[statecom-discuss] Fwd: Another racist government frame-up unravels, but the Liberty City Seven are still not free

[david rolde]

--- Fred Bergen <f_red_bergen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Another racist government frame-up unravels:
> but the Liberty City Seven are still not free
> by Fred Bergen
> 
> Remember the weapons of mass destruction? No, not
> the
> US doomsday stockpile of nearly ten thousand nuclear
> bombs. On August 26, 2002, vice president Dick
> Cheney
> told the Veterans of Foreign Wars, "There is no
> doubt
> that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass
> destruction." On September 18, 2002, defense
> secretary
> Donald Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services
> Committee that "We do know that the Iraqi regime has
> chemical and biological weapons. His regime has
> amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical
> weapons—including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard
> gas." On March 16, 2003, Dick Cheney told NBC's Meet
> the Press that "We believe [Saddam Hussein] has, in
> fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." President Bush
> said on March 17, 2003, "Intelligence gathered by
> this
> and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq
> regime continues to possess and conceal some of the
> most lethal weapons ever devised."
> 
> We know now that these were all lies, that the only
> "weapons of mass destruction" that Iraq ever had
> were
> those given to it by the Saddam regime's
> international
> sponsor during the Iran-Iraq war: the United States.
> Yet the Democrat and Republican war criminals who
> sold
> the big lie to the public are still free, and the
> Iraqi people are suffering and dying every day under
> a
> racist foreign occupation.
> 
> The people of the Liberty City neighborhood of Miami
> have known a similar kind of racist occupation for
> decades. Liberty City, home of Miami Heat all-star
> power forward Udonis Haslem, is an extremely poor,
> mostly black working class neighborhood of Miami,
> Florida. In the early morning of December 17, 1979,
> Miami police beat to death Arthur McDuffie, an
> unarmed
> black motorcyclist. The officers' acquittal by an
> all-white jury on May 17, 1980 provoked a rebellion
> that was put down by 3,500 national guard troops.
> 
> In 1982 two police officers shot and killed 20 year
> old black man Nevel Johnson Jr. without provocation
> in
> a pool hall and video arcade in nearby Overton. The
> armed state forces repressed popular rebellions,
> after
> the murder and again after the acquittal of one of
> the
> officers.
> 
> On January 16, 1989 (Martin Luther King Day), 23
> year
> old black man Clement Lloyd was shot to death by a
> police officer as he drove past the officer on his
> motorcycle. Passenger Allan Blanchard, a 24 year old
> native of the Virgin Islands, died from trauma
> resulting from the crash that followed. Three days
> of
> rebellion broke out, and the officer, William
> Lozano,
> was convicted of manslaughter. In 1993 his
> conviction
> was overturned on appeal.
> 
> These are only the most prominent cases of police
> brutality in one region of greater Miami, Florida,
> incidents in a brutal occupation of black
> communities
> across the US, an occupation that the US military
> exports to every continent of the world.
> 
> When the FBI trumpeted the indictment of seven
> alleged
> terrorist conspirators from Liberty City on June 22,
> this history alone should be cause for extreme
> skepticism of the government's claims. The case
> itself
> leaves no doubt that the seven men -- Narseal
> Batiste,
> Patrick Abraham, Stanley Grant Phanor, Naudimar
> Herrera, Burson Augustin, Lyglenson Lemorin, and
> Rotschild Augustine -- were set up by a government
> agent bent on sustaining public fears of "Islamic
> Terrorism" in the service of US imperialist wars.
> Five
> of the seven men are African-American, and the other
> two are Haitian.
> 
> The government says that they conspired to blow up
> the
> Sears Tower in Chicago, and other government
> buildings. What is the evidence of the "conspiracy",
> that FBI deputy director John Pistole himself
> labelled
> "more aspirational than operational" in a news
> conference announcing the sting? What little there
> is
> rests on the word of one FBI provocateur, who
> infiltrated the group claiming to be an Al Quaida
> representative. The FBI admits that the seven never
> actually contacted Al Quaida.
> 
> The anonymous FBI provocateur says that the seven
> requested weapons, supplies, and money. He says that
> he administered an Al Quaida "loyalty oath" to the
> seven. The indictment reveals that no weapons were
> found in the Liberty City warehouse that was
> allegedly
> the seven's headquarters, or anywhere else. The FBI
> provocateur admits to providing the plotters with
> these incriminating items: a camera and some boots.
> The FBI claims that the seven were in a heterodox
> muslim-christian religious study group that
> allegedly
> denied the authority of the federal government.
> 
> The absurd flimsiness of the government's case
> didn't
> stop a federal judge from denying bail on July 6,
> until their trial. And it hasn't stopped the
> capitalist media from eagerly filling its
> well-practiced role as lynch-mob agitator. But Wolf
> Blitzer ran into problems on the June 23 "Situation
> Room" show on CNN, when he tried to make hay out of
> the alleged alias of Mr. Phanor, a construction
> worker. The government indictment claims that Phanor
> went by the name of "Brother Sunni" (as in Sunni
> Muslim). Mr. Phanor's sister, Marlene Phanor, set
> the
> record straight:
> 
> BLITZER: Marlene, what was the first thing that went
> through your mind when you heard this allegation
> that
> your brother is a terrorist? 
> 
> MARLENE PHANOR ...: It didn't panic me. It didn't
> scare me. It didn't really shake me up or nothing
> because I know it's false accusations.
> 
> BLITZER: Is your brother a Muslim? 
