and Vice Minister of Justice and Public Security, and Marroquin, Chairman of the Social Fabric Reconstruction Unit. In addition to Salvadoran government financial allocations in 2020, the gangs also received privileges for gang leadership incarcerated in Salvadoran prisons, such as the provision of mobile phones and prostitutes.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Luna also negotiated an agreement with gang leaders from MS-13 and Barrio 18 for the gangs’ support of President Bukele’s national quarantine in gang-controlled areas. Separately, Luna participated in a scheme to steal and re-sell government purchased staple goods that were originally destined for COVID-19 pandemic relief. These items were transferred to private companies and then resold on the private market or back to the government. Luna’s mother, Alma Yanira Meza Olivares (Meza), acted as the negotiator in some of these transactions. Additionally, Luna and Meza developed a scheme to embezzle millions of dollars from El Salvador’s prison commissary system. They also created fraudulent job positions within the prison system, in which supposed “employees” would receive monthly paychecks and return most of the earnings back to Luna and Meza.”(7)

Despite all the comprador-bourgeois fascism that came with Bukele’s military strongman strategy to get rid of the crisis of lumpen-proletariat violence in eir country, the independent leadership of these anti-people L.O.s was an indispensable and unavoidable class force in lowering the death rates. With all the talks about the pragmatist “tough on crime” and “round them all up” narratives expressed by the imperialist and comprador press, Bukele’s government gives money and political immunity in exchange for political support and cooperation of gangs. MIM(Prisons) will not be surprised if there are opportunist and anti-people MS-13/Barrio18 members in the undemocratic injustice system of El Salvador today who sees Bukele as their political-economic patron and sponsor.

The facts presented above provide a case against Bukele’s tough-on-crime policies as ineffective, yet bourgeois propaganda is a powerful tool and these policies, due to their perceived success, may find new homes abroad in Honduras and Guatemala.(8)(9) This sets potential precedents for a new-wave of mano dura “solutions” throughout Latin America.

As mentioned above, these policies (however popular and effective or ineffective they may be) are aimed towards symptoms, not causes. However qualitatively different the First World and Third World lumpen may be, it is in this that there is a unifying struggle against the real cause of their oppression – namely, imperialism. Bourgeois propaganda may be powerful, but concrete conditions are concrete conditions and concrete conditions require concrete solutions, not old ideas.

In social media, which Bukele’s regime has utilized greatly for public image, whenever news reports of the humyn rights abuses in Salvadorian prisons overcrowded with L.O. members were shown, the comments were flooded with Amerikan chauvinists and Trump supporters saying similar actions should be done against the oppressed nation lumpen organizations in the United $tates. The truth is, U.$. imperialism already often breaks their own bourgeois democratic values when it comes to imprisoning and lumpenizing their oppressed nations. Guilty by association policies has been a long standing practice against Black and Latin@ masses to the point that merely being family related to a lumpen organization member can get you labeled as part of that organization by the pigs. The settlers/Amerikans will jeer at the oppressed nations telling them that they don’t have it as bad as the victims of Third World fascism while hoping and wishing for the day that Third World fascist policies can one day become a reality within U.$. borders. This issue’s topic of “Prisons Are War” seeks to highlight this message and tell our readers that low intensity genocide is already happening to them.

For revolutionary ways on handling these problems, we point to the ways when these same lumpen organizations’ leaders have sought to unite and abandon their anti-people ways without fascist repression and how the FBI murdered them for it.

^{Notes 1. Associated Press, 1 August 2023, El Salvador sends 8,000 troops and police officers to comb rural province in massive anti-gang raid}

^{2. Ibid.}

^{3. Associated Press, 27 July 2023, El Salvador allows mass trials for thousands imprisoned in gang crackdown}

^{4. Paola Nagovitch, 13 February 2020, Explainer: Nayib Bukele’s Territorial Control Plan, Americas Society/Council of the Americas}

^{5. Times of Israel, His Dad Was an Imam, His Wife Has Jewish Roots: Meet El Salvador’s New Leader}

^{6. Mat Youkee, 26 September 2021, Nayib Bukele calls himself the ‘world’s coolest dictator’ – but is he joking?, The Guardian}

^{7. U.S. Department of the Treasury, 8 December 2021, Treasury Targets Corruption Networks Linked to Transnational Organized Crime}

^{8. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/19/honduras-to-build-island-colony-to-imprison-gang-members}

^{9. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/7/could-el-salvadors-gang-crackdown-spread-across-latin-america}

Greetings, To all the “Warriors”, “Soldiers”, and “Comrades”, a new day is at hand. Those that have been subjected to “colonial rule” are rising up and ousting the “puppet regimes” installed by the enemy.

The brothers and sisters over in Afrika are saying “enough is enough!”. Those Afrikans over in France are also rising up! It’s only a matter of time before the Black, Brown, Red. and Yellow souljahs here on these shores say “Down with the imperialists and their flunkies!”.

We must unite and stand with those who wish to overthrow the puppets and install a government for the people and by the people.

Vita Wa Watu

A Memorandum issued by the PREA Auditors of America was recently posted in all dorms and other areas here at Dillwyn Correctional Center where incarcerated people frequent advising us of the following:

“The Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) will be conducting an audit for Compliance with the United States Department of Justice’s National Standards to Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Prison Rape under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) for Its Adult Detention Facility.”

The scheduled dates of the PREA Audit are from September 26th-28th, 2023.

The Memorandum further advises:

“Any person with relevant information pertaining to this compliance Audit may * confidentially * correspond with the Auditor via the following address:

Ron Kidwell P.O. Box 193 Palmyra, Virginia 22963

“CONFIDENTIALITY. All correspondence and disclosures during interviews with the designated auditor are CONFIDENTIAL and will not be disclosed unless required by law. There are exceptions when confidentiality must be legally broken. Exceptions include, but are not limited to the following:

If the person is an immediate danger to him/herself or others (e.g., suicide or homicide)

Allegations of suspected child abuse, neglect, or maltreatment

In legal proceedings where information has been subpoenaed by a court of appropriate jurisdiction.”

The Prison Rape Elimination Act or PREA was passed by the U.$. Congress and codified into federal law as Title 42 U.S.C.A. section 15601. It was passed in response to the high incidents of rape and other forms of sexual violence incarcerated people were subjected to in prisons across the country.

Despite the language of PREA, it does not stop, prevent or reduce the rape and sexual violence of incarcerated people. As an example, the rape and sexual assaults against women at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California in the years before 2022 was so bad the prison was called the “rape club” by incarcerated women and prison staff alike. Even the Warden of the prison at the time, Ray J. Garcia, took part in raping and sexually exploiting women at the prison.

The real purpose of PREA was to create a set of national standards (also called PREA standards) by the U.$. Attorney General that state and federal prison systems can give the appearance of being in compliance with in order to gain accreditation and federal grant money from the U.$. Department of Justice.

PREA Audits as they are currently conducted do not work and will never work for the following reasons:

As the above quoted Memorandum reveals, prison officials are given advanced notice their prisons will be audited for PREA compliance. This advanced notice sets in motion a scheme whereby prison officials began the process of cleaning up and beautifying the prison before PREA auditors arrive, both literally and figuratively. I have witnessed time and time again how in the days leading up to the audit, incarcerated people are instructed to paint walls, plant flowers, and wax and buff the floors. Guards and prison staff begin acting nice and treating incarcerated people with a little bit more dignity and respect. A special meal is sometimes serviced to incarcerated people either on the day of the audit or on the day before. In some cases, a prison may go on an unexpected lockdown where incarcerated people are locked in their cells on the day of the audit. All of this is done to placate/pacify incarcerated people so they’ll be least likely to give the PREA auditors a “bad report” or, in the case of the unexpected lockdown, to prevent them from giving a report altogether.

In order for the PREA audit to be truly effective, they must be conducted without prison officials having prior notice of the date and time of the audit.

In addition to that, incarcerated people must be allowed to communicate freely with auditors in a confidential setting. This is often not possible because PREA auditors are accompanied by brass and are deliberately led on a prearranged course throughout the prison that keeps them out of contact with incarcerated people and out of the housing areas where incarcerated people live and sleep.

Incarcerated people must not be retaliated against for making complaints about having been raped and sexually assaulted by prison staff. I know of many fellow incarcerated people who have been harassed, threatened, moved to another housing unit, transferred to another prison, and written bogus infractions in retaliation for submitting PREA complaints. This sort of retaliation chills other incarcerated people’s desire to submit PREA complaints which allows their abusers to escape accountability.

Lastly, the only real solution to ending the rape and sexual violence of incarcerated people is to abolish the Prison Industrial Complex. If there are no prisons, then there can be no prison rape.

All Power to the People Who Don’t Fear Freedom!

MIM(Prisons) responds: We actually think we can do a lot to eliminate rape for all people before abolishing prisons. Prisons are a tool of class struggle. In the control of a communist government, prisons would be revolutionized to serve the people. There would be an end to the torturous practices so common in capitalist prisons of isolation, heat, lack of health care and physical and sexual assaults.

Unlike prisons, rape and sexual violence are forms of oppression that cannot serve the people. While the path to eliminating any of these things remains long and challenging. Previous revolutionary societies have made quick progress in the realm of reducing and almost eliminating many forms of gender oppression. So we call on those who want to put an end to rape and sexual violence to join us in the struggle to end imperialism and replace it with a system in the hands of the international proletariat.

Triple Cross: How Bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI
By Peter Lance
Harper-Collins Publishers, 2006
608 pages

<

I had briefly heard the story of Ali Muhammid, the Al Qaeda operative who infiltrated various U.$. agencies, but nothing in depth. This book answered lots of unanswered questions. Many of the assumptions I had surrounding the 9/11 attacks were confirmed in this book and still other questions arose.

It’s important to understand one’s enemy. The U.$. government has an immense amount of operatives going at once and is instilling terror globally on a massive scale. The author, Peter Lance, reveals some of this here and calls out the FBI on its actions and to a lesser extent the CIA.