> 
> PHANOR: No, sir. He's not a Muslim. He's a Catholic.
> ...
> 
> BLITZER: How do you think he got caught up in this
> alleged conspiracy? 
> 
> PHANOR: Well -- I don't know what was their plans, I
> don't know what their meetings used to be, but it
> never came about terrorists, it never came about
> bombing, it never came about anything in that such
> way. 
> 
> All I know, my brother tried to help the community.
> The temple where they doing their meetings and
> everything at, that temple was for them to have all
> their meetings, and to get together and help the
> community. 
> 
> BLITZER: Was that temple a Muslim temple? 
> 
> PHANOR: I'm not sure, but I know my brother is a
> Catholic. 
> 
> BLITZER: Why did -- does the government say he is
> also
> known as Brother Sunni? 
> 
> PHANOR: Well, no all call themselves brothers. ...
> 
> BLITZER: Did you ever hear your brother being called
> Sunni? 
> 
> PHANOR: Yes, that's his nickname. It's not Sunni,
> it's
> sunny, like, is it a sunny day. ... That's his
> nickname ever since birth.
> 
> FBI frame-up artists at work: the case of Sheik Omar
> Abdel Rahman
> 
> On January 17, 1996, the Egyptian Sheik Omar Abdel
> Rahman, blind and suffering from diabetes, and nine
> other Arabs were sentenced to life or to 25 to 57
> year
> terms. The crime? "Seditious Conspiracy", a
> civil-war
> era crime that does not involve any action, only
> thoughts and words. The FBI claimed that the men
> were
> planning to bomb the UN building and bridges and
> tunnels around New York City. They were never
> charged
> with the 1993 truck-bombing of the World Trade
> Center,
> but the prosecution repeatedly referenced this
> attack
> as an emotional ploy to the jury and the general
> public.
> 
> What was the evidence? Again, wholly created by the
> government. The FBI paid Emad Salem, a former
> intelligence officer for the Egyptian military, one
> million dollars to recruit the ten defendants, meet
> with them in a bugged warehouse, propose all the
> plans
> of the so-called "conspiracy", and provide the
> necessary equipment. The supposed ringleaders, Sheik
> Rahman and El Sayyid A. Nosair, were never present
> at
> the warehouse; Nosair was in prison for the whole
> time
> of the supposed "conspiracy". The government
> admitted
> that none of the men knew how to make bombs.
> 
> The show-trial conviction spurred Congress to pass
> president Clinton's "Anti-Terrorism and Effective
> Death Penalty Act of 1996", which trampled on the
> rights of death row inmates, mostly poor black men,
> to
> due process and habeas corpus. In signing the bill,
> president Clinton referenced the 1993 bombing, but
> criticized Congress for not giving him enough
> authority to spy on phone conversations with no or
> little legal justification: a practice for which
> Clinton's successor, president Bush, has become
> infamous.
> 
> Little noticed during Rahman's trial was the
> testimony
> of Frederic Whitehurst, the FBI's leading explosives
> witness. He said that prosecutors pressured the FBI
> explosives laboratory to get forensics results that
> helped the prosecution case. FBI documents later
> leaked to the Los Angeles Times confirmed that the
> FBI
> lab is a frame-up evidence factory.
> 
> No justice in the capitalist courts
> 
> The Liberty City Seven will not get a fair trial.
> From
> arrest to sentencing and appeals, the entire system
> of
> criminal "justice" is stacked against defendants who
> are working class and oppressed. The government will
> sell this case to the jury just as it has to the
> public: as a part of the ongoing and ever-changing
> justification for the global imperialist adventure
> and
> repressive attack on democratic rights called the
> "war
> on terror".
> 
> Since revolutionary journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal was
> sentenced to death on July 3, 1982, framed for the
> murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel
> Faulkner,
> evidence of his innocence has only grown. Yet Mumia
> is
> still on death row. Those who call for a "new trial"
> for Mumia only show that they have learned nothing
> from his persecution and frame-up at the hands of
> the
> racist state the first time around. Mumia is an
> innocent man, and nothing less than freedom will do!
> 
> The black community of Miami rose up in heroic
> struggle against the racist regime of police
> brutality
> many times. But their efforts ended in defeat every
> time becuase they were isolated by an almost total
> lack of solidarity from the nationwide labor
> movement.
> The "war on terrorism" is an attack on workers of
> all
> nationalities. It is an attack on our right to
> organize, to speak out, and to protest. Government
> unions were summarily busted by Congress with the
> passage of the "Homeland Security" act. Dockworkers
> have been shot at by riot cops and threatened with
> strike-breaking by the national guard. The racist
> anti-immigrant campaign coming from Washington,
> saturated with slanderous innuendo about terrorism
> and
> drug-smuggling, is leading to the creation of a
> semi-enslaved caste of temporary "guest workers"
> with
> no union rights. And the costs of the billions in
> daily profits reaped by the military industries for
> the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are being used to
> justify the repeal of social security, medicare, and
> medicaid.
> 
> The unions should call emergency membership meetings
> to discuss the Liberty City 7 case and its
> implications for the labor movement. Mass, united
> front actions need to be organized in every city to
> demand that these racist frame-up charges be
> dropped.
> As the old labor slogan goes, an injury to one is an
> injury to all! Drop the charges, free the Liberty
> City
> Seven now!
> 
> ****
> Workers and oppressed peoples of the world, unite!
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/labor_action/
> ****
> 
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