This book shows the vulnerabilities of the empire. Much of the state apparatus is as Mao rightly identified a paper tiger. The 9/11 Commission is a perfect example. The 9/11 Commission was created to investigate the attacks on 9/11. The “findings” resulted in a huge book titled The 9/11 Commission. Peter Lance was himself interviewed by the commission and explained how upon being interviewed he found out that half of the “9/11 commission” was made up of former FBI – the very agency that Lance states failed to stop the attacks on 9/11! Thus such a commission was bound to fail from the start. An utter failure.

Peter Lance lays out the idea that years before 9/11 attacks the FBI had intel that could have prevented the attacks and dropped the ball. It’s interesting to hear the FBI’s vulnerabilities because the state works hard to maintain this facade that the FBI is this all knowing behemoth when in reality they are prone to humyn fallacy just like any other, paper tigers.

This book mentions that one of the reasons the author feels that the FBI dropped some of its leads into the Al Qaeda cell responsible for 9/11 was that a Senior Supervisory Special Agent of the FBI Roy Lindley DeVechio was alleged to be leaking information to a member of the Colombo Crime Family: Greg Scarpa Senior. So to save the Feds the embarrassment and jeopardize dozens of members of the Colombo family’s cases the intel was swept under the rug. The FBI has been known throughout its hystory to commit every crime we can think of in its repression on the people. Some agents have even been known to have intimate relationships, even falling in love with their intended target.

It’s clear after reading this book that when we look at the Al Qaeda network and all of its figures, Ali Mohammid stands out as the most audacious and one of the most important figures in that organization. The fact that while being trained at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg he was simultaneously training the Al Qaeda cell that blew up the World Trade Center in 1993 is amazing. His photographs were also used by Osama Bin Laden in bombing the U.$. embassy in Kenya that killed 224 people in 1998.(1)

As communists we do not condone terrorizing the populace by targeting civilians. Nor do we support the notion of taking actions based in supernatural superstitions of any sort, but this does not take away the blow to U.$. Intelligence Agencies that Ali Mohammed was able to execute by toying with them and basically working them all like a handler. He was an Al Qaeda sleeper, a deep penetration triple agent who played Amerikkka at its own game. The only reason this story is not on the front page of every newspaper and at movie theaters is it is a huge embarrassment to U.$. intelligence.

The FBI, like Amerikkka, has a long hystory of breaking their own laws while claiming to enforce their laws. During the Red Scare of the 1950s, the Feds would routinely employ “Black Bag Jobs”: breaking into homes, stealing property, planting evidence or disappearing targets that were political and often communist. Years later COINTELPRO taught us that murder was not off the FBI’s table nor was imprisonment of dissidents. The integrity of the FBI from the perspective of revolutionary folks is shot and Lance gets at this a little on page six when discussing how Ali Mohammed is the one who took the very photographs Bin Laden used to target the U.$. Embassy in Nairobi in 1994:

“As the man who had sat in a room with the ‘terror prince,’ while Bin Laden personally targeted the Nairobi embassy back in 1994, Mohammed should have been the star witness in the embassy bombing trial, which was just months away. Yet Patrick Fitzgerald, the lead prosecutor, never called him.”

For prisoners it’s bewildering to hear a D.A., in this case Patrick Fitzgerald, did not call a witness who is alleged to have started the chain of events to which people were killed. Anyone who has been to a couple of court proceedings or who has watched a crime show on television has a basic understanding that anyone involved in some way would be subpoenaed if not charged. And yet Mohammid was not called as a witness. It’s pretty apparent that the FBI was avoiding further embarrassment and possible culpability in crimes much more grisly than anything they were dealing with in the Nairobi Embassy bombing of 1994. The hystory of the FBI is pretty grisly, indeed. During the 1960s and 70s many freedom fighters from the Chican@ movement and the Black movement were disappeared or murdered in COINTELPRO operations. For most revolutionary minded folks FBI and crime are synonymous in the United Snakes. Even in non-revolutionary circles many understand that when discussing the FBI it is not the local 4-H club by any means. An FBI cover-up is quite understandable as such revelations naturally nudge the people to then unravel U.$. agencies and naturally to examine the legality of the United Snakes.

This book was a good exposé on how the FBI can go to such lengths as covering up a mass murder plot to preserve its reputation within the empire. For the oppressed nations we know how U.$. agencies have been nothing more than arms of the State who uphold repression, but to so many who are not conscious this book is a rough-hewn example of an entity like the FBI which can hunt and murder unarmed freedom fighters, free thinkers, and communist theorists but let it face folks arriving with bombs, hijacked planes, and suicide vests and they trip over themselves trying to flee to safety. We don’t promote armed struggle today, but it was still subjectively nice to read how the FBI got duped.

1. United States v. Ali Muhammid, 5(7) 98 Cr. 1023 (LBS) Sealed Complaint, September 1998, affidavit of David Coleman, FBI